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If the embassy emits white smoke, it means that a new front has been selected
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Mar 23, 2022 18:56
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Teriyaki Hairpiece posted:The closer the Russians get to the Polish border the greater the odds of an unfortunate accidental incident and that would be just a slight bit of an escalation of the crisis. i suspect if putin actually crack pinged that hard, he would force luka(or new putin backed puppet leader) to have Belarus invade as a proxy force. yeah its as dumb as it sound but so is the rest of this war.
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Mar 23, 2022 20:22
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I thought that was the original plan, and was backed off from because they didn't want to worry that the Belarusian army would just remove lukashenko instead?
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Mar 23, 2022 20:54
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Volmarias posted:I thought that was the original plan, and was backed off from because they didn't want to worry that the Belarusian army would just remove lukashenko instead? i think he might just have some security agent shoot/push/poison lukashenko and then hope the army follows whatever lickspittle putin replaces him with,.
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Mar 24, 2022 00:33
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Dapper_Swindler posted:i think he might just have some security agent shoot/push/poison lukashenko and then hope the army follows whatever lickspittle putin replaces him with,. I suppose they can try, I don't think it's lukashenko that's stopping them here though.
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Mar 24, 2022 01:16
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Volmarias posted:I suppose they can try, I don't think it's lukashenko that's stopping them here though. oh i know. but other countries have done stupid as gently caress moves to further a stalling war. Japan did it a gently caress ton in the 30s to further their expansion into china.
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Mar 24, 2022 01:49
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If Russia lost Kaliningrad, do you suppose it would go to Lithuania, Poland or be split between the two?
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Mar 24, 2022 01:55
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Comedy option: BRD
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Mar 24, 2022 02:19
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Dapper_Swindler posted:oh i know. but other countries have done stupid as gently caress moves to further a stalling war. Japan did it a gently caress ton in the 30s to further their expansion into china. Japan is sort of a special case, though, where the army just continuously had some junior officer YOLO their way on their own initiative into a fait accompli, because anyone not "patriotic" enough either didn't get promoted or get to live.
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Mar 24, 2022 05:18
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Alright, this isn't Nuclear War relevant (most likely) but it's definitely ClancyChat. I was lying in bed this morning, and I thought about how early on there was a suggestion of the US issuing letters of Marque to seize Russian yachts. Obviously this was never realistic, since the US isn't actually at war with Russia. But Ukraine is. Surely there are some PMCs or something out there that don't want to fight the Russian military directly (though probably fewer than there were a month ago), but I'd think there might be some that would be willing to put some men on a boat, fly a Ukraine flag, and seize some Russian flagged freighters, super tankers, or yachts. I get that a lot of actually Russian ships probably fly Panama flags or something, but according to google there's over a thousand Russian flagged cargo ships, and given that modern ships normally sail around broadcasting an IFF they wouldn't be hard to find. I doubt I'm the first to have this idea, and therefor there's likely a reason Ukraine isn't doing it - probably because they value international goodwill more than kicking Russia's metaphorical balls one more time. But it was an idea I couldn't get out of my head, and therefor decided to inflict on this thread.
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Mar 24, 2022 16:46
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You'd think taking out a few cargo ships wouldn't dent the Russian economy that much compared to the sanctions already in place essentially cutting them off from most Western markets, but I have no numbers to back this up. But I suppose some already-sailing pirates could change their flags?
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Mar 24, 2022 16:49
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Lots of russian yachts have already been seized? If you want to attack merchant shipping that's nonsense, merchant ships run under the flag of tax haven countries. 74% of shipping in 2017 was flying either Panama or Liberia. Who counts as russian?
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Mar 24, 2022 17:02
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Bremen posted:Alright, this isn't Nuclear War relevant (most likely) but it's definitely ClancyChat. I was lying in bed this morning, and I thought about how early on there was a suggestion of the US issuing letters of Marque to seize Russian yachts. Obviously this was never realistic, since the US isn't actually at war with Russia. Giving anyone who wants it a pass to become private amateur pirates, not directly loyal or accountable to any government, and then giving them temporary legal immunity to go around figuring out how to raid modern global cargo shipping? That's an idea that has a high possibility of backfiring in the long-term. What happens when the Russia crisis ends? Are they gonna sell off their gun stockpiles and pirate ships? Or are they going to move to a country that doesn't have an extradition agreement with the US and put their newfound knowledge to use? To say nothing of what might happen if other countries start offering them money and aid to raid US-bound shipping. The fact is, the US has too much interest in the safety of modern global shipping to go around sowing chaos in it like that.
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Mar 24, 2022 17:38
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Main Paineframe posted:Giving anyone who wants it a pass to become private amateur pirates, not directly loyal or accountable to any government, and then giving them temporary legal immunity to go around figuring out how to raid modern global cargo shipping? That's an idea that has a high possibility of backfiring in the long-term. I didn't mean for the US to be behind it, I meant Ukraine actually issuing letters of marque. That said, a little research shows that there was a major international agreement to stop privateering over a hundred and fifty years ago and the US are notable for not being a signatory, which is why (along with it being enshrined in the US constitution) letters of marque discussion still comes up occasionally in the news - which had made me think they were still more of a thing. Ukraine aren't signatories either, but there's a big difference between an accepted practice during war and one that's faded into the history books.
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Mar 24, 2022 17:58
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Having a Letter of Marquis definitely feels like Clancy chat, it's wildly stupid but fun as heck to think about.
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Mar 24, 2022 18:43
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Isn't that what Russia has done the last 10+ years for cyber criminals though? They don't give a poo poo who you hack as long as it isn't Russian and won't extradite you. They don't issue literal letters of Marque, but like the golden age of piracy this is the golden age of cyber crime. Who wants to gently caress around trying to take over a boat when you can steal from grandmas and hospitals around the world from the comfort of your basement.
PhantomZero fucked around with this message at 19:42 on Mar 24, 2022 |
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Mar 24, 2022 19:39
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I have a question about yield. Basically I'm curious how it's even a variable thing. Is it simply a function of ending up with a bigger or smaller sphere of fissionable material when the device assembles? My limited understanding of atom bombs is there needs to be a specific amount of material to go prompt supercritical - suggesting that there's at least a floor to how small a bomb they can make. Is this fundamentally wrong though? Is it more about the density and/or purity of the assembled device? I mean, thinking about it right now we've seen things like the Davy Crockett that seem to work. The question is even more interesting when asked about multi-stage hydrogen bombs. I know even less about these ones than the above, but I understand they involve using a fission trigger to do... something involving compressing a bunch of hydrogen? So there's a lot more at play here. And some of them have 'dialable' yields, right? I'm sure it's more involved than adjusting the idle screw on an engine, but how does that work?
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Mar 25, 2022 04:55
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Mister Speaker posted:I have a question about yield. Basically I'm curious how it's even a variable thing. Is it simply a function of ending up with a bigger or smaller sphere of fissionable material when the device assembles? My limited understanding of atom bombs is there needs to be a specific amount of material to go prompt supercritical - suggesting that there's at least a floor to how small a bomb they can make. Is this fundamentally wrong though? Is it more about the density and/or purity of the assembled device? I mean, thinking about it right now we've seen things like the Davy Crockett that seem to work. There's a lot of factors here, but with fission bombs, it's a question of how much of the fissile material you can get to fission before the thing blows apart. The "critical mass" of a nuclear device means that the neutrons that are released from fissioning nuclei are enough to prompt other nearby nuclei to undergo fission, thereby sustaining a chain reaction, and a super-critical mass is one where you have more than enough neutrons released as a function of time, meaning that the chain reaction increases and more and more energy is released until ka-blooie. The critical mass is a function of various things like density of your fissile material, the shape of it (how the neutrons can fly around), and you can also help the neutron chain reaction along by reflecting them back towards the fissile core with tamper materials that plink the neutrons back, etc. The "gun type" bomb ("little boy") has a donut of fissile material and when detonated the bomb shoots the donut of fissile material into a rod of fissile material, and the joined blob exceeds critical mass and fissions for a little while. The "implosion" type bomb has a sphere (spherical symmetry is easiest I think, but I'm not an explosives expert by any means) of plutonium that's not critical mass, but when the surrounding "normal" explosion occurs, the density of the plutonium rises because it is literally being squeezed together, and it begins fission. There's more complications to this such as tampers and other design parameters that deal with neutron fluxes and reflections and it's too early in the morning to go into these, but basically the take-home message is that you want to maximize the amount of fuel spent to get the most bang for your buck, quite literally. A thermo-nuclear bomb has a fission "starter" that heats up the fusion fuel to, as NdGT might say, star temperatures, which then undergoes fusion until this device too tears itself apart. The actual design is more complex, but basically you have a fission core that blows up, and the blast releases energetic stuff like hard radiation and (radiation) pressure that compresses a fission "spark-plug" surrounded by fusion material, and when that thing goes the fusion material, typically isotopes of hydrogen, gets hot and dense enough to fusion. The more fusion fuel you put in there, bigger the ka-boom, roughly speaking. And the yield can be adjusted not only by the amount of fuel, but how you want the explosions to go around the bomb, materials for guiding neutrons and so on. Fundamentally the problem is that these things blow up; the Sun is a hydrogen bomb of sorts going off constantly, but there's enough fuel there that gravity will keep it together for some time.
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Mar 25, 2022 05:43
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I always thought this old Berkeley lecture was a pretty good explanation of nukes if you've got an hour or so. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DJbyvCmybuk
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Mar 25, 2022 11:44
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Axetrain posted:I always thought this old Berkeley lecture was a pretty good explanation of nukes if you've got an hour or so. There's a decent although possibly dated book called "physics for future presidents" that covers things like how nuclear weapons and radiation work in terms a politician could probably understand.
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Mar 25, 2022 18:52
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I guess the part that I just struggle to wrap my head around with these devices is the sheer timescale on which things happen. Am I correct in my understanding that it's a burst of gamma and x-rays from the fission trigger that hits the deuterium/tritium gas and turns it into a plasma, before the fission device is finished exploding? I'm just astonished by the idea that a device essentially powered by conventional explosives packed into a compact shape next to a cylinder of gas even works at all and doesn't simply disassemble itself every time. EDIT: Also, is it true what I've heard that hydrogen bombs can be scaled up with tertiary (or further) stages, theoretically infinitely? Mister Speaker fucked around with this message at 19:04 on Mar 25, 2022 |
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Mar 25, 2022 18:59
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Volmarias posted:There's a decent although possibly dated book called "physics for future presidents" that covers things like how nuclear weapons and radiation work in terms a politician could probably understand.
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Mar 25, 2022 19:01
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Mister Speaker posted:I guess the part that I just struggle to wrap my head around with these devices is the sheer timescale on which things happen. Am I correct in my understanding that it's a burst of gamma and x-rays from the fission trigger that hits the deuterium/tritium gas and turns it into a plasma, before the fission device is finished exploding? I'm just astonished by the idea that a device essentially powered by conventional explosives packed into a compact shape next to a cylinder of gas even works at all and doesn't simply disassemble itself every time. Gamma and x-rays travel at the speed of light, shock waves, neutrons and things like that are orders of magnitude slower. I dunno if that helps per se, but it's a bit like when a lightning strikes far away from you, you see the flash "long" before you hear the sound. (The things going boom inside a nuke are super-sonic, but either way.) e: quote:EDIT: Also, is it true what I've heard that hydrogen bombs can be scaled up with tertiary (or further) stages, theoretically infinitely? Theoretically doing some heavy lifting there, but yes, daisy-chaining the detonations could increase the yield to higher and higher magnitudes. Of course you wouldn't need anything bigger than something that'd literally break the Earth into pieces, at least until Elon manages to start up his slave colony on Mars. Rappaport fucked around with this message at 19:08 on Mar 25, 2022 |
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Mar 25, 2022 19:06
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Mister Speaker posted:I guess the part that I just struggle to wrap my head around with these devices is the sheer timescale on which things happen. Am I correct in my understanding that it's a burst of gamma and x-rays from the fission trigger that hits the deuterium/tritium gas and turns it into a plasma, before the fission device is finished exploding? I'm just astonished by the idea that a device essentially powered by conventional explosives packed into a compact shape next to a cylinder of gas even works at all and doesn't simply disassemble itself every time. Yes, the timescales are that tiny. Inventing a working trigger for the first implosion device was a major technological deal, AIUI. The principles of how nuclear weapons work can be trivial compared to the engineering task of actually making them work. The Wikipedia article on nuclear weapon design is a good if dense read about this, with gems like "By holding everything together for a few hundred nanoseconds more, the efficiency was increased." when discussing the detonator for Fat Man. There's a clever demonstration tool that Grace Hopper used for explaining these timescales. Volmarias fucked around with this message at 19:16 on Mar 25, 2022 |
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Mar 25, 2022 19:08
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What are some good nuclear war nonfiction books? I’ve read The Doomsday Machine: Confessions of a Nuclear War Planner by Ellsberg and would like to read more.
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Mar 25, 2022 20:46
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DrSunshine posted:What are some good nuclear war nonfiction books? I’ve read The Doomsday Machine: Confessions of a Nuclear War Planner by Ellsberg and would like to read more. Not really a book, but the Nuclear Weapons FAQ has been around forever, is excellent, and is still maintained.
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Mar 25, 2022 20:49
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Rappaport posted:Gamma and x-rays travel at the speed of light, shock waves, neutrons and things like that are orders of magnitude slower. Right, I know this but it's still super weird to wrap my layman's mind around when the distances are so small. The phrase 'orders of magnitude' does help to impress the idea more effectively though. Also as Volmarias said, running the theory is one thing; building a trigger out of a bunch of directed explosives and showing it to actually work is another. Thanks all!
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Mar 25, 2022 21:34
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And letting your dumbass little flathead slip, causing a criticality event that kills you and maims others is just 
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Mar 25, 2022 21:38
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but, I would love to have the self confidence of Dr Manhattan walking around with his junk just hanging out like that
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Mar 25, 2022 21:45
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DrSunshine posted:What are some good nuclear war nonfiction books? I’ve read The Doomsday Machine: Confessions of a Nuclear War Planner by Ellsberg and would like to read more. If you haven't read Command and Control yet, you owe it to yourself to pick it up and read it right away.
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Mar 25, 2022 22:10
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duodenum posted:but, I would love to have the self confidence of Dr Manhattan walking around with his junk just hanging out like that
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Mar 25, 2022 22:13
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DrSunshine posted:What are some good nuclear war nonfiction books? I’ve read The Doomsday Machine: Confessions of a Nuclear War Planner by Ellsberg and would like to read more. Not quite what you're asking for, but I can definitely recommend Alsos. It's about the U.S. mission to track down German nuclear scientists, written by the head physicist of the mission immediately after the war. A lot of bullshit has accreted on the subject in later years, but this is a great memoir from a scientist who took part in it.
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Mar 25, 2022 22:34
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So I saw a video of Biden/Air Force One touching down in Poland earlier today and what stuck out was that there were visible Patriot or other SAM batteries sitting on the tarmac. Does anyone know what type of support Air Force One gets when it’s flying? Like, are F-22s and other poo poo flying alongside it the entire time? I know when the president drives around there’s a huge motorcade, including a double of the car the president rides in so you never know which one he’s in. Don’t tell me two identical planes fly  .
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Mar 25, 2022 23:58
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Boris Galerkin posted:Does anyone know what type of support Air Force One gets when it’s flying? Like, are F-22s and other poo poo flying alongside it the entire time? Nice try, Boris
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Mar 26, 2022 00:24
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Boris Galerkin posted:So I saw a video of Biden/Air Force One touching down in Poland earlier today and what stuck out was that there were visible Patriot or other SAM batteries sitting on the tarmac. I am guessing there is a gently caress ton of internal security and counter mesures and poo poo so it can survive most poo poo or at least the passengers. maybe it has that escape pod from escape from new york.
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Mar 26, 2022 01:18
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Dapper_Swindler posted:I am guessing there is a gently caress ton of internal security and counter mesures and poo poo so it can survive most poo poo or at least the passengers. maybe it has that escape pod from escape from new york. Retrieving Biden's escape pod like Escape From New York, except it's Colorado Springs.
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Mar 26, 2022 02:18
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Boris Galerkin posted:So I saw a video of Biden/Air Force One touching down in Poland earlier today and what stuck out was that there were visible Patriot or other SAM batteries sitting on the tarmac. I believe there's typically at least a four-ship of -16s (or maybe -22s now) with AF1 at all times, yes.
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Mar 26, 2022 16:58
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Someone in the Russo-Ukraine war thread, once again brought up nuclear escalation and how it would mean MAD, and thus annihilation of Russia as well. I guess the implication is that we shouldn't worry too much about Russia deciding to end itself as a response to military failure and humiliation - or even intervention. I generally share that sentiment - I do not think Kremlin or Putin have any intention of a spite-Apocalypse. The CCP would be slightly less relaxed about everything if they believed there was a serious risk of this war leading to a full-out nuclear exchange. However, there is more to nuclear escalation than MAD and starting out at the strategic level. The risk is that Putin decides to try out his 'escalate-to-deescalate' doctrine using tactical nukes. Let's say NATO decides to intervene in some limited fashion. Hypothetically, Putin then responds by dropping a tactical nuke on Rammstein and maybe a few other key NATO bases. Perhaps accompanied by conventional cruise missiles at various European cities. This wouldn't instantly trigger a full-scale nuclear strike on Russia. Rather NATO would have the following choices: A) Retaliate in kind - using one or more tactical nukes against Russian military targets. B) Retaliate conventionally, but overwhelmingly, going after basically every single Russian military asset. C) Retaliate conventionally, but proportionally, going after key Russian military assets. D) Warn that further strikes will lead to nuclear retaliation. E) De-escalate immediately A can easily lead to a very nasty exchange of tactical nukes - and has a risk of escalating into true nuclear war. B will carry a heavy cost to carry out. Russia may also respond with more tactical nukes. C will be seen as weakness and probably has a higher risk of leading to further tactical nukes. D is a gamble. Putin will probably call it. And then we end up at one of the other options - or a true nuclear war E will lead to a new world order where nuclear powers can do what they want, and where tactical nuclear war will probably happen soon anyway So, unless NATO can very swiftly take out Russia's capability of tactical nuclear strikes, those are all very bad. Even a relatively optimistic scenario where the entire world turns against Russia, internal forces rise up against Putin and NATO focuses fully on preventing escalation without backing down - there is a huge risk of conventional and tactical nuclear weapons being used against numerous European cities. I do believe that if Russia does not withdraw from Ukraine, it will either fall apart as a nation due to internal strife, or there will be eventually a military intervention. Not necessarily by NATO. As I've mentioned in the past, ideally such an intervention should not involve the US directly. The risk of escalation is lower if the intervention does not include an overt US humiliation of Russia. But the time is fast approaching where something has to give - I do not believe the 'stalemate and Russia destroying Ukraine out of spite over months of lower-intensity war' is a possible end to this. Russia will withdraw or be made to withdraw. It is the only way this can end. The challenge is to determine how to accelerate that end without risking nuclear escalation. And tactical nukes is where one needs to look for the risk. It is a very real risk, because Putin might not consider such weapons intrinsically tied to the MAD-doctrine.
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Mar 26, 2022 17:43
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The trick is that you can't just say "Russia nukes a city" as though a response starts then. The response starts when a missile is launched (easy to spot) or when a bomber crosses a border (obvious immediately).
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Mar 26, 2022 21:01
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Evilreaver posted:The trick is that you can't just say "Russia nukes a city" as though a response starts then. The response starts when a missile is launched (easy to spot) or when a bomber crosses a border (obvious immediately). There's a huge difference between a tactical nuke and strategic nuke in that regards. Those are not the same - and detecting that incoming missiles are tactical nukes isn't easily done. If there's a cruise missile heading towards Rammstein base, is NATO going to assume it is a nuke? If Russia has overtly raised nuclear readiness levels, probably. If they haven't? Harder to say. That's my point really - so many people are talking about nuclear weapons as if they're all city-busting warheads. But tactical nukes are a complete different league. And that's what we know Russia has talking as a doctrine for decades: a first-strike using tactical nukes against one or military targets to force the west to back down. If such attacks are done as a fair accompli - it puts NATO and the US in a very tight spot. Even if the tactical nukes are shot down (which is not unlikely), it creates a horrible dilemma. So what is response if Russian missiles are sent against NATO bases in the case of an escalation? That's a really big part of why NATO wants to avoid direct confrontation with Russia: Every single missile launch could be a tactical nuke from that point onwards. Once a tactical nuke lands, the ball is in NATO's court. And there would be a shitload of pressure from the world - and from inside NATO countries - to hit the peace table immediately and give Russia what they want. Democratic state fighting totalitarian states isn't a symmetric war. The totalitarian dictator has some options for brinkmanship that are inconceivable to democracies. Is it a hypothetical? Yes. Would it be idiotic to launch a tactical nuke? Yes. But so was the invasion of Ukraine. We cannot assume that Putin considers a tactical nuclear fait accompli equal to MAD. Especially not as 'escalate-to-deescalate' has actually been a topic of Russian military doctrine for some time. I hope he wouldn't try such tricks. I do not think it is likely. I am in favor of military intervention by a coalition of European nations. But I also think one has to consider the risk of tactical nukes being used as very real and distinct to a MAD scenario.
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Mar 26, 2022 21:25
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