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[ChairmanPoo]

Poland barely has nuclear reactors (they only have a very small one. Whu, and certainly no uranium enrichment facilities.
I think it's probably a good thing for them to do so. But it wont happen overnight, even if they get french, british (+- German) support.

Pd: Afaik Tusk talks more about NW sharing with France rather than indigenous nukes

[McTraveller]

What about thermobarics? Or are there downsides to those that make them impractical?

[Strongpoint]

What about thermobarics? Or are there downsides to those that make them impractical?

Thermobarics are a subtype of regular bombs. Why would they be in the same conversation as nukes?

[McTraveller]

I remember the MOAB being a pretty powerful piece of ordinance... without many of the drawbacks of non-conventional weapons.  Like, why not just make a million of those, for likely way less cost than trying to spool up the others?

I'm by no means a military expert though, so maybe it's just not as logistically effective (e.g., you can't deploy enough, etc. etc.) even though easier to produce?

[EuchreJack]

Poland barely has nuclear reactors (they only have a very small one. Whu, and certainly no uranium enrichment facilities.
I think it's probably a good thing for them to do so. But it wont happen overnight, even if they get french, british (+- German) support.

Pd: Afaik Tusk talks more about NW sharing with France rather than indigenous nukes

But France just loves to enable countries to become nuclear weapon capable. They were the ones trying to make Iraq and/or Iran into nuclear powers. With Poland, they could do it openly.

[Eric Blank]

I remember the MOAB being a pretty powerful piece of ordinance... without many of the drawbacks of non-conventional weapons.  Like, why not just make a million of those, for likely way less cost than trying to spool up the others?

It has one big drawback; it's fucking huge and heavy. They were being dropped out of cargo planes, not sure if that's changed. But Poland would need to develop a hell of a strategic bomber or missile to launch them.

[Grim Portent]

I remember the MOAB being a pretty powerful piece of ordinance... without many of the drawbacks of non-conventional weapons.  Like, why not just make a million of those, for likely way less cost than trying to spool up the others?

I'm by no means a military expert though, so maybe it's just not as logistically effective (e.g., you can't deploy enough, etc. etc.) even though easier to produce?

A thermobaric weapon isn't going to hit the desired yield to compare to a nuke while also weighing a ridiculous amount more. The MOAB including casing weighs 9800 kg, while a nuke with comparable yield can be carried like a backpack at about 27kg.

Fission bombs are just insanely explosive even at small sizes. Beyond fathoming levels of explosive. MOAB is equivalent to 11 tons ot TNT, the Little Boy dropped on Hiroshima was estimated to be equivalent to around 15000 tons of TNT.

MOABs destroy bunkers or tunnels, nukes destroy cities. Big difference in capability.

[Strongpoint]

I remember the MOAB being a pretty powerful piece of ordinance... without many of the drawbacks of non-conventional weapons.  Like, why not just make a million of those, for likely way less cost than trying to spool up the others?

And how do you plan to deliver a million of ~10 ton warheads to the enemy? Build a million of missiles? And how do you make them explode in the same instant in the same point?

MOAB is puny in the world of nukes. A small crappy nuke, with something like 30 kilotons yield (3000 MOAB BTW) will weigh less than half a ton.

Proper strategic nukes are measured in megatons. Millions of tons. Hundreds of thousands of MOABs exploding in one instant, in one point.

[Lord Shonus]

I remember the MOAB being a pretty powerful piece of ordinance... without many of the drawbacks of non-conventional weapons.  Like, why not just make a million of those, for likely way less cost than trying to spool up the others?

The MOAB has a blast of 11,000 kilograms of TNT. It masses almost 10,000 and can only be carried by the largest of cargo aircraft.


The standard French tactical nuclear weapon, the ASMP, masses 800 kilos and can be carried by any fighter aircraft that's been wired to interface with it. It has a blast of 100,000 to 300,000 kilograms of TNT. They are not in the same conversation.

[Naturegirl1999]

Theoretically, any radioactive material could be used right? Perhaps Poland has a different type of radioactive element that they could use in lieu of uranium?

[Lord Shonus]

Theoretically, any radioactive material could be used right?

No. The only materials that will explode in a nuclear bomb are Plutonium, Uranium-235, and Uranium-233. No other known material or isotope of Uranium can  be used for a fission explosion.

[Strongpoint]

Theoretically, any radioactive material could be used right? Perhaps Poland has a different type of radioactive element that they could use in lieu of uranium?

No. You need a radioactive material that can sustain a chain reaction. You can't take Radium and make it go boom. Even the most common isotopes of Uranium can't do it.

[Starver]

Theoretically, any radioactive material could be used right? Perhaps Poland has a different type of radioactive element that they could use in lieu of uranium?

Well, obviously there's Polonium...

More seriously, radioactive materials aren't equal. The quantity needed to actually "go bang" varies, with uranium (of the right isotope!) being one of the better ones. Plutonium another, but has its own challenges. And even just piling these ones up isn't "bomb" so much as "messy, spitty, radioactive puddle" (that might be worse, in many ways, but not in a useful tactical manner). Most are remarkably not weaponisable (though still dangerous if misshandled), which is why civil nuclear reactors are being considered that are basically on the very obscure end of "could someone build a bomb if we gave them this?" end of the spectrum, e.g. with thorium.

(I also was originally writing a "bang for your buck" post, comparing MOABs to even mini-nukes, but decided not to and backed out of the edit. As it looks like everyone else would posted before me with their own (similar) take on it, I'm now rather glad I did. )

(And now, predictably, I'm being ninjaed on the fissile material subject. Of course!)

[Great Order]

You could still make a really dangerous weapon with other radioactive elements, but we're talking dirty bombs instead of nukes.

Nobody uses those because you generally want to have the option to occupy the area you blew up. A salted/dirty bomb is more of a functionally-permanent area denial weapon. Also I feel the international community would be even more upset with you for making a bunch of dirty bombs than they would making a bunch of nukes - Nukes tend to stick to where you detonated them, and an air burst produces minimal fallout.

[Lord Shonus]

Dirty bombs were a big scare a decade or so back, but they're not really the danger they're made out to be. Anything low-level enough to linger more than a few days isn't going to be a short-term danger as long as modest precautions are taken, and decontamination isn't nearly as difficult as people were making it out to be. In a city environment, just hosing everything down would wash everything into the sewers where it could be filtered out fairly easily.