What exactly is a "dirty chemical bomb"?

[Sandman]

It sounds like terrorism technobabble.

I still think that gas is a lousy terrorist weapon. The hysteria surrounding it is depressing.

[Ecthy]

Two Danes in a row agreeing with me

[Winston]

Ecthy is a German.

[Dauphin]

No need to rub it in. He feels bad about that enough already.

[Winston]

He's a dirty one, even.

[BlackCat]

Originally posted by Winston
Ecthy is a German.

Not that sure - due to his display of possible intelligence he may be a potential dane.

[Ecthy]

[Dauphin]

That's more likely due to his hanging around with the English contingent of Apolyton.

[Winston]

But that was years ago, BlackCat.

[MichaeltheGreat]

Originally posted by BlackCat
Doesn't make any sense - neither biological nor chemical bombs can be "dirty" - that only applies to nuclear weapons.

Not nuclear weapons. The "dirty bomb" idea is to cause secondary casualties or area denial effects by radioactive agents dispersed by means of a conventional explosive, thus saving a huge amount of technical headaches compared to making, smuggling and setting off a small nuke.

In terms of cleanup techniques and cost, and persistency of hazards, there wouldn't necessarily be a lot of difference between a radioactively dirty bomb and one that's chemically dirty - there are lots of nice, highly toxic chemicals which persist for a long time and are hard to break down.

[Flip McWho]

I still think that gas is a lousy terrorist weapon.

The plan isn't too efficiently kill the most people