doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com The Day they dropped the Big One

KBM,
Sorry for the mutilation of Prange's name, it's been a number of years since I read his works. Memory is a terrible thing. I found a book that reviewed many of the events contested by other historians, that was initiated by Prange's work. Someone else finished the book based on Prange's work. It was sort of a rebuttal of other's claims. I don't recall the title and lost it when loaned to a former naval captain that I worked for, he retired and we both forgot about it, but I'm glad he has it since he was fascinated by this piece.

Dick,
I too, worked in the nuc biz many years ago. That's where I met my wife who went on to work at Rocky Flats. We worked in a R&D facility for developing higher output centrifuges. We had close ties to Oak Ridge, Portmouth and a few other places. I also wondered what the "doomsday gloom" was all about when the media spewed about 'dirty bombs'. Having been around hot stuff for 10 yrs, we all had training in dealing with containing and cleanup. Granted, it could create longterm health probs, but the likelyhood is low, given any reasonable action to mitigate exposures, inhalation or ingestion.

Having some relatives in Japan, I can assure you that virtually none of the post war generations in Japan harbor any grudges. On the contrary, they have become a great ally and for as long as I can recall, their young adults have strived to be like Americans with many young coming here for college.

I do believe we have seen the equal to WW2 vets in our Korean War, Vietnam, Gulf war, and current war vets. In my book, they are all due the same standing as men and women of honor.

I have a slighty different take on the dirty bomb issue. I did environmental cleanup for a while, mostly groundwater but a bit of nuke work.

If the contaminate is very finely divided and air dispersed, cleanup of the old porous concrete and brick is going to take more than a firehose and coat of paint. Even if it's just an alpha and beta emitter, IMO the affected areas would end up demo'ed - you guys know 'acceptable levels' at the plant will not be acceptable on the street. I don't think it would be a big killer like dropping the WTC, but if half a dozen blocks in midtown Manhattan have to be demo'ed that's a truly effective terrorist attack.

Improved efficiency in the extermination of civilian populations (Carthage>London<Dresden<Hiroshima) has made us all blink. The means is the end in ultimate war.

jack

As an interesting and little known aside, there was also the 'Bat Bomb', a quite real enough US Gov. project to drop 20,000 live bats, each carrying its own incendiary devise, on Tokyo. The Manhatten Project negated the need for its execution.

During last attempt the Osnaz team simply did not have authority of launch the weapon, so w/o proper codes the safety mechanism went active incenerating entire boat. It should have only disabled missle system, but back then they were rather crude so entire crew went down with the boat just east of French Frigate Shoals. The target was Pearl Harbor Naval Base.

You might want to replace word Russians with Soviets.

Radioactive contamination presents two type of risks, external and internal exposure with differing consequences. The most damaging long term is internal contamination because it has a half life that is a product of the biological and radiological half life. Any radiocactive isotope with a long biological and radiological half life may cause cancer and other health problems. External radioactive exposure is short term, confined to the period of exposure, and if beta or alpha, stopped by clothing or a piece of paper. Only gamma rays present a risk. External expsore if within Federal Regulations has little likey hood for long term health problems. A 'Dirty Bomb' would pose internal risks for those in the blast zone at the time of the blast. External contamination left would be washed off in decontamination procedures. After the blast and decontamination, what is left is fixed by coatings will only present external exposure risk to individuals in the area. The exposure can be measured and stay times determined. If truly blasted into porous structures, subsurface grinding would eliminate the material. I am quite confident that the monetary cost to demolish large infrastructure would be orders of magnitude greater than procedures to assure external exposure within Federal Regulations. In short, NO PROBLEM. -Dick

Jagermeister, are you saying that the Russian Naval Special Ops forces launched a failed attempt to attack the Pearl Harbor Naval Base? That seems to be what your post above is saying. What is your source for this information, please? When was this supposed to have taken place? That's pretty difficult to imagine, and I recall absolutely no prior mention in all my WWII studies that Russia attempted to take out Pearl Harbor. You need to clarify this.

The supposed incident is described in a book whose title I can't remember, but will look up tomorrow in the office and post then.

The Soviets were supposedly intending to make the US think that the Chinese had made the nuclear strike on Pearl Harbor, thereby inciting a US nuclear strike on China.

The incident is dated to the 1970's when the Chinese had newly acquired nuclear capability. The Russian sub in question was raised by the Glomar Explorer operated by the Howard Hughes organization with CIA support, once again according to the book.

The book makes a most interesting read and leads the reader,at least this one. to believe that it could even be true

Most all of the Fender Stratocasters are in Tokyo vaults - never to be played again.
Sold my 1960 minty Strat, it went from LAX to Tokyo in a single bound!