Newsgroups: sci.military
Path: utzoo!utgpu!watserv1!watmath!att!att!cbnewsc!cbnews!cbnews!military
From: "Christian M. Restifo" <cr2r+@andrew.cmu.edu>
Subject: Re: Bomb Question
Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories
Date: Sun, 4 Nov 90 21:08:16 GMT
Approved: military@att.att.com
Message-ID: <1990Nov4.210816.4716@cbnews.att.com>
References: <1990Nov2.201207.27374@cbnews.att.com>
Sender: military@cbnews.att.com (William B. Thacker)
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From: "Christian M. Restifo" <cr2r+@andrew.cmu.edu>
The "A-bomb", as many people used to call it, is (was, actually) a
fission-based bomb.  Some type of fissionable material (such as U-238)
is imploded and made to go supercritical.  The result is your typical
fission explosion.

The hydrogen bomb, on the other hand, is a fusion bomb. A fission
reaction starts the actual fusion reaction.  H-bombs are much, much more
powerful than "A-bombs".

As for the Neutron bomb, all I know is that it's used to radiate the
hell out of your target. While the blast effects (destruction of
buildings, etc.) is considerably less than that of an H-bomb, the weapon
actually spews out a tremendous amount of radiation, killing every
living thing.  (I've heard that the Neutron bomb was originally designed
to be used in the Middle East on the oil fields....)

Of course, you've also got your nasty nukes where they take the
"left-overs" from production and put them together.  These can do a good
job of contaminating a city, etc. for several thousand years....

-Chris Restifo
cr2r@andrew.cmu.edu


