Nuke Pickaxe Mountain ?

[CaseHardened]

Ok, American remains the only country, ever, to use nukes.
And on civilian cities. Sad. But necessary at the time.
It is a bold step that is best avoided ... but when the target is military facilities .... a no brainer.

WWII - Bad Times.

Japan actually attacked us in Hawaii in a sneak attack. We responded with total war. Many Japanese cities burnt to a crisp with conventional fire bombs. But like Iran, stubborn to the end, Until the Nuke.

Germany. Never attacked the US Mainland in any serious way. Many German cities burnt to a crisp with conventional fire bombs. But unlike Iran, wisely capitulated ... finally.

IRAN. Sponser of terrorism for five decades. Proven to be no friend of USA, Israel, or Muslim neighbors. INSANE.

Pickaxe Mountain. Highly sophisticated facility that is able to manufacture Nuclear Warheads, and ballistic missles capable of delivering them.

I cannot think of any scenario where Tactical Nukes are not more suitable for.

End this threat of nuclear armed madmen.

Any country on the planet, especially Israel and the Muslim Neighbors, want them GONE.

Trump and DC need to grasp reality and just DO IT.

 

[Plater1]

Ok, American remains the only country, ever, to use nukes.
And on civilian cities. Sad. But necessary at the time.
It is a bold step that is best avoided ... but when the target is military facilities .... a no brainer.

WWII - Bad Times.

Japan actually attacked us in Hawaii in a sneak attack. We responded with total war. Many Japanese cities burnt to a crisp with conventional fire bombs. But like Iran, stubborn to the end, Until the Nuke.

Germany. Never attacked the US Mainland in any serious way. Many German cities burnt to a crisp with conventional fire bombs. But unlike Iran, wisely capitulated ... finally.

IRAN. Sponser of terrorism for five decades. Proven to be no friend of USA, Israel, or Muslim neighbors. INSANE.

Pickaxe Mountain. Highly sophisticated facility that is able to manufacture Nuclear Warheads, and ballistic missles capable of delivering them.

I cannot think of any scenario where Tactical Nukes are not more suitable for.

End this threat of nuclear armed madmen.

Any country on the planet, especially Israel and the Muslim Neighbors, want them GONE.

Trump and DC need to grasp reality and just DO IT.

So close. If you are going to use a nuke, use one high in the atmosphere centrally located over Iran. The EMP would be far more effective and you wouldn't have all the fallout (or very little). The effects would be nearly the same. Iran would be back to the 1800's in an afternoon. Of course the price of oil would spike pretty hard. And the cost of nearly everything would double in a week. The lefties would absolutely lose their shit.

 

[spat]

So close. If you are going to use a nuke, use one high in the atmosphere centrally located over Iran. The EMP would be far more effective and you wouldn't have all the fallout (or very little). The effects would be nearly the same. Iran would be back to the 1800's in an afternoon. Of course the price of oil would spike pretty hard. And the cost of nearly everything would double in a week. The lefties would absolutely lose their shit.

Too much collateral damage.

It would fry a lot of allies too.

An EMP hits an area roughly the size of the lower 48 (plus a bit of Canada and Mexico).

You can't really make them much smaller, because they have to be detonated at a specific height to generate an EMP.

 

[Bigfoot]

Interesting idea for a poll. Let's see where it goes.

It's good to see a post from the Pirate again; it's been quite a while.

 

[Plater1]

Too much collateral damage.

It would fry a lot of allies too.

An EMP hits an area roughly the size of the lower 48 (plus a bit of Canada and Mexico).

You can't really make them much smaller, because they have to be detonated at a specific height to generate an EMP.

I read somewhere that it would take at least three to cover the lower 48. Although that might have been from the One Second After series? If that's the case that there would be collateral damage, just the more reason to do it. The economy boomed just after WW2 because all of Europe had to be rebuilt. It would be a nice boost to the global economy helping our allies rebuild. They are mostly oil producing countries, so they have that to trade. Of course we let the Iranians suffer for a few years (decades) while we help everyone else first. This is starting to sound like a reasonable option.

 

[Robin]

Five or six bunker busters should do the trick.
Robin

 

[Drinkthekoolaid]

Five or six bunker busters should do the trick.
Robin

The speculation is that the labs and production facilities are located deep under the mountain and there is hundreds of feet of solid granite above them.

Even our best non nuclear bunker busters would likely be ineffective.

 

[Drinkthekoolaid]

And for the poll, I voted no.

I think if we elect to strike pickaxe mountain with nukes, it legitimizes the same thing for other countries to do.

I'm totally at peace with the US nuking Japan to end ww2. Different time, different place and we didn't know what we didn't know. That was epic total warfare, they started it, they refused to surrender and we finished it.

You can't use the lens of today to judge historical actions, you need to try to put yourself in their shoes at that time and know what they knew then to judge if they made the right or wrong call.


Anyone who votes "yes" to nuking pickaxe mountain, just know that you should also expect Russian tactical nukes on Ukraine and Chinese and nork nukes in the western Pacific. Once that "first use" has been made it opens the door for every other county to justify why they should use theirs in other than "non existential survival crisis '

 

[tirwin1]

Hard no. With tensions in the world as high as they are we don't need to initiate what could be the first step towards world war 3. Why couldn't Putin argue that tactical nukes could solve his problem in Ukraine?

 

[spat]

The speculation is that the labs and production facilities are located deep under the mountain and there is hundreds of feet of solid granite above them.

Even our best non nuclear bunker busters would likely be ineffective.

The GBU-57 is rated for 200 feet of concrete.

For Fordhow we dropped multiple GBU-57s down the same hole to increase penetration.

They are capable of just dropping more on the same point to increase penetration as far as they need.

The only question is how many we have in inventory, and how fast we can make more.

They're not a complex weapon, so the production bottlenecks might not be a big deal to overcome of they want to ramp up production.

After that, the limit is delivery platforms. Right now the B2 is the only thing that can drop them, but it's likely they could be fitted to a B52 underwing pylon quickly enough.

Each B2 can carry 2 of them, and we could run a dozen B2s in a single mission easily enough. That's 24 bombs down the same hole. Not sure how they stack, but it wouldn't shock me if they couldn't hit a target 1000' down.

 

[spat]

I read somewhere that it would take at least three to cover the lower 48. Although that might have been from the One Second After series? If that's the case that there would be collateral damage, just the more reason to do it. The economy boomed just after WW2 because all of Europe had to be rebuilt. It would be a nice boost to the global economy helping our allies rebuild. They are mostly oil producing countries, so they have that to trade. Of course we let the Iranians suffer for a few years (decades) while we help everyone else first. This is starting to sound like a reasonable option.

The nuclear EMP was explored in the starfish prime test. It was far more extensive than was expected. It damaged electronics and knocked out phone service 900 miles away in Hawaii.

It also knocked out a bunch of sattelites. I don't think I need to explain how much bigger a deal *that* would be today than it was in 1962.

An EMP over Iran could realistically destroy $100B worth of *our own* satellites, to say nothing of *everyone* elses.

Starfish Prime - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

If you think we don't have much international support for this war now, imagine what happens when we take out everyone's GPS systems, and half their weather and communication satellites.

 

[Brawny71]

The inventory has gotten more specific. The value of an inground Nuke is the heat would also dispose of any Nuke material. In ground would limit the after effects of the blast. Midnight Hammer used conventional and left the material sitting there covered up for a later date.

It would be a HUGE global issue however. I say let India do it.

 

[holdover]

If we justify useing tactical nukes, so will others , it opens a door that has thankfully remain shut .

by not useing nukes It also puts the US in a massive tactical advantage over adversary's that cant match us on the battlefield , If we start using them , it offsets our massive tactical advantage in conventional warfare. it makes it almost obsolete

and If we did use nukes on Iran , other country's may sell the percussors or the weapons themselves to Iran and we wont like the outcome of that

 

[Drinkthekoolaid]

The nuclear EMP was explored in the starfish prime test. It was far more extensive than was expected. It damaged electronics and knocked out phone service 900 miles away in Hawaii.

It also knocked out a bunch of sattelites. I don't think I need to explain how much bigger a deal *that* would be today than it was in 1962.

An EMP over Iran could realistically destroy $100B worth of *our own* satellites, to say nothing of *everyone* elses.

Starfish Prime - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

If you think we don't have much international support for this war now, imagine what happens when we take out everyone's GPS systems, and half their weather and communication satellites.

The Soviets came to similar conclusions with their project K testing

Soviet Project K nuclear tests - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[spat]

The inventory has gotten more specific. The value of an inground Nuke is the heat would also dispose of any Nuke material. In ground would limit the after effects of the blast. Midnight Hammer used conventional and left the material sitting there covered up for a later date.

It would be a HUGE global issue however. I say let India do it.

You can't dispose of enriched uranium with heat.

Even if you heat it to a plasma, it will recondense in the rubble and will still be enriched.

Even if it's mixed with 1000 tons of rock, separating the uranium back from the rock is a simple chemical process.

The *only* way to destroy enriched uranium is to de-enrich it by mixing it with a massive amount of un-enriched (or depleted) uranium, or actually burn it as fuel for a reactor or a bomb.

 

[Robin]

The speculation is that the labs and production facilities are located deep under the mountain and there is hundreds of feet of solid granite above them.

Even our best non nuclear bunker busters would likely be ineffective.

Okay, ten or twelve. with another sortie on stand by awaiting the AAR. We must remain flexible.
Robin

 

[Bigfoot]

5 votes for - Yes

7 votes for - No

I'm a little surprised by that. That's pretty close, I would have expected more votes for No and fewer votes for Yes.

Just for transparency's sake, I voted Yes. I was the second or third vote, I'm just saying.

 

[Zerex]

Profane animals, deep in the mountain need to breathe to build nukes.............Food and supplies need to be brought regularly to the vast army of IRGC hiding in the tunnels. Sneak in the sarin gas in the bananas

Level the exterior of the mountain, with conventional bombs, but first cover it with sarin gas.

 

[Drinkthekoolaid]

Profane animals, deep in the mountain need to breathe to build nukes.............Food and supplies need to be brought regularly to the vast army of IRGC hiding in the tunnels. Sneak in the sarin gas in the bananas

Level the exterior of the mountain, with conventional bombs, but first cover it with sarin gas.

I'm good without committing war crimes but glad you're willing to :eye roll: