Nuclear Weapons

[twobecrazy]

twobecrazy, the amount of nukes is nothing. Did you know Russia can come over here any old time and take pictures from their airplane over any part of the US? Area 51, White Sands, the White House, you name it. If you're already white-knuckling over nuke numbers, that should make you sleep well tonight. Welcome to the world of Diplomacy.

I already knew most of that. I had the privilege to serve with some amazing men and women including some on this forum that is allowing me to sleep safe at night. I thank you for that as well and look forward to rejoining your ranks.

 

[HAL Pilot]

I really don't think it matters when 20 of them going off would pretty much throw us into Nuclear Winter. All that tells me is that we have more than enough to kill everything on the planet. 'nuff said for me.

The US alone has done 331 atmospheric test shota....and we all know Al Gore says it is global warming that's happening, not nuclear winter....

 

[Schnugg]

In classic Iranian fashion....Ahmaodnejad (sp? who cares) is turning it around and demanding an outsider come in to count our nukes and prove the number is accurate as....we always lie.

Classic Iranian redirection tactic.

See this link to learn about their negotiating tactics: http://www.cna.org/news/releases/ConferenceReports060419.aspx
A very good read.

 

[FlyinSpy]

The treaty that P3 FO is speaking of is Open Skies.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_on_Open_Skies

Here's an interesting, useless, but otherwise Aviation-Related Factoid:

If you're ever going into Travis and notice a funny marker off to the right side of Runway 03 (see pic) - that's a calibration target for Russian Open Skies aircraft. The treaty limits imagery collection to 30cm resolution, and this is one of the official targets used to verify sensor performance. This location is referenced on page 62 of the Treaty; the others are apparently at Dulles and Elmendorf, but I haven't laid eyes on those.

 

[mmx1]

Dammit, now you've got me playing where's waldo with the calibration stand.

 

[P3 F0]

I spent four years of my life dealing with Open Skies. The (only) other target is at Wright-Patt.

 

[Jim123]

OK, in both the Travis and Wright-Patt Google Earth images I can make out the bars that are one or two sizes smaller than the bars next to the pointers. Either the pointers aren't pointing to what I think they're pointing to or Google Earth has unilaterally backed out of Open Skies.

But seriously, Open Skies is something I heard about a few years ago (I vaguely recall seeing message traffic) but somehow I forgot about until just now.

 

[squorch2]

Most of the satellite imagery on google earth is 1m.

 

[P3 F0]

I've made countless practice passes over those targets, but I've never actually had to analyze the pictures afterwards--that job usually falls to non-Open Skies people. I don't think the pointers necessarily depict 30 cm resolution. When we make those passes, there are folks on the ground at the target taking all sorts of light readings at the time we image, which I think eventually go into determining where the 30 cm mark falls. Just don't hold me to that.

Also, it's 30 cm plus or minus 5 cm--so you could potentially walk away with 25 cm resolution pics, depending upon temp and pressure and how stupid or smart the other country's team is. The bottom line is that once the flight plan is agreed upon by both countries, and flown, it's very hard afterwards to take one of the images and determine exactly what resolution it is.

Anyway, if anyone's interested in Open Skies (probably the Navy's easiest sea duty ever), shoot me a PM and I'll give you all you need to know.

 

[HackerF15E]

I think people have a strange view of nukes.

+1 to this.

Most people don't really understand how much the nuclear yield of a weapon can vary, and thus vastly OVER-estimate what the weapon's capabilities are. Not everything is a 50 metaton weapon that will completely vaporize a small city in an instant, and in fact most are significantly smaller.