CBS Jericho

The "new" season of Jericho has begun. We're offered only a glimpse of answers to all the questions we have had on our minds for the past couple of months.

We now know the attack was done from the inside and not a foreign country.

But was this terrorism??

Seeing the previews for the next episode it seem not likely, although certainly still possible.

What we did see in the preview if I am not mistaken was a map of the US and a reference to 6 stars located in geographical regions and a reference to six presidents.

So a conclusion could be made that the bombs were a coup d’etat or it is quite plausible that the country was divided into 6 internal geo-political entities in response to the attacks as there was no longer a central government.

Let's take a look at the bombs since they were very clearly shown.

First we have to accept that we have know idea the size of the blast, the area of devastation so therefore we have no idea as to the size of the bombs aside from what we saw in the episode which was about the size of a 55 gallon barrel.

I think we can safely rule out a fusion or hydrogen bomb which the extreme temperatures and densities necessary for a fusion reaction are generated with energy from a fission explosion. A pure fusion weapon is a hypothetical design that does not need a fission primary, but no weapons of this sort have ever been developed.

Having said that this has to be a fission bomb. The most powerful fission bomb ever tested was probably the American Ivy King with a yield of 500 kt.

Hiroshima and Nagasaki

The Mk I "Little Boy" was 10 feet (3 m) in length, 28 inches (71 cm) in diameter and weighed 8,900 lb (4000 kg). The design used the gun method to explosively force a sub-critical mass of uranium-235 and three U-235 target rings together into a super-critical mass, initiating a nuclear chain reaction.





With a power of 13 to 16 kilotons (estimations vary), it was less powerful than "Fat Man," which was dropped on Nagasaki (21–23 kt). The official yield estimate of "Little Boy" was about 15 kilotons of TNT equivalent in explosive force


miniaturization

In 16 years, the US went from the Mark III nuclear weapon (Fat Man design), which was roughly 60 inches(1.5 meters) in diameter and weighed roughly 10,300 pounds (4,700 kilograms), to the W54 design, less than approximately 11 inches (28 centimeters) diameter and weighing about 51 pounds (23 kilograms), a factor of 162 times smaller volume and over 200 times lighter. The Mark III had a yield of 21 kilotons, while the W54 design was tested up to 6 kilotons; the W54's yield is a factor of 46 times greater per unit volume and 56 times greater per unit mass. The W54 warhead could fit inside the explosive lens assembly of the Mark III.

So there is rough data and the answer can be found somewhere within. We have a size of a 55 gallon drum. Depending on where these people got their materials from will determine the yield of the nuclear bombs itself. Remember...N. Korea's recent test is pretty much thought to be a dud with only very limited nuclear explosion.

Seeing how all these bombs detonated we have to assume a level of sophistication.



The more sphisticated the bomb design the more bang for the buck. Were these bombs taken from our own stockpiles or were the material gathered together and assembled??

It seems that if Washington DC was nuked during a speak to a joint session of congress by the president then of course you would knock out many in the presidential line of succession but would everyone be there during that speach? Even in peace time?

1 Vice President and President of the Senate
2 Speaker of the House of Representatives
3 President pro tempore of the Senate
4 Secretary of State
5 Secretary of the Treasury
6 Secretary of Defense
7 Attorney General
8 Secretary of the Interior
9 Secretary of Agriculture
10 Secretary of Commerce
11 Secretary of Labor
12 Secretary of Health and Human Services
13 Secretary of Housing and Urban Development
14 Secretary of Transportation
15 Secretary of Energy
16 Secretary of Education
17 Secretary of Veterans Affairs
18 Secretary of Homeland Security

Non-natural-born citizens are ineligible

So it is hard to believe that all 18 persons would be in the same place at the same time whether it was for a joint session of congress or Aunt Jennie's tea party.

Or does it matter?

With a handful of US population centers destroyed followed by an EMP blast which could cover the whole continent and leave no communication and control for us lowly civilians does it matter if there is a president minding the country? Like the people in Jericho we would have no way of knowing who was in charge, if anyone.

A clue we saw in the previews was the current president had approval ratings in the low 20's....sound familiar?? So that makes a plausible case for someone wanting change in a big way.


Most of this material was taken from Wikpedia