North Korea performs first nuclear test...

[Gewehr98]

Administration says 3.58 magnitude.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,218699,00.html

Not quite 400kt, unless they somehow seriously decoupled it from the bedrock.

Sit back, relax, and let the story either gel or dissolve. The MREs and thyroid iodine treatments will keep just fine for later.

 

[Byron Quick]

It's pretty much a confirmation at this point according to me... I'm just pissed at the slow US response.... lets all let NK think we're this slow to react. Our supposed missle shield won't do crap if we don't know if they launch them until 2 hours later.

If I've realtime intelligence on you and you do something dumb and I react immediately...guess what? I just told you how good my intelligence is and give you the chance to hide better in the future. Don't look now but that would be a stupid thing to do. You don't reveal intelligence capabilities to enemies without a very good reason. This would not be one. The Allies took casualties in WWII to protect intelligent sources-big casualties both civilian and military.

If a bomb they build is successfully used against us or our allies the physical evidence of who built it disappears. That gives them plausible deniability. We must fear the NK nuke program for that reason.

Completely false to fact. The isotopic fractions in the fallout can tell exactly which reactor produced the fissile material in the nuclear device. the xray boy-research is a good thing as it will prevent embarassing yourself.

 

[RNB65]

I'm watching CNN and Fox and I've heard at least two reports that said that a mag 4.2 would not equate to 400kt and it appears to be much weaker than what they had hoped to achieve.

Of course, the news reports could be wrong. The boys in the military who know the truth aren't on CNN or Fox.

 

[Manedwolf]

I go by the official releases. The news people are the ones who talk about "automatic glock revolvers" used in shootings, so I tend not to believe what they say, since they don't understand anything anyway and just read what's on the teleprompter. The days of news anchor people able to intelligently converse on the subject are long gone.

 

[gunsmith]

overheard at the local store

"eh, perhaps they'll do us a favor, drive one into LA over the Mexican border.
Kill two birds with one stone, take care of border problem and improve the quality of TV and movies"

 

[Glockfan.45]

Well if we get lucky the morning papers will tell us about the invasion of North Korea by China.

Dont count on it. The last time China tried to invade a neighbor (Vietnam) they got their butts handed to them, and were sent back home in less than a week. North Korea sports quite an impressive military. While they dont have the means to project their power, I would hate to have to take a fight to them. Any actions China takes against N.K will come in the form of trade embargos.

 

[johnsonrlp]

Me thinks the NK's would repel the RC's.
Short of a nuclear attack that is.

 

[Lucky]

China would punch throuh NK very quickly. They have as modern an army as any other country on the planet, and larger than most.

 

[Eightball]

"Somebody set us up the bomb!"

If I would've had a drink in my mouth, I would've spewed.

 

[johnsonrlp]

2.25 million Chinese versus 1.1 million N.Koreans on there own soil. Do you know what every N.Korean dime gets spent on? There's a reason we left half a century ago and haven't gone back.

 

[thexrayboy]

gc70 states

"Any nuke bears the signature of the reactor that created the radioactive material."

You are correct in that isotopic signatures can be traced. However all physical evidence aside from that will be vaporized. Tracing isotopic signatures to determine which reactor created the material only works if you have physical access to the reactor or its documentation. In this case its
just not gonna happen. Again "plausible deniability.

For reference read the article at:

http://www.alumni.berkeley.edu/Alum.../COVER_STORY-_Berkeleys_Big_Bang_Project_.asp

 

[johnsonrlp]

CNN just said they should have enough left for 6-12 more of the same size, or one really big one

 

[Lucky]

Johnsonrip;
We left because it was a UN mandate. When the SK's were being beat, the US and several other countries, including Canada, came in and kicked the NK's back. When the NK's were losing hard the Chinese came in (after warning they would, yes yes). When the Chinese AND the NK's were getting beaten badly, they called for 'peace talks'. Because it was a UN mission we HAD to go to the talks, instead of finishing the job.

xrayboy, intead of plausible deniability think 'process of elimination'. If you have access to every reactor EXCEPT that one.

 

[johnsonrlp]

South Korea is now a "Nuclear Free Nation Zone".

 

[johnsonrlp]

Hypocrits

They keep repeating that it's not a weapon, "it hasn't been weaponized". But a stripped reciever...

 

[johnsonrlp]

Oh, and Seoul is about 25 miles south of the border. They could definitely hit that if they were crazy enough. Seeing as they spend 25% of their GNP on their military, yeah they're pretty freaking crazy.

 

[Liberal Gun Nut]

Confirmed or not confirmed? The reason it is a bit tricky to confirm or not confirm it is that there are a whole range of possible energy releases. Some bombs go off full-power, some are fizzles. This could be somewhere in that range.

It does sound like it was a bomb, but maybe it was not a complete success.

 

[Don't Tread On Me]

HOLD UP THERE....



They're saying this was the equivalent of 550 tons of TNT.


They could have buried 550 tons of TNT for all we know. Right now on the news, the White House says "seismic event confirmed"...not "nuclear test confirmed"...


BIG difference. That would be one hell of a bluff if they faked a nuclear test!

 

[johnsonrlp]

Especially if someone called the bluff...

And yeah, that's pretty small.

 

[M1911Owner]

"550 tons of TNT". That sounds awfully close to the English translation of "500 metric tons". Which sounds a whole lot like a wild-ass guess.

If that number is even close, though, that was indeed a rather puny nuke.

 

[LeoC]

Since I'm living in China for the moment, I'll let you guys know if I see anything on the TV. News reports and TV Dramas are used by the government to influence public opinion and drum up support for the government. This is very telling because it will be a good indication of what the Chinese gov. plans to do if it starts showing N. Korea in a negative light on the news.

North Korea won't admit it, but China is supplying it with lifeblood in terms of trade and aid. Even if it continues selling weapons to Iran, I doubt North Korea can survive without China's support. This inciddent puts China in the global spotlight, and China will try to put on a strong showing. I think the likelihood of China kicking out it's bastard stepson N. Korea is high.

 

[50caliber123]

wasn't the first atomic bomb the equivalent of thousands tons of TNT? 550 seems awfully small

 

[Skywarp]

All this talk about Korea is making me hungry.


I'll hitup the Korean BBQ forlunch tomarrow...

 

[jrhines]

550 tons, read sub-kiloton yeild

Yeah - 550 tons is very small. I seem to remember in my dark past US touching off something like that as a pre-test to Trinity. Stacked up a huge pile of TNT and shot it just to see what that kind of shock would do to our 1940's instrumentation. A sub-kilo nuke would be very useful and most likely very small.

 

[dm1333]

I can't believe I'm going to say this after defending California

"eh, perhaps they'll do us a favor, drive one into LA

Actually, I don't think LA is within range of the missiles they own, but San Francisco is. Kim Jong Il, please just wait until May when I have moved to Michigan and then have at it. My "tired of California" quotient is at an all time high this weekend.