Nuclear backpack bomb, glow in the dark paint

[Jeremy Thomson]

TL;DR

Would tritium glow in the dark paint increase the yield of a backpack nuke?

"Glow in the dark paint was applied to the lock, so a soldier could unlock the miniature bomb in the dark".

I'm thinking that its unlikely 'glow in the dark paint' would be tritium based. More likely radium, which was used up to WWII for instrument dials etc. But I don't know. Backpack nukes are inefficient dial-a-yield devices that probably mess with the detonation sequence of the implosion to reduce yield. Having a bunch of fusion neutrons from tritium 'paint' would certainly increase yield, a little or a lot I don't know. Having tritium on the outside of the casing would limit the fusion effect, a thousandfold? Tritium boosting in the core might double the yield of a 20kt device to 40kt, basically giving you an extra 20kt. A thousand times less is 20 ton, if the backpack was dialled down to 10 ton yield but got an unexpected 20 ton fusion neutron boost, people might be surprised.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Special_Atomic_Demolition_Munition_(SADM).webm

Jeremy Thomson

 

[davenn]

Summary:: Would tritium glow in the dark paint increase the yield of a backpack nuke?

Having a bunch of fusion neutrons from tritium 'paint' would certainly increase yield, a little or a lot I don't know

Unless you can provide credible links to good info, I seriously doubt that it would happen

Having tritium on the outside of the casing would limit the fusion effect, a thousandfold? Tritium boosting in the core might double the yield of a 20kt device to 40kt, basically giving you an extra 20kt. A thousand times less is 20 ton, if the backpack was dialled down to 10 ton yield but got an unexpected 20 ton fusion neutron boost, people might be surprised.

You are just making up numbers. I don't see any scientific possibility of a small region of a thin paint layer
having any effect what-so-ever

Dave

 

[mfb]

The amount of tritium, radium, or whatever is used in the paint is completely negligible, and it is outside the area where the conditions are right for fusion anyway. Tritium outside has zero impact on the yield.

Uranium outside might increase the yield as it can be split by neutrons escaping from the core, but you would need a relevant quantity of it.

 

[DEvens]

I would be doubting that it would be Tritium based anyway. Much more likely to be the much easier phosphorescent type paint. This is a chemical that, when exposed to near-ultraviolet, will glow softly for some hours afterward.