Talk:Dust defense

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Article as it stands contradicts the source given edit

Latest comment: 3 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion

The article is grossly misleading. Thankfully, I have a copy of the book cited and can point out the errors given.

For example they note that because these are ground-based weapons that don't need to be carried or flown anywhere, weight is not an issue and so every little trick in the book to make the weapons as clean as possible can be used. The authors estimate that based on Plowshare data, a 2kt fission in a 100kt weapon would likely be possible (i.e. 2% fission fraction) and that this fission fraction would likely be less than a percent of the fission produced by the Soviet attacking warheads. They also note that (again) from Plowshare, the tested technology to reduce neutron activation can also be used because of the lack of weight limitations in such a system.

The statement that dust defence would kill "millions" is not stated in the source. Given the fission fraction here is a tiny fraction of a Soviet fission fraction, and a Soviet attack was estimated to produce something like 5m to 20m radiation casualties, it seems extremely unlikely that the US would see "millions" of radiation casualties from dust defence.

I will be rewriting this.Kylesenior (talk) 05:07, 16 April 2021 (UTC)Reply

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