US to build new nuclear gravity bomb

L4sBot@lemmy.worldmod to Technology@lemmy.world – 228 points – US to build new nuclear gravity bomb
defensenews.com

US to build new nuclear gravity bomb::Experts say this new higher-yield nuclear bomb appears intended to pave the way for retiring the older B83 megaton bomb.

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"The physics package contained within the B83 has been studied for use in asteroid impact avoidance strategies against any seriously threatening near earth asteroids. Six such warheads, configured for the maximum 1.2 megatonnes of TNT (5.0 PJ), would be deployed by maneuvering space vehicles to "knock" an asteroid off course, should it pose a risk to the Earth.[10]"

...If you have even half the comprehension to understand that amount of force. fuck...that's a lot of damage.

The crazy bit is that the energies involved in a meteorite large enough to cause serious problems striking earth are like an order of magnitude larger than that. No radiation, sure, but that doesn’t help you much when you’re getting broiled by a ball of plasma.

I got real excited to learn the physics of a nuclear gravity bomb.

We have gotten to the point in modernity where so many bombs are technologically guided we must define bombs which fall, and are guided by, the force of gravity.

Yeah I also wondered if "nuclear gravity" was some fascinating new branch of physics.

Got real disappointed when I realised that it meant dropping 'em.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/B61_nuclear_bomb

Had something more along these lines in mind?

Oh... thats why i couldnt find any cool youtube video describing it... cool name though

Yeah it's just a fancy way of saying "dumb bomb."

You don't need guided accuracy with a megaton nuke pooped out by a plane.

It should've been "nuclear powered, gravity operated bomb", but that doesn't have the same ring to it. /s

My question is:

This has to he dropped from a drone right? The explosion would kill the pilot if they were that close.

Wouldn't even technically be nuclear powered, it just has a nuclear payload. I feel like the use of "gravity" in this article was an unnecessary addition.

When most people think "bomb", they don't think immediately think of "guided missile", they thing something that is either planted or dropped from above, and in this case the latter describes exactly what kind of bomb this is.

These "bombs" likely fall dozens of miles through the air travelling at about a thousand feet per second. They absolutely have a guidance system to keep them on course, basically exactly the same as a missile except without the rocket.

The only real difference between a missile and a "gravity bomb" is they have to be closer to the target when they are "fired". Oh, and gravity bombs are cheaper. A lot cheaper.

Even if you never fire a missile they still have to be maintained. See Russia vs Ukraine war... It's estimated 60% of Russian missiles don't even explode at all. And the ones that do are often nowhere near the target due to a guidance system failures. If they were properly maintained they'd work better than that.

『geekout about the cold war』

Nope. We have planes that fly really high and are shielded enough to withstand the effects at distance. Our air-dropped nukes are the most potent used by the US at 2.1 megatons (which is a sweet spot involving physics I don't understand.)

Soviet bombs were bigger and more plentiful to compensate for their inaccuracy (so they'd shotgun strategic targets to assure a likely hit). This turned into justification for the arms rwce in the 1960s to get ridiculous with General Electric pushing the missile gap. It's how we ended up with so many nukes we could wipe out humanity many times over, not just by carpeting all the continents but with nuclear winter and lingering radioactive fallout.

At that point, the doomsday device in Doctor Strangelove, a really huge cobalt bomb or salted bomb became the more cost-efficient deterrant. While there were actual designs, I don't think anyone actually built it.
『/geekout』

Basically the sweet spot is because nuclear explosions, for that matter all explosions, are spheres. So to double the radius it takes 8 times more "oomph." So a big bomb like the 100MT Tzar Bomba could be replaced by 16 × 1.2 megaton bombs and blow up the same area of ground, without blowing up the 20 cubic miles of air above the ground at the same time. It would also use about 1/4 the fissionable material to produce the 16 bombs as opposed to the one big one.

We are basically being cheapskates with nukes. Yay! I see No PoTeNtIaL iSsUeS aRiSiNg" directly because of this.

The explosion would kill the pilot if they were that close.

Nah they'll be fine. The initial blast radius of a nuclear bomb isn't that big at all. It's the radiation that's terrible and a lot of that comes from the fallout/dust downwind of the blast.

As high up as they would be air, it'd just be a momentary bright light and not a direct one since they will be flying away from the blast.

... if the enemy has fighter jets though ... you're probably going to try and shoot down the bomber. Which might encourage using a drone.

I don't know if they still do this but during the Cold War, they would practice tossing nukes.

The plane flies low and fast, at the right time it climbs hard, belly up and at the top of the loop releases the bomb. While the plane continues its loop downward, the bomb continues in a ballistic trajectory. By the time it hits the target, the plane spends a minimum of time at altitude and a good distance from its target and can GTFO.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toss_bombing

The Russians dropped a 50 megaton bomb from a manned plane without killing the pilots, unless the us is going for the record of largest bomb ever it's not much of a concern beyond ensuring a high enough drop altitude fast enough plane or slowing the bomb with a parachute.

Well the US military could invent the Nova Bomb from Halo. But being in a plane or not wont effect much.

Is it a drone at that point or a guided missile? The lines seem thin

The drone drops the payload (I assume, unless the pilot is going to die) . That's what makes it gravity operated. A guided missile wouldn't need a drone, and would be exactly as you described. That's a big thing with the "loitering munitions," right now.

My point was just if the pilot was going to die you said use a drone. If the pilot were going to die it would imply whatever delivers the gravity falling weapon is destroyed from being to close. So it is a one time delivery sustem much like a missile cassing instead of a drone which flies away and is re-usable.

That's called a "loitering munition". If there's a payload that's embedded into the craft, and you're not going to retrieve it, but you can still fly it remotely, that's when it's loitering munition, if that makes sense. It's a small bomb you fly in a circle until you have a good angle basically.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loitering_munition

I thought to myself “well. We did it again. This time with gravity” I was both disappointed and relieved.

Time bombs have always been a disappointment also.

Maybe do a nuclear gravity power plant first? Provide the tax players cheap clean energy instead of more threats of war.

Honestly… this is kind of how that might happen? Defense spending and research has always been the vanguard of technological development and then it’s waylaid to private sector development and R&D.

Once it’s proven effective they can then reverse engineer it to do something constructive.

Because the US can’t be bothered to find non blow-uppy projects until later.

A nuclear gravity bomb is a standard nuclear bomb that is dropped from a plane, instead of launched on a rocket.

This isn't some kind of new nuclear technology

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Just in time for the latest conflict in the Middle East.

Yet as the article says: directly linked with the new arms race with Russia and China.

While glassing Gaza would streamline the conflict a bunch, I doubt these weapons are because of them

Holy crap! We have been here before and it leads to the brink of extinction due to fecking ego's.

Yeah, but this time we can all talk about it in realtime with the rest of the world.

Wouldn't be in realtime for very long

I do agree, but it's confounded by the story that's told. We have sequentially followed the same arguments for the people that we are asked to fear right now. MAGA are a classic example of "live updates" and very poor thinking

In a follow-up statement, a Pentagon spokesperson said that will include the B-21 Raider stealth bomber the Air Force now has in development with Northrop Grumman. But the U.S. now does not plan to deploy it on the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, the Pentagon said.

This feels so out of date to me. We have guided ballistic missiles, drones, etc. Why are we still thinking about dropping an unguided bomb like this from an aircraft with a human in it? It's >1 megaton ffs - close should be "good enough"?

Because they can glide a long way and are stealthier without propellant. It’s still a standoff weapon. The B21 is a stone cold killer. It can get in fairly close undetected and drop from high altitude in still relatively safe airspace. The bombs are away without anyone ever knowing it was there. Then you’ve got a stealthy bomb gliding in silently. It probably shows up on radar like a raindrop.

What happens when someone takes control of the guidance? A bomb dropped from the sky is going to obey the laws of physics and that's it.

You dont just "take over" an inertial guidance system.

No, but the possibility exists.

In the same way the atoms that make up you and the atoms that make up a car wont hit eachother if you get hit. Unless there is some massive amount of fuckery theres no stopping a bomb once its dropped.

Dispersal of liability if something goes wrong?

It's not the ground-based targeting system so that company can't be sued. It's not the onboard nav so that company can't be sued. It's not the software so that company can't be sued. It's not communication latency or interference so we can't blame it on a bad command decision to push forward without more reliable data points.

The only thing that will ultimately result in a nuclear weapon being dropped is if the guy with human eyes is looking at the target, makes a judgement call, and pushes the button.

All that being said, we should not be building more nukes regardless. This is dumb.

You can probably fit more bomb in the same package if you odnt have to worry about propellant

I would lean to reliability and speed. Ballistic missiles don’t get a lot of testing while the bombers are flown regularly and takeoff/land pretty much anywhere .

Of course, just what the world needs, more weapons.

No gravity waves generated or anything. But if they dropped one on you, you won't complain about the name. Why not call it the Barbie warhead and Ken missile? Again, no one would come back " excuse me but I did not get any Barbies or Kens when this thing was dropped on my house yesterday and I would like to complain to management"