One of Iran’s newest warships capsized in port over the weekend while undergoing repairs, an incident that could damage key warfighting systems and put the ship out of commission for up to half a year, a naval analyst said.
The 311-foot-long frigate Sahand was at a dock in the port of Bandar Abbas when it “lost its balance” after water leaked into its tanks, according to a report from the state-run Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA).
A photo from the semi-official Tasnim News Agency showed the warship, with a displacement of about 2,000 tons, resting on its left side in the Bandar Abbas port.
The ship, which Tasnim said entered service in December 2018, is one of the bigger vessels in Iran’s fleet, equipped with antiship cruise missiles and an electronic warfare system.
How big is the chance they blow up half the world just by accident?
I think you need to read up on nuclear warhead yields, because if you are seriously saying a few of their barely working centrifuges can make yields that can create nuclear fusion explosions large enough to destroy a continent, you sound dumb.
It’s not dumb at all.
The early US warheads had a design such that a wrong electrical signal, as simple as a static electricity spark or short circuit from a corroded insulation piece somewhere, could trigger the detonation sequence and cause a full-strength detonation of the warhead. There are lots of ways it can happen, not all of them obvious in advance until it happens; fires, air accidents, lightning, or all kinds of accidental human mishandling while they’re being assembled or moved around or maintained or God knows what else. And it only takes once.
I can’t find it now, but I swear that there was an incident that involved the accidental release of an H-bomb during an aircraft accident over the American south where the damn thing managed to somehow do exactly what was described and send the wrong electrical signal while it was being jostled around or burned or whatever, and it was only the elaborate multiple safety systems the Americans had built into it (after some painful experience had taught them they had to be careful with the fucking things) that stopped it from detonating for real and blowing up half of Georgia or something. When they found the thing on the ground, it was fully ready to go, and it was only because the one little additional redundant “are you sure?” switch was still set to “no” that it didn’t go off.
And you can build a bomb without adding the safety systems. No one stops you; there’s no pop up that says you can’t put these pieces together because it’s not safe yet. And your boss might get really, really mad at you if your nuclear weapon isn’t ready yet because you need to add something that might not be needed. I think it’s a very real concern.
There are multiple incidents that kind of fit, but I think you are talking about this one: Wiki article
Information declassified since 2013 has shown that one of the bombs was judged by nuclear weapons engineers at the time to have been only one safety switch away from detonation, and that it was “credible” to imagine conditions under which it could have detonated.
That’s the one
Parker F. Jones, a supervisor at Sandia, concluded in a reassessment of the accident in 1969 that “one simple, dynamo-technology, low voltage switch stood between the United States and a major catastrophe” He further suggested that it would be “credible” to imagine that in the process of such an accident, an electrical short could cause the Arm/Safe Switch to switch into the “Arm” mode, which, had it happened during the Goldsboro accident, could have resulted in a multi-megaton detonation.
Bill Stevens, a nuclear weapon safety engineer at Sandia, gave the following assessment in an internal documentary film produced by Sandia in 2010: “Some people can say, ‘hey, the bomb worked exactly like designed.’ Others can say, ‘all but one switch operated, and that one switch prevented the nuclear detonation.’”[34]
Charlie Burks, another nuclear weapons systems engineer for Sandia, also added: “Unfortunately, there have been thirty-some incidents where the ready/safe switch was operated inadvertently. We’re fortunate that the weapons involved at Goldsboro were not suffering from that same malady.”[35]
The bomb was about 250 times more powerful than the Hiroshima bomb. I don’t know exactly how it works, but if it’s simple multiplication, then you could say that everything for 480 miles in any direction would have been more or less destroyed.
No one thinks that. A nuclear attack is generally assumed to cascade counter launches by other regional neighbors, so on, and so forth.
This probably wouldn’t happen, as I’ve even read reports suggesting a conventional response (albeit overwhelming) may be more likely.
No one thinks Iran’s nukes would crack a continent.
No one thinks Iran’s nukes would crack a continent.
norimee@lemmy.world and others here think they can, hence why I believe people here are dumb.
That is not my perception of the root comments “blow up half the world” line.
I’ve read the root comment a few times and cannot see what you’re huffing about. They didn’t say anything about the creation of the weapons.
The entire comment revolved around the country’s capability of keeping one in functional condition without an accident occurring, as seems to so often happen.
