Re: Shoulder launched nukes?

Actually speaking as an end user of said product, I don't care if it's
nuke or
not. I'm not looking to vaporize nebraska with it but I'd love to have a
shoulder fired weapon that would blow the back end off a battleship.
(Future
use of course).

Los

Jeff Lyon wrote:

> I think the point of my earlier post may have been overlooked; the
first
> paragraph described the minimum size of a fission warhead of
conventional
> design using 40's-era technology; about 10-15 kilos with a warhead
yield of
> about 20 kilotons.
>
> The second paragraph went on to say that using more advanced design
> techniques, it is possible to create a warhead that uses as little as
1
> kilogram of fissionable material.  (Oh, and BTW, although I didn't
mention
> it early, this could be *reactor* grade plutonium, and not necessarily
> weapons grade.)  Such a device would normally have a yield of about
0.1
> kiloton or over a kiloton if designed as a "fusion-boosted" device.
>
> Since a Stinger missile can carry a 3 kilo (conventional) warhead, a
> shoulder-launched missile with a small nuclear or thermonuclear
warhead
> seems entirely possible with today's technology.
>
> The "Davy Crockett" or W54 warhead that has been discussed quite a bit
> recently is a whole 'nother critter; it was a '50's-era device which
had
> just as much fissionable material as a 20 kiloton warhead, but was
designed
> to produce a lower than average warhead yield.  No doubt this was so
that
> the weapons crew might have some chance of surviving the blast.
>
> So while the W54 was the smallest nuke in terms of warhead yield, in
terms
> of smallest warhead size we should not use it as our yardstick of what
> would be possible today, much less 200+ years in the future.
>
> And as others have mentioned we're not even considering some of the
other
> possibilities; anti-matter, thermonuclear warheads with laser fusion
> initiators, or some extension of the DFFG technologies.
>
> Anyway, the point of the original thread was that using a single large
> dropship in a hot LZ might be unwise due to the potential threat of
even a
> single man-portable AA weapon.
>
> Jeff