1966: The Nuclear Rain in Spain stays mainly on the Plane

JLCook

Unless deliberately set off---

Armilus said:
In 1966 a US B52 crashed over Spain with four 2 megaton H Bombs. The TNT in two of the bombs actually exploded. One bomb went missing.
http://www.commondreams.org/views01/0803-08.htm
http://www.sunflower-univ-press.org/books/america-lost-hbomb.html

WI if all four bombs had actually exploded, obliterating Madrid or rendering a huge chunk of Spain uninhabitable for centuries. How would the world be different today, if at all?
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A nuclear warhead will not detonate producing any kind of nuclear blast.

Those things have very specific fusing requirements, and an unarmed bomb simply cannot be made to fire simply by dropping it. Addionally, ballisticlly fired warheads HAVE to be either launched via a missile or be cannon fired in order for the fusing mechanism to experience the gravity forces needed to arm itself! You can drop a missile warhead from 50,000 feet and have it land on it's nose and it will not fire, first, because it wasn't electroniclly "unlocked and armed" and second, because the G-forces on it would be insufficient.

If say a terrorist should capture an atomic 155mm or 8" artillery shell, those warheads still cannot be fired without electroniclly unlocking their fuse mechanism, AND you have to shoot them from an appropriate cannon!

With gravity bombs, it all still comes down to having to have the bomb fusing mechanism armed, or it will not detonate.

Spain was never in any sort of danger of an H-bomb explosion, although radioactive contamination from scattered nuclear materials from the bomb would be a problem, but not one that would be insurmaountable.
 

Armilus

Banned
The link says:

"Recently declassified documents show that the jettisoned bomb was an "Mk-15, Mod O" hydrogen bomb, weighing four tons and packing more than 100 times the explosive punch of the one that incinerated Hiroshima. This was the first thermonuclear weapon deployed by the Air Force and featured the relatively primitive design created by that evil genius Edward Teller. The only fail-safe for this weapon was the physical separation of the plutonium capsule (or pit) from the weapon".

Is this correct?
 

Doctor What

It's 'only' 8 megatons altogether--assuming all four bombs went off simulataneously.

From here

Thermal radiation radius (3rd degree burns) 27.4 kilometres
Air blast radius (widespread destruction) 14.3 kilometres
Air blast radius (near-total fatalities) 5.4 kilometres
Ionizing radiation radius (500 rem) 4.6 kilometres
Fireball duration 11.5 seconds
Fireball radius (minimum) 990 metres
Fireball radius (airburst) 1.2 kilometres
Fireball radius (ground-contact airburst) 1.6 kilometres

Palomares is nowhere near Madrid--the closest city of any significance is Almeria --east coast of Spain if I recall correctly.

Still--look at those numbers--even if it was sleepy little farmland area it will still kill thousands--it won't start WW3 tho (the yanks would know it was one of theirs within a few moments) but I strongly suspect that Spain (and the rest of europe) will be rather upset with the U.S.
 

Doctor What

I can see this accident completely jumpstarting the whole anti-nuke movement to the screaming level of the early 80's within 6 months.
 

JLCook

No, but proof would require classified information

Armilus said:
The link says:

"Recently declassified documents show that the jettisoned bomb was an "Mk-15, Mod O" hydrogen bomb, weighing four tons and packing more than 100 times the explosive punch of the one that incinerated Hiroshima. This was the first thermonuclear weapon deployed by the Air Force and featured the relatively primitive design created by that evil genius Edward Teller. The only fail-safe for this weapon was the physical separation of the plutonium capsule (or pit) from the weapon".

Is this correct?
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NO! Both US and SOVIET weapons, have always had fail safe mechanisms!
 

Doctor What

So--no boom? Absolutely no way?

Suppose the bombs broke open and sprayed nuclear material everywhere? What happens then? Will we still have a (possible) backlash against the whole nuke bombs situation?
 

Melvin Loh

Carl Brashear- MEN OF HONOR connection

Not AH at all, but just FYI this B52 incident over Spain in 1966 was what enabled USN diver (the 1st black deepsea diver in the USN), Carl Brashear- as portrayed in MEN OF HONOR by Cuba Gooding jnr- to dive into the surrounding sea to retrieve the missing nukes.

Actually, 1 AH element- i recall reading on a website a few yrs back on Carl Brashear that there were actually talks about making his story into a movie as early as 1980, but this never happened. However, WI MEN OF HONOR or a similar story of Brashear's career in the Navy had actually been made into a movie at that earlier point ?
 

Tom_B

Armilus said:
The link says:

"Recently declassified documents show that the jettisoned bomb was an "Mk-15, Mod O" hydrogen bomb, weighing four tons and packing more than 100 times the explosive punch of the one that incinerated Hiroshima. This was the first thermonuclear weapon deployed by the Air Force and featured the relatively primitive design created by that evil genius Edward Teller. The only fail-safe for this weapon was the physical separation of the plutonium capsule (or pit) from the weapon".

Is this correct?
Click to expand...

Ever see The Peacemakerr? Well it's not a good movie but somone who knows something about nuclear weapons was was involved in the film. How does the N. Kidman character disarm the bomb at the end of the film?. She removes one of the HE charges that implodes the plutonium core. When the other charges detonate it is too assymetric for implosion and without implosion of the pluonium you do not get fission.

So accidental nuclear detonation does not happen.

The worst case scenario is a large release of extremely toxic plutonium dust.
 

JLCook

No Boom

Doctor What said:
So--no boom? Absolutely no way?

Suppose the bombs broke open and sprayed nuclear material everywhere? What happens then? Will we still have a (possible) backlash against the whole nuke bombs situation?
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What makes the atomic reaction work is for a sufficient amount of Plutonium or Uranium 235 to become concentrated into a "critical mass". If you scatter the stuff, you are certainly NOT going to get a critical mass. Likewise, if the detonating explosives are not set off, in precisely the right way, they'll, scatter the nuclear material, not concentrate it.

Scattered nuclear material IS dangerous, BUT it isn't THAT difficult to clean up, compared to the aftermath of a nuclear detonation!
 

Doctor What

Do you see any way--accidentally or otherwise--for the nukes to be armed while being transported? Is the arming procedure difficult or lengthy c.1966?
 

JLCook

Armed Nukes

Doctor What said:
Do you see any way--accidentally or otherwise--for the nukes to be armed while being transported? Is the arming procedure difficult or lengthy c.1966?
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Those weapons, whether being stored, transported, or carried as a war load on a bomber or missile are ALWAYS unarmed. Arming them requires specific national command unlock authority---IE, the President of the United States has authorized their release for use against designated targets. All of the bombs ever loaded aboard a B52 have ALLWAYS been unarmed. There has never, since 1945, been a single moment where any of them was unlocked/armed, except for those weapons expended in nuclear tests.

The B52 lost over Spain was NOT on a war mission, so it's weapons were UNARMED! Yes, they were loaded aboard a bomber, but those missions were DETERRANCE missions. The aircraft would orbit at a given location for a number of hours (which is why it was being refueled when it was lost) and then return to base.

Flight time from say Tinker AFB, in Oklahoma would just take too long, if an actual war mission were ordered! The Russians did this sort of thing also!

The answer to this question is NO, there are no possibilities for an accidental nuclear explosion by a US weapon.

Explosions from weapons, say made in Iran or Libya or North Korea for example, could be different.
 

Brilliantlight

Banned
JLCook said:
What makes the atomic reaction work is for a sufficient amount of Plutonium or Uranium 235 to become concentrated into a "critical mass". If you scatter the stuff, you are certainly NOT going to get a critical mass. Likewise, if the detonating explosives are not set off, in precisely the right way, they'll, scatter the nuclear material, not concentrate it.

Scattered nuclear material IS dangerous, BUT it isn't THAT difficult to clean up, compared to the aftermath of a nuclear detonation!
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Yep, it is actually difficult to make the bomb go boom. That is why it takes nation-states to make them. Contrary to what the press may say terrorists will get atomic weapons only by buying them. Even then they need the right fail-safe codes.
 

MerryPrankster

Brilliant,

How easy would it be to use decryption gear to break through the encoding of the bombs? Have the computers in the bombs been updated since the 1980s or so?
 

Brilliantlight

Banned
Matt Quinn said:
Brilliant,

How easy would it be to use decryption gear to break through the encoding of the bombs? Have the computers in the bombs been updated since the 1980s or so?
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Very difficult they have extremely long codes and almost certainly impossible to set off after a very small number of tries.
 

Doctor What

What's to prevent a group of particularily clever and dedicated individuals from just using the recovered bombs as a source of 'raw material' --i.e. salvage the nuclear material and some other odds and ends --and just make their own?
 

Brilliantlight

Banned
Doctor What said:
What's to prevent a group of particularily clever and dedicated individuals from just using the recovered bombs as a source of 'raw material' --i.e. salvage the nuclear material and some other odds and ends --and just make their own?
Click to expand...

I am virtually certain if you tamper with the bomb it goes boom (non-nuclear exploison) killing the terrorists with very little result. Otherwise you need very expensive equipment, a lot of scientific knowledge and nuclear materials. You DON'T want to make a mistake with either Uranium Hexafloride or Plutonium. Uranium Hexaflouride is very acidic and radioactive and is a heavy metal. Plutonium is even more raidioactive and is a heavy metal. Make a mistake or cut corners with these materials and you wind up with a lot of dead terrorists. Besides it is not easy to get your hands on Uranium not talking about Plutonium.
 
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