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Originally Posted by Targan
Is it possible to generate a proper fission explosion of only 0.1kt? A 1kt explosion would be in the order of an artillery nuke or a small backpack nuke. Those are the sort of weapons I'd be Googling about for info.
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It's not a real-world scenario that I'm interested in, it's the effect in the Dune books when a lasgun hits a shield. I found something somewhere (can't find where now) that said it was roughly equivalent to a 0.1kT nuclear explosion.
I hadn't thought of looking for artillery nukes in particular. Now that I have, I've found some interesting stuff. Apparently it is possible to go down to about 0.01kT, and it's been done:
US M-388 Davy Crockett
British Wee Gwen
According to
this declassified British document
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The smallest warhead at present capable of providing significant tactical effort is .01 KT (10 tons). Deriving its effect from neutron and gamma radiation it produces loss of co-ordination in 1 minute (death in 36 hours) against troops in the open up to a distance of approximately 70 yards.
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Russ