Al-Qaida Leader Says They Have Briefcase Nukes

"Don Harstad" wrote in message
...

"Dav1936531" wrote in message
...
From: (BUFDRVR)


There were reports some years ago (never confirmed AFAIK) of Soviet
suitcase
nukes having disappeared from their inventory.

What "inventory"? I've seen several reports where both ex-Soviet
nuclear
scientists and ex-Soviet military officials repeatedly claim there were
never
any suitcase nukes in the first place. This turn coat Ledbed (is that
his
name?) seems to have been rewarded hansomely for scaring the crap out of
western nations.
BUFDRVR

We had/have "suitcase" nuke demolition charges.....it seems only fair to
assume
that the Soviets had/have them too.

If they have lost control of them, denying they ever existed would be a
good
way to attempt to save face and to try to avoid any liability for
negligent
management of their armaments should the new owners use one in a terror
attack.

Let's hope Al-Qaeda is blowing smoke.
Dave

IIRC, they were termed Atomic Demolition Munitions. They were designed to
do things such as take out tunnels, and to demolish ports as they were
abandoned. The ADM's were not thermonuclear, which would be small comfort
to those close. The lightest one I ever read about was under 500 lbs, and
I
think it may have been very close to 100. I seem to remember they could
also be submerged for up to 6 months on a timer. Those were ours.
Theirs,
I never saw detailed at all. It's public information.

Ours were grouped into two categories--medium, which could be up into the
many hundreds of pounds (and over a thoudand pounds in their early form,
IIRC), and small, which weighed in at around 110 pounds or so IIRC (the W-54
warhead itself weighed less (around 60 pounds), but it was pretty much
worthless without the accoutrements that made up the rest of the SADM
package). A lot of the info available on these weapons is still somewhat
speculative, with different sources providing different weights, yields,
etc.; unless somebody went through the (five week IIRC) ADM course at FT
Belvoir back in the eighties or earlier, then you can't really know for sure
what the yields were (or exactly how the PAL worked, etc.)--those of us who
just attended the two-day ADM familiarization phase (which required a SECRET
clearance that was verified at the entrance to the ADM training facility--no
foreign officers in our OBC course were allowed to participate) were only
provided with theoretical yields to use in doing the calculations for
emplacement. Not sure that the Soviets ever really had need for ADM's, being
as they were not really planning on fighting a major defensive effort that
would have required them (they could have quite easily nuked any target in
our own rear area with the myriad rocket, missile, tube arty, and freefall
nuclear weapons they had in their inventory, and included the use of in
their OPLAN's based upon post Cold War revelations).

Brooks


Don H.