Word: warheaded
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...increase the intensity of X rays produced by a nuclear explosion, physicists can reduce the amount of uranium 238 in the outer layer of ABM warheads and add more tritium, which raises the temperature of the blast, to the fissionable material. As a result, nearly 80% of the energy released by the explosion of the new warheads, believed to be in the one-megaton range, is in the form of high-energy X rays. To extend the lethal range of these rays, which are quickly absorbed or attenuated when traveling through air, the ABM warhead will be carried high above...
...light emanate from the center of the blast. Although their effect diminishes sharply at increasing distances even in the vacuum of space,* the X rays from a one-megaton blast are intense enough to destroy an ICBM caught within a sphere extending two miles from the exploding ABM warhead...
...small portion of X-ray energy is used to form the plasma sheath. Most of the remainder is converted into a shock wave that races through the missile. At a distance of two miles, the impact of the shock wave on a 6½-ft. dia. 30-megaton warhead would be equivalent to the explosion of 2 or 3 Ibs. of TNT within the missile, which may be enough to set off some of the lens-shaped charges of conventional explosives inside (see diagram). These, in turn, would cause the remaining lens-shaped explosives to detonate. Because...
Slow Fission. Even if the shock wave fails to set off the warhead's conventional explosive, it can damage electronic components or cause sufficient changes in the critical shape of internal cavities within the warhead to prevent a nuclear explosion. In addition, the heating of the ICBM's exterior may so damage its heat shield that the missile would burn up upon entering the atmosphere...
Neutrons produced by the ABM blast could also cause crippling damage at a range of about two miles. Penetrating into the ICBM's outer shell of uranium 238, they can produce slow fission, causing heat that may deform the warhead or set off its lens charges. The neutrons may also whiz into the warhead's core of uranium 235, causing it to explode in a premature nuclear blast while still hundreds of miles from its target...