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From: henry@zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer)
Newsgroups: sci.military
Subject: selectable yield
Message-ID: <7068@cbnews.ATT.COM>
Date: 2 Jun 89 02:36:01 GMT
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From: henry@zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer)
>(How does an optional yield warhead work, anyway?)

I don't think there has ever been an unclassified discussion of the matter.
One can make guesses, however.  Almost any fission bomb nowadays will have
a small fusion component to boost yield -- the high-energy neutrons that
fusion produces help the fission reaction along.  This seems to be done
with tritium, judging by the fact that most bombs need refurbishing once
or twice a decade (the half-life of tritium is about 12 years).  Deuterium
or lithium or etc. might be involved as well, of course.  Assuming that
the tritium is stored in a tank and injected into the fission assembly
just before detonation -- it's probably desirable to keep the tritium
under tight control in storage, given that it is a health hazard -- one
might be able to alter the yield by altering the amount of tritium
injected.  That's the best speculation I've seen on how dial-a-yield works.

                                     Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology
                                 uunet!attcan!utzoo!henry henry@zoo.toronto.edu