In the ashes of Judgement Day

Stravo · Post by **Stravo** » 2003-07-18 04:17pm

At least those os us living near Ground Zero won't feel a damned thing. Its those poor bastards that have to scrounge around afterwards in fall out puking theri guts out that you should be concerned about.

BTW, is it even possible to create a "clean" nuke. You know just explosive effects but little or no fallout?

Robert Treder · Post by **Robert Treder** » 2003-07-18 05:35pm

I live less than two miles away from Mineta Int'l Airport. Right next to the airport is also an FMC facility, used to be that when you drove by there you could see parking lots filled with hundreds of APCs. Not sure if they still have those there.
There are also several major highway interchanges around me, and I'm in Santa Clara County, which, as of April 1, 2000, had 1,682,585 people living in it, which means there're a few nukes just to kill lots of us.
I live in very close proximity to the headquarters and/or major sites of such technology giants as Intel, Sun, Hewlett Packard, National Semiconductor, etc. etc.
There isn't much heavy industry in the South Bay, but there's enough. Plus, the East Bay has plenty of oil refineries and whatnot to account for quite a big bang.

It sure is a good thing Russia's on our side now, isn't it?

Grand Admiral Thrawn · Post by **Grand Admiral Thrawn** » 2003-07-18 06:32pm

Stravo wrote:At least those os us living near Ground Zero won't feel a damned thing. Its those poor bastards that have to scrounge around afterwards in fall out puking theri guts out that you should be concerned about.

BTW, is it even possible to create a "clean" nuke. You know just explosive effects but little or no fallout?

All nukes today need fission for the bomb or the trigger.

Of course an air burst causes a minimum of fallout.

Ryoga · Post by **Ryoga** » 2003-07-18 11:18pm

Yeah, being a Floridian, I'm pretty much in with phongn and a few of you folks. One or more of those bombs are dropping right on my head, figuratively speaking...so I'll be vaporized before I've even felt a thing. Not like you guys who have to hang out in radioactive ruins.

RedImperator · Post by **RedImperator** » 2003-07-18 11:36pm

Stravo wrote:At least those os us living near Ground Zero won't feel a damned thing. Its those poor bastards that have to scrounge around afterwards in fall out puking theri guts out that you should be concerned about.

BTW, is it even possible to create a "clean" nuke. You know just explosive effects but little or no fallout?

Most hydrogen bombs have a jacket of depleted uranium that becomes "active" when bombarded with neutrons from the fusion reaction in the bomb. The uranium fissions and releases energy, so comparatively little of the high energy neutrons produced by the bomb go to waste. This roughly doubles the yield of the bomb but produces fallout, mostly in the form of radioactive daughter elements of uranium. You can remove this jacket and all you're left with are the daughter elements of the plutonium used in the first stage of the device (plus stable materials from the bomb's physical structure that become irradiated), but at the cost of efficency, which is why there aren't many "clean" bombs.

All of this becomes moot if the weapon is a ground detonation instead of an airburst. Ground bursts vaporize tons of irradiated dirt and rock and casts it into the upper atmosphere, where it is carried downwind and falls out of the air as a fine, radioactive dust. Groundbursts are usually less efficient than airbursts (half the blast is wasted carving out a crater instead of killing people and breaking things), but they're sometimes necessary against hardened targets like nuclear silos or nuclear reactors. That's why people living downwind of the missile fields in Montana, Colorado, Nebraska, and elsewhere are thoroughly fucked, because there are hundreds of silos and each one is going to get its own groundburst. The only targets I can think of in cities that might require groundbursts are airports (to knock out runways) or naval bases (which might require an underwater burst to break the keels of the ships to guarantee they sink. Underwater bursts are even worse than groundbursts--Bikini atoll was an underwater detonation, and it's still uninhabitable 50 years later).

David · Post by **David** » 2003-07-18 11:59pm

The worst I've seen is Houston, Texas.

I think the map must be wrong on some parts. Dyess AFB didn't get a single hit ( although maybe I'm confusing it with San Angelo) and just a few years ago it had a good deal of the B1 fleet with enough nukes to pack every one of them to the gills.

h0rus · Post by **h0rus** » 2003-07-19 06:51am

Anyone have maps of Russian targets with similar assessments?

Post by **Sea Skimmer** » 2003-07-19 07:23am

Stravo wrote:At least those os us living near Ground Zero won't feel a damned thing. Its those poor bastards that have to scrounge around afterwards in fall out puking theri guts out that you should be concerned about.

BTW, is it even possible to create a "clean" nuke. You know just explosive effects but little or no fallout?

Fallout is unused fissabul material attached to debris sucked into the fireball. Modern nuclear weapons can be as much as 99% efficient, those of 1945 less then 10. Combine that with an airburst in which the fireball never touches the ground and you will have almost no long term fallout, and what is created will fall back to earth fairly quickly, within a few miles.

However many targets require ground bursts, railway yards, ports, airfields, ICBM silos, so any major nuclear attack will still have considerable fallout as a result of debris being irradiated and having bomb material affixed to them.

Post by **Sea Skimmer** » 2003-07-19 07:26am

David wrote:The worst I've seen is Houston, Texas.

I think the map must be wrong on some parts. Dyess AFB didn't get a single hit ( although maybe I'm confusing it with San Angelo) and just a few years ago it had a good deal of the B1 fleet with enough nukes to pack every one of them to the gills.

Those charts date to 1990, US strategic forces have move around considerably and changed in capabilities, the B-1 fleet isn't nuclear capable today among other things. We also don’t know what restrictions whoever made them was working under nor what the scenario was.

Embracer Of Darkness · Post by **Embracer Of Darkness** » 2003-07-19 08:56am

Dorsk 81 wrote:
Embracer Of Darkness wrote:I live near a BNFL (British Nuclear Fuels Ltd.) in England, I'm fucking screwed.
Go live on Dartmoor! No one would nuke that cos it looks like it already has!

Did I also mention that I live near BAE Systems Warton (go Eurofighter) and that my city, Preston, is the administrative center of my county? (Lancashire).

Post by **Sea Skimmer** » 2003-07-19 10:28am

Embracer Of Darkness wrote: Did I also mention that I live near BAE Systems Warton (go Eurofighter) and that my city, Preston, is the administrative center of my county? (Lancashire).

Actually such a plant might not be a target. It’s a potential source of spare parts for what jets survive in the post lay down world, and quite a few would remain. However without power and access to all of its suppliers the plant isn't going to be doing anything and might threaten Soviet rebuilding efforts.

High technology is far less likely to be struck then heavy industry; microchips are going to be of rather value then a bunch of machine tools.

RedImperator · Post by **RedImperator** » 2003-07-19 04:26pm

Sea Skimmer wrote:
David wrote:The worst I've seen is Houston, Texas.

I think the map must be wrong on some parts. Dyess AFB didn't get a single hit ( although maybe I'm confusing it with San Angelo) and just a few years ago it had a good deal of the B1 fleet with enough nukes to pack every one of them to the gills.
Those charts date to 1990, US strategic forces have move around considerably and changed in capabilities, the B-1 fleet isn't nuclear capable today among other things. We also don’t know what restrictions whoever made them was working under nor what the scenario was.

The map was generated based on FEMA projections of likely targets within the United States, and is, as you say, 10 years old. There are very likely targets that FEMA doesn't know about or wasn't allowed to publically list. At any rate, those secret targets aren't near populated areas and shouldn't require enough megatonnage to generate noticeably more fallout.

To whoever asked, I know of no maps of potential targets in Russia. It wouldn't be difficult to figure out roughly what would be hit, given good enough maps of the country. However, we'd have no idea where a number of important installations are or even that they actually exist. And all these maps involve some guesswork--we won't know until they actually press the button what the targets are, what yield weapons will be used on which site, how many will be groundbursts and how many will be airbursts, whether the Russians will actively target population centers or limit themselves to counter-industrial strikes, etc. For a lot of people, those questions are mostly academic. Does it really matter much to me if the Russians decide to use 400kt instead of 750kt against an oil refinery two miles from my house?

Post by **Sea Skimmer** » 2003-07-19 06:16pm

RedImperator wrote: And all these maps involve some guesswork--we won't know until they actually press the button what the targets are, what yield weapons will be used on which site, how many will be groundbursts and how many will be airbursts, whether the Russians will actively target population centers or limit themselves to counter-industrial strikes, etc.

It all depends on what the attacks objective is; the US had dozens of different plans ready to go for example, it would be the same for the Soviets. If we know the objective and the available then it becomes much easier to figure out what would be hit and in what force. So indeed we can't simply make one guess and be right, at least not beyound a single very specific senario.

For a lot of people, those questions are mostly academic. Does it really matter much to me if the Russians decide to use 400kt instead of 750kt against an oil refinery two miles from my house?

That might not matter; the difference between a 50-kiloton device, the worlds most common, or a 1-megaton bomb sure could matter. Surviving the small burst isn't that hard. For the big one you might want to step outside and look up.

RedImperator · Post by **RedImperator** » 2003-07-19 06:22pm

Sea Skimmer wrote:That might not matter; the difference between a 50-kiloton device, the worlds most common, or a 1-megaton bomb sure could matter. Surviving the small burst isn't that hard. For the big one you might want to step outside and look up.

Huh. I thought the more common type was bigger (~100-250kt). You learn something new every day. The refineries, I imagine, would require something a little larger, as they're so widely spread. It would be worth the extra kilotonnage to destroy the tank farms.

phongn · Post by **phongn** » 2003-07-19 07:16pm

Illuminatus Primus wrote:There's an airburst over Largo/Clearwater that is about two miles to the right of me as I type. Fuck.

Looks like the DOE plant, but I can't be sure.

phongn · Post by **phongn** » 2003-07-19 07:18pm

RedImperator wrote:Most hydrogen bombs have a jacket of depleted uranium that becomes "active" when bombarded with neutrons from the fusion reaction in the bomb. The uranium fissions and releases energy, so comparatively little of the high energy neutrons produced by the bomb go to waste. This roughly doubles the yield of the bomb but produces fallout, mostly in the form of radioactive daughter elements of uranium. You can remove this jacket and all you're left with are the daughter elements of the plutonium used in the first stage of the device (plus stable materials from the bomb's physical structure that become irradiated), but at the cost of efficency, which is why there aren't many "clean" bombs.

Actually, I'm fairly sure that most warheads do not have the U238 third stage nowadays.

The only targets I can think of in cities that might require groundbursts are airports (to knock out runways) or naval bases (which might require an underwater burst to break the keels of the ships to guarantee they sink.

Railway yards also require groundbursts to take out.

phongn · Post by **phongn** » 2003-07-19 07:22pm

I've posted this elsewhere, but the following three articles may be of interest.

Nuclear Game Part I
Nuclear Game Part II
Nuclear Game Part III

RedImperator · Post by **RedImperator** » 2003-07-19 07:42pm

phongn wrote:Actually, I'm fairly sure that most warheads do not have the U238 third stage nowadays.

I guess not, if the most common warhead type is 50kt. I was thinking 250+kt weapons.

Railway yards also require groundbursts to take out.

D'oh! Forgot about those.

Illuminatus Primus · Post by **Illuminatus Primus** » 2003-07-19 08:52pm

phongn wrote:
Illuminatus Primus wrote:There's an airburst over Largo/Clearwater that is about two miles to the right of me as I type. Fuck.
Looks like the DOE plant, but I can't be sure.

DOE?

phongn · Post by **phongn** » 2003-07-20 01:24pm

Department of Energy. It's now the STAR (Science, Technology and Research) Center, but oddly enough, there's a bunch of military vehicles still parked in back...

darthdavid · Post by **darthdavid** » 2003-07-20 03:19pm

Damn. They're nuking the finger lakes because of that damn former army depo. Probably still a target because of all the industry there and the semi functional air base. And i'm fucking 2 miles from the bastard. My house is either colapsed or heavily dammaged and i get basically microwaved by the fall out. That should be fun.