Posts Tagged ‘beam weapons’

Nukes: the third generation

Monday, December 22nd, 2008

Do you realize just how little info there is out there on third generation nukes? It’s a crying shame. Federation of American Scientists even highlights information on fourth generation nukes without saying anything about the third generation. Which is a travesty, as third generation hardware is easily the coolest. Essentially it constitutes a mechanism to deploy a warhead like a beam weapon: you detonate the device and channel the x-rays at the target and whammo. Besides my, er, private collection (of articles, not weapons) the best I can find out there is an old piece in TIME from more than twenty years ago, which isn’t that surprising, given that these weapons were intended to be the crown jewel in the SDI system.  There are times I miss the ’80s.