Deanna TaylorDivine Strake: An Infernal Mistake
Divine: of or pertaining to a god, esp. the Supreme Being; godlike; characteristic of or befitting a deity
Strake: A single continuous line of planking or metal plating extending on a vessel’s hull from stem to stern; thick plank forming a ridge along the side of a wooden ship
Divine Strake: Code Name for the ANFO (Ammonium Nitrate Fuel Oil) 700-ton bomb that is designed to destroy underground military targets. This test is designed to simulate the blast of a low-yield nuclear weapon on a hardened underground bunker.
The weapon consists of a special explosive which will pack the equivalent of more than 500 tons of TNT when it is detonated. It will create a mushroom shaped dust cloud that could reach as high as three kilometers into the air.
I have posted numerous pieces on the Divine Strake Test. The test was first scheduled to be detonated June 2, 2006 at the Nevada Test Site. A coalition was formed, the Stop the Divine Strake Coalition, which planned and implemented an action at the Nevada Test Site at the end of May. The test was “indefinitely postponed” when a lawsuit was filed,seeking a permanent injuntion of the test, and since then the Feds have been playing a “yo-yo” game of bouncing around country with proposed alternate sites, such as in Indiana and New Mexico.
It looks like now the plan is to detonate the test at the originally planned site - the Nevada Test Site - sometime within fiscal year 2007, according to a press release that was issued this week (see below). The excuse is that a full enviornmental impact study would have taken years and that the soil at the Nevada Test Site is “pristine” and not contaminated by previous nuclear tests there last century. I think we know better than that.
DOMENICI: PENTAGON TO FOREGO “DIVINE STRAKE” TESTS AT WSMR
WASHINGTON Â U.S. Senator Pete Domenici, a member of the Senate Defense Appropriations Subcommittee, today reported that the Defense Department has decided that it will not conduct conventional Divine Strake bunker busting tests at White Sands Missile Range in southern New Mexico.
Domenici was informed of the decision today by the Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA), the Pentagon organization that was considering the possibility of moving Divine Strake testing to New Mexico because of opposition to the testing in Nevada. DTRA indicated to Domenici that the testing will remain at the Nevada Test Site and not be moved elsewhere.
“I believe the Pentagon has made a good decision. While I look forward to full utilization of our assets at WSMR, I understand that keeping these tests in Nevada is the best choice from a technical perspective,” Domenici said.
“Moving the test to White Sands would have taken years and delayed development of an ability to predict damage to deeply buried targets like tunnels and bunker busters. Both are increasingly being used by our potential adversaries,” he continued.
DTRA prefers the NTS, a DOE National Nuclear Security Administration facility, for Divine Strake testing. NTS has been used for many low-yield tunnel characterization tests and is already in the process of updating an environmental assessment related to possible high-yield Divine Strake tests. Divine Strake testing could occur in FY2007.
Choosing WSMR would have required a full environmental impact statement which could have taken several years.
Domenici supported a $1.95 million appropriation in the FY2007 Defense Appropriations Act to develop a non-nuclear, deep-penetrating munition. As chairman of the Senate Energy and Water Development Appropriations Subcommittee, Domenici elected to allow the Defense Department to focus on conventional bunker busting weapons and discontinue funding for the NNSA-led Robust Nuclear Earth Penetrator (RNEP) project.
The Associated Press also released an article today: ‘Mushroom cloud’ blast destined for Nevada desert, not White Sands, N.M. senator says
November 16th, 2006 at 11:32 am
I don’t know why they need a new bomb. With GPS-guided munitions, can’t you just keep bombing the same spot until you penetrate whatever bunker you want to take out? I was in the Army, not the Air Force, so maybe I don’t have the right idea.
November 16th, 2006 at 12:17 pm
No you can’t Richard, bunker reinforcment has led to a conventional bomb simply pulverizing the pulverized debris on top while leaving the fortified(deep) buried bunker intact. The goal may not be the destruction of the bunker, but the killing of everyone in it. In a deep fortified bunker the shock wave from the bomb has to be tremendous to outright kill everyone in the bunker. The bunker intact, the inhabitants dead.
Nuclear bombs with their incredible rate of expansion create a pulverizing shockwave that penetrates deep, killing everyone.
In addition, in order to make a conventional bomb capable of the job it would have to be very heavy, limiting how you could utilize it, think of the MOAB conventional bomb, you need a big, relatively slow plane to carry it. A small “bunker buster” nuke could be carried on a drone, no pilot, no risk, all inhabitants guaranteed dead, if not from the shockwave, then the radiation.
I don’t agree with the idea, but the development of bunkers in the mideast that can withstand conventional bombs has been running wild with the German engineering firms having built some of the most resilient. See, capitalism in its current form builds the bunkers for billions and we make the bombs for billions to wreck ‘em. Either way the west WINS.
No surprise there is an assymetric insurgency that could only be controlled by nuking the whole area, but we’re saving that for iran.
November 16th, 2006 at 1:22 pm
This stuff is interesting albeit cold-blooded. I tend to agree with General Patton that “fixed fortifications are monuments to the stupidity of man.” Did anyone do an engineering analysis of Saddam’s allegedly impregnable bunkers?
November 16th, 2006 at 1:50 pm
Sure thing, they were built, as I mentioned, by German engineering firms. Here is one in particular.
http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/iraq/2003-03-30-designer-saddams-bunker_x.htm
Patton was run over by truck in his fortified Cadillac, so maybe if he had stayed in his fixed fort that day…..
The cold blooded analysis is how these decisions are made. No point in hysteria when dealing with terror, no?
November 16th, 2006 at 7:07 pm
The other option to taking these bunkers is *ground invasion/infiltration.
Can’t pay the price?, roll the nuclear dice…
It is how most *nazi command bunkers were taken by the Russians…, and even now these bunkers would be formidible, and that knowledge has been handed down as engineering, through the German prospect.
Our own military mimics a Wehrmacht regiment in its construct and independence, and means for interdependence, war making is derivative, the goals don’t change, however our current Parthian enemies are building tactics that impact our weakest aspects.
Something to ponder. The situation in Iraq is such that more than likely the insurgency is made up of Baathists(pan-Arabists), the ones I call, Parthians. They are the remnants of saddams era, though not exclusively for him, Baathists want a greater Arabia, without nations, just one block. Like Parthia.
To date they are the “ones” we as a military have been after.
Don’t you find it a little disheartening that we have not controlled them?, and if the news is to be believed, they are able to blow our troops up at will? whilst killing all the shiites they need in order to establish their dominance in the areas they consider their own?
They are fighting 2 wars, and kickin some ass. Ask the Romans about Parthians.
War is chaos, to include making order as a matter of priority is to work against military goals. We need to leave…, beware the *”Parthian Shot”.
*http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parthian_shot
November 17th, 2006 at 9:21 am
cassandra– I thought Parthia was Iran, but wouldn’t you know it the (old, very old) map shows Babylonia was part of their empire. Of course, the “Parthian shot” is the essence of mobile warfare, akin to shooting over the back deck of the tank while moving.
Interestingly enough, these days Arab armies and the Iranians today are only trained for positional warfare. I believe this is because the quality of their small-unit leadership is so bad. Examples of unbelievably bad leadership are many– during the 2003 invasion, for example, an Iraqi lieutenant sent his men to advance towards the Americans and then changed to civilian clothes and headed the other way. More recently, entire Iraqi battalions desert en masse when ordered to move.
Unfortunately for any occupying force, while Arabs don’t make very good soldiers many happen to be excellent insurgent fighters. Lawrence of Arabia knew this.
November 17th, 2006 at 10:22 am
“Unfortunately for any occupying force, while Arabs don’t make very good soldiers many happen to be excellent insurgent fighters. Lawrence of Arabia knew this.”
And the ignorant occupant of the WH was told this fact over and again prior to invading Iraq, yet he did it anyway.
A Mussolini style end for Bush and his merry band of war criminal cohorts would show more mercy than they deserve, but such mercy would be consistent with Bible principles. Anyone got an old piano?
November 17th, 2006 at 10:29 am
Yes the formal Arab armies are placement type, but we clearly not fighting those armies, we are fighting the mobile, counterpunching, psychological warriors, similar to Parthians, just asymmetrically set up. Ridding their lands of european influence, which is what we are considered ultimately, is the goal.
Which bible, the old or new Neph?
Why don’t the lamo democrats impeach the Pres? We don’t necessarily want bush hung by his heels, removal will do. How can anyone support the dems, many people want bush removed and charged, yet they insist on doing nothing. The whole affair is a sham.
November 17th, 2006 at 2:02 pm
cassandra– I finally checked out your link on Saddam’s bunker but it was written prior to the fall of Baghdad. I’m interested in what was learned about the bunker systems after our guys had a chance to examine them. From what I’ve read about Saddam’s whereabouts during the war, he avoided all his expensive “bombproof” bunkers and went to various private homes.
November 17th, 2006 at 4:27 pm
Why don’t the lamo democrats impeach the Pres?
First of all they are STILL essentially frozen out of any process aside from planning, until late Jan 2007. That should be obvious to all, but there are other reasons that ‘impeachment’ may not go forward. Bush is guilty of war crimes, which is a much readier course to justice than impeachment. Were impeachment to be persued, it is likely to run way too long and still not clear all the hurdles. Prosecuting other crimes…a ’slam-dunk’.
Second; The dems, for good reason have decided to INVESTIGATE this admin so as to inform us all. Finally. About everything from Enron to Criminal surveillance, from 9-11 to election theft. What do you know? Certainly not as much as you will know after investigations.
Over for now.
November 18th, 2006 at 10:24 am
Well that means nothing when the leaders of dem party state immediately upon taking power that proscuting the pres is “off the table”
Henry Waxman holds all the evidence he needs to roast bush AND cheney NOW. I have received his newsletter for the last 5 years. He promised action and consequences if the winds shifted.
His investigations are a prelude to stalling, something is very wrong in Washington. Investigations have been undertaken by his office(35th district California, Beverly Hills)
The dems now by not fufilling their duty under Oath, are now in held in the same light, by me anyway, as their criminal couterparts.
Saddam not using his bunker is no surprise, as he is primarily responsible for the “draw them in” assymetric insurgency that has brought us to where we are today, trickery works as well as fortifications in this case. Likely knowing how insane bush is(as they used to be buddies) he didn’t go into the bunker because there would be a good chance the gang would nuke him.
November 18th, 2006 at 10:30 am
We are not co-signatories to any war crimes tribunals, and the geneva convention is “quaint” if we are to remember. If we won’t use our domestic laws to rid of us this president, what chance is there going to be to prosecute internationally for war crimes.
The People have to force the dems to do their DUTY, i.e. job.
November 18th, 2006 at 2:59 pm
Agreed, agreed and still more agreed. ’twas ever thus. But no whining if we can’t simply make that call or write that letter.
February 16th, 2007 at 10:04 am
hoodia…
news…