Let’s start off with the obvious. Nuclear war is horrible. It will kill millions of people and devastate the planet.
Even a “local” war…say between North and South Korea or India and Pakistan…will put a blot on life for years, throw the world economy into chaos, and introduce horrors we have yet to even dream about.
Global Thermonuclear War between Russia and the United States where hundreds of missiles fly through the air and hundreds if not thousands of warheads bloom across the Northern Hemisphere will be literal Hell on Earth. Millions of degrees of heat will vapourise military installations, infrastructure, and people. But on the bright side, it will be a dry heat.
And then there is the debris all those explosions will toss into the atmosphere. If you have lived near a volcano, you know what that can be like.
Who could possibly survive all that?
Well, if you listen to conventional wisdom, no one. Or very few. And those who do survive will wish for death.
This sentiment is commonly echoed in the news, various media, and pretty much everyone else.
It’s also completely untrue.
You can survive nuclear war, and it isn’t difficult.
Mind you, if you’re sitting on the proverbial bull’s-eye, yes you need to have your will made out. Nothing survives a direct hit unless you’re NORAD.
But let’s look at the various arguments against survival and take them apart.
The first is that you can’t survive the bomb. You will die in the fireball.
Sure, again if you’re sitting on that target. Rule One of nuclear war is Get Out Of The Cities. That’s Rule Two and Three as well.
But nuclear weapons don’t have the devastating range people think.
The largest weapon of choice against a city will likely be the 800 kiloton Topol SS-25 (or near equivalent) for Russia or the maybe the 1 megaton Minuteman I for the United States.
Now, it’s highly improbable that large of a weapon will be used against a city. More likely they’ll use the 300KT variant. You actually get more bang for your buck with smaller weapons. You just use more of them. But we’ll use the larger weapon so we get a bigger area of devastation with a single hit.
So, picking on the SS-25 (because why not? Someone has to be the bad guy here) air burst over a city (because city attacks will always be air bursts), we have the following data:
The fireball radius is 0.88 kilometres. (That’s slightly more than half a mile for you Americans who can’t seem to adapt to the metric system.) If you’re further out than that, you survived the fireball.
Moderate blast damage radius is 6.53 kilometres. (Just above 4 miles.) Anything to that point will suffer severe damage and injury. You’d be lucky to survive unless you are in a basement or reinforced building.
Thermal radiation radius is 11.1 km. (Just short of 6.9 miles.) If you’re unlucky enough to be directly exposed to the blast, you’re looking at third degree burns. If you’re in a building, around a corner, or otherwise protected (even light-coloured clothing will protect you), your chances of coming out of it increase dramatically.
Lastly, there is the Light Damage radius, coming in at 18.4 km (or less than 11 ½ miles). Windows will break and there will be some structure damage in less-sound buildings, but otherwise eminently survivable (unless the Universe has it out for you and something falls on you).
So, discounting the Light Damage radius, if you’re seven miles away from the centre of the blast, you survived the attack! And remember, this was a pretty large bomb we looked at. Bombs used on cities will be much smaller. (But there will be more of them.)
The next argument is radiation and fallout.
If you look at nuclear planning maps put out by the United States, you’d think the entire country would be a radioactive wasteland. That makes for cool video games but isn’t real life.
These attack maps were made during the deep Cold War when it was assumed the entire country would suffer 20 megaton bomb surface bursts all over the place.
That won’t happen.
That isn’t wishful thinking on our part. That is the practicality of nuclear weapons.
As said above, you get more bang for your buck with smaller weapons. And you get a larger area of effect with an air burst rather than a surface burst.
Consider the scenario we just ran. An 800 kt weapon air burst over a target produces significant damage over 6.53 kilometres. Now let’s look at a W-78 Minuteman III, which clocks in 350 kilotons of destruction. That’s less than half of the weapon we calculated previously.
The 350 kt nuclear warhead will devastate and area 4.95 km (just above 3 miles). That is less than half the power but only a quarter less destruction.
This is why the bad guy is going to hit a city with two or three low-yield weapons rather than one large one. You will destroy more of an area that way.
That isn’t the end of nuclear weapon efficiency, however. And that is good for us…if the word “good” can be used in context of nuclear war.
The higher a nuclear weapon is detonated, the larger the area of devastation you get. (To a point, of course.) There is some nice math that works in there where there is an optimum height you want to explode your device.
Fortunately, that optimum point for cities is pretty high and yields little fallout.
Surface bursts are extremely powerful, but have a smaller footprint, which is why city-killer missiles are exploded high in the sky. Surface bursts are reserved for dug-in targets: NATO, hardened missile silos, airports with long runways, etc. Surface bursts produce a ton of radioactive fallout.
So going back to those old attack maps. They are outdated and presume an attack that won’t happen the way they think it will. Times change.
Any country under full scale nuclear attack is going to get a whole lot of air bursts and some surface bursts, limiting the amount of fallout.
This doesn’t mean you can go out and play after a nuclear attack. But we’re also not talking movies like On The Beach where the world was soaked in radiation, either.
The world will not be covered knee-deep in fallout.
Continues....
Even a “local” war…say between North and South Korea or India and Pakistan…will put a blot on life for years, throw the world economy into chaos, and introduce horrors we have yet to even dream about.
Global Thermonuclear War between Russia and the United States where hundreds of missiles fly through the air and hundreds if not thousands of warheads bloom across the Northern Hemisphere will be literal Hell on Earth. Millions of degrees of heat will vapourise military installations, infrastructure, and people. But on the bright side, it will be a dry heat.
And then there is the debris all those explosions will toss into the atmosphere. If you have lived near a volcano, you know what that can be like.
Who could possibly survive all that?
Well, if you listen to conventional wisdom, no one. Or very few. And those who do survive will wish for death.
This sentiment is commonly echoed in the news, various media, and pretty much everyone else.
It’s also completely untrue.
You can survive nuclear war, and it isn’t difficult.
Mind you, if you’re sitting on the proverbial bull’s-eye, yes you need to have your will made out. Nothing survives a direct hit unless you’re NORAD.
But let’s look at the various arguments against survival and take them apart.
The first is that you can’t survive the bomb. You will die in the fireball.
Sure, again if you’re sitting on that target. Rule One of nuclear war is Get Out Of The Cities. That’s Rule Two and Three as well.
But nuclear weapons don’t have the devastating range people think.
The largest weapon of choice against a city will likely be the 800 kiloton Topol SS-25 (or near equivalent) for Russia or the maybe the 1 megaton Minuteman I for the United States.
Now, it’s highly improbable that large of a weapon will be used against a city. More likely they’ll use the 300KT variant. You actually get more bang for your buck with smaller weapons. You just use more of them. But we’ll use the larger weapon so we get a bigger area of devastation with a single hit.
So, picking on the SS-25 (because why not? Someone has to be the bad guy here) air burst over a city (because city attacks will always be air bursts), we have the following data:
The fireball radius is 0.88 kilometres. (That’s slightly more than half a mile for you Americans who can’t seem to adapt to the metric system.) If you’re further out than that, you survived the fireball.
Moderate blast damage radius is 6.53 kilometres. (Just above 4 miles.) Anything to that point will suffer severe damage and injury. You’d be lucky to survive unless you are in a basement or reinforced building.
Thermal radiation radius is 11.1 km. (Just short of 6.9 miles.) If you’re unlucky enough to be directly exposed to the blast, you’re looking at third degree burns. If you’re in a building, around a corner, or otherwise protected (even light-coloured clothing will protect you), your chances of coming out of it increase dramatically.
Lastly, there is the Light Damage radius, coming in at 18.4 km (or less than 11 ½ miles). Windows will break and there will be some structure damage in less-sound buildings, but otherwise eminently survivable (unless the Universe has it out for you and something falls on you).
So, discounting the Light Damage radius, if you’re seven miles away from the centre of the blast, you survived the attack! And remember, this was a pretty large bomb we looked at. Bombs used on cities will be much smaller. (But there will be more of them.)
The next argument is radiation and fallout.
If you look at nuclear planning maps put out by the United States, you’d think the entire country would be a radioactive wasteland. That makes for cool video games but isn’t real life.
These attack maps were made during the deep Cold War when it was assumed the entire country would suffer 20 megaton bomb surface bursts all over the place.
That won’t happen.
That isn’t wishful thinking on our part. That is the practicality of nuclear weapons.
As said above, you get more bang for your buck with smaller weapons. And you get a larger area of effect with an air burst rather than a surface burst.
Consider the scenario we just ran. An 800 kt weapon air burst over a target produces significant damage over 6.53 kilometres. Now let’s look at a W-78 Minuteman III, which clocks in 350 kilotons of destruction. That’s less than half of the weapon we calculated previously.
The 350 kt nuclear warhead will devastate and area 4.95 km (just above 3 miles). That is less than half the power but only a quarter less destruction.
This is why the bad guy is going to hit a city with two or three low-yield weapons rather than one large one. You will destroy more of an area that way.
That isn’t the end of nuclear weapon efficiency, however. And that is good for us…if the word “good” can be used in context of nuclear war.
The higher a nuclear weapon is detonated, the larger the area of devastation you get. (To a point, of course.) There is some nice math that works in there where there is an optimum height you want to explode your device.
Fortunately, that optimum point for cities is pretty high and yields little fallout.
Surface bursts are extremely powerful, but have a smaller footprint, which is why city-killer missiles are exploded high in the sky. Surface bursts are reserved for dug-in targets: NATO, hardened missile silos, airports with long runways, etc. Surface bursts produce a ton of radioactive fallout.
So going back to those old attack maps. They are outdated and presume an attack that won’t happen the way they think it will. Times change.
Any country under full scale nuclear attack is going to get a whole lot of air bursts and some surface bursts, limiting the amount of fallout.
This doesn’t mean you can go out and play after a nuclear attack. But we’re also not talking movies like On The Beach where the world was soaked in radiation, either.
The world will not be covered knee-deep in fallout.
Continues....