Current Events — HabitableZone

Current Events » in reply to The day we almost lost Goldsboro

I find this hard to believe.

Not your report, I have no doubt it is accurate and complete, but that is just not how munitions are designed.

Even with conventional weapons, like artillery shells, there are usually several layers of interlocking fail-safes, arranged in sequence and requiring deliberate actions by the gunners to activate the charge, each designed so that a failure in any will make the weapon inert. Crews are extensively drilled with dummies so that arming weapons becomes second nature, even should the gunner or bombadier is highly stressed. The result is that in combat, bombs and shells often refuse to explode when they're supposed to, and only in cases of extreme stupidity or deliberate sabotage do munitions explode prematurely.

I've never handled nukes before, but I imagine the safeties would be even more extreme than with conventional bombs or rounds. For example, I would expect a key part of the fuse would be stored separately, and have to be manually inserted into the weapon by ground or air crews immediately before action, and only if action was imminent. In addition, the commander would have an additional arming switch that only he could activate. When the weapon was deliberately (not accidentally) released, the fuse would activate, and only then would the radar or barometric altimeter trigger be functional. Maybe things are different with nukes (security?) but it doesn't seem to me it would be very difficult or expensive to design these safeguards in.

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