Broken Arrow: 1956

March 10th 1956: A B-47 carrying 3 US airmen and 2 cores of nuclear material disappears over French Algeria. Despite frantic searches, by French, British, and American forces in the region. No evidence is found of the plane, it's crew, or the 2 cases of nuclear material. It's disappearance remains a mystery to this day.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1956_B-47_disappearance

Now obviously many possibilities remain for this event, some of which involve time travel etc. Putting those aside, let's say that the plane does crash in Algeria however it's significantly off course (instrument failure?). The plane, it's crew, and most notably it's nuclear weapons are recovered by a group of roving Bedouins.

What happens next?
 
I don't get it, did it have bombs on board or not?
And if yes, what kind of bombs are we talking about? How many kilotons?
 

Commissar

Banned
Okay so these hypothetical Bedouins have the nuclear material. For the most part they simply put the cores somewhere after they find them useless.

Years later a dissident group finds them, but the cores need to be reprocessed at that point and a bomb built around them.

This requires more practical effort than any dissident group can afford so they sell the cores to a potential backer, he sells them to a Government that doesn't ask any questions.

Said government then either reprocesses the cores and makes them into weapons or uses them for fuel.
 
Top