Thanks Dave.  Great information.
We have sidestepped the delivery mechanism he told us about.  We put the
same material in a projectile and fire it from an A-10 tank killer
(Warthog).
http://www.barksdale.af.mil/barkinfo/acftfacts/a10fcts.shtml
The Thunderbolt II's 30mm GAU-8/A Gatling gun can fire 3,900 (depleted
uranium) rounds a minute and can defeat an array of ground targets to
include tanks. I saw a slow motion video of a round going into a tank.  The
heavy uranium splashes through the tanks steel.
Our Army and Marines are going into this old battle ground again.  They will
search and clear every old blown up tank and pill box.  I am sure the
half-life for this stuff hasn't made it any less lethal yet.
With 10,000 of our own down and 140,000 dying from the last war, how many
will we loose in this one?


Guy Avenell
www.hptraderonline.com


----- Original Message -----
From: "Dave Swanson" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Tuesday, March 11, 2003 6:14 AM
Subject: Re: [HP3000-L] OT- Weapons


> A lot of people also seem to believe that the major nuclear threat comes
in
> the form of a fission bomb. I gotta say that while it might be a
relatively
> simple matter of slapping some components together to build the actual
bomb
> device, getting the weapons-grade fissionable material that actually makes
> the bomb do it's big boom is far more difficult.
>
> This stuff doesn't grow on trees. It doesn't hide out in a mineral deposit
> somewhere. It has to be manufactured and processed in a highly
sophisticated
> laboratory.(There are probably only a dozen of them in the world and maybe
> half of them are outside of the USA. You also need to have access to some
> form of Nuclear Fission reactor. It's not a matter of walkin into the
hills
> with a RAD detector and picking up a hunk of uranium that happens to be
> lying in a dry riverbed. Yeah it's probably that simple to get all the
> uranium you could ever want, but what are you gonna do with it once you've
> got your pretty "it feels warm in my hand" rocks?
>
> Who said "pack it into the bomb", Whoever it was, turn in your books and
see
> the admissions department for a refund. Ok, Once you got your uranium
chunks
> you need to refine it into a pure form. Is there anyone who is familiar
with
> smelting processes  to purify metals? Usually involves heating the metal
up
> to a liquid form and then skimming the gunk that floats to the top off.
What
> gets left behind is usually a lot purer. Another way is to use chemical
> baths and electrical currents to purify metals. So your probably thinking
> that's how you'd purify your hunks of uranium, right? Wrong, Transuranic
> materials like Uranium, don't take to kindly to being heated up, bathed in
> chemicals, or jolted with electricity. Also usually not a good idea to hit
> it with anything heavy either. It has a tendency to get all glowy and
tingly
> and your RAD detectors, they tend to make loud noises. They don't blow up,
> they just spit out lots and lots of radiation.
>
> So how do we go about refining this stuff? Well, first we need to build a
> fission pile.(yeah, that has definitely got to be easier to say than to
do,
> much like a lot of things in life) Then by carefully controlling the
fission
> process we can transform our lumps of impure uranium into lumps of pure
> uranium. Through the magic of science we can even change the uranium into
> other fancy new transuranic materials like Plutonium, which makes for
bigger
> "booms" So now were getting somewhere, well not really, because see this
> whole process cost billions of dollars to develop and required the help of
a
> whole bunch of guys in white coats and whole alphabets of letters behind
> there names. These guys, much like the fissionable material we need for
our
> bomb, don't grow on trees. Getting these guys into a room to build us the
> gear we need is gonna take some work. And keeping it a secret, yeah,
right.
>
> So our bomb is looking like it might be a bit more work than we were
> thinking it would be. And for what? We have a bomb, we blow it up in some
> quiet corner of suburbia and piss of the local gun-totting mob. Yeah, we
> could do that. But really now, what's the point? It seems like an awful
lot
> of work just to get about a hundred of the things dropped on your own head
> in return. Besides, with a fission bomb, there ain't much left. Just a big
> glass hole in the ground.
>
> Think about that for a second. Just a hole in the ground. Remember now,
this
> is a psychological weapon as much as a physical one. So with that in mind,
> lets get a little cold-hearted for a second. Imagine your watching CNN.
> Which image chills your blood more?
>
> A smoking hole in the ground, with no bodies, well maybe a few along the
> periphery of the blast area. Maybe a few shots of people climbing over
> ruined buildings looking for survivors, again mostly along the periphery
of
> the blast. You might have lots of shots of burn victims but that's about
it.
> Within hours of the blast, rescue personnel are moving into the areas and
> days later come the cleanup crews, and a year later the whole thing is a
> nice little park with a tasteful memorial at the heart.
>
> Or...
>
> No burning buildings, no smoking wreckage, but tonnes of bodies lying in
the
> streets. Some not quite dead yet. The sound of a distant wail causes the
> camera to swing wildly and focus on some poor woman that rocks a dead
loved
> one in her arms. The moans, and please for help. The dead are in twisted
> contorted positions as their last breaths must have been excruciating.
Those
> clinging to life look as though they have been attacked with a blow torch.
> Open sours and blisters cover their bodies. They hack and wheeze as if
> trying to cough up their own internal organs. Then, suddenly the camera
man
> coughs, staggers towards a wall, sets his camera down on, and sits down
> before it. He struggles for breath as his face comes into view and we
> realize that he to is a victim. And he is also dying. There will be no
> rescue for these people. Ground Zero can not be sanitized. And will remain
a
> deathtrap to any living thing for years to come. Even years later when
> cleanup crews can finally clear the area and cover it over, there will be
no
> park, no memorial on it's site. Just a fence warning people away from the
> area where the first "Dirty Bomb" was detonated.
>
> Yeah, I'll take "Images that will keep you up at night" for a thousand,
> Alex.
>
> So what is a "Dirty Bomb"? Well, it's really kinda simple, frighteningly
> simple. You take a bunch of uranium, grind it up into really small
> particulate. Pack a couple pounds of it into regular plain Jane bomb with
a
> couple kilo's of plastique and boom. Detonate the bomb which scatters your
> uranium all over the place irradiating everything it touches. With some
> lightly refined transuranic material you could irradiate an area for
> decades. The only difficult part of building one of these bombs is
balancing
> the amount of explosive in the bomb so that you create enough explosive
> force to distribute your radioactive material without incinerating it.
> Actually, that is quite a technical hurdle, which is probably why your
> average disgruntled teenager hasn't built one and carted it off to school.
> But This really is a frightening weapon. I mean it's about as effective as
a
> poison gas bomb, but has all the long lasting properties that make
> radioactive half-lives so much fun. And it's cheap to make. What more
could
> you want in a weapon of mass destruction?
>
> Now, for the record, I'm not a terrorist, I'm not in the business of
making
> weapons of mass destruction. I don't condone the use of such weapons, nor
do
> I condone terrorism. I simply have a general understanding of physics and
a
> pretty good idea of what keeps me up at night. Seeing a major metropolitan
> area disappear into a terrorist created mushroom cloud isn't really one of
> them. Seeing a major metropolitan area turned into a ghost town by a dirty
> bomb definitely falls into that category.
>
> Dave
>
>
>
>
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Wayne R. Boyer" <[log in to unmask]>
> To: <[log in to unmask]>
> Sent: Monday, March 10, 2003 7:38 PM
> Subject: Re: [HP3000-L] OT- Weapons
>
>
> > In a message dated 3/10/03 2:33:54 PM Pacific Standard Time,
> > [log in to unmask] writes:
> >
> >
> > > Everyone seems to believe that u need the rocket delivery system for
> nuclear
> > > devices. What about a box in the cargo hold of a freighter in the New
> York
> > > City harbour or Boston harbour, or Baltimore or San Franscio or any
> other
> > > harbour.
> > > Maybe just let them truck it to Chicago, Dallas or Denver.
> > >
> >
> > A very good point.  That's what Osama would do if he got his hands on a
> > nuclear device.  Now what are his chances of getting such a device as
more
> > and more Muslims come to hate the USA?  What are his chances of getting
> > funding for his efforts as more and more Muslims see the USA as the
'Great
> > Satan" attacking and killing Iraqis?
> >
> > Wayne
> >
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