Big Boom
The biggest boom
I’m just gonna talk about what is declassified about the nuclear bomb. Conceptually It’s fairly simple. Get enough radioactive atoms close enough together so that the decay can trigger a chain reaction. Technogy is readily available also, except for one item which will probably get you a couple of guys at your door if you start searching for it on eBay. Coupla of million dollars in a research project can fix that though. The real hitch in the giddyup is the infrastructure required to produce the radioactive materials necessary. That’s what has put a knot in the knikkers of the government about Iran. Iran just got 96 more centrifuges. No espionage coup that, just read the shipping manifests of the countries that are supplying them. That’s troubling. That’s why Israel bombed Iraq’s nuclear reactor, it was a breeder. Iraq did have a nuclear bomb (designed), problem was, you couldn’t have picked the damn thing up. So unless the purpose was to destroy the Iraqui nuclear facility, it’s pretty useless. So there’s really not that much to worry about. Except for the 2-3000 russia’s got laying around unguarded. Or unless the Pakistani government falls. (expect a couple of big booms in Pakistan if it does) Or Korea Kim hits his courvasier too much. The situation is much more fragile than during the cold war. Yet the government is downplaying it. Why? Weapons of mass destruction? There’s only one and this is it. Why the obfuscation? 
Now that I’ve set your mind at ease, I’ll continue.
There are 9 countries listed in the “nuclear club” , they missed a couple. The types I worked on were the mk 7 and the mk 12. (see below) both about 50,000 kilo ton and designed to be delivered by the LABS system on fighter aircraft. The bomb uses the atmosphere for tamping so past a certain point, the power becomes counter-productive as the force “blows out” of the atmosphere. The figure I remember is about 20 mega ton. So a 15 megaton bomb will cause significantly more damage than a 25 mega-ton. Weird huh! So, even with 15 mega ton weapons you quickly run out of targets. It should be kept in mind that radical islamists faver an all out nuclear exchange, evidently having a world free of infidels is more important than human survival. Just need to hope that the islamists don’t think of bringing one of these into New York harbor on a fish boat. They spoke in terms of “mega deaths”, but the military doesn’t really think like that. Less than a handful of the big ones will collapse a civilization. Only a few mega deaths at first then hundreds of mega deaths in the secondary kill back. 
fat man
fat man, little boy mockups
wikipedia types The club Iran Breeders
