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14:34
Transcript
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Although I've covered quite a few nuclear
technologies over past few years there is one
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which I haven't touched upon but he's regarded as
one of the most insidious forms of nuclear weapon,
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One which was parodied by the mad magazine with
the slogan “save buildings, not lives” and on the
0:17
one hand was called the cleanest nuclear device
whilst also being seen as the most inhumane
0:25
nuclear devices, Namely the neutron bomb.
When it's proposed deployment was leaked in
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June 1977 by Walter Pincus of the Washington
Post, it created a worldwide outcry that the
0:38
American Carter administration we're about to
deploy them without a major public announcement.
0:44
So, what is a neutron bomb and why did it cause
so much controversy at the time, when despite
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the talk by the military that it was a much
needed weapon, was it never actually deployed,
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and by 2003 all US stocks had been destroyed.
Well firstly the neutron bomb is still just a
1:02
form of nuclear weapon but to be given its correct
title it's an enhanced radiation weapon or an ERW.
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It was created in the 1950s by one of
the members of the Manhattan Project,
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Samuel T Cohen after visiting the Korean War and
seeing the similarity between Soeul and Tokyo. He
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had also seen the devastation created by the
bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and
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in his mind he decided to create what he called
“the most sane and moral weapon ever devised”.
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A weapon that would avoid the total devastation
and long lasting effects of radiation that
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the atomic bomb had shown and yet it would
still provide the ultimate purpose of war,
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to kill enemy soldiers in the field.
In 1958 Cohen had been investigating a low yield
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“clean” nuclear weapon, one which would create
a large burst of radiation but without creating
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the large amount of long lasting radioactive
fallout as seen in conventional atomic bombs.
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He discovered that the bomb case thickness made
a major difference to the amount of radioactive
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fallout that would be occur. This was because the
case of a nuclear weapon which was often made from
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depleted uranium and was used to reflect neutrons
from the nuclear reaction back into the bombs
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core and increase its reactivity many times, was
also the source of most of radioactive fallout.
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He figured that if you used a thinner
case material, most of the high energy
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neutrons would escape. This would create a much
lower yield with less destructive capability,
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but it would release 10 to 15 times more neutron
output compared to a conventional nuclear weapon.
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Neutron bombs were unique in that the neutron
radiation would extend beyond the blast radius
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of the weapon, even the biggest bomb, the
50 megaton Tsar Bomba had a neutron range
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that was smaller than its blast radius.
He calculated that one kiloton bomb could
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release more lethal prompt neutron radiation,
than a much larger conventional none ERW device .
3:17
He justified the use of radiation to kill
soldiers because it would have a relatively small
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blast radius that would do less damage to the
surrounding infrastructure as being more humane
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than using many conventional weapons, such as
thermobaric bombs, napalm and cluster munitions.
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Although he was convinced in his ideas
that this would be an ideal and manageable
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nuclear weapon that could be used as
a tactical device on the battlefield,
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six presidents came and went before he could
convince president Jimmy Carter that this would be
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a weapon that could counter the overwhelming tank
superiority of the Soviet Union, which in the mid
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1970s was deemed to be upto a 4 to 1 advantage
compared to NATO in the European theatre.
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The problem which NATO had in the 1960s
and 70s was the Soviet Union had created
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a huge conventional army with many
more tanks and armoured vehicles.
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The fear was that a Soviet attack would send in
huge amounts of tanks into West Germany in tight
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formations making them much more difficult
to counter then if they were spread out.
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Cohen convinced Carter that this small ERW could
be used to intimidate Soviet Union into widening
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their tank attacks and thus making them more
vulnerable to conventional weapons like NATO
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tanks which were seen as superior and anti tank
missiles which NATO had hundreds of thousands of.
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If that didn't work and the conflict was going
against NATO, these weapons could be used on with
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less blast damage and residual fallout then
a conventional nuclear device and that they
5:00
will be small enough but they might not trigger a
full scale nuclear retaliation from the Soviets.
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The idea was that they will be detonated above
the massed ranks of Soviet armour and that intense
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burst of neutron radiation would produce an almost
instant incapacitation of the crews inside any
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unprepared armoured vehicles and troops on
the ground within about 1 kilometre range.
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This was seen as a deterrent that would minimise
civilian casualties as it would be restricted to
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military targets and kept away from civilian areas
But of course this was still a nuclear device,
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and although it was much smaller than the one
dropped on Hiroshima, one kiloton compared to
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15 kilotons, it's still produced a blast radius
of about 500 metres, and because it had much less
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radioactive fallout, Cohen said that it was a
“clean” weapon that would leave the area it had
5:53
been detonated over able to be used within a few
days or less by what was hoped to be NATO troops.
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This idea of using a tactical nuclear weapon
against the much larger numbers of conventional
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armour of the Soviets was seen by many in the
military and in the political leadership of
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the West as one of the triggers that could
then bring about an allout nuclear war,
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one to be avoided as much as possible
unless there were no other alternative.
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The use of these enhanced radiation weapons
were put into practise in the late 50s and
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60s as part of an anti-ballistic missile
systems used both by the US and the Soviets.
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Here, high speed anti-ballistic
missiles such as the Sprint missile,
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would be fired into the path of the incoming
ICBM's and detonated within a 100 metres of
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them. The high energy neutron burst given off
would cause a partial fission of the incoming
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warhead and also damage the electronics, with
the hope of effectively disabling the weapon.
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Approximately 120 of these neutron
bomb armed missiles were built,
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and about 70 entered service from 1975 to 1976
as part of the Safeguard Anti ballistic missile
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programme until it was shut down and eventually
decommissioned in the early 1980s as part of
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the strategic arms limitation or SALT talks.
The Soviets also used this type of device as
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the last layer of their anti-ballistic
missile defence over Moscow to protect
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it against a western attack.
But how clean and humane were the
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claims of Cohen about the neutron bombs.
The primary method of destruction was an
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intense burst of neutron radiation which would
be effective against any organic materials,
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basically anything that was alive
in the radiation blast radius.
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Atoms are made-up of positively
charged protons, Negatively charged
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electrons and neutrons which carry no charge.
When a fission reaction occurs in materials like
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uranium 235 or plutonium 239, these large unstable
atoms split apart when they're hit by a neutron.
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This causes new isotopes to be created
and a lot of energy in the form of heat,
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gamma and Xrays and the release of two to three
more neutrons which can then go on and hit other
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uranium or plutonium atoms, in an exponential
chain reaction which only stops when the material
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itself is blown apart by the heat of the reaction.
The neutrons released are fast or prompt neutrons
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usually in the 13 to 14 mega electron volt range.
This means that when they hit Protons in the atoms
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of living cells especially hydrogen atoms in
water and fat cells, they can recoil a proton
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forward at high speed, and because the proton is a
charged particle it dumps its energy very densely
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causing intense ionisation paths within the cell.
This causes complex DNA damage like breaking it
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up into smaller strands and
leaving clustered lesions,
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it also damages cell structures and membranes
and causes cell death or the loss of function.
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This high energy neutron radiation can also create
secondary radiation which gives off gamma rays and
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other energetic particles would should go
on to create further damage inside cells.
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There is also another effect cause by neutron
radiation which is called “neutron activation”.
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This is where neutron radiation induces
radioactivity into other non-radioactive
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materials when their atomic nuclei capture the
free neutrons becoming heavier and entering
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an excited state which is unstable. This
nucleus then starts to decay immediately
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by emitting gamma rays or particles such
as beta and alpha and fission products.
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Basically, what this means is that within the
neutron blast radius, other materials especially
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metals but also including air, water and soil
and elements in it can be made radioactive.
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Normally these have short half-lives ranging from
7.3 seconds with Nitrogen-16 in Air and water,
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to 14.96 hours for Sodium-24 in concrete &
soil salts but upto 5.27 years for Cobalt-60
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in steels and alloys, all of these would
all add to the radioactivity in the area.
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Although it was said that death would be instant
for those close to the detonation with radiation
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levels of up to 8 grey, for reference 1-2
grey is usually fatal but not instant .
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If they were farther way the dose would still
be lethal but the effects of acute radiation
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syndrome could take days or weeks before
death finally occurred as the body can no
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longer replaced damaged cells, basically
a slow painfully and very inhuman end.
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If you have ever seen the dramatized TV series
Chernobyl, you will have seen the effect is has.
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Now these were under Ideal conditions, however
in the real world things would be different.
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The Soviets knew these weapons could be
used and it doesn't actually take much to
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add enough protection to mitigate
most the extra neutron radiation.
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The air itself provides absorption this is why
the range is only about 1 kilometre beyond that it
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drops off rapidly. Also armoured vehicles could be
fitted with extra materials with a high hydrogen
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content such as water, plastics & polyethylene
or boron carbide, borated steel, or wax. This
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could drop the neutron levels in the vehicles
to where it no longer incapacitates the crew.
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Then there is the issue that if such attack were
to occur, there would be thousands of vehicles,
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and they only have to be spread out a
bit more and you would need hundreds of
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neutron bombs covering approximately 1 square
kilometre each to mount an effective defence.
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Even though they have a much smaller
blast radius and fallout levels,
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detonating dozens or hundreds of neutron
bombs in a relatively small area would
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probably be worse than using conventional
nuclear weapons. And as it would be on home
12:08
soil, any collateral damage would be
against German civilians, not soviets.
12:15
But the most obvious thing was that to
use any form of tactical nuclear weapon,
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be it conventional or ERW would more than likely
trigger a corresponding response from the Soviets,
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and before you know where you are
you're into a full scale nuclear war.
12:29
Although Jimmy Carter's administration, said
they would adopt the neutron bomb they put it
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on hold and didn't actually build any. It would
be Ronald Reagan’s administration which actually
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built them and put them into production with
approximately 700 ERW devices in the 1980s,
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in the form of the W70 Mod 3 lance missile
and the W79 Mod 0, 8 inch artillery shell.
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However, due to extreme political pressure
from Europe where these devices would
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ultimately be used, they were not deployed
and instead stockpiled in the United States.
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During the mid to late 80s superior high
precision conventional anti-tank weaponry like
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the A10 warthog and advanced anti-tank missiles
made the neutron weapons obsolete by the 1990s.
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The last of the W70 warheads for the Lance
missiles were dismantled in 1996 and W79
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artillery shells were fully disposed of by 2003.
Other countries also developed ERW weapons,
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including France and China but again both only
developed the weapons but didn't deploy them,
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instead they saw them as a technology
reserve that could be a called up if
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required at some time in the future.
The soviets did make their own versions
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and after the fall of the USSR, its successor
Russia in the 1990s and 2000s worked with the
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US to destroy approximately 25,000 weapons, but
due to the fractured nature of the Soviet breakup
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its not known if all the now Russian
ERW weapons were destroyed but if they
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did survive and have not been maintained
its unlikely that they would still work.
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