Article

2008-06-15 India-Pakistan

Advanced Warhead Design Sold to Axis of Evil?

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Posted by Bobby 2008-06-15 05:25|| || Front Page|| [11131 views ] Top

#1 Nowhere in this article do I see the words "China" or "Chinese". Very strange when one considers who designed this warhead.

Those AQ Khan blueprints were for Chicom4, the fourth Chinese test, a missile deliverable, 1 m diameter, implosion weapon using HEU that weighed 500 kg.

A still from that October 1966 nuclear test shows the warhead before it is mated to the DF-2 ballistic missile

Posted by john frum 2008-06-15 07:03|| 2008-06-15 07:03|| Front Page Top

#2 Estimated weapon diameter inside the DF-2 RV

You can say what you want about AQ Khan, the fact remains that this is a Chinese weapon design and has no business outside a Chinese design lab.

Posted by john frum 2008-06-15 07:07|| 2008-06-15 07:07|| Front Page Top

#3 According to the NYT, these designs were modified from the original Chinese ones found in Libya.

The electronics were modernized and the weapon is said to be half the size and twice the yield - suggesting modifications like hollow pit + tritium boosting and explosive lens redesign.

If so, this is from MA Khan's PAEC and not AQ Khan's KRL. How will Perv explain this one?

Posted by john frum 2008-06-15 08:56|| 2008-06-15 08:56|| Front Page Top

#4 Lets be honest, once you know it's possible to do + you know the physics, the design can't be too hard to come up with.

Posted by Bright Pebbles 2008-06-15 12:01|| 2008-06-15 12:01|| Front Page Top

#5 Pakistan still required the Chinese designs. They also imported their ballistic missiles.

Posted by john frum 2008-06-15 12:45|| 2008-06-15 12:45|| Front Page Top

#6 John F. Quite right. Only Chinese/ Russians can supply these designs, not the f**king, useless Paks. They are only good for spreading it, so the Chicoms can cover their tracks. I imagine that the Mossad has known this for some time and is why they are very worried. As I speculated some time ago, this is why the Mullahs are making such propaganda pronouncements daily. They have working weapons, not produced by themselves, and they are fairly confident that they will detonate. Something they could not be sure of with their own contraptions. What they have made progress on is long range rockets. That's really why time has run out.

Posted by Woozle Elmeter 2700 2008-06-15 12:52|| 2008-06-15 12:52|| Front Page Top

#7 There are all sorts of claims made that one can buy nukes on the black market or some Physics graduate students can build a bomb in their basements.

Well, Gadaffi offered a billion dollars and still could not buy one. Saddam would probably be alive and ruling Iraq now if he had managed to buy or build one.

Nation states have tried and failed to build nuclear weapons. South Africa ended up building relatively crude gun type weapons even though it had a fairly sophisticated arms industry.

Today a lot more is known about the behavior of Pu and U. Computers are vastly more powerful. So bomb making is within the reach of many more nations.

It however still requires the resources of a nation state, one that has a relatively advanced scientific and industrial base.

For smaller nations, the AQ Khan supplied designs and centrifuge equipment are the way to go.

The nuclear equivalent of paint by numbers

Posted by john frum 2008-06-15 13:10|| 2008-06-15 13:10|| Front Page Top

#8 Nuclear weapons and Radical Islam is a sure way to their destruction. Suppose they have a few working bombs. We have enough to wipe them off the face of the earth and the means to deliver them, aside from the Israeli factor. What these evil people don't seem to understand is that they are on a path of total obliteration. You could reason with the Russians, you can't with these blind fanatics.
This problem can't go away until the core of their belief is destroyed. That integration has already happened. Its just a matter of when it will be implemented.

Posted by Harcourt Shavise3778 2008-06-15 14:11|| 2008-06-15 14:11|| Front Page Top

#9 The problem is not a few bombs but thousands. Just the new Pakistani heavy water reactors is believed to produce enough plutonium for 50 bombs/year. Quite a jump from the old reactor's production of 2/year. Same for Iran who in addition to 50,000 centrifuges are also building heavy water reactors. If you think the threat is bad now, just wait 20 years.

Posted by ed 2008-06-15 14:33|| 2008-06-15 14:33|| Front Page Top

#10 What these evil people don't seem to understand is that they are on a path of total obliteration.

They do understand. That is the problem.

Posted by Pappy 2008-06-15 14:56|| 2008-06-15 14:56|| Front Page Top

#11 Indeed they do. But they believe if they set themselves on the path to self-destruction, that will force their god to intervene on the side of his worshipers, bringing about their version of the End Times. Iran's President Ahmadenijad's Twelfth Imam is only one version of that belief; Al Qaeda believed attacking the Twin Towers, the Pentagon and the White House/Congress would have the same effect. Clearly A.Q, at least, was wrong.

Posted by trailing wife ">trailing wife 2008-06-15 15:23|| 2008-06-15 15:23|| Front Page Top

#12 Behavior that is rewarded, is reinforced TW. The World (both "Western" & "Eastern"---IMO, the only serious attempt to deal with them in terms they can understand & respect was by Serbs. And we all know how that ended.) has been rewarding Muslim aggression for 4 generations now.

Posted by g(r)omgoru 2008-06-15 22:56|| 2008-06-15 22:56|| Front Page Top

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