Nuclear Nose Cones Mistakenly Shipped to Taiwan

Reservoir Hill writes "The Pentagon announced that the United States had mistakenly shipped to Taiwan four electrical fuses designed for use on intercontinental ballistic missiles, but has since recovered them. The mistaken shipment to Taiwan did not include nuclear materials, although the fuses are linked to the triggering mechanism in the nose cone of a Minuteman nuclear missile. Taiwanese authorities notified U.S. officials of the mistake, but it was not clear when the notification was made. An examination of the site in Taiwan where the components had been stored after delivery indicated that they had not been tampered with. The fuses had been in four shipping containers sent in March 2005 from F.E. Warren Air Force Base, Wyo., to a Defense Logisitics Agency warehouse at Hill Air Force Base, Utah. It was then in the logistics agency's control and was shipped to Taiwan "on or around" August 2006, according to a memo from Defense Secretary Robert Gates ordering Navy Adm. Kirkland H. Donald to investigate the incident."

Hmm...

What can Brown do for the US Government?

Nosecones?

The article references fuses designed for use in nose cones... Is this story's headline misrepresenting the true nature of the mistake?

Re:Nosecones?

Welcome to Slashdot

Re:Nosecones?

Agreed. Headline makes it sound like we shipped something radioactive. Reading a few lines into the article will show that nothing glowy was shipped, only the fuses. Wouldn't this be like saying "Grade schooler found with explosives equipment in backpack" when all they really had was a few fuse wicks in there? Don't get me wrong, we still screwed up, but at least be truthful of how we screwed up.

Re:Nosecones?

Not really.

The electronics and detonation systems used in nuclear bombs are very advanced, and very difficult to get right. A large portion of the time spent developing a nuclear weapon is devoted to the detonation electronics.

Mistakenly handing over a crate of said electronics would give a nation a significant shortcut toward developing their own nuclear weapons.

Re:Nosecones?

China wants Taiwan. We like Taiwan. We could give or take China (love their cheap crap, hate their social structure that allows said cheap crap, afraid of billion-man Armageddon-sized army). How do we prop up Taiwan without pissing off China? "Accidentally" help make them a nuclear power by "oops!" letting them hold on to vital nuke bomb parts to study for a year or two!

Fiendishly clever, I say.

Real-politick and espionage

Well, if the US notifies China (PRC) that it is giving China/Taiwan (ROC) nuclear weapons, China goes to war with US, embargoes Taiwan, etc.

If US gives ROC weapons, and nobodies knows, there is no deterrent, we violate agreements, and generally encourage proliferation.

If US just plants a news story about the parts, then PRC doesn't know, "shipping error" creates plausible deniability. PRC can't make a scene, but can wonder, does the ROC have a nuke now.

PRC doesn't care about being depopulated, but 4-10 nuclear weapons might do a number on those shiny new factories that they are building.

Re:Nosecones?

Nothing quite so fantastic as all that. First of all, China will be a self correcting problem. We outsource to them currently because they're going through a period of rapid industrialization that allows them to produce items who's quality if quickly approaching that of ours, but because of the rapid industrialization their industry controls haven't gone into place (which make for safer work environments and products, and also add a fair bit of overhead to the final cost) which allows for cheaper products. Once they achieve parity with the rest of the modern world the next step is to introduce the proper industry controls at which point costs will also achieve parity and it will no longer be economically advantageous to offshore to them.

Secondly, we knew of the mistake almost as soon as it happened. It's just that we only recently finished processing the paperwork. The next step is to file the paperwork that gets those fuses sent back over here. ETA is somewhere in 2015.

Re:Nosecones?

The 1960s were a full 20 years after we developed the only nuclear weapons ever to be used against a real target.

That's 20 years of development.

Why do you think we still have these nose cones, anyway? The US has not come all that far since the 60s in terms of nuclear weapon design. By the 60s we were already detonating fusion bombs, and I guarantee you that the designs and electronics used in the 60s to create hydrogen bombs will still work today.

I don't think anyone would care whether the megaton hydrogen bomb just detonated in their city was based on 1960s designs or 1980s designs :)

Re:Nosecones?

I don't think anyone would care whether the megaton hydrogen bomb just detonated in their city was based on 1960s designs or 1980s designs :)

And I thought I had bad timing with smileys.

Re:Nosecones?

Taiwan is not the same thing as China. They are at war with each-other, so it's unlikely they'd actually hand over any of this to the Chinese. Besides, they are among our strongest allies and already have a lot of the advanced missile tech just like Japan for example.

So yeah, they should have better controls over where our nuclear tech is shipped, but in this particular case there's no problem.

Re:Nosecones?

Believe it or not, some words in the English language have more than one meaning. Since the "bit of wire that gets hot and melts when you put too much current through it" definition obviously doesn't apply, perhaps you should consider that it's talking about the "ignition system for an explosive device" definition.

I don't know the details of this particular weapon, but nuclear ignition fuses can be very sophisticated. In an implosion-style weapon, you've got a bunch of detonators arranged in a pattern on the outside of a sphere of high explosive. It's of utmost importance that the explosive shock wave hit the center of the sphere from all sides at pretty much exactly the same time, to maximize compression on the nuclear material. There are two things that have to happen for this to be the case:

1) Explosive lenses. As each detonator fires, it creates an expanding sphere of detonation throughout the high explosive. All of these spheres will meet in the middle as the entire explosive detonates, but it's a messy and irregular shock front. You instead want a perfectly spherical shock front to all hit the nuclear material (itself a sphere) simultaneously. The most straightforward way to do this is to have two different explosives which detonate at different velocities. Basically directly underneath each detonator (the point that the expanding spherical shock wave would naturally hit first), you've got to slow the explosion down by using a lower-velocity explosive, and in between the detonators (the point that the expanding spherical shock waves would naturally hit last), you've got to speed it up by using a higher-velocity explosive. By precisely calculating and machining the interface between the two types of explosives, you can control how long it takes the shock wave to reach the nuclear material at each point -- ideally, exactly simultaneously.

2) Precise detonation. If one of the detonators fires a couple of milliseconds late, you've got a lopsided shock wave which leads to much poorer compression of the nuclear material. Poor compression leads to low yield or even no nuclear ignition at all. But you've got perhaps dozens of detonators, and making them all go off within microseconds of each other is highly non-trivial. It takes quite a bit of sophistication to time dozens of explosions to all happen at more-or-less precisely the same time, and not only is it hard, nuclear bombs are pretty much the only case in which you ever have to time things this precisely. And that means that short of specialized research into this exact problem, you're not going to have the technology to do it.

The devices which were inappropriately shipped are a solution to problem #2. Problem #1 is actually quite a bit easier -- the underlying math and science is quite straightforward (as these things go). Solve #1 and #2, and you've got the ability to create a perfectly spherical shock wave. Put a an appropriate sphere of plutonium in the middle of a sufficiently powerful spherical shock wave, and you've got a nuclear bomb.

Re:

If I'm understanding TFA correctly, the "fuse" is what a layman would consider the nose cone, or at least the body of the cone. It's not like a fuse you change in your fusebox or under your dashboard.

Re:Nosecones?

I saw the story on TV news last night, and the items they showed looked like the stereotypical "nose cone", with a big wiring harness and connectors hanging out of the open end.

What I am curious about is exactly WHAT the electronics here consisted of. Are we talking about the system that senses altitude and triggers the detonation sequence (which would be serious enough), or was this the actual "X-unit" electronics package that fires all the separate detonators on the explosive lenses to compress the plutonium pit?

If the latter is actually what they shipped out (complete with the krytron switches, high energy capacitors, etc.), then some heads REALLY need to roll over this one. The media isn't being all that specific about what is actually involved here, either because the DoD isn't telling them, or because of the usual "dumbing down" of anything that might be considered too technical for Joe Sixpack to care about.

Re:Nosecones?

And to pre-empt any of you who have not read the article and feel the need to show off your knowledge just to argue:

FTA:
"The fuses were manufactured for use on a Minuteman strategic nuclear missile and are linked to the triggering mechanism in the nose cone, but they contain no nuclear materials."
it was also in the summary if you even got that far.

Also in the same article:
"Four of the cone-shaped fuses were shipped to Taiwanese officials in fall 2006 instead of the helicopter batteries they had ordered."

These were not the "Nuclear Nose Cones" themselves but cone shaped fuses that are "linked" to the complex triggering system that makes up most of the nose cone volume. This is how CBS refers to them: "... four electrical fuses for nose cone assemblies for ICBMs" and if you take a second to look up the way these things work you will see that the majority of the system is not the fuses themselves but the triggering system.

disparity...

we send them really nifty stuff like nuclear nose cones and they ship us some crappy sneakers...

what gives? this is worse than the xmas gifts i get at work....

Re:disparity...

we send them really nifty stuff like nuclear nose cones and they ship us some crappy sneakers...

This is Taiwan, not the PRC. They make the computers around which your nerdly life revolves.

Why is this reported?

You know, I read a couple articles about this yesterday afternoon.

I can't seem to figure out why it was being reported at all. The story as it's published is "nothing much happened, somebody filled out the shipping form wrong, we returned it all to sender." So in whose interest is this story being reported?

It would be a reasonable story to spread as cover if the shipment had been intentional and China found out about it (or if there had been, say, six fuses shipped and four returned); or it could be a useful story to ratchet up tensions with China before the Olympics (to whoever's benefit). Thing is, I'm not a conspiracy theorist, so I don't really buy that without it being more obvious whose interest it serves; but if it's just a "gotcha" story talking about how the US military screwed up, then the shots fired in the Suez [google.com] might be a more interesting one (especially since as of yesterday afternoon the USAF was denying that anybody got hurt).

So, in short, this nuke-fuse story is weird, and I can't figure out why it's getting reported.

(Full disclosure: I wish Taiwan had nukes, to make sure China stays polite and on its side of the Strait.)

Re:Why is this reported?

I'm in Taiwan at the moment.

Taiwan has just had an election and Chen Shui Bian [wikipedia.org] who was basically in favour of formal independence (which would cause China to attack) has been replaced with Ma Ying Jeou [wikipedia.org] who's policy is "no independence, no unification and no war" and trying to increase economic ties with China and possibly sign some sort of peace treaty. The US strongly supports this since they don't want a war between large but totalitarian China and small but democratic Taiwan which they might get dragged into. Taiwan elects its own leaders, has its own army and so on anyway, and is a rich free country, quite unlike China. Formal independence wouldn't actually do any good, but it might do a lot of bad by triggering a full on war.

No I've no idea what the story behind all this, but I guess the US and/or Taiwan have decided to disclose this rather than risk China finding out about it later. Taiwan having nuclear weapons is one of the things that would cause the China to attack [wikipedia.org]. Since China is in scheming mode rather than bullying mode because of the Taiwanese election result, maybe now is as good a time to make the announcement as any.

Even when the US still had diplomatic relations with Taiwan instead of China, they forced Taiwan to dismantle some nuclear facilities [globalsecurity.org] to reduce the risk that they provoke a war with China. Despite the change in diplomatic recognition, which was forced on them by a vote in the UN General Assembly [virginia.edu], the US still views Taiwan as a protege and would defend them if China attacked, unless they provoked that attack by declaring formal independence.

Re:Why is this reported?

Rest assured, they'll send it back in one form or another.

It's no longer cool to be in the nuclear military

A board that investigated the accidental flight of nuclear-armed cruise missiles across the country a few months ago found that our nation's nuclear armaments are now trusted to much lower-ranking officers and civilians than used to be the case. They found that working with nuclear arms was no longer regarded by military personnel as being a good way to advance one's career.

The US has been fighting conventionally ever since the first Gulf War - even after that war ended, there was quite a bit of combat activity to enforce Iraq's no-fly zone. With the current wars, this has resulted in military personnel regarding conventional fighting as the way to get ahead in the military.

Let me find you a link...

• Air Force's Nuclear Focus Has Dimmed [latimes.com]

After the Cold War, the once-vaunted Strategic Air Command, which controlled all Air Force nuclear weapons, was dismantled. The military's nuclear missiles were assigned to a division responsible for operations in space, and its nuclear bombers were moved to Air Combat Command, which also includes nonnuclear fighters and reconnaissance aircraft.

...

However, the Welch report is highly critical of the split commands. The report concludes that combining nuclear forces with nonnuclear organizations has led to "markedly reduced levels of leadership whose daily focus is the nuclear enterprise and a general devaluation of the nuclear mission and those who perform the mission."

"Fuze" is probably a small radar

If it's the "fuse" in the "nose cone", it's probably the radar proximity fuze, used to detonate a nuclear weapon at a specific height above ground. This is essential only for ICBMs intended for use against hardened targets, where the detonation has to occur at just the right height to maximize the blast effect against something like a missile silo lid.

If you're delivering your bomb in a Ryder truck, this component is unnecessary.

ugh

I have been reading this story though various news outlets since yesterday. And I am going to post here the same thing I posted on Fark...

This is a non-issue. Something got mixed up when we were shipping them some batteries, and we shipped them some fuses instead. And they returned them with no problems. This story keeps on cropping up, and it's just sensationalism... especially using the word "nuclear" in the headline in this particular case. For shame.

They should have used the CIA

Makes things more interesting...

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2006/jan/05/energy.g2 [guardian.co.uk]

On paper, Merlin was supposed to stunt the development of Tehran's nuclear programme by sending Iran's weapons experts down the wrong technical path. The CIA believed that once the Iranians had the blueprints and studied them, they would believe the designs were usable and so would start to build an atom bomb based on the flawed designs.

The Russian studied the blueprints the CIA had given him. Within minutes of being handed the designs, he had identified a flaw. "This isn't right," he told the CIA officers gathered around the hotel room. "There is something wrong." His comments prompted stony looks, but no straight answers from the CIA men. No one in the meeting seemed surprised by the Russian's assertion that the blueprints didn't look quite right, but no one wanted to enlighten him further on the matter, either.

In fact, the CIA case officer who was the Russian's personal handler had been stunned by his statement. During a break, he took the senior CIA officer aside. "He wasn't supposed to know that," the CIA case officer told his superior. "He wasn't supposed to find a flaw."

"Don't worry," the senior CIA officer calmly replied. "It doesn't matter."

Funny how many ppl believe it

I have written about this before. I worked at a job before where we designed special hardware/software for sale to several different 3 letter agencies. It was interesting work. But at one time, we went out to find funding. One of them was a Taiwanese guy from Loveland CO. He had recently sold a Chinese restaurant there. He wanted to fund us, but wanted full access to the hardware. In particular, he wanted the ability to take this to Mainland china. He said that he could sell it for a bundle (and he would have gotten millions more for it there, than we were able to sell it here). Even we told him that this was prevented from leaving the country, he still wanted to own if the company collapsed. When pointed out that the code hardware would have to go back to a different company, he was upset with it. All in all, this man saw no difference between mainland vs. taiwan. In fact, I would say that he viewed it more as China vs. America. And this man had grown up in Taiwan.