Just thinking back to SAM's little runaway adventure when he was about 14 years old (if the pofile is to be believed); I think I know where the friendly black man took him and his pal. After a few changes of tube station, he ended up at the east end of the Hammersmith and City Line (or if you like, 3 stops past Plaistow on the District Line).:rolleyes:

Mister B

D'oh!!! I had to reach for the tube map to get that one. Stupid me!

That isn't the aim of the conventional bomb in question. It's aim is to get at hardened underground sites in a variety of places all over the globe, which I think includes Korea.

You could, if you wanted to, bomb the Iran nuke sites without deposing the government in Iran. It is my opinion that B-2 would be the platform of choice, but I understand why other choices are also considered.

Why do you think this will happen within the next six weeks? What drives that timeline? Seems arbitrary.

LW 50

I believe there is only one poster on this thread who thinks that such an event is likely [before Christmas] - he who started it; the rest is speculation on escalation, retaliation, obliteration.

Mister B

Assuming fission/fussion, a 10 MT weapon would create a fireball about 3 miles across and would cause burns to exposed skin out to about 20 miles. Blast damage to non-hardened structures out to about 10 miles. Fallout doesn't stop at national boundaries.

To get a 10 MT yield would require roughly a 4,000kg bomb - that takes a big rocket to lift (about the size of Redstone???). I think the largest yield weapon that the US had produced until last year was only about 9 MT.

Israel is about 8,500 square miles and has nearly 8 million inhabitants - some 20% of Arab decent. Is that a viable target?

Anyway, that wasn't the thread, was it?

Yeah. I agree they're not making any friends, are they?

Mach Two

SAM Can't let the facts get in the way of a good story, even if he does contradict himself from one post to the next.

The world expert on Middle East policy, US Policy, Israel's Tactics, Nuclear fall out and everything else under the sun :O (hopefully not Nuclear Sunshine)
.

SAM
Good to see you have contradicted yourself again. I thought it was going to Wipe out all of Israel and stop them from retaliating ?


Anyway, are you going to accept my bet ?

Since you now say Mid December, I'll double my bet to 100 pounds if you accept.

The numbers I gave are about ballpark for an optimum altitude burst rather than surface. So that's about the biggest blast/thermal distance you can expect from that class of weapon.

"Therefore I predict that the failing Obama administration will use B2's to deliver exactly 8 conventional warheads (TNT - call it what you will) on the Iranian underground facilities before Xmas. "


Excellent!

The bet is on......

I'm sure there are many who would see iran bombed into the stone age.

Quite how dropping bombs on that country will lead to the necessary advances to achieve this is a moot point.

Sam

I've been tracking your online sparring and on many points have been quite intrigued, even finding some basis for truth..

But for me, the story of the black man and the knife ....WTF

As they say on Dragons Den.........I'm out

SAM
I see you are ignoring my challenge / bet.

Are you not sure of your facts or don't you have the balls to back up what you say with something a bit more substantial. If the amount is too high, I would be happy to lower it to a level you are happy with without any adverse comment from me as I don't know your circumstances.

Or should I take it that you, as a representative of the RAF are letting other current RAF and Ex RAF down by not accepting a challenge from the Green side ?

Where I come from, if you didn't accept the challenge from the other services you were a real pussy and let your side down.

Maybe my expectations were a bit high:O

SamDepending upon what the local earth/rock is made of, getting the bomb about 30M into the ground before detonating is no small trick.

Can it be done? No comment. Maybe, maybe not.

The idea of the conventional bomb isn't that it waits until 200 feet deep to detonate, it's that its energy is sufficient to reach deep into the substrate once it penetrates as far as it can.

@ Willard: I agree that dropping bombs on Iran doesn't seem to resolve the underlying political problem very much. It may allow blowing up those buildings in the nuclear program that the Iranians are't blowing up themselves. Last I read, the 22 Nov event was a controlled demolition of some buildings on that site, done by the Iranian authorities for their own reasons. (Covering tracks? Contamination? Who knows?)

As to today's blast ... which occurred but then didn't occur ... who knows?

Options for SAM
 

1. Take the bet.

2. Admit you are a Walt loner.

3. Do nothing(And then everyone
knows you are a lying 'number two')

Why not drop one of these GBU jobbers on top of ArmouredDinnerJacket? It'd open a big enough crack in the Earth that we'd be able to hand him directly to old Nick. With him out of the way the regime would then hopefully go the way of Libya's - its what the majority of Iranians want.

"Is the destructive power as much as the 22.000lb Grand Slam Bomb ?"

Checking the internet reveals the following. However remember that nothing on the internet can be trusted....

Grand Slam
Weight - variously quoted as 22,000 or 22,400 lb. The lesser seems to to be more likely
Charge / weight ratio 42% i.e.9408lb of explosive (Torpex) (edit - Wikidpaedia says 9,135 lb)
However there needs to be a caveat here as Paul Brickhill in his book "The Dam Busters" states the rough forgings weighed ten tons before machining i.e. 22400lb
That would mean 60% or so of the forging would have to be machined away before filling and fitting with fusing etc. Does that sound realistic?


MOP
weight 30,000lb
charge "more than 5,300lb" - actual explosive unstated

So the actual charge is only around 60% of that of the Grand Slam - but with newer explosive technology that could be totally irrelevant.. Modern explosives have come a long way since WWII
The actual bomb weighs around 40% more and so has a much lower charge/weight ratio of around 18%. i.e. it has a heavier stronger case which should enable it to be dropped from greater heights and take a heavier impact / terminal velocity. And in theory penetrate further

If the Arab League are as good as their threats and impose a no-fly zone for Syrian aircraft, it would be incredibly fortuitous for Israel. No-one to stop them at all - unless the Turks were to contest Israeli passage over Syria. Anyone see that happening?

SAM ex 15

Is that bet with 500N for your revised timetable of middle December? Only 15 days away.

Do you want to take my wager as well, on the same terms as for 500N?

Mister B

SAMXXV. I've been watching here with great interest. I doubt I've ever seen a thread that was so 1 v many before. I occurred to me to wonder what's really going on. One of these?

1. You're winding everyone up, in which case hats off to you and keep it up!

2. You have access to good intel, in which case you should stop immediately.

3. This is your own analysis that you truly believe and you're sticking to your guns despite overwhelming opposition to your views, in which case hats off and keep going.

4. You've come off your medication when you shouldn't have, in which case start taking the pills again, but still keep posting because it's enormous fun.

Either way, as long as you're careful about what you reveal/postulate, thanks for a really entertaining thread and good luck with the bets. :D