[00:00] Although I've covered quite a few nuclear 
technologies over past few years there is one
[00:05] which I haven't touched upon but he's regarded as 
one of the most insidious forms of nuclear weapon,
[00:11] One which was parodied by the mad magazine with 
the slogan “save buildings, not lives” and on the
[00:17] one hand was called the cleanest nuclear device 
whilst also being seen as the most inhumane
[00:25] nuclear devices, Namely the neutron bomb.
When it's proposed deployment was leaked in
[00:32] June 1977 by Walter Pincus of the Washington 
Post, it created a worldwide outcry that the
[00:38] American Carter administration we're about to 
deploy them without a major public announcement.
[00:44] So, what is a neutron bomb and why did it cause 
so much controversy at the time, when despite
[00:50] the talk by the military that it was a much 
needed weapon, was it never actually deployed,
[00:55] and by 2003 all US stocks had been destroyed.
Well firstly the neutron bomb is still just a
[01:02] form of nuclear weapon but to be given its correct 
title it's an enhanced radiation weapon or an ERW.
[01:11] It was created in the 1950s by one of 
the members of the Manhattan Project,
[01:15] Samuel T Cohen after visiting the Korean War and 
seeing the similarity between Soeul and Tokyo. He
[01:22] had also seen the devastation created by the 
bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and
[01:27] in his mind he decided to create what he called 
“the most sane and moral weapon ever devised”.
[01:34] A weapon that would avoid the total devastation 
and long lasting effects of radiation that
[01:40] the atomic bomb had shown and yet it would 
still provide the ultimate purpose of war,
[01:46] to kill enemy soldiers in the field.
In 1958 Cohen had been investigating a low yield
[01:53] “clean” nuclear weapon, one which would create 
a large burst of radiation but without creating
[01:58] the large amount of long lasting radioactive 
fallout as seen in conventional atomic bombs.
[02:04] He discovered that the bomb case thickness made 
a major difference to the amount of radioactive
[02:09] fallout that would be occur. This was because the 
case of a nuclear weapon which was often made from
[02:15] depleted uranium and was used to reflect neutrons 
from the nuclear reaction back into the bombs
[02:22] core and increase its reactivity many times, was 
also the source of most of radioactive fallout.
[02:30] He figured that if you used a thinner 
case material, most of the high energy
[02:35] neutrons would escape. This would create a much 
lower yield with less destructive capability,
[02:42] but it would release 10 to 15 times more neutron 
output compared to a conventional nuclear weapon.
[02:49] Neutron bombs were unique in that the neutron 
radiation would extend beyond the blast radius
[02:57] of the weapon, even the biggest bomb, the 
50 megaton Tsar Bomba had a neutron range
[03:03] that was smaller than its blast radius.
He calculated that one kiloton bomb could
[03:09] release more lethal prompt neutron radiation, 
than a much larger conventional none ERW device .
[03:17] He justified the use of radiation to kill 
soldiers because it would have a relatively small
[03:22] blast radius that would do less damage to the 
surrounding infrastructure as being more humane
[03:29] than using many conventional weapons, such as 
thermobaric bombs, napalm and cluster munitions.
[03:36] Although he was convinced in his ideas 
that this would be an ideal and manageable
[03:41] nuclear weapon that could be used as 
a tactical device on the battlefield,
[03:46] six presidents came and went before he could 
convince president Jimmy Carter that this would be
[03:52] a weapon that could counter the overwhelming tank 
superiority of the Soviet Union, which in the mid
[03:59] 1970s was deemed to be upto a 4 to 1 advantage 
compared to NATO in the European theatre.
[04:06] The problem which NATO had in the 1960s 
and 70s was the Soviet Union had created
[04:11] a huge conventional army with many 
more tanks and armoured vehicles.
[04:16] The fear was that a Soviet attack would send in 
huge amounts of tanks into West Germany in tight
[04:22] formations making them much more difficult 
to counter then if they were spread out.
[04:28] Cohen convinced Carter that this small ERW could 
be used to intimidate Soviet Union into widening
[04:34] their tank attacks and thus making them more 
vulnerable to conventional weapons like NATO
[04:40] tanks which were seen as superior and anti tank 
missiles which NATO had hundreds of thousands of.
[04:48] If that didn't work and the conflict was going 
against NATO, these weapons could be used on with
[04:55] less blast damage and residual fallout then 
a conventional nuclear device and that they
[05:00] will be small enough but they might not trigger a 
full scale nuclear retaliation from the Soviets.
[05:06] The idea was that they will be detonated above 
the massed ranks of Soviet armour and that intense
[05:12] burst of neutron radiation would produce an almost 
instant incapacitation of the crews inside any
[05:19] unprepared armoured vehicles and troops on 
the ground within about 1 kilometre range.
[05:25] This was seen as a deterrent that would minimise 
civilian casualties as it would be restricted to
[05:29] military targets and kept away from civilian areas
But of course this was still a nuclear device,
[05:35] and although it was much smaller than the one 
dropped on Hiroshima, one kiloton compared to
[05:40] 15 kilotons, it's still produced a blast radius 
of about 500 metres, and because it had much less
[05:47] radioactive fallout, Cohen said that it was a 
“clean” weapon that would leave the area it had
[05:53] been detonated over able to be used within a few 
days or less by what was hoped to be NATO troops.
[06:01] This idea of using a tactical nuclear weapon 
against the much larger numbers of conventional
[06:06] armour of the Soviets was seen by many in the 
military and in the political leadership of
[06:12] the West as one of the triggers that could 
then bring about an allout nuclear war,
[06:17] one to be avoided as much as possible 
unless there were no other alternative.
[06:23] The use of these enhanced radiation weapons 
were put into practise in the late 50s and
[06:28] 60s as part of an anti-ballistic missile 
systems used both by the US and the Soviets.
[06:35] Here, high speed anti-ballistic 
missiles such as the Sprint missile,
[06:39] would be fired into the path of the incoming 
ICBM's and detonated within a 100 metres of
[06:45] them. The high energy neutron burst given off 
would cause a partial fission of the incoming
[06:52] warhead and also damage the electronics, with 
the hope of effectively disabling the weapon.
[06:56] Approximately 120 of these neutron 
bomb armed missiles were built,
[07:00] and about 70 entered service from 1975 to 1976 
as part of the Safeguard Anti ballistic missile
[07:06] programme until it was shut down and eventually 
decommissioned in the early 1980s as part of
[07:12] the strategic arms limitation or SALT talks.
The Soviets also used this type of device as
[07:18] the last layer of their anti-ballistic 
missile defence over Moscow to protect
[07:23] it against a western attack.
But how clean and humane were the
[07:28] claims of Cohen about the neutron bombs.
The primary method of destruction was an
[07:34] intense burst of neutron radiation which would 
be effective against any organic materials,
[07:40] basically anything that was alive 
in the radiation blast radius.
[07:44] Atoms are made-up of positively 
charged protons, Negatively charged
[07:48] electrons and neutrons which carry no charge.
When a fission reaction occurs in materials like
[07:54] uranium 235 or plutonium 239, these large unstable 
atoms split apart when they're hit by a neutron.
[08:01] This causes new isotopes to be created 
and a lot of energy in the form of heat,
[08:05] gamma and Xrays and the release of two to three 
more neutrons which can then go on and hit other
[08:12] uranium or plutonium atoms, in an exponential 
chain reaction which only stops when the material
[08:18] itself is blown apart by the heat of the reaction.
The neutrons released are fast or prompt neutrons
[08:24] usually in the 13 to 14 mega electron volt range. 
This means that when they hit Protons in the atoms
[08:31] of living cells especially hydrogen atoms in 
water and fat cells, they can recoil a proton
[08:38] forward at high speed, and because the proton is a 
charged particle it dumps its energy very densely
[08:45] causing intense ionisation paths within the cell.
This causes complex DNA damage like breaking it
[08:52] up into smaller strands and 
leaving clustered lesions,
[08:55] it also damages cell structures and membranes 
and causes cell death or the loss of function.
[09:01] This high energy neutron radiation can also create 
secondary radiation which gives off gamma rays and
[09:08] other energetic particles would should go 
on to create further damage inside cells.
[09:13] There is also another effect cause by neutron 
radiation which is called “neutron activation”.
[09:19] This is where neutron radiation induces 
radioactivity into other non-radioactive
[09:25] materials when their atomic nuclei capture the 
free neutrons becoming heavier and entering
[09:33] an excited state which is unstable. This 
nucleus then starts to decay immediately
[09:39] by emitting gamma rays or particles such 
as beta and alpha and fission products.
[09:43] Basically, what this means is that within the 
neutron blast radius, other materials especially
[09:49] metals but also including air, water and soil 
and elements in it can be made radioactive.
[09:56] Normally these have short half-lives ranging from 
7.3 seconds with Nitrogen-16 in Air and water,
[10:03] to 14.96 hours for Sodium-24 in concrete & 
soil salts but upto 5.27 years for Cobalt-60
[10:12] in steels and alloys, all of these would 
all add to the radioactivity in the area.
[10:18] Although it was said that death would be instant 
for those close to the detonation with radiation
[10:23] levels of up to 8 grey, for reference 1-2 
grey is usually fatal but not instant .
[10:31] If they were farther way the dose would still 
be lethal but the effects of acute radiation
[10:36] syndrome could take days or weeks before 
death finally occurred as the body can no
[10:41] longer replaced damaged cells, basically 
a slow painfully and very inhuman end.
[10:48] If you have ever seen the dramatized TV series 
Chernobyl, you will have seen the effect is has.
[10:54] Now these were under Ideal conditions, however 
in the real world things would be different.
[10:59] The Soviets knew these weapons could be 
used and it doesn't actually take much to
[11:03] add enough protection to mitigate 
most the extra neutron radiation.
[11:08] The air itself provides absorption this is why 
the range is only about 1 kilometre beyond that it
[11:14] drops off rapidly. Also armoured vehicles could be 
fitted with extra materials with a high hydrogen
[11:21] content such as water, plastics & polyethylene 
or boron carbide, borated steel, or wax. This
[11:29] could drop the neutron levels in the vehicles 
to where it no longer incapacitates the crew.
[11:37] Then there is the issue that if such attack were 
to occur, there would be thousands of vehicles,
[11:43] and they only have to be spread out a 
bit more and you would need hundreds of
[11:48] neutron bombs covering approximately 1 square 
kilometre each to mount an effective defence.
[11:54] Even though they have a much smaller 
blast radius and fallout levels,
[11:58] detonating dozens or hundreds of neutron 
bombs in a relatively small area would
[12:03] 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,
[12:19] be it conventional or ERW would more than likely 
trigger a corresponding response from the Soviets,
[12:25] 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
[12:34] on hold and didn't actually build any. It would 
be Ronald Reagan’s administration which actually
[12:40] built them and put them into production with 
approximately 700 ERW devices in the 1980s,
[12:46] in the form of the W70 Mod 3 lance missile 
and the W79 Mod 0, 8 inch artillery shell.
[12:54] However, due to extreme political pressure 
from Europe where these devices would
[12:59] ultimately be used, they were not deployed 
and instead stockpiled in the United States.
[13:06] During the mid to late 80s superior high 
precision conventional anti-tank weaponry like
[13:14] the A10 warthog and advanced anti-tank missiles 
made the neutron weapons obsolete by the 1990s.
[13:22] The last of the W70 warheads for the Lance 
missiles were dismantled in 1996 and W79
[13:28] artillery shells were fully disposed of by 2003.
Other countries also developed ERW weapons,
[13:35] including France and China but again both only 
developed the weapons but didn't deploy them,
[13:42] instead they saw them as a technology 
reserve that could be a called up if
[13:46] required at some time in the future.
The soviets did make their own versions
[13:50] and after the fall of the USSR, its successor 
Russia in the 1990s and 2000s worked with the
[13:56] US to destroy approximately 25,000 weapons, but 
due to the fractured nature of the Soviet breakup
[14:04] its not known if all the now Russian 
ERW weapons were destroyed but if they
[14:10] did survive and have not been maintained 
its unlikely that they would still work.
[14:16] So I hope you found the video interesting 
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