• Welcome to the new Internet Infidels Discussion Board, formerly Talk Freethought.

Meanwhile in speak softly, carry a big stick...

Keith&Co. said:
Central US? That's about 6500 miles away from Korea.
So they'd need to have a missile with a range of about 11 to 13,000 miles, for it to still be up above the thicker part of the atmosphere when it detonates. That's a serious upgrade to the technology they've shown so far...

At the range of 6500 miles, one degree of error in the launch calculations, or the missile's operation, misses the intended target by 113 miles. So if they just want to piss off some random Americans (or Canadians)(or Mexicans), it may work, but accuracy would still be important to have a significant effect on a given city.

- - - Updated - - -

Elixir said:
Not that the little fat kid isn't crazy, but THAT crazy? I doubt it.
Click to expand...
Doesn't matter if HE'S crazy.
It's the people around him. Do they say, Yes, sir, and push the button?
Or do they push the fake button and jsut TELL him he nuked the US. And golly, are they sorry they mess with us, Supereme Leader.
Click to expand...

I thought I heard that NK's missiles could potentially reach Chicago.
A combination of US, South Korean and Japanese analyses of the launch from Mupyong-ni, near North Korea's border with China, shows the missile flew about 45 minutes, going 3,700 kilometers (2,300 miles) high and for a distance of 1,000 kilometers (621 miles).
If the missile were fired on a flatter, standard trajectory, it would have major US cities such as Los Angeles, Denver and Chicago well within its range, with the possible ability to reach as far as New York and Boston, according to David Wright, a missile expert at the Union of Concerned Scientists.
Click to expand...

According to an internet primer published by the Federation of American Scientists
... The pulse can easily span continent-sized areas, and this radiation can affect systems on land, sea, and air. ... A large device detonated at 400–500 km (250 to 312 miles) over Kansas would affect all of the continental U.S. The signal from such an event extends to the visual horizon as seen from the burst point.

Thus, for equipment to be affected, the weapon needs to be above the visual horizon.[citation needed]
Click to expand...

Lots of crazy going around these days. But if you think that's not an issue what's all the fuss about?
 
Jimmy Higgins said:
Loren Pechtel said:
If the world is to get a reminder of the horrors of nuclear war it's good that will involve such a small player that the damage will be limited.
Click to expand...
*Higgins points to large politically significant nation that is right next door*
Click to expand...

Sure, China would be upset but I don't think they would start throwing the big booms around. North Korea would end up blown to bits, South Korea probably gets a decent amount of artillery on the outskirts of it's capital and we might lose a city. If the world has to have a reminder that's pretty cheap compared to about any other way it could happen.
 
I thought I heard that NK's missiles could potentially reach Chicago.
Click to expand...
You asked about a high-altitude burst over central US, without reentry.
To do that, the missile's loft would have to be such that the parabolic arc would extend to a target way, way beyond the point you want the burst.
The flatter trajectory would involve a lot more aerodynamics and reentry. So that's a different question, and we're back to their reentry problems.
And when they say 'affected,' that could be anything from a burst of static to permanent damage. So, again, it depends on what kilotonnage they can put up there, and where they can make it go blooey.
 
Derec said:
ZiprHead said:
Today's Nukes Are Thousands of Times More Powerful Than WWII A-Bombs
Click to expand...
Certainly not "thousands". Sure,Castle Bravo, the most powerful bomb ever detonated by US, yielded 15 MT, or 1000x of the "Little Boy" yield (15kt), and USSR's Czar Bomba was even more powerful than that. But certainly Czar Bomba was a show piece, just showing off the big stick.
Click to expand...

Nitpick: Tzar Bomba was actually a 100Mt device with the U-238 casing replaced with something inert so it went off at half power. Even then the bomber took damage from the flash. (It's the same as piling material on a conventional charge to direct it's energy towards what it's against rather than just off into the air. The fission device explodes, the energy heats up light material around the fusion core. You need material piled around that to send enough of the energy inward to crush the fusion core. The nature of the material is irrelevant to the fusion detonation, but it will be subject to a tremendous neutron flux from the fusion device. Make it out of U238 and you get a pile of fission energy from it--but at the expense of making the bomb much dirtier.)

- - - Updated - - -

Treedbear said:
What would it take for NK to detonate an EMP-type bomb over central USA? It wouldn't have to be terribly accurate and they then might not have to solve the burning-up-during-reentry problem.
Click to expand...

Not yet. They don't have anything powerful enough yet, either for the booster or the warhead to put on it.
 
Keith&Co. said:
Central US? That's about 6500 miles away from Korea.
So they'd need to have a missile with a range of about 11 to 13,000 miles, for it to still be up above the thicker part of the atmosphere when it detonates. That's a serious upgrade to the technology they've shown so far...

At the range of 6500 miles, one degree of error in the launch calculations, or the missile's operation, misses the intended target by 113 miles. So if they just want to piss off some random Americans (or Canadians)(or Mexicans), it may work, but accuracy would still be important to have a significant effect on a given city.
Click to expand...

You're saying the missile's apogee is only 100 miles or so? That's going to cause an awful lot of drag, I can't imagine it isn't more efficient to push it higher.

And for a big enough EMP device a miss by 100 miles doesn't matter.

- - - Updated - - -

Doesn't matter if HE'S crazy.
It's the people around him. Do they say, Yes, sir, and push the button?
Or do they push the fake button and jsut TELL him he nuked the US. And golly, are they sorry they mess with us, Supereme Leader.
Click to expand...

Do they know the real situation? Most of his people don't.
 
Loren Pechtel said:
Nitpick: Tzar Bomba was actually a 100Mt device with the U-238 casing replaced with something inert so it went off at half power. Even then the bomber took damage from the flash. (It's the same as piling material on a conventional charge to direct it's energy towards what it's against rather than just off into the air. The fission device explodes, the energy heats up light material around the fusion core. You need material piled around that to send enough of the energy inward to crush the fusion core. The nature of the material is irrelevant to the fusion detonation, but it will be subject to a tremendous neutron flux from the fusion device. Make it out of U238 and you get a pile of fission energy from it--but at the expense of making the bomb much dirtier.)
Click to expand...
I actually knew that, but thought it was extraneous to my point that such big bombs were mainly for show.
And as far as making the bomb dirtier, you could make it extra dirtry without increasing yield but putting something like Co-59 (the only stable isotope of Cobalt) that upon capturing a neutron becomes Co-60. That in turn has a half-life of about 5 years and is thus both long enough to persist a while (two decades to decay to 1/16 for example) but short enough to have high specific activity. You would use that on an enemy you really want to fuck up for a while. Kind of like (allegedly) salting the fields of Carthage, which is why these bombs are called "salted".

Not yet. They don't have anything powerful enough yet, either for the booster or the warhead to put on it.
Click to expand...
Yes. You need a high gamma flux which means you need a hydrogen bomb and you need to detonate it very high above the atmosphere.
Starfish Prime, the US EMP test, used a 1.4Mt bomb 250 miles high. That's pretty much the orbital height of the ISS.
That is well beyond NKs current capabilities.
 
Last edited:
PRC declares their intent without bombast

Thru the official newspaper of their communist party, the Global Times in 2 articles makes their intentions fairly clear (assuming they are also blustering)

http://www.globaltimes.cn/content/1060791.shtml
China should also make clear that if North Korea launches missiles that threaten US soil first and the US retaliates, China will stay neutral. If the US and South Korea carry out strikes and try to overthrow the North Korean regime and change the political pattern of the Korean Peninsula, China will prevent them from doing so.
Click to expand...

Of course this still leaves it vague what happens if the west tries to do limited strikes to destroy nuclear and ICBM facilities (trying to avoid killing the fat kid), as well as what if the NK military responds by large scale missile and artillery strikes on Seoul. Simple this is not....
 
Loren Pechtel said:
Jimmy Higgins said:
*Higgins points to large politically significant nation that is right next door*
Click to expand...

Sure, China would be upset but I don't think they would start throwing the big booms around. North Korea would end up blown to bits, South Korea probably gets a decent amount of artillery on the outskirts of it's capital and we might lose a city. If the world has to have a reminder that's pretty cheap compared to about any other way it could happen.
Click to expand...

China has stated (or maybe it was just understood though US diplomatic channels with China), that China will support and defend NK if the US performs a preemptive attack. China will remain neutral if NK attacks first.

Unfortunately, if NK launches a missile in the general direction of Guam, the idea that it is an "attack" will be contested... they will say it was just a harmless "test", but the US will not be able to know that, and have to attempt an interception, which NK could call an "attack"...

It won't be so clear.
 
I think North Korea is trolling Trump. They released a Canadian Pastor, which indicates a softer footing, by North Korea standards. They are just fucking with him, and it is working.
Malintent said:
Loren Pechtel said:
Sure, China would be upset but I don't think they would start throwing the big booms around. North Korea would end up blown to bits, South Korea probably gets a decent amount of artillery on the outskirts of it's capital and we might lose a city. If the world has to have a reminder that's pretty cheap compared to about any other way it could happen.
Click to expand...

China has stated (or maybe it was just understood though US diplomatic channels with China), that China will support and defend NK if the US performs a preemptive attack. China will remain neutral if NK attacks first.

Unfortunately, if NK launches a missile in the general direction of Guam, the idea that it is an "attack" will be contested... they will say it was just a harmless "test", but the US will not be able to know that, and have to attempt an interception, which NK could call an "attack"...

It won't be so clear.
Click to expand...
I can't imagine the UN having an issue of the US intercepting a missile that has a rough trajectory towards Guam. Regardless, I doubt North Korea has this level of accuracy. 30 km from Guam, plus or minus 500 km.
 
Loren Pechtel said:
Jimmy Higgins said:
*Higgins points to large politically significant nation that is right next door*
Click to expand...
Sure, China would be upset but I don't think they would start throwing the big booms around. North Korea would end up blown to bits, South Korea probably gets a decent amount of artillery on the outskirts of it's capital and we might lose a city. If the world has to have a reminder that's pretty cheap compared to about any other way it could happen.
Click to expand...
"Cheap"? Jebus fucking Christ! Thanks a lot Mr. Manhattan.

Reminder of what?! China doesn't want millions of North Koreans flooding their border. China even wants the US in North Korea even less than that! Any unilateral preemptive strike on North Korea (especially nuclear) will be met with global condemnation.
 
More big talk from Trump today.

President Trump warned Friday that if North Korean leader Kim Jong Un threatens the United States or takes action against Guam, "he will truly regret it, and he will regret it fast."

Expounding on his early morning tweet that U.S. forces were "locked and loaded" for a potential military face-off with the reclusive, nuclear-armed nation, Trump told reporters at his Bedminster, N.J., golf club that U.S. action would be "very, very successful quickly."
Click to expand...

I think it would sound better if he said it from Guam.
 
Jimmy Higgins said:
Loren Pechtel said:
Sure, China would be upset but I don't think they would start throwing the big booms around. North Korea would end up blown to bits, South Korea probably gets a decent amount of artillery on the outskirts of it's capital and we might lose a city. If the world has to have a reminder that's pretty cheap compared to about any other way it could happen.
Click to expand...
"Cheap"? Jebus fucking Christ! Thanks a lot Mr. Manhattan.

Reminder of what?! China doesn't want millions of North Koreans flooding their border. China even wants the US in North Korea even less than that! Any unilateral preemptive strike on North Korea (especially nuclear) will be met with global condemnation.
Click to expand...

Cheap compared to something like India-Pakistan or China-India, the other two places that look scary these days.

- - - Updated - - -

Elixir said:
ZiprHead said:
Seen on Facebook:

"It was changed to screech loudly and be a big dick."
Click to expand...

Still liking "Speak bigly and carry a soft stick".
Click to expand...

Given his apparently level of health, it's probably carry a limp stick.
 
The orange sociopath is going to get people killed because he has tiny hands.
 
Tom Sawyer said:
Dear Americans,

Thank you so much for giving this man your nuclear launch codes. We feel that the planet is a much safer and more secure place now than it was a few months ago.

Thank you,

The Rest of the World
Click to expand...

Dear Tom Sawyer,

I strongly suspect that they gave Trump fake codes. I have no proof of this, of course, but I am pretty sure the military doesn't trust Trump either.

You are welcome,

signed: The only way I can sleep at night
 
We are locked and loaded. Now watch this drive!

DG0AtIkXUAAt4PE.jpg
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom