Weapon pits

Huge amounts of loose sediment (rock fragments, sands, and silts) resulted from the digging of thousands of ground fortficadons in Kuwait In the Ras As Subiyah area (Northeastern part of Kuwait), as an example, about 1,041,742.3 m of loose sediments were excavated as a result of construction of 4,569,7,142, and 3,959 ammunition bunkers, living accommodation bunkers, and weapon pits, respectively [4]. 

Portion no. Ammunition bunkers Living accommodation bunkers Weapon pit Total bunkers and pits Area [km ]... 

Most modern weapons use a hollow Pu core or pit with an implosion mechanism for detonation. Also low density Pu or delta-Pu is used due to its high compressibility. Modem pits may be composites of Pu239 and U235. In view of chemical reactivity and toxic nature of Pu, it is a general practice to plate the completed pit with a thin layer of inert material-previously nickel and now gold. 

VA-I them to our advantage. Once we learned how to control fire, we were able to create many new substances. Moldable wet clay, for example, was found to harden to ceramic when heated by fire. By 5000 B.C., pottery fire pits gave way to furnaces hot enough to convert copper ores to metallic copper. By 1200 B.c., even hotter furnaces were converting iron ores to iron. This technology allowed for the mass production of metal tools and weapons and made possible the many achievements of ancient Chinese, Egyptian, and Greek civilizations. 

An amount of 3.7 kg plutonium is also reported as typical for pits in U.S. and USSR devices. Corroborating evidence is given in a Russian report on early tests (Dubasov et al., 1995) for example, which describes many devices with 3-4 kg of plutonium, and in press reports that refer to nearly 3 kg of plutonium in each of 32 USSR nuclear warheads in a sunken submarine east of Bermuda. Similar values have been reported for the two torpedoes that sank with the Russian submarine Komsomolets north of Norway in 1989, and for the U.S. weapons involved in the air crashes at Thule and Palomares in the 1960s. 

The reason other writers have dismissed it as having no practical application is probably because they don t think along the lines of improvised weaponry- But I do. t made about a teaspoonful and spread it about an eighth of an inch, thick on my work table and let it dry. Then 1 barely touched it with a feather. Instead of the snap-cracKle-pop effect described in the book, it was a real explosion. The table was pitted and my ears rang. After having made far more than required to demonstrate this arra iingly unstable substance, t was struck by its heretofore unmen-tionod potential as a weapon. 

To see it thus, from an armored fighting vehicle, guarded by weapons which alone could have destroyed the army of Nebuchadnezzar or one of Vespasian s legions, gave me a queer feeling in the pit of my stomach. 

The document also states, In most cases, these sites served more than one purpose. Ranges were often used to dispose of leaking or defective munitions. Many historical references, primarily during and immediately after World War II, cite instances where chemical weapons were buried because of leaks discovered during transportation or in storage. In some cases, munitions and other containers were drained into holes, covered with lime or open-pit burned and finally covered with earth. ... 

The Cut and Fill map shows several areas of deep fill in the federal property compatible with the witness description. The undeniable fact that a narrow-gauge railroad line existed on the federal property and the discovery of one burial pit on a hillside adjacent to that railroad give credence to the witness statement. Three items being developed at the AUES— Lewisite, ricin, and the toxic smoke candles—could have been termed strategic weapons as the term was used in the ERA CID report. 

To facilitate communication and coordination, the SD s console was physically located in the pit right between the MCC and the ACE (Airborne Command Element). Through internal radio nets, the SD synchronized the work of the weapons section with that of the surveillance section. He also monitored and coordinated the actions of his weapons directors to meet the demands of both the ACE and MCC. 

The capability to use RADTRAN was subsequently demonstrated through a comparative risk assessment of two hypothetical versions of a campaign to transform the surplus weapons-grade plutonium currently stored at the DOE s Pantex site (near Amarillo) into mixed-oxide fuel, and ship it to a reactor site for utilization. In one of these hypothetical campaigns, the conversion and fabrication were performed on-site at Pantex, whereas in the second version the plutonium pits were shipped from Pantex to an intermediate site for conversion into oxide form and fabrication into fuel. The interested reader is referred to [14] for the results of this assessment. 

Fig. 11.18 The gamma-ray counting rate of snow and firn in a pit close to South Pole Station decreases with depth but rises at 1.4, 3.1, and 4.4 m. These peaks represent fallout from the testing of nuclear weapons between 1970/71 at Mururoa Island (1.4 m), thermonuclear detonations in September of 1961 (3.1 m), and tests that ended in 1958 (4.4 m) (Picciotto and Wilgain 1963). The background activity decreased with increasing depth because the detector was increasingly shielded from cosmic rays. The year of deposition of the snow was determined by counting layers in the walls of the pit (Adapted from Dreschhoff and Zeller 1978)...

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