Talk:United States military nuclear incident terminology

This article was nominated for deletion on 14/10/2006. The result of the discussion was keep.

ROGUE SPEAR / EMPTY QUIVER

The Rogue Spear article says that the weapons weren't seized, lost, or stolen, but instead independently manufactured. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 24.4.90.4 (talk) 23:40, 4 February 2007 (UTC).

The movie Broken Arrow: Pinnacle/Broken Arrow or Pinnacle/Nucflash?

The article used to say that the movie Broken Arrow involves a Pinnacle Empty Quiver, and later a Pinnacle/Nucflash event, rather than a Pinnacle/Broken Arrow. I changed this to the add that the characters in the film initially believe that a Broken Arrow has occurred. The article asserts that the actual detonation is a Nucflash because it is unauthorized.

A later edit asserts that this detonation was a Broken Arrow, because it was a detonation. I don't think this is consistent with the definitions in the article; the salient feature of a Broken Arrow according to the given definition seems to be that it is an accident, but the events in the movie are all intentional. I deleted both that assertion, because I think the Broken Arrow assertion directly contradicts the article's definition of an accidental event, making things less consistent (contrary to the edit summary that says it is for consistency), and I deleted the Nucflash assertion because it is not self-evident from the article's definitions.

Maybe the trivia should just say that the movie was named for the nuclear incident term and leave it at that.

Any other thoughts? --Capn ed 20:39, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

list of broken arrows

hey i think we need a list of known broken arrow incidents. The people need to know. I know of one, flight 44-92075 over canada, maybe we can add some more? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.189.120.253 (talk) 03:56, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

Bent Spear....

The 2007 incident has not been deemed a Bent Spear by the Air Force

http://www.fas.org/blog/ssp/2008/02/nuclear_safety_and_the_saga_ab.php#more-193

"But when I asked Air Combat Command (ACC) for a list of all Bent Spear and Dull Sword incidents since June 1992 when ACC took command of Air Force nuclear weapons, the list included plenty of Dull Sword incidents but not a single Bent Spear. Three months of phone calls and emails to the Air Force for an explanation for the omission have gone unanswered. While writing down my question and contact information, however, one officer volunteered off the record that “they” hadn’t given the Minot incident a formal designation because they didn’t quite know what to call it." —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.254.92.29 (talk) 07:21, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

Meteorite impacts...

How would the US Military classify a nuclear scale blast arising from a naturally occuring impact or atmospheric breakup of an extraterrestrial bolide? The explosive force of a Diablo Canyon or Tunguska Blast event occuring without prior observation of the impactor would be indistinguishable from a nuclear weapon until samples or readings from the blast site could confirm or deny the presence of thermonuclear daughter isotopes. That period of not knowing would be as tense as any Pinnacle - Broken Arrow, especially if there is absolutely no warning and no linkable political or tactical situations leading up to it. 166.137.133.162 (talk) 01:17, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

The lack of an electromagnetic pulse and certain types of radiation, and the two-spike seismic signature caused by a hydrogen bomb would be a dead giveaway, if I'm not mistaken. Spy satellites would see it, no mushroom cloud. Maybe alot of civilians and small nations would think it was a nuke for a while, but NORAD and the equivalent of other large nations will know almost immediately. --66.190.9.254 (talk) 19:17, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

Recent event

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/10/10/power-failure-shuts-down-sqaudron-of-icbms/65207/

Should this be added to the article? This would be under "Broken Arrow" wouldn't it? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.190.9.254 (talk) 19:06, 27 October 2010 (UTC)