Anyone remember the Neutron Bomb?

[Dr.Phool]

Back in the late 70's or early 80's, it was an enhanced radiation nuke. It's purpose was to kill people, but do much less property destruction.

Does anyone think that Bush, Cheney, Rummy are evil enough to use it in the mideast or Korea?

[Journeyman]

1. I favor development of an "O & P" Bomb . . .

It kills only Officers and Politicians and leaves the rest of us alone!

[Dr.Phool]

2. I think they had them in Vietnam

But they called them fragmentation grenades!!

[LittleClarkie]

3. I remember Arlo Guthrie's song about the Unneutron bomb

Where the buildings disappear and the people stay, and they're nekkid.

[shraby]

4. I remember talk about them.

I think the upshot was that it was a bad idea...don't think they developed them.

[T Town Jake]

5. Yes, I remember the talk about them...

...the idea, as I understand it, was to shower a target like a city with intense doses of radiation, killing every living thing, but since there would be no "explosion" per se, all the buildings and infrastructure would supposedly be left unharmed.
Don't think anything ever came of it, though. I seem to remember that for some reason it was never developed, thankfully, or they'd probably be going off over select "heathen" Iraqi cities today; especially the ones with big oil tanks.

[Silverhair]

10. Cities would not have been the targets.

It was NOT intended for cities, but for Soviet battle formations. The idea was that a regular nuclear blast that would knock out a formation of tanks would have to be pretty big, and would have a large area of destruction. But by rebalancing the output of the nuke, the blast area could be greatly reduced. The radiation footprint would be reduced also, from that of a regular bomb, but not as much. So you would be able to kill the troops, and damage less territory.

The bomb was never developed for actual use, although some were tested.

The problem is that a soldier killed by radiation may not die right away. And for military purposes, you need a fast kill. A weapon that is fired today and kills an attacking enemy soldier two days from now is not of much use.

[the other rick]

12. A bit more information

The radiation footprint was actually *increased* by diverting the reaction into production of neutron emissions, not blast/heat. It was designed as a tactical/theatre weapons (as you mentioned). The initial rad pulse was strong enough to create serious secondary radiation in nearby materials (particularly metals), making the majority of close-proximity military gear lethal to use for decades.

The immediate rad zone would result in instant death from radiation (out to almost 1 mile diameter on the big ones) and troops up to 5 miles away were effectively doomed (again, this is for the biggest). Many of the troops that were not in instant-kill zones would be rendered 'combat ineffective', i.e., so sick they couldn't fight out to ranges of up to a 1.5 mile radius. This was more than enough to annihilate a tank division or concentrated tank army and leave the tanks themselves too dangerous to use.

Despite what some people here believe, neutron bombs were developed and still exist (although rapidly aging) in the U.S. Army tactical arsenal.

/thank you Ground Zero and Veterans for Peace for my trivial education in neutron weapons

[alfredo]

22. A sick or injured soldier is an even Greater

burden on the military than a dead one. A soldier screaming and crying is hard for fellow soldiers to ignore. It's just human nature.

[Silverhair]

24. Only for an American style military.

Western style armies care for the troops. Dictators armies don't. Their troops are of lower individual quality, but they have lots more of them. In WWII, the Russians actually sent men into battle unarmed, with instructions to get their rifle from a dead comrade. In Korea, the Chinese used human wave tactics. Armies like those do not have extensive hospitalization or great care for the sick and wounded. Human nature is capable of great modification in the stress of battle.

[porkrind]

29. "Western style armies care for the troops"

Based on recent experience in Iraq, evidently they DON'T care for the troops.

[megatherium]

23. German towns were said to be only 2 or 3 kilotons apart

so they needed a reduced blast (inhanced radiation) bomb to destroy Soviet tank columns after the Soviets crossed into West Germany. In the cold war, it was understood that NATO did not have quite enough conventional power to resist a Soviet blitzkrieg attack; the US and NATO never pledged to not use nuclear weapons first.

Of course the neutron bomb was very helpful to Soviet propagandists. The logic of the cold war seemed insane, with the ever-increasing and ever-more exotic tactical and strategic nuclear weaponry. But much of this was justified by the logic that we needed to have enough weaponry of various kinds that if the Soviets were ever foolish enough to attempt a first-strike, we would have enough surviving to annihilate them. Weapons were mainly aimed not at cities but at other weapons.

I was deeply impressed when a 1970s era arms-control negotiator gave a talk at my college. He described an interesting technological problem the weapons-designers had: design a bomb that could be dropped from a B1 bomber at tree-top level, slam into a concrete wall (or whatever was below it), survive without premature detonation, and then detonate only when the bomber has achieved a safe distance from the bomb. The weapons designers succeeded in doing this. Creepy, no?

[Silverhair]

27. I saw a film of that bomb being test dropped.

I attended a military nuclear weapons school in the 70s. The stuff I have written is from memory, and non classified. You are entirely right about the logic of the cold war. Very few on the left ever understood it.

About that bomb I saw tested. No nuclear explosion as that wasn't needed for the test. In fact no explosion at all. There was a huge line of thick brick walls, the jet (An ordinary attack jet. The B-1 was only in the design stage.) came down the line low and fast, dropped the bomb, and it smacked one of the walls. Each wall had a movie camera filming it. The bomb survived the impact.

NATO was genuinely afraid of a Soviet attack. They had far more tanks and troops than we did, so they would have been able to defeat us in a war of attrition. In the mid 80's we fielded new weapons systems that were far superior to anything the Soviets had, and we developed the ability to leapfrog deep into their rear to strike their 2nd & follow on waves assembly areas with conventional strikes. The neutron bombs would have been used for those strikes instead.

Israel may have helped greatly in forestalling any Soviet ambitions. In 1982 there was a three day air battle between Syria and Israel. For a detailed accounting of this battle see: http://www.airpower.maxwell.af.mil/airchronicles/apj/apj89/hurley.html Short version is that in air-to-air battle Israel shot down over 80 Syrian jet fighters while losing none of their own to air-to-air and only a couple to ground missiles. The Soviets had equipped and trained the Syrians. Such a disaster had to have made the Soviets rather uneasy about the assumptions their battle plans made regarding the air combat with NATO.

[andino]

6. I seem to remember something about the radiation

sticking around in the infrastructure much like that of a nuclear bomb. Even if we used the bomb on a city we wouldn't be able to use it for a long long time.

But I could be wrong.

[Silverhair]

9. You are wrong.

The radiation would have been gone in seconds after the blast, but the tissue damage would have been done. Please see my above post for more information.

[neweurope]

7. There' rumors it HAS been used at baghdad Airport.

Reagan loved them.

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Book „Is the Neutron Bomb Coming“
Authors: Fred M. Kaplan; CALIFORNIA UNIV LIVERMORE RADIATION LAB
1978:
"The neutron bomb is the latest development in the apparently never ending search for new weapons, especially nuclear weapons, that can be used for highly specific purposes. Its official name is Enhanced Radiation Warhead (ERW). It was guarded as a secret for years and was disguised as a research and development project in ERDA (Energy Research and Development Administration). Its uncovering by reporters last summer stimulated a heated controversy which continues unabated. In the event of war, the neutron bomb's task is to kill more people with a single warhead than with a conventional nuclear weapon. At the same time, the damage to buildings, agriculture and materiel is to be reduced to a minimum. At present, the military seems to be seriously thinking about the use of tactical atomic weapons as a means of waging war. These thoughts and the well-known horrible biological effects of neutron radiation have roused resistance from many quarters."

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A neutron bomb destroys neither weapons nor buildings but all life within a radius of 1 200 meters.
Since 1974 in the US there were built about 800 of them, the last of them were allegedly scrapped in 1992.

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HOWEVER there’s rumors that the US used one at Baghdad airport. Google David Martinez, US-Capt. Eric Holmes, Interview with Terry Ferrell, Italian Reporter Associati, Indian Express, British Activist Jo Wilding. Lots of otherwise hard to explain sickness around there now.

Even if this should be untrue you see the world thinks the US capable of it.
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16. July 1999: China for the first time has admitted being able to build the neutron Bomb while repudiating Washington reproach that it has gained the knowledge through espionage in the US
Peking (AFP/taz) - Die Volksrepublik China hat erstmals zugegeben, die Neutronenbombe bauen zu können. Zugleich wies die Regierung in Peking gestern Vorwürfe aus Washington zurück, das dafür erforderliche Wissen durch Spionage in den USA erworben zu haben.
taz Nr. 5887 vom 16.7.1999 Seite 1 Seite 1

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For those who speak German (I don‘t know all those English military terms and therefore cannot translate it)

Neutronenbombe
Eine Neutronenbombe ist eine Wasserstoffbombe mit Deuterium-Tritium-Brennstoff und Bauteilen aus Materialien, die schnelle Neutronen wenig absorbieren wie z.B. Chrom oder Nickel. Sie hat eine geringe Explosivkraft, setzt aber sehr viel Neutronenstrahlung frei. Genannt werden mehrere Gründe für den Einsatz einer Neutronenbombe:
Menschliches Leben soll durch die Strahlung getötet werden, ohne die Infrastruktur im Zielgebiet zu zerstören. Es ist schwierig, Panzer mit Atomwaffen zu zerstören, außer durch sehr nahe Explosionen. Die Besatzung kann jedoch durch Neutronen, die die Panzerung durchdringen können, kampfunfähig gemacht werden. Die betroffenen Soldaten sterben nach kurzer Zeit. Durch einen hohen Neutronenfluss können gegnerische Atomwaffen, z.B. in anfliegenden Raketen, unbrauchbar gemacht werden.
Oft wird vergessen, dass die intensive Neutronenstrahlung geeignet ist, durch Neutroneneinfang großflächige radioaktive Verseuchung zu bewirken. Anders als bei der Atombombe, wo vor allem der Fallout strahlt, der sich zumindest theoretisch einsammeln und abwaschen lässt, wird bei der Neutronenbombe alles verseucht, was der Neutronenstrahlung ausgesetzt ist. Dort, wo die Strahlung besonders intensiv ist, kommt es außerdem zur Entzündung des bestrahlten Materials und folglich zu Großbränden unterhalb des Explosionszentrums. Auch die Neutronenbombe ist also alles andere als "sauber".
In den USA wurden seit 1974 etwa 800 Neutronensprengsätze gebaut. Die letzten wurden 1992 verschrottet.

[Silverhair]

11. Such rumors are false.

An N-bomb still has a lot of blast & heat and makes a big mushroom cloud. If it had been used there would be no doubt in anybody's mind.

[nascarblue]

18. Hey neweurope, did you know Google has a german translator?

YOu can translate that german on Google.

[bobbieinok]

28. internet translations give only a vague approximation...enuff so you can

decide if you want to read the material and must get some translation help

[The Minus World]

8. Dead Kennedys - Kill the Poor

This topic reminds me of a punk ditty I grew up singing along to.

Dead Kennedys - "Kill The Poor"

Efficiency and progress is ours once more
Now that we have the Neutron bomb
It's nice and quick and clean and gets things done

Away with excess enemy
But no less value to property
No sense in war but perfect sense at home...

The sun beams down on a brand new day
No more welfare tax to pay
Unsightly slums gone up in flashing light
Jobless millions whisked away
At last we have more room to play
All systems go to kill the poor tonite

Gonna
Kill kill kill
Kill the poor
Kill the poor ...
Tonite

Behold the sparkle of champagne
The crime rate's gone
Feel free again
O' life's a dream with you, Miss Lily White

Jane Fonda on the screen today
Convinced the liberals it's okay
So let's get dressed and dance away the night

While they
Kill the poor
Kill the poor ... Tonite

Circa 1980.

[HootieMcBoob]

16. Me too

That's the first thing that pops into my head when I hear "neurtron bomb" Jello Biafra- what a poet :)

[nascarblue]

20. Or THE WEIRDO's We Got The Neutron Bomb, 1980 LA p-rock(NT)

[neweurope]

13. Silverhair seems to know a lot about it - I don‘t :) ;

and both my English and my technical knowledge aren‘t sufficient to translate what I‘ve found.

True that it was developed mainly for tanks, soldiers die after „a short time“, Israel is supposed to have them, they are supposed to be good against inflying rockets with nuclear heads, can't find out about mushroom cloud.

Neutron bomb in Baghdad however is being widely discussed over here by people which have a far greater understanding than me.

By the way in Falludjah a mushroom cloud was documented. And I keep wondering what the army has to hide that they don't allow people back in. They SAY that it is because there's still shooting. Protecting civilians however has never entered the picture before as we know; civilians definitely were bombed and shot, males were not allowed to leave the city; the Red Crescent was quickly thrown out of the city (change that to "ruins", there's no more city, and where are all the males that weren't allowed to leave?). So what is it they have got to hide?

I'm not necessarily trying to make the point that the US used the neutron bomb in Fallujah but SOMETHING has been and is going on. And I'd very much like to know what that is.

[Silverhair]

14. I won't speculate on what may have happened.

I don't have any facts. However, an N-bomb is a nuke. If a nuke had been used, you won't be speculating about it. The whole world would KNOW. Not believe, not quess, they would KNOW. It would be impossible to cover up. Therefore, no nuke has been used.

[shadowknows69]

31. like that huge mushroom cloud in N Korea

a while back that everyone assured us wasn't nuclear but of course they didn't know what it was. No one's talked about it since. Lots of things go on without our knowledge in this world.

[slackmaster]

15. I remember Bolivia Neutron Bomb

She was in the movie Grease with John Revolta IIRC.

[BlueJazz]

30. I saw the same film.

At the time I was eating Fig Neutrons.

[nascarblue]

17. Yes! I think lots of people think so but are too afraid to talk about it

Just look at what theyve been doing in Iraq with phosphorous and chemical bombs. US troops were wearing chemical suits for two weeks towards the end of Fallujah. I saw photos on Mid East websites but not one US paper showed it.

[Zero Gravitas]

19. I'd be surprised if Bush doesn't use a nuke

before the end of his Emperorship.

[prof_science]

21. Sorry...

I just remember the "Neutron Dance" by the Pointer Sisters.

[mpendragon]

25. definition and opinion

wikipedia entry

no, i don't think they will. that isn't the sort of genocide you can easily hide or force people to ignore.

[slutticus]

26. These types of enhanced radiation weapons can also be used as EMP weapons.

I wouldn't doubt it if * was in favor of them.