Re: Shoulder launched nukes?

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