"B2431" wrote in message
...
Plans ( The Effects of a Global Thermonuclear War


He is talking apparently about the nuclear material in the core only
being
somewhere around 11-13 kg (it is going to take more than 2 to 4 kilograms
of
HE, Be, triggers, etc to handle the rest of the equation); in that same
article he refers to the W-54 as being the smallest practical sherical
device ever fielded, and then also describes the linear implosion devices
(which are narrower, but also longer) used in arty rounds. None of the
fielded weapons ever got below around 100 pounds or so.

Brooks

Linear implosion? How would that work?

Instead of compressing a sphere, imagine a football shaped pit surrounded by
explosive material, with detonation initiated at each end--the detonation
wavefront progresses inward from each end (the wavefront is actually
"shaped" by inserting plates of a somewhat lesser diameter than that of the
HE charge into the HE in front of the initiators so that the wavefront
propogates radially first to get around the plate, then inwards from the
explosive outside the plate perimeter) and compresses the "football" into a
sphere. This allows you to design a weapon with a smaller diameter (but a
greater length) than if it used normal spherical implosion. The other
method of reducing diameter is use of a gun-type device, but IIRC Pu does
not work in gun designs. The Nuclear Weapons Archive has a better
description if you are interested (
http://gawain.membrane.com/hew/News/...ukesExist.html ).

Brooks


Dan, U. S. Air Force, retired