[dfox]

"Suit-case sized container" does not imply that it will actually fit into anything that looks like suitcase or otherwise be inconspicuously transportable, which is what all the scenarios of danger of suitcase nukes presume.

Even not taking the physical dimensions into account, the physics packages tend to be very heavy (which is mostly dictated by physics involved and trying to make the enclosure smaller seems to make it heavier, which makes sense given the physics).

In all I don't see how such weapon would be relevant for terrorist tactics, because using similar amount of effort one could just place large enough chemical explosive charge to cause significant (although several orders of magnitude smaller than from small nuclear warhead) damage.

[TheOtherHobbes]

Solving this problem doesn't require a huge amount of imagination. In fact the solution is rather obvious.

Let's just say that portable nukes are a very, very bad thing. A single 1kT nuke in the centre of a city would be very bad news on its own, and would make 9-11 look like a footnote. (1kT is a realistic yield for the ultra-portable Mk-54 warhead.)

Strategically, tiny nukes in small numbers are far more worrying than ICBMs, because unlike ICBMs they don't come with a built-in warning time or a sender's address.

[jacquesm]

> or a sender's address.

That maybe not, but the radioactive signature may give away the origin of the material.

That doesn't mean that's the party that planted it but it is at least going to provide a hint as to who initially put the warhead together.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_attribution

[jacquesm]

I could walk around Amsterdam all day with a 6" cross section piece of tubular metal and nobody would bat so much as an eye. And I have multiple suitcases large enough to put a 1 meter segment of that pipe in (inches, meters...).

Even the larger:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Davy_Crockett_(nuclear_device)

would easily fit, and those suitcases even have wheels so it would not look all that heavy to someone not lugging it.

[mikeash]

Carting around a 120lb cylinder 6" in diameter and 33" long seems eminently doable in a rolling suitcase. You'll want to get a sturdy one and make sure your suicide bomber is well built, but I don't see what's so disbelievable about it.

Does this skepticism come from thinking "briefcase" rather than "suitcase," or...?

[tgragnato]

A chemical weapon is as effective as a portable nuclear device from a terroristic point of view (they tend to exploit vulnerabilities in the defence system to instill fear in the population), the main difference is probably the damage caused by the radiation.