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Militarized Dolphins Protect Almost a Quarter of the US Nuclear Stockpile

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Re: Militarized Dolphins Protect Almost a Quarter of the US Nuclear Stockpile

#171

Post by sandworm101 »

nkrisc wrote: post #114
thelittleone wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No doubt surreal, but a single sub destroy the world? That piqued my interest so took a quick look and found an article [1]. This article states that "even a single vessel [submarine] could reduce as many as 288 city-sized targets into radioactive ash in less than 30 minutes." Later in the article they say that the Ohio class is capable of carrying up to 24 UGM-133 Trident II D5 submarine launched ballistic missiles.…

I don’t think they meant literally destroy the Earth. Nothing we have could possibly do that. But it could easily destroy our world here on Earth. I have to imagine the world as we know it would cease to exist after such an attack. Everything we take for granted today would probably be gone pretty quickly, the collapse of civilization in much of the world. It’s a fun bit of research you did, but I think it’s disingen…

>> Nothing we have could possibly do that.

There is some credibility to melting of permafrost triggering runaway greenhouse scenarios that would turn Earth into something more akin to Venus. If we really wanted to destroy the world I think we could do it.

Re: Militarized Dolphins Protect Almost a Quarter of the US Nuclear Stockpile

#172

Post by jaywalk »

formvoltron wrote: post #145
chipsa wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Second strike weapon. It is supposed to be able to survive someone else's first strike. First strike weapons can't survive someone else's first strike. It's part of the whole "assured destruction" thing: doesn't matter if you hit us first, you're still going to end up a self lit parking lot afterwards.

The obvious problem with mutual assured destruction is that an insane person could get ahold of the weapons, launch first, and kill all of current and future humanity. How about not strike back, just try to survive & show future generations of the world how to be. Go live in that other country that isn't radioactive.

"Turn the other cheek" doesn't work for nukes.

Re: Militarized Dolphins Protect Almost a Quarter of the US Nuclear Stockpile

#173

Post by throwaway032342 »

bitxbitxbitcoin wrote: post #131
signa11 wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

''' Even the primal innocent are being roped into our primate rivalries. ''' what's your opinion of say, horses used in olden times (heck till about WW-I, quite extensively) in battle ?

Or current K-9 units?

They are often used to maul people maliciously by cowards so yeah also bad

Re: Militarized Dolphins Protect Almost a Quarter of the US Nuclear Stockpile

#174

Post by ars »

JohnBooty wrote: post #151
mbg721 wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The bombs used on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were also very rudimentary compared to a modern nuclear arsenal.

Correct. But - modern bombs are more powerful, but is there greater residual radioactivity?

If anything there is less. Residual radioactivity is unused explosive potential, they try to minimize that.

Modern bombs are also fusion bombs which have even less radioactivity.

Re: Militarized Dolphins Protect Almost a Quarter of the US Nuclear Stockpile

#175

Post by [deleted] »

Labo333 wrote: post #27
chx wrote: post #12

These days you can't believe anything unless an official source is provided. This is it: https://www.niwcpacific.navy.mil/marine-mammal-program/

I think I can believe most but that part is really weird: > For protection against enemy divers, dolphins will swim up to the infiltrator, bump into them and place a buoy device on their back or a limb using their mouth. The buoy then drags the outed diver to the surface for easy capture. When trained sea lions perform the same maneuver, they use a kind of handcuff with their mouths to attach the buoy Imagine if we d…

[deleted]

Re: Militarized Dolphins Protect Almost a Quarter of the US Nuclear Stockpile

#176

Post by bopbeepboop »

tzs wrote: post #90

> Since Bangor, Washington, now houses the largest single nuclear weapons site in the world, it needs protection from all sides, including the seaward side. Well crap. I just can't seem to catch a break. When I was a kid from ages 12 until I went away to college I lived within 3 miles of Castle Air Force Base and from ages 8-12 within 7 miles of it. Castle was home to a ton of B-52s and KC-135s and probably was a pri…

No post body was provided.

Re: Militarized Dolphins Protect Almost a Quarter of the US Nuclear Stockpile

#177

Post by philipkglass »

JohnBooty wrote: post #151
mbg721 wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The bombs used on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were also very rudimentary compared to a modern nuclear arsenal.

Correct. But - modern bombs are more powerful, but is there greater residual radioactivity?

The residual radioactivity decays at the same rate, but there's also more of it (roughly proportional to weapon yield). Since modern weapons yield much more energy than the bombs of 1945 they also yield much more radioactivity. Further, surface or ground-penetrating attacks against military targets would tend to rain out much more of the radioactive material locally than the relatively high altitude airburst strikes of 1945. The Japanese targets would have probably suffered fewer casualties but would have had a more persistent radioactive contamination problem if the 1945 bombs had been configured to explode on hitting the ground instead of in the air.

You might expect that modern weapons would have lower yields of radioactive fission products since they all incorporate fusion and don't rely on fission alone. And it's true that the US and USSR (and perhaps other nations) successfully developed thermonuclear weapons that produced over 95% of their energy from fusion, which doesn't create radioactive fission products. This was in the late 1950s/early 1960s.

This is an amazing recently published article about the cleanest American device ever tested:

"Ripple: An Investigation of the World’s Most Advanced High-Yield Thermonuclear Weapon Design"

https://web.archive.org/web/20210616194950id_/https://waterm...

However, devices like that described above were too large for submarine launched missiles. The most effective way to make small, light, efficient warheads for submarine launched missiles is to use the fusion reaction's fast neutrons to fission additional uranium in the tamper around the fusion fuel. So modern submarine launched thermonuclear weapons develop about half of their explosive yield from fission, with corresponding generation of radioactive fission products.

https://www.quora.com/What-percent-of-typical-thermonuclear-...

Re: Militarized Dolphins Protect Almost a Quarter of the US Nuclear Stockpile

#178

Post by groby_b »

henvic wrote: post #84
vkou wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A single sub can destroy the world any time it's commander wishes, not by launching 288 warheads at 288 cities, but by launching one warhead, at either Moscow, or Washington. Contingency plans for responding to a decapitating strike will do the rest.

It's crazy how so many people are terrified of civilians with powerful fully automatic weapons, while keeping eyes shut to the risk the military and state actors represent to society.

Risk is always estimated impact times probability. The impact of automatic weapons is low, compared to nuclear weapons. The probability is much higher.

It's almost as if both were problems that need to be tackled in different ways, not issues to be used for whataboutism.

Re: Militarized Dolphins Protect Almost a Quarter of the US Nuclear Stockpile

#179

Post by Supermancho »

thelittleone wrote: post #62
poulsbohemian wrote: post #19

This isn't exactly a secret or new information... it was pretty well known when I lived on the peninsula 10+ years ago (thus the username, Poulsbohemian...). There's a state park right near the Hood Canal bridge where it isn't uncommon to watch the submarines come and go in and out of the canal. Always a bit surreal to push your kids on the swings while watching a first strike weapon capable of destroying the world p…

No doubt surreal, but a single sub destroy the world? That piqued my interest so took a quick look and found an article [1]. This article states that "even a single vessel [submarine] could reduce as many as 288 city-sized targets into radioactive ash in less than 30 minutes." Later in the article they say that the Ohio class is capable of carrying up to 24 UGM-133 Trident II D5 submarine launched ballistic missiles.…

Or you could just play with:

https://nuclearsecrecy.com/nukemap/

Re: Militarized Dolphins Protect Almost a Quarter of the US Nuclear Stockpile

#180

Post by adolph »

dsq wrote: post #144
adolph wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there something about cetaceans that saddens more than canidae, columbidae, equidae, or "sapiens?"

For better or for worse, horses and dogs have been alongside humans in peace and war for millenia and are adapted specifically for that. They are even classified as domestic/farm animals. I hope that current K9s do not strap bombs on dogs.

Yes, I'm thinking about the question more because I think that the use of marine mammals is somehow different emotionally even if not different semi-objectively. Maybe part of it is that horse and dog are domesticated as almost extensions of people (and the pigeon doesn't have the mammalian emotional resonance).

In a larger than dolphins specifically sense, it is something significant to think about since autonomous machines will be asked to perform similar tasks and since no war is "anything goes" it will be advantageous to think about how people perceive these other methods of execution.

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