North Korea fires another missile...What will the fall of North Korea look like?

[TheReal_ND]

Norden bomb sights.

[Smitty-48]

There is a "shotgun" hydrogen bomb design which works, TNT shotgun into the U-235, which then shotguns into the deuterium-tritium capsule at the base of the warhead, it's not efficient, nor compact and lightweight, but it's not hard to make one, so they could easily have that kind of hydrogen bomb right now, but it's probably too big to fit on a Taepodong, so they are likely just working on a bigger missile which could deliver a single "double shotgun" two stage warhead Intercontinentally, at which point; close enough for government work.

[Speaker to Animals]

The bomb they were showing on television was a fission bomb, though. Or a mock-up of one.

You can see some of the photos of it here:



At most 10 kt. Probably much less. If it's real.

Still not showing the gun barrel that would attach to it.

[Smitty-48]

Fission Schmission, once you have the fission, all you need is deuterium and tritium and you are into fusion, fission is easy, Little Boy Shotgun ain't no thang, the hard part is actually enriching the uranium, the US went to the Fat Man plutonium bomb, not because the Little Boy design didn't work, but rather because it was so innefficient to enrich U-235 as opposed to just make plutonium, the US went to the more complex warhead design, in order to use the much cheaper and more plentiful fissile material, but if the NK's have already gotten the enriched U-235 from Pakistan, then they have the Little Boy Shotgun bomb by default, to get to fusion from there, they can just add deuturium and tritium at the base of the warhead, and make it into a mini Tsar Bomba style double shotgun.

And when you're talking "inneficient" with two stage fusion, you're still probably talking a couple megatons at least.

[Fife]

:/

[Speaker to Animals]

The bomb in that photo op is either a real or mock-up of the uranium core to a Little-Boy style design. That shaft at the top is where the gun barrel attaches.




There's quite a lot more that goes into building fusion bombs than you seem to believe as well.

[Smitty-48]

See, the NK's can surely make plutonium at Yongbyon, but the problem is that the plutonium warhead design is inherently complex, due to the explosive lenses, you can't shotgun plutonium into fission, you need to implode a plutonium core, whereas even though U-235 is much harder to make than plutonium, with U-235 you can go with a simple and easy shotgun warhead, and you can make that two stage as well, the only problem then becomes, that's big and heavy, takes a lot of U-235 to make the shotgun work and then it gets bigger and heavier when you add the second stage, so the thing that is likely holding them back, is either making a plutonium based warhead to fit on a smaller missile, or making a bigger missile to carry a uranium based warhead; complex warhead, or complex missile, one of the problems they are trying to solve is complex, whichever way they are doing it, although, like the US, they're probably doing both.

[TheReal_ND]

:/

It's ok man. They haven't violated the NAP.

[Speaker to Animals]

You can clearly see the gun barrel attachment point on the surface of the shell. That's a gun-barrel fission bomb design.

[Smitty-48]

There's quite a lot more that goes into building fusion bombs than you seem to believe as well.

It's hard to make them small to drop from a bomber or fit on a missile, but it's not hard to make them, you take your Little Boy Shotgun, then you add a fissile sparkplug, surrounded by deuterium, wrapped in an uranium tamper, and presto; hydrogen bomb, it's not gonna fit in a MIRV, but it will achieve fusion.

To wit, Ivy Mike is easy, the hard part; is getting that down to the size and shape of a W87.

That being said, if the NK's could deliver the bomb by railcar, they could do it tommorow, railcar sized hydrogen bomb ain't no thang, once you have the fission warhead to initiate it.