From: utzoo!decvax!ucbvax!arms-d Newsgroups: fa.arms-d Title: id AA07836; 30 Jan 83 23:24:23 PST (Sun) Article-I.D.: ucbvax.764 Posted: Mon Jan 31 01:27:56 1983 Received: Mon Jan 31 08:45:56 1983 >From FFM@MIT-MC Sun Jan 30 23:25:27 1983 Received: from UCBARPA.BERKELEY.ARPA by UCBVAX.BERKELEY.ARPA (3.300 [1/17/83]) id AA23473; 30 Jan 83 23:25:27 PST (Sun) Received: by UCBVAX.BERKELEY.ARPA (3.300 [1/17/83]) id AA23499; 30 Jan 83 23:27:23 PST (Sun) To: ARMS-D-DIST@MIT-MC Subject: Arms-Discussion Digest V1 #001 To: ARMS-D-DIST@MC Reply-To: ARMS-D at MIT-MC Arms-Discussion Digest Volume 1 : Issue 001 Today's Topics: Fuller Nukes, Solar; The Pentagon; DOD Grants at Univ of Washington; More on Isrealis vs. Syrians; A New Dark Age?; Laser Bombs at Port Stanley; ARMSD list (yes it lives); Battleship New Jersey; Do-it yourself fratricide; ARMSD restarting message; Nova Show on Feb 15. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Moderation Messages: Dear Patient ARMSD readers; Yes as promised nearly a month ago; here is the revived ARMS-D Digest. I hope you like it. If there are any comments, questions etc. please send them to me (FFM@MC) Thanks and Have fun Sends Steve ------------------------------ ------------------------------ Date: 4 Nov 82 12:48:31-MST (Thu) From: Tom SloneTo: oaf at Mit-Mc, hga at Mit-Mc Subject: Fuller, nukes, solar Via: arizona; 4 Nov 82 20:10-PDT Buckminster Fuller recently made the insightful observation that if arms production were halted world-wide, there would be ample energy from the sun alone to meet any future, peaceful energy needs due to the massive decrease in wasteful energy use. Let's here it for a global village! --Tom Slone gi!arizona!tom (USENET) Date: 5 Dec 82 22:37:42-MST (Sun) From: Tom Slone To: josh at Rutgers, hga at Mit-Mc Subject: The Pentagon Via: arizona; 5 Dec 82 23:29-PDT The Pentagon has $1,500,000,000,000 in assets, a value far exceeding that of all the corporations on the N.Y. Stock Exchange. It has 3970 installations (an average of 80 per site) in the U.S. covering nearly 25 million acres, or an area 5 times the size of the state of Massachusetts. Outside our own borders, it has more than 400 major bases and nearly 3000 lesser ones located in almost every region in the world. More than 350 of these are in countries that border the U.S.S.R. The Pentagon is the largest single consumer of capital and technology in the world. It absorbs either directly or indirectly more than 1/3 of all scientific and engineering personnel. More than 60% of government research and development funds are devoted to the military. The Pentagon accounts for nearly 2/3 of the national debt which is now approaching 1 trillion dollars. The interest alone on this debt in 1981 was some $95 billion. It is the largest single consumer of energy - about 450,000 barrels of fuel a day. It exercises profound control over the whole economy - with 5 million people on its immediate payroll; and effecting the payroll of some 20,000 prime contractors and almost 100,000 sub- contractors. (Taken from Con$cience & Military Tax Campaign - U.S. Newsletter #9 44 Bellhaven Rd. Bellport, NY 11713) Date: 11 Nov 1982 1008-PST From: Alan Borning Subject: Re: DOD grants To: Tom.arizona at UDEL-RELAY cc: ARMS-D at MIT-MC, Borning at WASHINGTON You asked about DOD funding at the Univ. of Washington Computer Science Dept. It is not the case that the department is heavily DOD-oriented. There is one project, the Northwest VLSI Consortium, that has ARPA funding, along with funding from the corporate members of the consortium. However, most of the research grants in the department are from NSF. ------- Date: 13 November 1982 02:04-EST From: Herb Lin Subject: more info on Israelis vs Syrians To: ARMS-D at MIT-MC my sources in the air force now tell me that the primary reason for the large kill ratio in favor of the Israelis comes from the following: apparently both the MiG 21 and MiG 23 have an indicator light which comes on in the cockpit when a radar-guided missle is homing on them. Rather than taking evasive action, I am told that most Syrian pilots simply bailed out. Mail-from: DECNET site ECLA rcvd at 15-Nov-82 1312-PST Date: 15 Nov 1982 10:41-PST From: dietz at usc-cse at USC-ECL at USC-ECLB Subject: A New Dark Age? To: arms-d at mit-ai Origin: usc-cse Reply-To: dietz at USC-ECL at USC-ECLB Via: Usc-Cse; 15 Nov 82 11:44:11 Physics Today (Oct. 82 issue) has a fascinating piece in the news section (pages 17-20) on a recently discovered effect of nuclear war. This digest has seen dicussions of the effects of oxides of nitrogen (NOx) on stratospheric ozone. When a large (> 1 MT) bomb is dentonated, the fireball generates large quantities of NOx and injects it into the stratosphere. However, most of the warheads in existence are smaller than this (a few hundred KT). These bombs do not inject significant amounts of NOx into the stratosphere. Rather, they leave it in the troposphere. So, the question is: what is the effect of a nuclear war on the troposphere? The answer is suprising and somewhat alarming. A couple of scientists have made a study of the effects, and they are substantial. The study involved examining the effects of a nuclear war in which roughly 1/4 of the existing weapons are used (after that you run out of targets). The immediate effects (blast, fallout, radiation) are not covered, except to say that most cities in the Northern Hemisphere with > 100,000 people are hit, as are most factories, dams, oil fields, military bases, etc. In all, 14,700 warheads are exploded, out of 59,000 (est) available, for a total yield of 5.7 gigatons, out of 13 available. Most weapons are much less than 1 MT. The weapons set off major fires. Oil fields, gas fields, oil refineries are destroyed. Forests and grasslands burn. In the US, and to a greater extent in Canada and the USSR, there are large forests near major cities. These are ignited and burn out of control. A conservative estimate yields the following figures: Roughly 1E6 square kilometers of forest are burned, 20 times the current yearly figure. Broken gas and oil wells vent at a rate equal to current world consumption. Estimate that 25% of the gas does not burn. Fires inject ~2E15 grams of carbon in gases and ~3E14 grams of particulates into the troposphere. Vertical column density of particulates will be .1 to .5 grams/m^2 (gold leaf is .5 grams/m^2). Particulates will reduce noontime sunlight by a factor of from 2 to 150(!), for a period lasting for weeks, over the entire northern hemisphere. Note that the particulates in smoke absorb sunlight at least an order of magnitude better than volcanic particulates. Carbon monoxide levels increase by a factor of four over the entire northern hemisphere. After the smoke settles, sunlight will begin cooking the NOx and hydrocarbons in the troposphere. A hemisphere wide smog alert may occur, with ozone levels at 160 ppb by volume, and PAN levels at 1-10 ppb (I think this is a stage 1 alert, for any Los Angeles residents). Major crop damage will occur, although most people will have no problems. NOx will be washed out by rain, causing the rain to have a pH of < 4. Major damage to the ocean's plankton will occur due to the interruption of sunlight. The biggest effect will be to make it very hard to feed the survivors, even if they have been relocated away from target and fallout areas. Irreversible changes (soot causing the melting of icecaps, for instance) cannot be ruled out. Return-path: dietz@USC-CSE Date: 14 Dec 1982 9:28-PST From: dietz%usc-cse@USC-ECL Subject: Laser Bombs at Port Stanley To: arms-d@mit-mc Origin: usc-cse Reply-to: dietz@USC-ECL Via: Usc-Cse; 14 Dec 82 10:36:01 An interesting article appeared in the Nov. 25 issue of New Scientist: "Laser bombs forced the surrender at Port Stanley" The commanders in charge of Argentinian troops on the Falklands surrendered, rather than fight on to the last man, because they knew that the Royal Air Force was about to drop laser-guided bombs directly on to their brigade headquarters. In the final, land-based days of the war, Biritish laser bombs were as crucial as Exocets were in the early naval phase. Four Harriers from the aircraft carrier HMS Hermes had each dropped one such bomb the day before surrender. The British knew, from monitoring Argentinian radio transmissions, that the sudden and unexpected arrival of 450kg bombs, accurate to within a metre, was demoralising the soldiers in Port Stanley. So they broadcast a list of targets for the next day in plain English, rather than using codes. When the Argentinian commanders heard that their personal offices were top of the list, they surrendered -- only ten minutes before the Harriers were due to arrive. The RAF was using the Paveway II laser-guidance kit, attached to standard British 450kg bombs. Paveway II is made by Texas Instruments in the United States and converts an ordinary "dumb" bomb into a "smart" weapon with pinpoint accuracy. One section of the kit attaches to the rear of the weapon. Another part, which goes at the front, has four steering fins and a laser receiver. When an aircraft drops a bomb, the laser receiving end acts like a weathercock and points directly into the wind. This means that it is aiming at the target and can pick up energy from a laser that a soldier on the ground is shing on the target. A small computer in the bomb's nose works out which direction the laser light is coming from and moves the fins so that the bomb steers towards its target. The Americans used the earlier Paveway I in Vietnam to knock out bridges. But the Falklands conflict was the first time that the more manoeuvrable Paveway II had seen action. It was also the baptism of the Ferranti LTMR (laser target marker and ranger). In the first attack, on 13 June, two Harriers flew in over Bluff Cove to line themselves up and then continued at a fixed speed for a precalculated time. One after another, they pulled up into a climb, released their bombs and turned away. At this time they were shielded from the target by Mount Harriet, so the defenders never saw or heard the aircraft. The first bomb fell slightly short but the second bomb was a direct hit. Latter in the day a second attack, with almost identical results, was made against a machine-gun post. During that night, British soldiers captured Mount Tumbledown and found that the bombs had caused horrific casualties. They were now within laser range, about 3 km, of the Argentinian brigade headquarters. Although the laser bombs proved devastatingly effective, the British forces appeared to have loaded the dice even more in their favour. One of the few actions the received wide publicity during the attack on Port Stanley was a supposedly-successful laser-bomb attack on a howitzer right in the middle of Stanley. Video tapes made at the time show a British officer slowly and clearly broadcasting on his radio that the attack was successful. In fact, Port Stanley itself never cam within laser range before the surrender and a well-staged bluff may have led to the surrender. (New Scientist, Nov. 25, 1982, Page 483) Date: 28 December 1982 15:54-EST From: Doug Humphrey Subject: the list To: ARMS-D at MIT-AI cc: DIGEX at MIT-AI, HGA at MIT-AI just a brief question. does the arms-d list still exist ? i have not received anything from it in quite a while, and really miss it. with all of the things going on right now in the government concerning the MX and other weapons systems, i would think that it would be a popular list. i hope that i just got dropped from the list and that it still exists. if this is the case, please add me back onto it and point me toward the archives so that i may catch up. with thanks, and wishes to all for a safe and peaceful new year, doug Date: 28 December 1982 17:59-EST (Tuesday) Sender: CARTER at RU-GREEN From: _Bob To: Arms-D at MC Subject:BB New Jersey Reply-To: Carter at RUTGERS The BB New Jersey was commissioned today. Does anyone have info or a pointer to information about how she is fitted out? Complement? Armament? _Bob Date: 30 Dec 1982 1014-PST From: Richard M. King Subject: do-it-yourself fratricide To: arms-d at MIT-MC cc: king at KESTREL Would it violate any treaties to have a few dozen nuclear weapons of our own buried in the dense-pack area, primed to explode if a computer thinks that an incoming attack was likely to be successful (well aimed, and all of the incoming missiles are due to reach an appropriate altitude at the same time)? Something like this might also work against soft landing missiles... The question is, is this an ABM? (our weapons don't fly - they just sit there until needed.) Dick ------- FFM@MIT-MC 01/12/83 04:43:59 Re: ARMS-D'S COMING REVIVAL To: ARMS-D at MIT-MC Dear Arms-D Folks, We are about to start up ARMS-D again. So if you feel inclined, please send us some new material. The moderatorship, is that a word?, will be shared between Dave Caulkins, John Larson and myself. Thanks and Have fun, Sends Steve Date: 25 Jan 1983 10:27:38-EST From: rae at mit-vax To: arms-d@mit-mc Subject: Nova show On February 15th, Nova is presenting "The Dawn With No Tomorrow". It discusses the latest generation of nuclear weapons and shows how Americans and Russians view the standoff between the world's superpowers. End of Arms-D Digest ********************