Officer of Engineers

Kill the power grid.

__________________
Chimo

Garry

Sure. It would work for a while. But don't you think that if power station is working then problem may be resolved with little time delays? (I mean hiding cascades somewhen in cities close to power plants). In any case it is not possible to destroy the whole grid but only a highway lines. It is quite challenging to destroy all smaller local lines from smaller local plants (killing those plants is easier than).

I made some calculatins for myself just to understand what is power requirement for a ton of enriched uranium and if those cascades require any big buildings.

A cascade of centrifuges consisting around 200 units may be located in a building with only 12,000 meters. Iran can make thousands of sites like this INSIDE CITIES. Using the the calculator I got from Wikipedia (I know we all hate it ) below I estimate that it would require around 140,000 SWU to enrich one ton of 95% uranium (enough for one charge).

With around 100 kilowatt-hours per one SWU, it requres around 14 MWH of power for one ton of 95% enriched uranium.... Not much ha? I mean power supply must be killed completelly to stop each and every cascade, if this work (140,000 SWU) is split between many small cascades.

http://www.wise-uranium.org/nfcue.html

Luckilly 140,000 SWU would require a cascade or group of cascades of around 70,000-90,000 centrifuges (between 1 and 2 SWU annualy per centrifuge) and Iran seems to have only few hundreds of them.

I actually may be wrong with my estimation so would love to see more accurate calculation.

Garry

different goals for different times, ha!

As I said, I corrected myself. It is possible with completelly ruining Iran and its industrial capabilities. This can not be done with surgeion strickes but a true demolition.

Here we come to a limitles discussion. One may state that it is USA paranoya and arrogance which pushes them to bomb Iran.... I'd abastain from this phylosophic discussions. It will not change reality anyway. Can US bomb tens of thousands Iranians to prevent possibility of Iran having nuclear bomb? Without any prior action from Iran? Even if the world would call this an Agression? Yes but at high cost.

Here I did not understand you. What would a bombing capaign do to Iranian government? An invasion is required for this!

Confed999

It takes a long time to build a power plant, it takes even longer to build a dozen.
Then I guess you'll have to correct yourself again.
I agree, but still attacks on political and military targets mostly. Cities would not need to be leveled, and civilians not directly targeted. There would be a great deal of colateral damage.
If the answer is "yes" then what are you arguing about?
Firstly, a bombing campaign is an invasion, it's an air invasion. Second, how well can a government function working from a cardboard box, by candle light, sending messages by camel rider, the whole time watching for the bomb/missle with their name on it?

__________________
No man is free until all men are free - John Hossack
I agree completely with this Administration’s goal of a regime change in Iraq-John Kerry
even if that enforcement is mostly at the hands of the United States, a right we retain even if the Security Council fails to act-John Kerry
He may even miscalculate and slide these weapons off to terrorist groups to invite them to be a surrogate to use them against the United States. It’s the miscalculation that poses the greatest threat-John Kerry

Garry

My point was that even though it is believed that HUGE energy is required for uranium enrichment, this will not be a true limitation factor. I even believed in that myself few posts ago. Now I made some calculations and came to idea that 15-20MWH is just enough.... and this is not much at all. So until somebody corrects me in my calculations (which I would be interested to hear) I think that cutting power supply will not be feasible unless you level down all their power plants including small ones with capacity of just 5-10 MWH (these can be really small). AGAIN ASSUMING MY CALCULATION IS CORRECT (I invite you do yours).

Regarding bombing - my point is that heavy bombing required.... IT WOULD NOT BE ENOUGH TO BOMB MILLITARY TARGETS. ...... So heavy bombing Confed..... Very heavy. That is because destroying millitary targets will not stop them.

Or else there is no effect delaying Iranians. This is because Iranians are quite early in the process of enrichment and to stop them at this stage you need to bomb a lot and so many. Much easier to bomb on a later stage when enrichment plants are already built and operating. Strange ha?

Bombing capaing is not invasion that I meant. It does not disstress Iranian government significantly. What to bomb? Government buildings? Telecom centers? This joke about cammels is just a joke.... in order to destoy infrustructure as you quoted here you need to level so much of civil objects. I don't see how you can damage Iranian government with air strickes unless Iran is completelly leveled out.

Confed999

Very easy to do. Operating power plants can even be seen from space. All it takes to remove one from service is to crack the boiler.
Political and some infrastructure targets would be required too.
I already agreed that it would require heavy bombing.
Yes, everything political, from the homes of the leaders on up.
It would either be that, or they could try to walk the messages where they're going. Seems that would be even less efficient.
By the end of the bombing campaign in the Gulf War the Iraqi government was in control of Jack ****, and Jack had left town. Only enough damage needs to be done to disrupt their ability to coordinate the very complex production of a nuclear weapon. Without power, communications, fuel and the ability to move the resources required, the government and military will cease to be functioning agents.

Garry

Going for a war with another nation without having any justifiable reasons other than just unproven cocernts would assume some intangible but important costs. I call it PR but I guess it was already discussed in many parts of the forum. You know them.

Regarding disabling Iranian Government from air..... I seriously doubt that. The more you bomb them the more support they get. As for their ability to Govern country it is not really based on e-mails and telephones like you may think. I was there.... it is still quite archaic in terms of Government. I have seen few computers at airport customs, I also seen the ones used by road control.... they use DOS system (if you remember that was Microsoft product before Windows). However eve this is not important if ALL power plants are disabled.... But once you stop bombing them they will erect one and continue.... Even HEAVY bombing will not completelly stop this.... it may delay the process.

As we discussed earlier, seems that besides the KNOWLEDGE Iran needs three hundred tons of uranium gas, 100,000 centrifuges, 15-20 MWH and one year to get a ton of 95% enriched Uranium. According to the link provided by OoE Iranians have problems with 1) purity of gas, 2) knowledge how to run cascade for long-period, 3) around 99,800 centrifuges. It takes years to accumulate 2nd and learn how to deal with 1st..... then you may go for mass production of 3rd. But all the materials for the process are DOMESTIC.

Hence, Iranians can finish this in a decade..... or may be couple of years later if they are HEAVILLY BOMBED today.

There is one 100% method to stop them. Invade them completelly. But this is not the case now or later.

Confed999

They're the ones making the threats. Pretend they aren't if you wish, but I'm not for sitting around and waiting to see what happens. If they set off a nuke, Iran will be glass, and it will be people like you that cost those millions and millions of lives...
Your doubts are meaningless. History says it can be done.
From where? And with the surviving leaders in hiding, with no power or communications, what do they do with their "support"?
It's either that or camel riders. There is nothing else...
DOS predates Microsoft. I predate DOS.
It takes months to do, and is very easy to bomb. It's also very hard to build anything without fuel, power or building materials.
Extremely heavy bombing will create anarchy sooner or later. That stops everything...
There's no such thing as a "100% method" of anything.
I would support liberation more than any limited strikes. Unfortunately most of the rest of the people in this world could care less about Iranian civilians. That is fully evident in their willingness to ignore the tyranny, and instead call those willing to do something against the tyrants "paranoid and arrogant".

You can keep going in circles if you wish, I find this very amusing.

Garry

Sometimes I wish I had an opportunity to run ahead to see how this interesting saga willl finish! My bet - USA will not invade Iran. USA will bomb Iran symbolically. In less than 10 years Iran will get its bomb. Russia will be very disappointed... China will not care much.

Confed999

I hope you're wrong, because if they do, and the government there is even similar to what they have now, they'll use it. Not only will the people at their target die, the people of Iran will die too, and all Muslims will become "fair game".

Garry

Not that I like my bet.... I just bet on something which I see most likelly.

I don't think that they will directly use their bomb unless being attacked militarilly. However they will become quite nasty in the region feeling themselves UNTOUCHABLE. This will disappoint Russia and USA a lot.

Confed999

The problem is, if it is required to attack them militarily after they achive nuclear status, the first strike against them will be with nukes. There is no other choice.

Anyway, if their govenment is the same then as now, I'm certain they will use the weapon soon after they get it. Just listen to them talk now, and look at the things they're doing, and the things they've done in the past. You can see the future in their history...

Garry

Their leader talks not to you but to his people..... Iran does not have much of a foreign policy - its policy is domestic / regional. He talks so because this he gets more support irritating USA like this. He has a lot of economic problems to solve but it is always easier to divert attention towards nuclear issue.

Iran looses nothing by irritating USA..... when you have nothing there is really nothing to loose. They seem not to believe that you would attack them other than one time bomb raid...... They don't even trust that USA would go for a HUGE bombing like one we discussed is required to stop them. Not now when they are still far from getting their own bomb. They understand that.

My impression on Iran and Iranians is that they still believe they are a super power, they live in the past. Ancient oriental history which most of you don't even know is so important for them. I feel like they are not stupid to use their bobm first, but they will certainly use this bomb to be nasty in all other issues. In Central Asia people understand old chinese proverb which I heard from one Chinese - Tooth of a dragon is most scarring when his mouth is shut.... They will use it as threat rather than an attack weapon.

Confed999

I hope you're right, and I hope it isn't required to attack them, because Iran, and most of the Muslim world will likely disappear. Personally, I'm not for taking that chance.

yale

----- Amount of enriched uranium need for a weapon ------

The critical mass of 90% Highly Enriched Uranium (HEU) is 20.8kg with a 4” Natural Uranium reflector and only 15.5 kg with a 4” beryllium tamper.

The design that Iraq was working on pre- 1st gulf war had a core of 15 kg.

In any event, since these are implosion systems, MUCH less than 15 kg HEU is needed. The critical mass falls inversely to the square of the compression. The old trinity bomb compressed the core to twice the density and created more than four critical masses. Also, by playing with implosion speed, compression, manipulating shock waves to minimize rarefaction, etc, extremely small amounts of HEU can be used.


----- Number of centrifuges requred -----------------

Roughly 1500 P1 centrifuges to produce 1 nuclear weapon a year.

This is based upon enrichment from natural uranium to Highly Enriched Uranium (HEU).

There is a much faster route.

The Brushehr nuclear power plant is near completion. It is a Russian VVER-1000 light water reactor (LWR). The Russians may soon deliver the fuel for this reactor. It will likely be the initial reactor core load and the first re-fueling (at least). This is 100 tons of Uranium dioxide with an enrichment of 4.4%. Bunn and Malecki suggest stockpiling even more fuel.

This fuel is already purified with none of the tricky contaminants that are slowing down the Iranian production.

It is ready for direct conversion to Uranium hexafluoride (UF6) centrifuge feedstock. Even more importantly, VVER-1000 fuel is enriched 88% of the way to HEU. The enriching capacity of a centrifuge is measured in Separative Work Units (or SWU). Iran’s centrifuges can each process about 2.5 SWUs per year. An HEU implosion bomb requires much less than 20 kilograms of Highly Enriched Uranium (HEU).

It take 4,000 Separative Work Units (SWU) to make 20 kilograms of HEU from natural uranium.

If instead Iran using Low Enriched Uranium (LEU), diverts a small amount of the 4.4% VVER-1000 fuel to create 20 kilograms of 90% HEU, then not 4000 SWUs are needed, but only 500 SWU are required (a cream-skimming, leaving 3.3% enriched “tails”)

Only 1 and a half tons (a volume 2 foot on a side) of diverted reactor fuel (which will still be suitable for use in the reactor after the HEU is extracted) is needed.

The Iranian prototype 164 centrifuges cascade, using VVER-1000 fuel, could create a bomb’s worth of HEU in less than 15 months.

6 such cascades makes a bomb in 2.5 months, and 3,000 centrifuges is 15 bombs in a year.

========== Uranium Guns ======================

Instead of sophisticated 3D implosion systems, what opportunities do uranium guns present?

Contrary to comments earlier in this thread, extremely lightweight and small uranium guns are quite suitable for missile warheads and are MUCH EASIER to create than implosion warheads.

The Hiroshima Little Boy bomb at 9000 pounds and overpacked with 80% HEU does not do justice to actual production gun-assembly warheads.

The South African uranium gun was much smaller and lighter even tho ultra-conservative and w..a..y overbuilt. (This was deliberate)

Atomic artillery shells are much better examples of what a breakout nuclear state could accomplish.

The US fielded a number of nuclear shells, first as uranium guns, then as extremely high-tech linear implosion plutonium bombs (which we can ignore).

===
W-9 Artillery Shell (HEU gun-assembly)
– Diameter: 0.28 meters
– Length: 1.4 meters
– Weight: 375 Kg
– Yield: 15 kiloton

Produced 1952-53 (80 units), retired 1957

Notice how compact this Hiroshima-yield warhead is.
This is a robust ruggedized artillery shell designed for 10,000 gees and rapid rotation. An Atomic Demolition Munition (the T-4) was built from retired W-9’s and was just a fraction of the weight.

Here is a video of a firing of a W-9, the Grable shot. The range was 7 miles. Notice how small the shell is.

http://www.nv.doe.gov/library/films/...pg/0800015.MPG

===

W-19 Artillery Shell (HEU gun-assembly)
– Diameter: 0.28 meters
– Length: 1.4 meters
– Weight: 275 Kg
– Yield: 15 – 20 Kiloton

Production started 1955, retired 1963

====

W-33 Artillery Shell (HEU gun-assembly)

Here’s an image of the W-33:

http://solar-photon.com/images/mk33.jpg

– Diameter: 0.20 meters
– Length: 0.94 meters
– Weight: 110 Kg
– Yield: 5 – 10 Kiloton (a boosted mod was 40 kilotons)

Produced 1957 – 1965, retired 1992
~2,000 produced


The W-33 used titanium to cut weight with high strength. It was a double gun which save weight by about a factor of 8 over a single gun.

=========================================

As the National Academies Committee on Technical Issues Related to Ratification of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (2002) pointed out:

“For any nation with a modest technical competence, laboratory measurements would suffice for such a uranium-235 gun design, together with firing the gun with a dummy projectile. Knowledge… of the fact that the United States once possessed large numbers of artillery-fired gun-type nuclear shells might lead a proliferant country to a system much lighter and smaller than the Hiroshima weapon.”

===== DIY ===============================

Here is a quick-and-dirty “design” for a lightweight uranium gun that is extremely simple and well within the 500 kg missile limit.

A 24 kg, 16cm sphere of HEU with a hole cored thru the center is nested within a 10cm thick beryllium shell with matching holes.

Screwed into the poles of the sphere are two Chinese PLA Type-79 100mm mortar barrels, shortened to 67cm each.

Inside each tube is boron-lined sabot carrying an 8 kg HEU cylinder with a 10cm Be backplate and propellent.
Using a pair of electronically-triggered, matched off-the-shelf high-speed detonators the mortars are simultaneously detonated and the 2 projectiles penetrate the core at a combined 400 m/s (Little Boy was 300 m/s).

This will assemble 2.5 critical masses and go SERIOUSLY High-Order (multi-kiloton).

What does this weapon weigh? 40 kg for HEU, 40 kg for the 2 mortar tubes, and 40 kg for the beryllium reflector and say, 5 kg for fuzing mechanism.

125 kilograms.

A strong canister of corrugated .063 aluminum with a rigid foam filler (or with metal or plastic bracing) to rigidly support and protect and insulate the device will add 10 kg.

The whole warhead is 0.4m x 1.5m with a weight of 135 kilograms and can be mounted within a bomb casing or missile RV.

Although functional, this design should also include some type of mechanical safing, which adds weight. This would easily be offset by optimizing other aspects (titanium barrels instead of steel, shorter tubes, etc.)

This design is easy to machine and simple to test with DU instead of HEU. Any nation which can build centrifuges would have no problem making a small lightweight powerful uranium gun.


yale