Samizdata

Stupidity at this level is nearly criminal. The US Army dismissed six Arabic language translators on grounds which had nothing to do with their ability to serve and protect the USA.

Yes, the US military does need some transformational changes. Some of its’ people need to be transformed into residents of the 21st Century – instead of the 19th. I want a military whose first concern is accomplishing their mission. One uses the resources at hand whether one likes them or not.

Nothing else matters worth a damn but winning this war before millions of us die.

Every time I see or hear the media talking about “dirty bombs” my teeth grate. Dirty bombs are nuclear weapons that are either too inefficient to “burn” most of their fissionables in the explosion or else are built intentionally to spread fallout. The media almost always means what is now being called a radiological weapon, something like a terrorist’s standard anti-personnel bomb, but packed with bits of radioactives lifted from medical equipment, old watches or what have you, instead of rusty nuts, bolts and nails.

Any idiot can build one, but they will probably fail to get more than local dispersal. Bad enough in fact; but by the time the SafetyNuts are done you’d have an entire city evacuated for years over the risk of a handful of extra cancers per year. So this is more mass disruption than mass destruction unless the enemy acquire some really nasty radionucleotides and manage a good dispersal within the desired target footprint.

The first type of real “dirty bomb” is what we will almost certainly get from the enemy. It is dirty because they don’t know how to make their fissionables fission before the plasma blows itself apart. When the fission process occurs there is a chain reaction in which a neutron splits one nuclei, which releases at least one more neutron and on average “a bit” that in turn cause another one or two atoms to do the same. This exponential growth happens so quickly it has no meaning on a human scale.

But on the bomb level it does. Each atom releases a great deal of energy; that radiated energy turns the fissionables and the bomb casing into a plasma racing outwards at an enormous speed… which is still slow relative to the neutron cascade.

If the cascade happens fast enough, virtually all of the Uranium 235 or Plutonium fissions and releases energy before the wisp of plasma blows the ghost of the bomb matter outwards. If the cascade is a bit slow the “flame” is extinquished and the cascade stopped because the remaining fissionables are too far apart to have much chance of a neutron hit.

Those unfissioned materials become a nasty bit of the fallout. It is highly unlikely that an “amateur” bomb will get things right the first time, so one expects 5% or less of the material will “burn”. The other 95% gets dispersed in the mushroom cloud. This is the scenario all of us “in the know” fear: a couple kiloton fizzle with a lot of very hot debris and a deadly cloud drifting down wind.

The second type of dirty bomb is even uglier. If you re-read your ’50’s literature, you’ll run across the “Cobalt Bomb”. This is a thermonuclear weapon packed with Cobalt or other materials that will generate nasty and long lived fallout. The Doomsday bombs of yore.

To my knowledge, no one ever built one. It’s not a terrorist likelihood as H-Bombs are out of range of the technology of anyone but a major state at present… without help that is.

A third type, which falls between the cracks of the definition, is the Neutron Bomb. This is an extraordinarily “clean” bomb with very low yield. It causes limited blast damage but it gives off an extremely intense pulse of neutrons. These kill everything (except roaches and Radiodurans bacteria) in a wide radius. The buildings are untouched and the people are dead.

These were tested but not deployed¹. It is doubtful anyone could build one without extensive experience or testing.

Let’s pray none of us ever learn about these things first hand.

¹= A clarification for those who want precision: a large number were built, but after a big political battle over deployment in the Reagan years, they were put into storage. They were perhaps disassembled during Bush Sr’s Presidency. I do not know if any of these tactical “Enhanced Radiation Weapons” remain in the US inventory.

Russell Whitaker sorts the sad facts from the ideological drivel regarding the much deprecated SA80 rifle

In an article typical of London’s The Guardian newspaper – noxiously socialist but sometimes well-researched – I read a sad account of the SA80 British infantry carbine.

In typical socialist fashion, James Meek takes potshots at privatization, in the context of its involvement in the debacle, speaking to the sorry state of the government-owned Royal Ordnance facility of the once-venerable Enfield:

Thanks to privatisation, the atmosphere in the factory was a poisonous mix of bitterness, anger and apathy. Workers who thought that they had a job for life felt betrayed by a government which, many had believed, was both patriotic and pro-military.

I’d argue that the expectation of a “job for life” was part of the cause of quality problems with the weapon, but that point has been set to rest by its evident failures in societies ranging from communist Russia to corporatist Japan.

What’s especially interesting is the passing mention of the involvement of Germany’s Heckler & Koch (H&K to us gunnies) in helping to fix the bloody mess:

In 1985, the German gunmakers Heckler & Koch, who had been asked to do some sub-contracting work on training ammunition, were sent two of the new rifles. Shortly after the consignment arrived, the officer who had sent them got a phone call. The voice at the other end said he was calling about the British rifle. He said: “You know it goes off when you drop it?” The officer admitted that he didn’t. He fetched a gun from the armoury and dropped it. It went off. German experts had discovered a dangerous safety flaw in a British rifle which, after supposedly exhaustive testing and acceptance into service, the Brits themselves had failed to find.

and:

Those who have used it say the new version of the gun, redesigned by Heckler & Koch, is better, but complaints still came in when it was used in Afghanistan. Confidence, rather than reliability, may now be the real problem.

I’ve spoken to acquaintances who’ve had to carry the SA80, and a very close friend formerly of the U.S. Army Special Forces, who confirm that in very recent times, the SA80, in its A2 incarnation, has evolved into an adequate infantry carbine. It’s worth noting in some of Parliament’s own notes of 2000, H&K UK Ltd (also mentioned in MoD/DLO SA80 Individual Weapon (IW) & Light Support Weapon (LSW) Modification Programme notes) has taken over from Royal Ordnance as the Design Authority for the weapon.

Mr. Meeks should admit that the only way to salvage the soiled reputation of the SA80 is complete privatization, ruthless outside testing combined with an intense feedback loop involving design & manufacturing… and years of unavoidable wait & see, with British squaddies acting as hapless test dummies.

In the meantime, variants of the privately-produced (usually by Colt and Bushmaster) U.S. M-16 (e.g. the M4A1) will continue as the choice of the SAS, not surprising given the “2nd culture” nature of most special forces units worldwide: spec ops guys, within limits, generally get their choice of personal weapons.

Russell Whitaker