232
US to build new nuclear gravity bomb
(www.defensenews.com)
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
this post was submitted on 29 Oct 2023
232 points (95.7% liked)
Technology
59583 readers
2499 users here now
This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
Our Rules
- Follow the lemmy.world rules.
- Only tech related content.
- Be excellent to each another!
- Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
- Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
- Politics threads may be removed.
- No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
- Only approved bots from the list below, to ask if your bot can be added please contact us.
- Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed
Approved Bots
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
Nah they'll be fine. The initial blast radius of a nuclear bomb isn't that big at all. It's the radiation that's terrible and a lot of that comes from the fallout/dust downwind of the blast.
As high up as they would be air, it'd just be a momentary bright light and not a direct one since they will be flying away from the blast.
... if the enemy has fighter jets though ... you're probably going to try and shoot down the bomber. Which might encourage using a drone.
I don't know if they still do this but during the Cold War, they would practice tossing nukes.
The plane flies low and fast, at the right time it climbs hard, belly up and at the top of the loop releases the bomb. While the plane continues its loop downward, the bomb continues in a ballistic trajectory. By the time it hits the target, the plane spends a minimum of time at altitude and a good distance from its target and can GTFO.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toss_bombing