[Beowulf] Re: "hobbyists"

[Peter St. John]

Actually, nuclear weapons have indeed been considered for killing troops on
the battlefield. At one time, the possibility of the Soviet Union invading
western Europe seemed not so remote. Here is a link (wiki) to basically a
bazooka launched fission bomb:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Davy_Crockett_%28nuclear_device%29
with pictures.
("recoiless gun" means a rocket fired from a tube). The idea would be to for
a relatively small force to cope with a relatively large number of tanks.
Peter

On 6/19/08, Kilian CAVALOTTI <kilian at stanford.edu> wrote:
>
> On Thursday 19 June 2008 06:58:44 am Robert G. Brown wrote:
> > Getting too big
> > or two small an explosion can either kill your own troops or not kill
> > all of the enemy on an actual battlefield.
>
>
> To add some more OT stuff to this thread, I don't think a nuclear weapon
> has ever been used (or even considered being used) to kill troops on a
> battlefield. Some cluster bombs (hey, back on topic! :)) are probably
> enough for this purpose.
>
> IMHO, a nuclear weapon is mainly a dissuasion weapon, ie, one you claim
> you own to make your ennemies think twice before they strike you. Or
> that you use against civilians to make your point louder, and let your
> ennemies understand they'd better surrender.
>
> That's why I find the association between "nuclear weapon"
> and "battlefield" a bit irrelevant.
>
> Other than that, pretty interesting stuff. I'm unfortunately supporting
> your conclusions.
>
> Cheers,
> --
>
> Kilian
>
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