Originally posted by Mefustae
blah blah. The idea that someone could get their hands on a Nuclear Device is fiction, pure and simple, they're nigh-on impossible to manufacture without considerable cost, and much harder to aquire than most would think...
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Nuclear devices which can be used as weapons vary significantly. The easiest is to take an ordinary explosive, tie a pack of radioactive just around it, blow it in midair and pray. It will do practically no damage but can provoke hysteria or something.
Then you can try to steal a tactical nuke, or build one. Stealing it? Good luck with that. You could bribe your way into some Russian base and contact the responsible generals - quite often the army commanders have direct control over their tactical nuclear weapons but they can only be deployed under orders from higher echelons. This seems unlikely as well, but it's not impossible.
You could also build one. First you have to get the fissile material, and that means either stealing it somehow or buying it. Stealing sounds like a fun sport, because nuclear facilities that handle weapons-grade fissile materials are extremely easy to infiltrate. Buying it requires someone to somehow aquire the stuff and then you'll pay your lifetime savings for it and get a bunch of dead kittens or whatsoever.
This way you can come up with impressive firepower, several kilotons (hint: not very much), could cause a bit of ruckus in some town, cause hysteria and afterall it would be traceable - that's the funny thing, it's possible to trace the fissile material all the way back to it's mining location!
Then you could have an ICBM level MIRV or something as ludicrous. You're not going to get them unless you're some loonie missile base commander, and then James Bond will come and kill your face until you die.
The final note: Aquiring nuclear weapons is certainly not impossible, but it's difficult, and costly, and hazardous, and getting some tactical device you bought from Igor to actually work might be quite a challenge. The scenario in where a mysterious rogue state sells nuclear material to TERRISTS is not impossible, but I have hard time figuring out just why would they do that. So far no plausible scenario exist.
I get what you're talking about, and it really rings true, but when you think about it, knowledge can be forgotten and 'un-learned', even weapons technology. All you'd have to do is either enforce the destruction of any and all knowledge on Nulcear Weapons - almost and impossibility given how wide that technology spans - or, to be simple, find something else that gets the job done better.
You should also destroy all knowledge on nuclear physics, relativity and so on. Quite a lot to unlearn!
I mean, think about it this way - since WWII, Armour on Warships has been pretty much discarded, as a Cruise Missile or Bomber or whathaveyou launched from a modern fleet could decimate one's ship regardless of Armour designed to stop close-quarter barrages. If there was a sudden need to create heavily armoured ships, nobody would be able to do it, as the technology has been forgotten, discarded, un-learned if you will. Indeed, Neccessity is both the Mother, and Mortician of Invention...
I call bull****. If anything, knowledge of making armour has increased substantially in recent 60 years, and we're no longer just attaching steel plates into superstructure and praying that they might stand a blast from Exocet or whathaveyou. You know how well armoured carriers are? Hint: incredibly. We also have all the nice composite armours, ceramic plates, gels, kevlar and stuff - military stuff nowadays is very, very armoured. Naval vessels especially.
...Back on topic, my theory is that a Group of secret Agents or whathaveyou, should sneak into every missile installation, warehouse, Boomer Sub (whilst in dock of course), or any place housing a Nuclear-Tipped Missile/Bomb, and replace them with Warheads that are completely hollow. I mean, imagine the look on the faces of the respective leaders of future aggressors when their 'Mighty, Feared Nuclear Arsenal' simply impacts their opponent's country with a dull *THUD*... [/B]
Well that wouldn't end up very well would it?
