Russ wrestles:

> With only a sincere interest in the fact, and no interest in causing more
>  argument....
>
>  What exactly is a Weapon of Mass Destruction, if a bomb carrying 18000
>  pounds of explosives which creates a plume of smoke 10000 feet high is
*NOT*
>  a weapon of mass destruction?

These kind of ammonium nitrate/aluminum powder bombs are often said to be a
"poor man's nuclear weapon," but that designation is substantially
misleading. Although their "yield" approximates a very small tactical nuclear
weapon as far as blast effects [approximately one thousandth of a
Hiroshima-sized weapon, and just to give you a sense of scale, we now use
Hiroshima-sized weapons as the igniters ("zippers") for our thermonuclear
weapons], their explosion is only chemically thermodynamic and thus very much
colder than a small nuclear weapon. As a consequence, they have no tendency
to set fires a significant distance out from their point of impact, nor do
they emit any of the other common effects of a nuclear weapon:
electromagnetic pulse, high energy gamma, or high rates of non-thermal
neutron flux.

As I wrote earlier, I would classify only nuclear weapons as "weapons of mass
destruction," but ammonium nitrate/aluminum powder bombs are good
approximations of very, very small nuclear weapons, given the above caveats.
They do have the added advantage that they're environmentally friendly, but
their downside is their great weight and bulk. An equivalent nuclear weapon
could be backpacked into an area by just one or two people or fired from an
artillery piece.

Wirt Atmar

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