I Say, Is This Atom Bomb Yours?

Those Not Interested In The End Of The World -
 - may skip ahead.  Way ahead.  2018 ought to be safe enough.  Conrad, you see, has been watching a minor film of no special significance entitled "The Sum Of All Fears", which has the redeeming merit of a great big nuclear explosion, and the negative factor of plot holes big enough to drive a coach and horses through.  Hard to believe that it's 15 years old.  Art?

Not what I intended, but never mind

     "O great film critic, please - oh, sorry, it's Conrad, we thought it was Kermode.  Get on with it then."
     Pausing only to acknowledge that Mark Kermode is indeed a film critic of the first water, and a fan of The Comsat Angels to boot, I shall continue.  Is that alright?  Thank you so much*!
     Since TSOAF is 15 years old, I'm not going to warn you about spoilers, so there.  
     First goof up is the Israeli A4 Skyhawk jet armed with a nuclear weapon, shown flying nap-of-the-earth.  If you fly this way you can sneak up on your opponent, and you will also destroy yourself when you drop your bucket of instant sunshine at 50 feet.

The A4, a.k.a. "Heinemann's Hot Rod"

     When the A4 gets blown to little bits by a Syrian anti-aircraft missile, for some reason the explosive component of the T12 fission-fancy remains totally inert, and the whole thing falls to ground intact.  They must build these things robustly.

A T12

     The Israelis then apparently forget that they ever had a nuclear-armed aircraft aloft, or that it got shot down, and that the T12 is designed to withstand a tank driving over it, because it sits at the crash site for 30 years.  Ignored.

I told you, a T12.

     Then we have the plot proviso, that an international conglomeration of extremely wealthy neo-Nazis are collaborating together For Nefarious Ends.  What, and nobody noticed?  FYI, the neo-Nazis around the world barely make ends meet.  Pay $45 million for a pocket atom bomb?  They'd have trouble scraping 45p together.
     The cunning neo-nazi plan involves hiding the bomb's core in a cigarette-vending machine which is placed in a South Canadian football stadium.
     No!

Cigarettes.  Bad for you.

     Now, nobody is going to feel sympathetic about cigarettes (or neo-nazis) but the idea that you put your Macguffin out in the open and risk discovery is a no-no from the word go.  Sure, the chance of being found out is extremely low - but it's there, because your weapon is OUT IN THE OPEN!  Far better to hide it in a garage or apartment or storage locker, etcetera.
     Er - I would like to point out to MI5, Spectrum, UNIT and the CIA that this is all strictly hypothetical in nature, because I really don't want another trip to Cloudbase for "a little chat" with Colonel White.
     What else?  O yes.  One of the conspirators is a Ruffian commander in their air force, and orders an air strike on a South Canadian aircraft carrier, just to egg the pudding you understand.  No, he doesn't bother with written instructions or flight plans or authorisation or anything else except his hearsay; Conrad feels that Ruffian protocols for going to war are a little more stringent than "Hey!  Let's blow shizzle up!"

Tu22 bomber.  Voice-activated!

     Well, given that the world hasn't been blown up yet, substitute "hopes" for "feels".

     I could go on, and probably will, but I need to wedge a little variety into this polemic, so let us now consider - the Differential Analyser!

The Differential Analyser
As the name implies, this device analyses differentials.  That's a rather tautological definition, so - it's a mechanical analogue computer.  These date back to 1912, when they were used for - apologies for matters martial again - calculations in naval gunnery.  Art?

A 1935-flavour computer

     That one above probably has the calculating power of your mobile phone today.  They were used for other martial matters, including ballistics and - inevitably - work on the atomic bomb. The vacuum tube and plug-boards saw off the DA, although there is apparently one in "When Worlds Collide"; I don't recall this and so - you're probably already way ahead of me here - I shall have to go and check it out.

Finally -
It is rare indeed for Conrad to post a picture of the books he has laid his talons on and not have at least one of them be on the subject of matters martial.  Witness, then, the wonder of such an event?  Art?

     I have a feeling that I've read "Panic" before but don't remember anything about it, which is the same as having not read it at all.  Panic.  Hmmm. It seems this is where we came in ..


*  This is irony, in case you were unsure.