Nuclear Physics Question

[Martin4x4]

I recently encountered a claim about early defences against nuclear missiles and bombers that left me sceptical.

It was that we (well UK Military) planned to use nuclear equiped ground to air missiles against incoming Russian balistic missiles and bombers but not with the intention destroying them through the blast but rather the nuclear reaction would some how 'use neutron flux to disable the attacking warhead'. They would fall harmlessly to the ground without exploding. This sounded some what sci-fi to me, but googling does suggest Neutron flux is real and would effect warheads but a decent explanation seem to difficult to find.

Are there are any Nuclear Physicists that could explain the Physics and feasibility, is it a act of desperation or a realistic though stark choice. Alternatively any ex-military that could elaborate on this 'plan'.

[TheEnd]

That sounds like EMP, some of the radiation is electromagnetic, and the idea is it should induce a current in nearby electrics and burn out everything.

[dudleybloke]

They were trying to create a belt of highly charged particles that would interfere with the electronic systems in any attacking missile.

A good doc to watch is Rainbow bombs- nukes in space, covers the subject quite well.

WWW.youtube.com/watch?v=_AJPpHnBJiY

Edited by dudleybloke on Monday 4th August 21:29

[Simpo Two]

AFAIK a nuclear blast emits a massive blast of electromagnetic radiation which can fritz eletronics. Hence battlefield equipment needs to be protected from it.

[jimbobsimmonds]

Simpo Two said:

AFAIK a nuclear blast emits a massive blast of electromagnetic radiation which can fritz eletronics. Hence battlefield equipment needs to be protected from it.

Indeed it does. I'm currently testing what may or may not be military equipment against what may or may not be NEMP.

I'll shut up before the men from the government come...

[hairykrishna]

Martin4x4 said:

I recently encountered a claim about early defences against nuclear missiles and bombers that left me sceptical.

It was that we (well UK Military) planned to use nuclear equiped ground to air missiles against incoming Russian balistic missiles and bombers but not with the intention destroying them through the blast but rather the nuclear reaction would some how 'use neutron flux to disable the attacking warhead'. They would fall harmlessly to the ground without exploding. This sounded some what sci-fi to me, but googling does suggest Neutron flux is real and would effect warheads but a decent explanation seem to difficult to find.

Are there are any Nuclear Physicists that could explain the Physics and feasibility, is it a act of desperation or a realistic though stark choice. Alternatively any ex-military that could elaborate on this 'plan'.

Neutron fluxes are certainly real and are very high from nuclear weapons. Electronics and high neutron fluxes don't mix well - the flux from our cyclotron regularly kills all sorts of stuff. The AWE at Aldermaston used to (possibly still do) run a 'super prompt critical' pulse reactor called VIPER to test all manner of kits response to radiation pulses. The radiation output essentially looks like a very small bomb.

However, given that planes are very difficult to harden against blasts, it seems much more likely that the explosion would be doing the majority of damage rather than the radiation. Anything that's getting a big enough dose to mess with it's electronics is also probably experiencing a pretty hefty shockwave. The time period means that the electronics would probably be much less susceptible than modern semi conductor heavy stuff too. That makes me think that for bomber interception neutrons aren't that significant.

Ballistic missiles might be a different story. Very high up, where there's less atmosphere to propagate blast effects and absorb radiation, radiation becomes a much more viable route to damaging them. The US implemented a few nuclear surface to air weapons. At least one of them was an 'enhanced radiation' weapon specifically designed to produce a lot of neutrons for its blast size - the W66 warhead. Given how closely our weapon programs shadowed each other I wouldn't be surprised if we thought of doing the same, or even deploying the US ones ourselves.

[mike-r]

Martin4x4 said:

I recently encountered a claim about early defences against nuclear missiles and bombers that left me sceptical.

It was that we (well UK Military) planned to use nuclear equiped ground to air missiles against incoming Russian balistic missiles and bombers but not with the intention destroying them through the blast but rather the nuclear reaction would some how 'use neutron flux to disable the attacking warhead'. They would fall harmlessly to the ground without exploding. This sounded some what sci-fi to me, but googling does suggest Neutron flux is real and would effect warheads but a decent explanation seem to difficult to find.

Are there are any Nuclear Physicists that could explain the Physics and feasibility, is it a act of desperation or a realistic though stark choice. Alternatively any ex-military that could elaborate on this 'plan'.

'Harmless' probably conditional on no one being in the way