[Heinkel]

Radioactive Detonators


Diagram of a suitcase bomb


Operators
Belkan Military

Information
Radioactive detonators, mentioned by belkan soldier Michael Kohl (Confessions of a soldier) are extremely compact nuclear (or possibly radiological) grenade-sized devices developed by the Belkan Military. The devices had been under development for years before the Belkan War began and were believed to have been deployed during the Belkan war in 1995. Wether or not these detonators caused the seven nuclear explosions along the Waldreich Mountains within the Belkan Federation on June 6th, 1995 is unknown.

The warhead of the suitcase nuke or suitcase bomb consists of a tube with two pieces of uranium, which, when rammed together, would cause a blast. Some sort of firing unit and a device that would need to be decoded to cause detonation may be included in the device.They have high yields for their small size, and their blast radius can be adjusted by increments of 100 yards.

Whether the radioactive detonators do exist or if they were just made up by Belka as propaganda devices is unknown; no evidence was found at any of the seven nuclear blast sites in Belka, due to the vaporization of all components upon explosion, caused by the unknown weapon's payload.


Sources
-Confessions of a soldier (#8)
-Project Aces: ACZ page
-Homeland Security National Terror Alert

[Demon Lord Razgriz]

This isn't a Superweapon. This topic needs to be moved to the NBC weaponry subforum in the weaponry area.

[Ribbon-Blue]

Hmm... do you think these detonators were what was set off in June 6th, '95? It would explain the lack of a massive amount of deaths on that day.

[Heinkel]

The story implies that these were the ones detonated.

[Ribbon-Blue]

I just read it again myself. Thats what is says. I'll edit the article a bit.

[Shroom Man 777]

Suitcase bombs are over-hyped and the closest equivalent to them would be a "dirty bomb" which would irradiate an area, not create mushroom clouds and huge explosions.

There are other small-scale tactical nuclear weapons, like nuclear artillery or Davy Crockett warheads that can be launched from oversized bazookas. They can't fit in a suitcase, though can be hauled in large cases - ala Metal Gear Solid 3. These tactical nuclear warheads would create small mushroom clouds, but they won't cause massive destruction on par with the stuff implied in ACZ and AC5. I mean, these things are designed to stop tank battalions, not cause nuclear holocaust. Even if they are extremely dirty and radioactive (and they are), they won't cause widespread damage. Nowhere near the scale of bigger nuclear bombs.

So, no. Suitcase bombs were not the cause of those HUEG mushroom clouds in ACZ.

Unless that Confessions of a Soldier thing explicitly mentioned using seven suitcase bombs to create those HUEG explosions. But that would be silly, IMO. Perhaps those suitcase bombs mentioned on the Confessions of a Soldier had other purposes (they might not do much in a wide-open area, but in a densely populated city, well... lots of dead folks!).

If you can have such a devastating weapon fit in a suitcase, then I don't see the point in having to create humongous superweapons to inflict widescale death - which is typical in the fun world of Ace Combat.


EDIT:

From wiki:

While the explosive power of the W54 — up to an equivalent of 1 kiloton of TNT — is not much by the normal standards of a nuclear weapon (the bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki at the end of World War II were around 13 to 20 kilotons each), their value lies in their ability to be easily smuggled across borders, transported by either foot or automobile, and placed as close to the target as possible. Even a 1-kt. nuclear weapon would be many times more powerful than even the largest truck bombs for purposes of destroying a single building or target; the explosive attack on the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma in 1995, for comparison, effectively demolished the target structure but required an explosive load at least one order of magnitude larger than the W84 while producing a yield more than 2 orders of magnitude weaker. Furthermore, the flash burns and prompt radiation flux from even a small nuclear explosion would create additional damage and casualties where a conventional explosive would not.

Bring that baby into Oured and... well, bye-bye!

[Heinkel]

You got a point, the mushroom clouds seen in the cutscenes can only be created by large strategic nukes, no tactical ones, but if strategic nukes had been used in the belkan war then the casualty count would be way over 12.000.

Maybe it's just a mistake by Namco

[Demon Lord Razgriz]

No, look where the nukes went off at. It was in the mountains, where there wouldn't be as many people. Thats proablly the reason the death toll was low for a nuke.

[Ribbon-Blue]

Agreed. When they say that seven towns were vaporized, they were probably small mountain towns. Kind of like the ones we have in Colorado.

[Traben]

Although my faith in the sanity of the 1995 Belkan regime is very little, I would think that they could very well have just slammed some nukes into the actual mountains, creating a much more cost-efficient barrier. They actually TARGETED seven TOWNS. These guys weren't just in the blast radius, they were the epicenters! If they had just been within a radiation zone, people could have just evacuated and the death toll could have been even less than 12,000.

[Shroom Man 777]

I don't think they actually targetted the towns specifically...

Either way, it's not the Belkan government's fault. It's probably those goddamn corporates and their insane conspiracy to take over the world and turn it into a cyberpunk dystopia where the only boundaries are of corporate logos!

And yeah, small towns with small populaces = small death toll.

[Traben]

Well, the right-wing whackos had taken over the government at that point. It was THEIR decision. And why use NUKES to create a barrier on their own soil?

[Demon Lord Razgriz]

For a invisible wall of radiation.

[Ribbon-Blue]

For a invisible wall of radiation.

At first it sounds crazy, but, who would be crazy enough to even attempt to cross an area that wide, packed with radiation?

I believe what Kael said was right though. The end definately did not justify the means.

[Heinkel]

All AFVs have NBC filters, so what's the point?

[Demon Lord Razgriz]

Not all AFVs have NBC protection, it's only relevity new AFV that have them(1978 and above production models).

[Heinkel]

And the nuking happened in 1990's

[Traben]

I would argue that, in a very broad perspective, the nukes had some positive impact. It definitely did not achieve positive results on their end (which I'm not even really sure they intended to bring about), but results nonetheless: an end to the war. Belka was struggling as it was to keep up the war, and unleashing nukes on itself brought it to its knees. Belka effectively committed suicide with those bombs. If they hadn't done what they did, the war would have dragged on and cost thousands more casualties.

It was a dilemma Truman had to face with Hiroshima. He said that if the bomb wasn't dropped, the only alternative would be a costly invasion with questionable results.

[Demon Lord Razgriz]

Traben has a very good point with the whole Truman's dilemma thing.

As for you Heinkel, most nations uses more older 1960's AFVs than the newer 1980s AFVs.