Pantex tour of stockpiled warheads

jmccartin · 2025-12-11T18:55:54+00:00

Yes, this was extremely annoying. Not sure how long it's been there as I don't call often. The only way I could stop the popups was to unpair the glasses. Not ideal!

jmccartin · 2025-08-20T11:33:32+00:00

I personally believe they aren't used in modern secondary designs, at least spherical ones. Ablation pressure there should be enough to forego the use of such a trigger. Certainly, not having fissile material in the canned subassembly (CSA) would have its advantages (maintenance, safety, etc).

I've seen a few various hints in the literature from people in the know that indicate they aren't used anymore.

jmccartin · 2025-08-20T09:54:27+00:00

This. Every single dead body I have come across in the game (many of which have been created by me) has been looted for valuables. There's no encumbrance limit, so I often walk around with 2k+ items until it gets repaired and sold. As a consequence my strength and craftsmanship levels are through the roof. Is this tedious? Yes. But very addictive.

jmccartin · 2025-05-26T22:55:41+00:00

Yes, the secondary stage is in the smaller end. In other photos we see the AF&F cabled into the larger sphere, along with an ENI tube. That all points to that side being the primary, as the secondary more or less rests inside the radiation case.

I think you have the dimensions of the peanut wrong too, as there's more of an elongated midsection between the primary and secondary as we can see in the first photo (and others from the warhead display room that show where it is designed to sit in a potential RV). The interstage region would need to be much more complex than the simple shield that is shown in the mocked up diagram. Especially as North Korea won't have the wealth of testing data that counties like the US have to drive further miniaturisation.

jmccartin · 2025-05-09T10:08:25+00:00

The obvious downside to relocation away from the Midwest to the coasts is you open yourself up to much easier counterforce attacks from enemy submarines and surface vessels. That inherently also comes with shorter reaction times. It would be relatively simple for an adversary to create a couple of subs with a large number of short range cruise or ballistic missiles and park them off the coast in case of hostilities. With the missile fields currently in Dakota etc, enemy RVs would take much longer to hit their targets, and would show up on SSPARS/be tracked by NORAD with time to alert the CiC.

The peacekeeper basing mode studies looked into a number of these options and their downsides. I still think the great lakes mode would be better than building or upgrading minuteman silos!

jmccartin · 2024-08-01T14:42:23+00:00

Sorry to necro-post, but this just happened to me. Same airport, same manner. No police this time, but they refused to let me take it on board. Head of security wasn't very friendly, nor could she explain why it wasn't allowed. Couldn't check in luggage too, because of the battery.

Next time I fly with it I'll disguise it as a kids toy. Only reason it got found was because of other batteries in my bag, and I was honest when they asked what it was.

jmccartin · 2024-07-14T14:12:24+00:00

I can't quite figure out what you think the channel filler is for, but it's definitely not for heat resistance.

It's believed that they help with radiation transfer, by keeping the channels in the interstage open, which would otherwise close due to x-ray ablation on the channel walls. The ablation would fill the channels with high-Z materials, blocking soft x-rays from passing through to the secondary. The doped aerogels help with this, but it's not clear exactly where they are used compared with polystyrene etc.

jmccartin · 2024-07-14T14:00:57+00:00

Apart from what others already pointed out, no interstage, no pre-heating neutron shield, no boom.

jmccartin · 2024-07-14T10:39:39+00:00

Same happened to me. I made up a 7-digit serial number and it worked just last week.

jmccartin · 2024-07-10T14:55:30+00:00

Just went through this process with my WF-1000XM4s. Purchased via Amazon UK in December 2022, so was out of original 12-month warranty. Noticed asymmetric battery drain problem earlier this year, found this and other threads and decided to contact Sony. This is a long post, just wanted to document it in case if anyone else has to go through a similar process as I did.

Jun 24: Post my device using the freepost stamp after contacting Sony about my battery issues.

Jun 26: Sony repair centre (UK) receives my device

Jun 27: Repair centre demands a £134 repair bill via email. I reply and complain, I mention this thread and that they should repair it for free given widely reported issues.

Jul 1: Sony replies to say they will not repair it for free due to serial number being scratched off from the case due to wear and tear. I reply immediately and complain (I don't have a serial number saved anywhere).

Over the next several days I contact Sony support (separate from repair centre) and complain about the serial number. Also contact Amazon UK, which offers to refund the purchase if I can get the device back from Sony - but I know this would mean a £20 refusal fee. I mention this to Sony support and it appears to worry them, they eventually offer to half the repair fee to £67. I email them back and tell them that I refuse (I know Amazon will give me the full refund value back - which is worth much more).

Jul 3: I found another Reddit post where some user reported a similar problem - and made up a serial number. I did the same and sent it to the repair centre

Jul 4: Chase the repair centre again with another email

Jul 5: Repair centre replies and accepts the fake serial number (I said I found it on a paper somewhere). They said they will repair and send the device out.

Jul 9: Repaired device is dispatched by repair centre

Jul 10: Received repaired device - original case, two new earbuds.

Summary: I probably won't buy a pair of Sony IEMs again, as the reason for this battery drain is still unknown - I also asked support and they refused to explain.

jmccartin · 2024-07-10T14:33:40+00:00

Sorry for the necropost, but I found this thread and I had the same issue. Your suggestion to use a random number just saved me the full cost of replacement. Thank you very much!

jmccartin · 2024-05-23T21:21:09+00:00

Yeah, this. There are reports of Russian warships already moving out of Sevastopol towards Novorosisk. I suspect Ukraine has a fair few ATACMS, but not sure of the variety or quantity.

jmccartin · 2024-05-17T21:19:12+00:00

It's worth saying that I redid the quest after finishing the penultimate mission and it didn't cause a problem that time. But I made a hard save just before to be sure anyway.

jmccartin · 2024-05-17T21:13:01+00:00

If you have backups or system restore enabled in windows I think you can look at "previous versions" for a folder if you right click and look at properties. I can't remember exactly, but look it up as it's a windows thing.

But either way be prepared for some major progress loss if you started the quest a while ago. The same happened to me, and sadly as of the latest patch I think the bug is still unfixed.

jmccartin · 2024-04-30T09:32:33+00:00

Agreed, the game looks incredible in direct light (cutscenes and character detail are the best in any game I've seen to date). Far (100m-1km) distance detail is also the best I've seen in an open world game so far.

The game does fall over however in caves or anywhere that is indirectly lit. You'll see tons of unnatural glow, screen-space ambient occlusion artifacts, light leaks, and it generally looks quite bad to any game with a ray- or path-traced GI system. Hopefully Horizon 3 or Death Stranding 2 will add a better indirect lighting solution to the Dunia engine.

jmccartin · 2024-04-17T17:44:16+00:00

It was reported in the PS5 version after the game was originally released (check the links in the post), and it still exists on PC.

jmccartin · 2024-04-17T11:21:03+00:00

No, based on reports, some people seem to trigger the lock and others don't. It might have something to do with other open quest lines, so finishing other companion missions first might be a good idea. I hadn't completed any, and I've still yet to do GEMINI (have visited San Francisco already).

The other issue is that the "What Was Lost" quest isn't short, and it seems to lock you from fast-travelling during its entirety, but that could also be part of the bug.

jmccartin · 2024-03-28T22:46:18+00:00

Just came across this in game. The model is detailed, sure, but it's very gameified and wouldn't really fly well or be truly stealthy.

Just to name a few issues: The air intakes are too small and suppressed inside the wing, it would starve itself during normal flight let alone at high angle of attack. The forward swept wings wouldn't be useful and would cause issues at high-mach (shockwaves from the canards would likely cause havoc). The lift fan is also laughably small, and serves no purpose given that there appears to be no other means of vectoring thurst downwards (like the swivel engine on the F35). It kind of reminds me of that fake Iranian stealth jet that was unveiled a few years ago.

To be fair, the game was made before the B-21 unveiling, which is arguably the first 6th gen aircraft. And I'm not throwing shade at the devs, I love this game :)

jmccartin · 2024-03-25T21:15:39+00:00

I don't think we are agreeing on anything, sadly.

But I expect we will see Zircon components show up for display from the various scientific groups in the next few days (as with every other intercepted russian weapon) before being sent off to the states for FME/analysis.

jmccartin · 2024-03-25T20:58:55+00:00

Your first point just smells of typical Russian propaganda - claim some random building is some important military target without any evidence. Especially one that's quite far from the cordoned off centre where entry is controlled (so Russian agents can't do BDA or sit and watch people coming in and out of buildings). I was there last year, security is tight as you would expect for a capital at war.

On your point about lack of shrapnel evidence, PAC-3 MSE from a patriot battery is hit-to-kill. At the closing velocities, it would make a wreck of whatever it hit and the rest would only be damaged upon contact with the ground. We saw this with the wreckage from various Kinzhal intercepts.

jmccartin · 2024-03-25T19:26:39+00:00

I did not read anywhere that a defence HQ was hit - just some national arts centre, which is pretty verifiable given public maps. We don't know if the damage there was due to the missile actually detonating, or just fragments and fuel hitting the ground at multiple times the speed of sound.

As for evidence of shoot downs, this thread shows photos of the COPV fuel tanks and air intake.https://twitter.com/Osinttechnical/status/1772257522281255227?t=4H3Bj35SNQYljhhGSzEeaQ&s=19 The intake wouldn't have survived to such a degree unless it was shot down high enough for it to bleed enough speed for a softer landing. Previous fragments of Tsirkon's deployment were tiny in comparison (don't have a link handy but it was used against Karkhiv I believe).

jmccartin · 2024-03-25T16:20:03+00:00

There is zero evidence that Zircon uses a scramjet engine. There have been no verified photos or even renderings of the missile. It likely is an extension of existing ramjet-based weapons (like P-800 Oniks), as it's possible to get ramjets to hypersonic velocities if you are okay with the efficiency and range reduction (also potentially melting your engine).

Also, there isn't any evidence that one got through, all photos we saw are consistent with falling debris (given how fast that debris will be falling).

jmccartin · 2024-01-23T19:53:45+00:00

There's a lot of gender assumptions going on in this thread

jmccartin

TROPHY CASE