1 gigaton nuclear weapon

[Azazel]

Don't know about the gigaton bomb fallout area, but what ever it is, it will not be more then 3-4 times greater then what a 15-50 megatons can do. Now think about it, in cold war era, those nations had hundreds and thousand of them such megatons with them to use against each other, yet still they were/are not sure if they could wipe out other..

Do you have some academic studies to back that claim or did you made it up.And yes during the cold war they piled up thousands of megatons of such weapons.But they did that based on a mad military doctrine called MAD (Mutually assured destruction).The strategy is effectively a form of Nash equilibrium in which neither side, once armed, has any rational incentive either to initiate a conflict or to disarm (presuming neither side considers self-destruction an acceptable outcome).And all of them were absolutely convinced if the cold war turns nuclear,it would be an apocalyptic scenario.That was the whole point of this doctrine,no one wanted an apocalypse!!!!

 

[cloud]

I may have made it up, but my assumption is more realistic then some who is imagining that a gigaton will wipe out a continent or earth. compare again 15 kt effects in japan vs 3000 times more powerful explosion test by Russia, the way you are telling that 50 mgaton should have wiped half of the USSR that time due to fallout.. but actually no one died(I know it was a test but still)..

 

[Darth Vader]

With current technology..is there a ckuntry on the world that can create 1 gigatkn nuclear warhead?

Well here is birthday gift for you a 100 gigatone bomb and be careful when you use it

Just kidding Ans Yup You can make it but it will be a total waste of money
Why use a Missile when You can take down your enemy by a bullet

 

[iskandhar]

I may have made it up, but my assumption is more realistic then some who is imagining that a gigaton will wipe out a continent or earth. compare again 15 kt effects in japan vs 3000 times more powerful explosion test by Russia, the way you are telling that 50 mgaton should have wiped half of the USSR that time due to fallout.. but actually no one died(I know it was a test but still)..

You can only make such assumptions based on rough scaling laws if you consider similar devices with similar physics...

TSAR BOMBA was quite clean, and had a quite high Yeld to weight ratio, because unlike Fat Man, or Little Boy, its energy came from Fusion reactions, so fallout does not scale with a energy when you consider a device which outputs its energy from Fission Reactions.. i.e. Fusion reactiosn are essentially clean, having a footprint of helium 4, fast neutrons ( 14 MeV average K.E. ) X rays and gamma rays, unlike what you get from U235 Fission ( or Pu 239 Fission ) with things like Sr 90, and Cs 137... so a 1 Gt Fusion weapon ( you __CANNOT__ build a 1Gt pure fission device ), will not have 1000 times more fallout than a hypothetical 1 Mt pure fission weapon...

 

[iskandhar]

I may have made it up, but my assumption is more realistic then some who is imagining that a gigaton will wipe out a continent or earth. compare again 15 kt effects in japan vs 3000 times more powerful explosion test by Russia, the way you are telling that 50 mgaton should have wiped half of the USSR that time due to fallout.. but actually no one died(I know it was a test but still)..

Hi

Does anybody know how an autocatalytic weapon might be detonated..?

Autocatalytic weapons, unlike insertion and implosion weapons which start from a subcritical configuration, always start from a moderated supercritical configuration, therefore, for the same amount of energy, they can, at least theoretically be more powerful ( since there is no insertion time or implosion shock wave propagation associated )

As far as i know, only 3 of these weapons have ever detonated... one in an accidental explosion in Port Chicago, 1944 ( the media reported it as being a bulk cargo ship filled with ammonium nitrate ferilizer exploding ), one of the devices of the Upshot-Knothole tests in Nevada Test Site, and another one in Semipalatinsk, Kazakhstan...