Anyone else think this is a joke?

[m1911owner]

The following picture had the caption, "A House Armed Services Committee staff member displays a model of what a Russian nuclear suitcase bomb 'might look like.' (AP)"



http://www.newsmax.com/images/headlines/Suitcase_Nuke.jpg

To me, it looks like a pipe bomb, made out of standard galvanized water pipe, painted silver.

Does anyone here think it looks even remotely like what would have to be there for a nuclear bomb?

[Marnoot]

To my understanding the smallest "suitcase nukes" developed were only small enough to fit in a very large backpack. A large piece of luggage could probably hold one just fine, but I think the classic, standard hard case suit-case is a bit small. I sincerely doubt they're small enough to be a briefcase nuke, as they're "demonstrating" here.

[Tallpine]

Can't be a suitcase nuke - it doesn't have one of those red LED thingies to tell you how long you have left to live.

[Phyphor]

Wasn't there a movie in the 80s about some kid who stole some plutonium and built his own bomb that looked much like that?

I know it had the actor who played Frasier Crane's dad as a general..what the hell was it called.....

Off to IMDB I go, then.

[onions!]

From the dim recollections of my noodle that looks big enough to be a right nasty dirty bomb.

Or,as they say in the movies,a BOM!

 

[Phyphor]

The Manhattan project! That was it!

[Tallpine]

Who would have thought that the Russians bought their ignition switches at Home Depot ?

 

[MattC]

Who would have thought that the Russians bought their ignition switches at Home Depot ?

They were already there for the silver spray paint, and said, what the heck, we'll just get the switch here as well rather than making our own.  Is that a lantern battery they have spray painted also?  But I love how they left the switch red so that everyone could distinguish it from the rest of the space-glam suit case.

What was the White House trying to sell that they had to put together such a pretty display piece?

[Gewehr98]

That size, and sans the technology required to miniaturize a full-off fission device? The thingy in the picture has merit only as a "dirty bomb", namely a HE device used to spread radionuclides.  I do, however, think the light-switch is a nice touch - and I pity the guy who volunteers to detonate it with that toggle.

[Sylvilagus Aquaticus]

It's not an accurate representation.

I can't tell you anything else about it, but, no.

It's more like a foot locker.

Regards,
Rabbit.

[K Frame]

I don't know if this is the case or not, but supposedly the Russian "briefcase" nukes use Little Boy-type technology in which explosives fire a uranium slug down the barrel of a "gun" into a target of uranium.

An implosion-type bomb would simply be too large.

[griz]

My government spends a zillion dollars a year on G-d knows what, and this is the best they can come up with to build a fake bomb?   That thing isn't up to B grade movie quality.  I suppose I should be scared by the painted silver lantern battery.

[HankB]

That's a suitcase nuke?

Looks like he had his kid put it together from spare parts in his garage the morning after watching an episode of "24" . . .

But how reasonable is it?

According to various sources on the Web, the W54 warhead was " . . . the smallest and lightest . . . " warhead ever deployed by the USA; it weighed just over 50 pounds. Yields for various versions are reported as 10 ton to 1 kiloton. (Not being a nuke engineer, I'm curious how they manage to get a yield that low with a functioning weapon.)

As incorporated in the Davy Crockett weapon, the maximum diameter was around 11" or so.

Various atomic artillery shells - down to 155mm - were also developed and tested.

Considering the thickness and strength required of a shell meant to be fired out of a howitzer, I'd say something hand-carried could be smaller and lighter . . . though I really wouldn't want to be close to a chunk of unshielded plutonium even if it weren't armed.

[Manedwolf]

The Manhattan project! That was it!

That one actually did SOME research. The movie bomb had a "soccerball" of shaped charge connected to what looked and sounded like capacitors being charged up by a high-voltage supply when it armed, around what would seem to have been a plutonium core. That's certainly a feasible design, though I'd expect the dimensions and tolerances would have to be rather exacting to get anything but a bang and spray of plutonium all over.

BTW, I like the wall switch and silver spraypaint on the one at top. Bling bomb!

But doesn't that look like an old lantern battery in the corner? I thought you at least needed a capacitor's charge, like a disassembled camera flash circuit, to set off plastic explosives?

[Vile Nylons]

Looks like the Ace Hardware "low bid" version of Monty Python's Holy Handgrenade.   

[crt360]

Pretty tidy wiring for something so cheaply constructed. 

[Matthew Carberry]

The Manhattan project! That was it!

That one actually did SOME research. The movie bomb had a "soccerball" of shaped charge connected to what looked and sounded like capacitors being charged up by a high-voltage supply when it armed, around what would seem to have been a plutonium core. That's certainly a feasible design, though I'd expect the dimensions and tolerances would have to be rather exacting to get anything but a bang and spray of plutonium all over.

BTW, I like the wall switch and silver spraypaint on the one at top. Bling bomb!

But doesn't that look like an old lantern battery in the corner? I thought you at least needed a capacitor's charge, like a disassembled camera flash circuit, to set off plastic explosives?

He used the capacitors from big photographic strobes.

That movie always struck me as one of the more truthy "build your own bomb" movies as far as bomb design based on available public-info research goes.

And I like how he spoofed the security in the lab to get the nuclear material.

[Brad Johnson]

I seem to remember seeing something in Reader's Digest when I was a kid - a story about a college student who designed an implosion device as a college doctorate project or some such.  If memory serves they gave him an "A" and immediately classified his work.

Brad

[jrfoxx]

Our tax money well spent as usual. $7 worth of paint, pipe and battery, that the government probly paid $5000 for, and requred a team of 10 people being paid $180,000 a year to build, taking 3 years to assemble....

[DJJ]

I seem to remember seeing something in Reader's Digest when I was a kid - a story about a college student who designed an implosion device as a college doctorate project or some such.  If memory serves they gave him an "A" and immediately classified his work.

Brad

I believe it was called "How I Built an A-bomb my Junior Year at Princeton". They said it only lacked the fissionable material to be fully functional. The title doesn't show up in a cursory web search.

Edit: And of course, FBI/DHS have now noted that I "attempted to find instructions for building an A-bomb"... 

[K Frame]

Looks like the Ace Hardware "low bid" version of Monty Python's Holy Handgrenade.   

THREE, M'LORD!

[K Frame]

I seem to remember seeing something in Reader's Digest when I was a kid - a story about a college student who designed an implosion device as a college doctorate project or some such.  If memory serves they gave him an "A" and immediately classified his work.

Brad

I believe it was called "How I Built an A-bomb my Junior Year at Princeton". They said it only lacked the fissionable material to be fully functional. The title doesn't show up in a cursory web search.

Edit: And of course, FBI/DHS have now noted that I "attempted to find instructions for building an A-bomb"... 

I remember that article.

The guy got everything at libraries via unclassified or declassified materials.

The jist of one line sticks with me... "When I showed my advisor, who had worked on the Manhattan Project during the war, what I had accumulated, he was visibly shaken."

I believe that that article was the premise for the movie Manhattan Project.

[Gewehr98]

The kid had moxy, and being in one of the agencies that dealt with nuclear proliferation, he had our grudging respect. (I'll bet he had Hso's respect, too!)

What he didn't, and couldn't, know was that he had created something from open-source publications that would fall under CNWDI rules.  That's Critical Nuclear Weapons Design Information, and it's a type of restricted access where one is read into the program and read out when they no longer need access.  In hindsight, we should've hired the kid, gave him a clearance, and made him sign the ubiquitous non-disclosure agreement as the best way to keep him from disseminating his work.

It wasn't the first time somebody put 2+2 together from open source documents, creating a classified document, and I'm sure it won't be the last.  Dale Brown has bumped into that problem more than once. Occam's Razor ("All things being equal, the simplest solution tends to be the best one.") and all...   

[Ben]

Edit: And of course, FBI/DHS have now noted that I "attempted to find instructions for building an A-bomb"...

Torpark dude. 

[wmenorr67]

Being in the military we are always subject to the OPSEC talks.  Becareful what you say in public places and such.  Because it isn't always the classified stuff that will bite you in the ass.