Regarding the Nevada test —
“We also have — are you ready for this – a 700-tonne explosively formed charge that we’re going to be putting in a tunnel in Nevada,” he said.
“And that represents to us the largest single explosive that we could imagine doing conventionally to solve that problem,” he said.
The aim is to measure the effect of the blast on hard granite structures, he said.
The aim, since 700 tons of conventional explosives is difficult is to deliver by anything less than railcar or container ship, to test the effect of a kiloton or slightly less of explosives on a tunnel or buried structure. A deliverable kiloton of explosvies. It looks like this is as close to testing a small nuclear weapon (from the standpoint of seeing how shock waves move, rather than testing bomb components) as you can get without actually testing a small nuclear weapon.
They are also calling the test “Divine Strike.” Golly, wonder just who this test is designed to send a message to?
1:58 pm on March 30, 2006
