My wife has to deal with my sick sense of humor. She's learned over the years that while I may speak of horrific jokes to play on people, I am only doing so in my head and would never follow through with them. More than likely.
The same thing can be said about destruction. There's something primitive in man that loves to watch things go boom. Seriously, go to YouTube and search for videos of fully grown men blowing shit up. Without fail, an explosion will bring out loud squeeeeees from even the burliest of manly men. I am no exception.
That's why, when I read this
I just love that, “Apart from the thermonuclear warheads” (note the plural - it could carry up to 26!). They seriously considered building something the size of a locamotive powered by a nuclear ramjet leaving a trail of sonic and radioactive devestation in it’s wake and it lobbed thermonukes.
I nearly pulled an ear muscle smiling so hard.
I mean, some evil bastard who probably joked around with his wife about the awful things he'd do to random passersby came up with this concept
Apart from the thermonuclear warheads, SLAM itself was also a very formidable weapon. The sonic boom of a 25+ m long vehicle flying at Mach 3+ at 300 m altitude would cause severe destruction in non-hardened structures on the ground. Additionally, the nuclear ramjet continuously left a trail of highly radioactive dust, which would seriously contaminate the area below the missile. Finally, when the SLAM eventually crashed itself at the end of the mission, it would leave a wreckage of a very hot and radioactive (”dirty”) nuclear reactor.
Brilliant!
Hat Tip Phil at Random Nuclear Strikes