Interestingly, the Y12 plant has one of the largest, round the clock tactical units in the nation.

If you shoot any of the matches that are held there locally, there usually are a bunch of their shooters shooting IDPA and USPSA.

quote:

Originally posted by jljones:
Interestingly, the Y12 plant has one of the largest, round the clock tactical units in the nation.

If you shoot any of the matches that are held there locally, there usually are a bunch of their shooters shooting IDPA and USPSA.

The DOE teams come up to CT to compete at the CT SWAT Challenge (http://ctswatchallenge.com/), part of which is run at my local private range.

They do pretty well - DOE teams are usually in the top 10 of the 30 - 40 teams that participate.

In the late 80’s / early 90’s, my client (and then employer) was a large engineering / construction firm that provided construction management services to the US DOE at both the Oak Ridge and Fernald (Ohio) sites. Towards the latter end of my tenure, we were part of a publicly-traded subsidiary of the old Waste Management firm. Waste had spun off that entity in ‘93 with the hyped intent of capitalizing on the environmental spending that would surely come from the new Clinton / Gore administration.

Part of that assumed spending would be to clean up the old weapons-related sites and for several years, large projects at Oak Ridge, Fernald, Savannah River, Rocky Flats, etc. were listed as key prospects in our budgeted plans.

By ‘95, Waste gave up on that notion, bought back our public shares, and dismantled our never-should-have-been-formed group. (Waste had its own problems which would eventually come to light.) I left shortly after helping to close the corporate office and sell my old client / division to Raytheon. I’m not sure if anything ever did proceed with those massive, cleanup projects.

I haven’t bothered to read it, but a mid-90’s DOE document describing the overall system of sites used is at:
https://www.energy.gov/sites/p...he_Circle_Report.pdf

quote:

Originally posted by Prefontaine:
Of Course. I guess people don’t know who the Oak Ridge Boys are anymore.

Bite your tongue! They were one of the few C&W groups I liked.

quote:

Originally posted by BBMW:
Oak Ridge is probably better known than Hanford.

Oak Ridge is where the uranium for the bomb was enriched; Hanford is where the plutonium for the bomb was created.

flashguy

Count me as a yes, but I’ve been reminded a lot lately that what I think is common knowledge is not


Example: one of my son’s basketball teammates is being recruited to play football at Kent state and the coaches were at our basketball game on Tuesday.

When I was speaking to that teammate’s dad last night I asked him how the Kent state thing was going and he was like “man! Did you know soldiers killed kids there during the Vietnam war???”

Um, yes?


“you knew that? Wait, I forget you were in the Army.”


I like this guy a lot, and his kid, so I didn’t point out that I learned that in middle school. Also, “how to shoot college kids” is not something we train on in the Army

There have been several instances like that of people relating excitingly some little known (to them) fact that I not only knew, but pretty much considered common knowledge.

I was a science (and math) nerd as a kid, and went on to get a Nuc. Eng degree, so yeah, I've known about it for decades.

Don’t forget about Sandia National Laboratories in the NW group.

I know SNL’s security force (ProForce) has also won several shooting competition awards.

I have yet to visit ORNL. I’d like to some time.

quote:

Originally posted by Oz_Shadow:
Growing up in Tennessee, I was always quite familiar with Oak Ridge. Recently I have heard it’s not as well known as I always figured it was.

Do you know about it?

It didn’t exist really before WWII. Then, suddenly it did. People working in the plants had no idea what they were doing really. Most just went to work doing small tasks that they were not allowed to talk about.

I have a book about building the Atom bomb and Uranium was processed there. The scientist working there were so lacks in security even janitor crews had to be uneducated because scientist would leave secret papers laying around after work and security didn’t want them to know what was being done at Oak Ridge.

A&E had a show “The Plot Against America” detailing the infiltration of Russian sleeper cells specifically at Oak Ridge.

Have you ever wondered why Oak Ridge, Tennessee has a very large population of Russian speaking people and multiple Russian restaurants?

quote:

Have you ever wondered why Oak Ridge, Tennessee has a very large population of Russian speaking people and multiple Russian restaurants?

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
I lived there in the early 1970s and was not aware of a Russian population. Is this a more recent event? Can you provide some links or references? I am not disputing the facts just would like to be more informed. I am aware that Huntsville, Alabama has a large German population because of Operation Paperclip, a program where we brought Germans such as Van Braun to help with the space program. Most of the scientists I might were U.S. citizens with perhaps some European ancestry.

You also might have some older German influence migrating up the “road” from Cullman to Huntsville. Cullman’s German lineage dates back to the late 1800’s.

quote:

Originally posted by ZSMICHAEL:

quote:

Have you ever wondered why Oak Ridge, Tennessee has a very large population of Russian speaking people and multiple Russian restaurants?

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
I lived there in the early 1970s and was not aware of a Russian population. Is this a more recent event? Can you provide some links or references? I am not disputing the facts just would like to be more informed. I am aware that Huntsville, Alabama has a large German population because of Operation Paperclip, a program where we brought Germans such as Van Braun to help with the space program. Most of the scientists I might were U.S. citizens with perhaps some European ancestry.

We lived next to Oak Ridge and spent a whole lot of time there between 2009-2018 and never saw or heard of a Russian restaurant or any people of Russian origin whatsoever. A lot of people from around the world, but never met a Russian.

I did find an article about a couple of spies for Russia during the Cold War who leaked some secrets from Oak Ridge, but never heard of or saw any Russians or Russian restaurants.
https://www.oakridger.com/arti...41201/news/141209979

quote:

Originally posted by BamaJeepster:
I did find an article about a couple of spies for Russia during the Cold War who leaked some secrets from Oak Ridge ....

Thanks for that article. I have read much about Soviet spies in the Manhattan Project, but nothing about their activities at Oak Ridge.

Leftists, including leftist atomic scientists, have long claimed that Soviet espionage wasn’t that instrumental in allowing the USSR to catch up to the US (and to a lesser extent the UK) in developing their own atomic and hydrogen bombs so quickly. Many of the scientists claimed that there was nothing very difficult about the process and everything would have been readily apparent to any nuclear scientist. In fact, however (IMO, of course), there were countless technical details that had to be worked out and problems to be solved that were difficult enough in the US, but would have been far harder in the Soviet Union during and immediately after WWII. The spies furnished the results of all of that work on silver platters, thereby changing the whole complexion of the Cold War, and in the opinion of some historians, was the reason the Communists felt comfortable in starting the Korean War.

My grandfather was a form carpenter, and helped build the place in the early 40s. My mom worked at Y12, and my dad at K (something). I was born in Oak Ridge Baptist hospital, grew up in Norris and Claxton, and attended Claxton Elementary. Lots of good memories there. Beautiful countryside. Nice people.

quote:

Originally posted by ZSMICHAEL:

quote:

Have you ever wondered why Oak Ridge, Tennessee has a very large population of Russian speaking people and multiple Russian restaurants?

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
I lived there in the early 1970s and was not aware of a Russian population. Is this a more recent event? Can you provide some links or references? I am not disputing the facts just would like to be more informed. I am aware that Huntsville, Alabama has a large German population because of Operation Paperclip, a program where we brought Germans such as Van Braun to help with the space program. Most of the scientists I might were U.S. citizens with perhaps some European ancestry.

From A&E (yeah, TV, what a source and my mistake), https://www.aetv.com/specials/...plot-against-america is the link to the draCUMENTARY. From a retired FBI agent. In it he identifies the Russian culture in the area, and in particular the use of Russian study abroad high school students and one ORNS scientist.

Yes, I've been to Oak Ridge a few times over the years. Spent the night a couple of times at a friend's house.
Growing up in Nashville, I've heard about it since I was a kid. My Dad (also born in Nashville) told me a story one time about riding the bus to Oak Ridge when he was in high school (around 1950) to visit a girlfriend that had moved with her family to Oak Ridge.

quote:

Originally posted by sigfreund:

quote:

Originally posted by BamaJeepster:
I did find an article about a couple of spies for Russia during the Cold War who leaked some secrets from Oak Ridge ....

Thanks for that article. I have read much about Soviet spies in the Manhattan Project, but nothing about their activities at Oak Ridge.

Leftists, including leftist atomic scientists, have long claimed that Soviet espionage wasn’t that instrumental in allowing the USSR to catch up to the US (and to a lesser extent the UK) in developing their own atomic and hydrogen bombs so quickly. Many of the scientists claimed that there was nothing very difficult about the process and everything would have been readily apparent to any nuclear scientist. In fact, however (IMO, of course), there were countless technical details that had to be worked out and problems to be solved that were difficult enough in the US, but would have been far harder in the Soviet Union during and immediately after WWII. The spies furnished the results of all of that work on silver platters, thereby changing the whole complexion of the Cold War, and in the opinion of some historians, was the reason the Communists felt comfortable in starting the Korean War.

Precise machining, miniaturization, manufacturing standards, and infrastructure is the only burden to building a nuclear bomb once you have the idea and understand how it works.

I am actually surprised there are not more nuclear powers in the world 75 years after Fat Man and Little Boy.

quote:

Originally posted by Skins2881:
Precise machining, miniaturization, manufacturing standards, and infrastructure is the only burden to building a nuclear bomb once you have the idea and understand how it works.

I must disagree after reading the two books by Rhodes I mentioned above. There were technical details that required a lot of thought and work by the best minds in the field at the time to solve. And we know that the Soviet scientists benefited greatly from not having to solve them themselves. Although he was not very technically literate, the head of the KGB, Lavrentiy Beria, realized that the information being provided by spies in the Manhattan Project was so voluminous and critical that he became highly suspicious that it was false and intended to divert his country’s efforts. In fact, when information was first received that the US was working on a nuclear weapon, some Soviet scientists were reported to have opined that the project was impossible.

Once they were convinced that it was a genuine effort by the US and UK, would the Soviets have solved all the problems in time without outside help? No doubt, but it would have been later rather than sooner.

The theory of how a nuclear fission bomb would work was known before anyone gave any serious thought to building one, but the major devil in the process of actually making one work was all the technical detail.

And it was the answer to tonight’s Jeopardy final question heh.

quote:

Originally posted by Oz_Shadow:
And it was the answer to tonight’s Jeopardy final question heh.

I saw that and knew the answer from reading this thread - lol

MDS