Good Sources for Nuclear War Effects

[Imperial Overlord]

Trying to find results about what detonating a lot of nukes will do to a nation and/or planet through search engines turns up a lot of chaff. Does anyone have any good sources on this subject?

[Surlethe]

Would the Nuclear Weapons FAQ be any help? Other than that, you could try reasoning from first principles. What sort of bombing are you talking about? One airburst per city, or carpet-bombing?

[Imperial Overlord]

All sorts of stuff really. Long term environmental and societal damage from limited and full out exchanges is my primary interest and I know there has been studies on it, but googling on the subject comes up with a lot of junk and a few gems. I know that some people on the board have an interest in this kind of thing (Stuart and Shep to name just two) and I was hoping that someone could point me towards some good studies or sources.

[Stuart]

All sorts of stuff really. Long term environmental and societal damage from limited and full out exchanges is my primary interest and I know there has been studies on it, but googling on the subject comes up with a lot of junk and a few gems. I know that some people on the board have an interest in this kind of thing (Stuart and Shep to name just two) and I was hoping that someone could point me towards some good studies or sources.

The primary source is a book called "The Effects of Nuclear Weapons". This is available in many editions (oddly the 1962 version is regarded as being the best rather than the last, 1979, edition). It's available online but it really is better to buy a copy even though the price can be eye-watering. If you do, be careful you get one with the nuclear effects calculator (pie-cutter) in the back.

Then try reading "On Thermonuclear War" and "Thinking about the Unthinkable" by Herman Kahn

You might try also "Design For Survival" By Thomas Power

Then there's

"Nuclear War Survival Skills 1987 Edition" by Cresson H. Kearny

"Strategic Nuclear War: What the Superpowers Target and Why" by Martel and Savage

The Effects of Nuclear War by the Office of Technology Assessment

This will give you a good start. Once you'cve worked through them, I'll recommend some more.

By the way, a word of warning, this is a dangerously addictive area to become interested in. To misquote Nietzsche "Look too long into the abyss and we look back"

[Gil Hamilton]

Thermonuclear war seems to be something to me that if it were the End of the World like some people say, it would actually be a whole lot more pleasant an event. The terrible thing about nuclear war is that it fails to kill everyone affected by it.

[cosmicalstorm]

A lot of people seems to think that an all out GTW would be the literal end of mankind. Im not in a position to dispute that, but does anyone know what the odds are that mankind would literally be wiped out by either the bombs themselves or the effects?

[Gil Hamilton]

A lot of people seems to think that an all out GTW would be the literal end of mankind. Im not in a position to dispute that, but does anyone know what the odds are that mankind would literally be wiped out by either the bombs themselves or the effects?

For the bombs themselves, if all of them launched, the chances are incredibly slim that even half the population of the planet would die. There just aren't enough devices on the planet to do the job and there are people all over, not just in places where its efficient to target. If you dropped a nuclear device on Manhattan, there would actually probably be survivors even IN Manhattan, not just the rest of New York City, because the buildings are going to absorb alot of the frightfulness. That's why targeteers target multiple devices on a place. I remember seeing a chart and the Soviet Union during the Cold War had no less than seven ICBMs full of nuclear devices specifically targeting Pittsburgh, which, granted, was an industrial center at the time.

This principle makes the aftereffects a WHOLE lot worse. Even one nuclear detonation will cause enough casualties that in a good sized city, a great many of the survivors who weren't killed instantly will die on makeshift stretchers waiting for medical treatment, simply because there aren't enough hospitals in the best of times and worse, many of the local hospitals will have been blasted in the attack. It was estimated that in a nuclear exchange between India and Pakistan, that there weren't enough hospital beds in all of Asia to treat even a fraction of the wounded. Then you factor in the breakdown of order, communications, and travel, where cops are taking to the streets with live rounds shooting opportunists, the internet/cellular network is gone, and no one is shipping food anymore to anyone EXCEPT in small amounts. People can and will SURVIVE this, even if every device is spent, but it makes you wonder about Einstein's prophecy about nuclear war:

""I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones."

[Stuart]

A lot of people seems to think that an all out GTW would be the literal end of mankind. Im not in a position to dispute that, but does anyone know what the odds are that mankind would literally be wiped out by either the bombs themselves or the effects?

Pretty much Nil. The following essay is one I wrote about ten years ago on a nuclear strike and its aftermath.

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When we've been discussing nuclear weapons, we've always been working under the presumption that the historical situation applies and that we won't see a nuclear exchange. Lets look at the grim side of the equation now. The sirens are going and the National Emergency system is screaming its head off. What's the world going to be like in 25 minutes time? One thing we have to make clear before we start. We're talking about the biggest cataclysm in human history. When we say things like "doing well" or "doing badly", those terms are relative.

Any country can be divided into two parts. The "A-country" is the big cities, the industrial and population centers and the resource concentration they represent. Big cities got to be that way because they are in desirable locations, near good ports, river crossings or mountain passes. When the city goes, so does the locations. The "B-country" is everything else. In effect the A-country represents big vulnerable collections of assets gathered into single spots. The B-country represents dispersed ranges of resources spread over large areas. This is a very important distinction. The relative value of the A-country and the B-country depends on the country and society involved. However one thing is constant, the support and supplies that the A-country needs to survive comes from the B-country. Given time, the B-country will rebuild the A-country. The survival of the B-country is, therefore, critical while the survival of the A-country might not be. Now, the primary asset of the B-country is its population; they are the ones who will generate resources from the B-country and turn them into product. So, the critical thing for a post nuclear environment is population. Save as much of that as we can and we're a jump ahead. That sounds eminently humanitarian. In reality it has awful consequences but we'll come to those later.

The extent to which the A-country can be rebuilt and the speed with which that can be achieved depends on the damage inflicted on the cities. Its generally assumed that the cities will be totally destroyed write-offs but, in reality, the situation is by no means so simple.

There's a few things that are important here. One is that big devices are a rarity. There are no 100 megaton devices, very few 25 and 10 megaton devices and not all that many 5 megaton weapons. The largest devices in widespread use are 1 megaton weapons and the majority of strategic weapons are in the 350 -150 kiloton bracket. 50 kiloton strategic weapons are quite common. The reason is quite simple. The destructive power of an explosion is distributed in three dimensions (actually four since the time component is very important) so the destructive power of a device is directly proportion to the cube root of its explosive power. Even worse, the destructive effects of a device are like many other distance related phenomena; they obey the inverse square law. Double the distance from the blast center and the effects are reduced by a factor of four. Therefore, a 1 megaton device is not 1,000 times as destructive as a 10 kiloton device, its ten times as such and those effects attenuate rapidly with distance. However, very big devices are MUCH heavier than small ones and consume disproportionate amounts of fissile material. Put all this together and its much more productive to have a large number of small devices than a small number of large ones.

Another is how the devices are used. The radius of destruction of nuclear devices is actually quite limited; this is a natural outgrowth of working on the inverse square law. Even with one of the "big" 1 megaton weapons, its fury is largely spent by the time the blast wave has reached ten miles from center. The smaller devices have lesser radii although the workings of the cube power rule mean that those radii are not as small as the difference in explosive power suggests. Nevertheless, the relatively limited effect of the devices shows that the general civilian presumption that ground zero for a nuclear strike on a city will be the city center is likely to be wrong. The devices will be targeted onto specific parts of the city that are judged to be of especial value. These may actually be in the suburbs or other peripheral areas.

So how does a nuclear device destroy things? The primary effects that result from the initiation of a device are (in no particular order) a light flash, a heat flash a blast concussion wave and a sleet of direct radiation. In fact, of these the last is of relatively little significance. The range of the radiation is very short and is further attenuated by the inverse square law. Its only significant within the areas where blast and heat are already lethal. If thermal blast and concussion have already reduced you to the size, shape and color of a McDonalds hamburger, irradiating you as well is incredibly superfluous. Thus the direct effects we are interested in are light, heat and blast and they do arrive in that order. The further an observer is from the point of initiation, the greater the gap between them. This is very important. The flash of light that will blind a victim close in serves to warn a potential victim further out. Once a few miles out from ground zero, the light flash tells the population that a device has gone off and its shadows show them sheltered areas from the next effects to arrive. If an area is shadowed from light, its shadowed from radiant heat as well. The heat flash is the first really destructive effect to hit. This is direct radiated thermal energy; like light it travels in straight lines. It will set anything inflammable on fire to a considerable distance from ground zero. Interestingly, it won't set non-flammable things on fire and, for example, must enter a house via windows etc before setting that house on fire. If the windows are masked (for example painted white), the heat flash is unlikely to set a brick-built house on fire (US-style frame houses are a different matter which is why it makes me uneasy living in one).

Last to arrive is blast. Unlike light and heat, both of which travel in straight lines, blast can be funneled by structures, deflected and masked. The windows we carefully painted white are history; smashed by the blast wave and its associated wave front of debris but they've done their job. The heat flash has gone. Houses are actually quite well designed to resist pressure from outside - its pressure from inside that gives them problems. Again, if you can keep the blast out you've got a good chance. Impossible close in to ground zero but progressively easier as we get further from that point. Closing the shutters on windows inside the house is good; even taping the glass in a lattice pattern is astonishingly helpful. Compared with military targets, civilian structures have relatively low damage resistance. In the language this is called protection factor (PF) - most civilians can, with a few minutes warning give themselves a PF of around 40 - meaning they are 40 times more likely to survive than an unprotected civilian. In other words, even though the structures surrounding them are soft and weak, there is a lot they can do that will greatly increase their chance of survival. Note that - even when the sirens are going off, there is still a lot you can do that greatly increases your chances of surviving - provided you have a chance of surviving in the first place.

For all intents and purposes, the effects of initation are generated in the center of the device initiation and travel outwards evenly in all dimensions to produce a perfectly symmetrical sphere or fireball. Now think of the geometry of this. If the device is initiated at ground level, a so-called ground burst, half of all that energy will go into the ground, scouring out a crater but effectively being wasted. More goes skywards. Some will be reflected down towards the earth but very little; effectively that energy too is wasted. The only energy that is actually useful is that produced in a narrow segment around the equator of the spherical ball produced by the initiation. Thus, for this type of attack ground bursts seem very inefficient. They are.

So what do we do about it? Again, think of the geometry. If we lift the detonation point into the air, the segment of the sphere that will spend its energy destroying valuable things is increased and the amount that scours out a crater gets smaller. Keep thinking along these lines and we reach a point where the sphere of the fireball doesn't quite touch the ground at all. In this case almost all the energy from the lower half of the fireball destroys valuable things and none goes to digging a crater. This is called a low airburst and it remains a low airburst as long as the altitude of the point of initiation of the device is less than the diameter of the fireball. If the point of initiation of the device is at an altitude greater than the diameter of the fireball it's a high airburst. If the intention is to knock down cities, low airbursts are the most effective way of doing it.

We haven't mentioned fall-out. The dreaded stuff that destroys humanity. Well, there's a reason for that; the device has only just been initiated, there isn't any fall-out yet. Fall out is caused (mostly) by debris from the ground being sucked into the fireball, irradiated and spewed out of the top. This radioactive plume coalesces in the atmosphere and falls back to earth. It's a mix of isotopes of varying half lives. The most vicious of these isotopes have short half lives and are gone in a few hours. The milder ones can hang around for millennia. Now the blast and heat throw debris outwards, where does the debris sucked into the fireball come from? Answer is the crater scoured in the ground by the energy from the device that went into said ground. But hang on, we've just discovered the best way to knock a city down is to use an airburst that doesn't crater the ground. Doesn't that mean no fallout? That's right, airbursts are relatively clean from a fallout point of view. They do generate some fallout from atmospheric dust and water vapor and a bit more (some very nasty) comes from the debris of the device but not as much as legend holds.

All this means that dropping a nuclear device on a city doesn't necessarily destroy it. In fact, an acquaintance of mine, Peter Laurie, used to start off his lecture on such things by suggesting that 1 megaton device dropped on London would do only trivial damage to the city. After the lynch mob had been brought under control, he'd put a pie cutter on a demographic map of London and prove the point. That device would leave approximately 80 percent of the population and a stunning 95 percent of its assets undestroyed. To be fair, that includes people and property slightly damaged but repairable. The catch is that London wouldn't have been hit by one but by several (in fact four 350 kiloton and two 1 megaton weapons in one particular attack plan). This would still leave a substantial proportion of the population and a larger proportion of their assets intact. The implication of all this is that despite being subject to concentrated attack, the A-country isn't totally destroyed (although its society is) and remains a storehouse of people and good.

So what's been going on in the B-country. One attack pattern is to hit the nuclear weapons stationed out there. These are mostly silo-based missiles. The only way to destroy those is to initiate a device directly on top of the silo and scour out of the ground. In other words, a ground burst. And they create fallout. This means that a counter-force strike is inherently much more dangerous to the survival of the population than a counter city strike. Weird isn't it. Attacking the population gives them a reasonable chance of survival while restricting the target plan to military targets radically decreases that chance of survival. It's a point we've seen happening over and over again - when dealing with nuclear weapons we often end up going places we never thought we would. The B-country also gets hit by counter-city strikes but the dispersed nature of the population reduces their direct effects.

OK so its over. The devices have ceased to arrive and eventually, probably after some 36 to 48 hours the all clear
sounds. What happens now? From now on we're looking specifically at the USA.

We have to get the B-country working again. The cities are not places to live. Without their support infrastructure, they will become plague pits and charnel houses. They have to be evacuated and the people distributed in the B-country to make up for losses there. In the B-country people are ambling around with Geiger counters plotting what's hot and what isn't. At this point life gets grim. We triage the population. One triage is condition. Who cannot be saved, who can only be saved with massive (and probably impractical) effort, who can be saved with the means available and who will recover without treatment. On top of this is another triage. The population is prioritized according to need for protection. Pregnant women and children are top, young women of childbearing age second. Young men third, older men fourth, old women bottom. This is ruthless and brutal but its essential for survival. Given a choice between saving a young woman who can bear children and an old woman who cannot, we save the potential mother. We do the same with food. Food and water are checked for radioactivity. The clean food goes to the children and young women, the more contaminated food to the lower priority groups. That old woman? She gets the self-frying french-fries.

In this situation the US has a terrific advantage over the rest of the world. Its called the Second Amendment. The B-country population is largely armed, sometimes quite heavily. They do exactly what Founding Fathers envisaged - provide a body of armed people whom the local authority can assemble to maintain order. (The Supreme Court may argue that interpretation of the Second Amendment but by now they are doing so with the people who wrote it). In a more general sense, post-holocaust fiction usually has gangs of outlaws preying on the defenseless citizenry. Interestingly that doesn't seem to happen. In disasters people tend to work together rather than against eachother (for example in US urban disasters Hells Angels biker gangs have made sterling contributions to relief efforts using their bikes and riding skills to get emergency supplies through to places others can't). While lawlessness and disorder do occur, the ease of forming a civilian militia (using the term properly here meaning something very much like the Sheriff?s Posse beloved of Westerns) brings that situation under control. Other countries are unlikely to be so fortunate.

So we're in a race. Can we rebuild the B-country so that its firstly self-sustaining without the services provided by the A-country while the stockpile of pre-attack assets survive. Can we reconstruct a working society fast enough so that we can feed enough people to keep going? Can the surviving women bear enough children (and survive doing so) to replace the death toll. For the loss won't stop with the attack. Diseases we consider trivial today, measles, chickenpox, influenza, will be mass killers. No medical treatment. Unless your lucky enough to be where some medical facilities have survived, a broken leg that gets infected is likely to be a death sentence. Its possible to look on this world as a 17th century US colonial environment and there's a lot of truth in that. The downside is that the colonial pioneers didn't have the decaying charnel houses of the cities to worry about.

Winning that race is vital. Lose and we're extinct. The population drops like a stone as disease, radiation and injury take their toll. Then, it should bottom out and start to recover. Teams of older men and infertile women go to the cities to recover what they can. The radiation levels continue to drop. Fortunately we don't have to worry about nuclear winter, that's been largely discredited (the atmospheric models that were used were far too simplistic and the reality seems to be we may actually get a more temperate and less changeable climate out of things - somebody once described it as a Nuclear Autumn). The ozone layer also won't be a problem - it'll regenerate fast enough and the effects of the bombs may actually be beneficial.

The ugly side of life continues. Abortion and contraception are likely to be highly illegal. We MUST have those babies. There will be more than enough parents who have lost their own (or have received too high a radiation dose) to look after any that are unwanted. Women are enslaved by their reproductive systems again. Don't like that but there is nothing we can do about it. The social pressure on women to have children will be immense in both material and moral senses. Women who can have children get the best of everything, the cleanest and best food, the most comfortable housing, the most careful protection. Women who can have children but refuse to do so will be social outcasts (and in this sort of society to be an outcast is virtually a death sentence). We're likely to see a situation where women of childbearing age are "protected" by severe restrictions ("don't go outside the house, the radiation may harm your babies" gets abbreviated to "don't go outside") . This is a grim and disturbing picture; we take an old woman out of her house and throw her in the snow to provide shelter for a pregnant mother and her children - then lock her in. Newborn babies obviously damaged by radiation are likely to be killed on the spot. That may or may not be justifiable but I think its inevitable.

No electricity, limited medicine, almost no dentistry, no travel - we really are back to the middle ages. The fallout patterns and other things shift so its likely we'll see communities having citadels they can retreat to if necessary. Gasoline runs out cars will go; we're back to horses for transport. Fortunately we don't need factories to make more horses. Justice by the way is run by Judge Lynch. Don't expect to attack a woman and survive. Guns are also a declining asset. As the ammunition runs out we'll be making weapons in blacksmiths shops. Its interesting to see what the designers will come up with, using modern know-how with 17th century assets. We'll probably see bows and arrows come back into fashion - and that means metal body armor.

Eventually when conditions permit, our new society moves back to rebuild the A-country. It'll be a long, long time before there is another Federal Government (such things need technology to survive - a calculated guess is that it would take two centuries before a powerful central government evolved again - if it evolves)

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[Imperial Overlord]

Thank you very much Stuart.

[Gil Hamilton]

I'm not necessarily sure I agree with your assessment totally, Stuart. I think you underestimate just how much B-Country needs A-Country in this day and age. My aunt, who works for the New York State government often jokes that if the upstaters got their way and New York City fell into the ocean (or New Jersey, which ever is worse), then the wailing sound you'd hear next would be New York State falling into complete and utter poverty because of how dependent they are on New York City for money, resources, and organization. A- and B- country are symbiotic, not necessarily one supporting the other. There are alot of towns in existence that are rural or sub-rural that simply cannot exist without being supported by the food trucks and organization provided by centralized civilization. Take away the support and communications with the outside world and you'll have a stranded population that is going to turn on each other because without modern conveniences, even a few thousand people is well past the areas carrying point and no amount of pointing out that America has Guns, God, and Glory is going to change that they don't have enough food or medicine or electricity. People will survive that, but its not going to resemble what we call civilization and B-Country citizens will eat each other alive in order to survive.

[Grandmaster Jogurt]

I'm not necessarily sure I agree with your assessment totally, Stuart. I think you underestimate just how much B-Country needs A-Country in this day and age. My aunt, who works for the New York State government often jokes that if the upstaters got their way and New York City fell into the ocean (or New Jersey, which ever is worse), then the wailing sound you'd hear next would be New York State falling into complete and utter poverty because of how dependent they are on New York City for money, resources, and organization. A- and B- country are symbiotic, not necessarily one supporting the other. There are alot of towns in existence that are rural or sub-rural that simply cannot exist without being supported by the food trucks and organization provided by centralized civilization. Take away the support and communications with the outside world and you'll have a stranded population that is going to turn on each other because without modern conveniences, even a few thousand people is well past the areas carrying point and no amount of pointing out that America has Guns, God, and Glory is going to change that they don't have enough food or medicine or electricity. People will survive that, but its not going to resemble what we call civilization and B-Country citizens will eat each other alive in order to survive.

I think the idea is that a countryside without a city will be destitute and may even be much harder up for even basic survival, but a city without a countryside will die. Period. "B-country" needs "A-country" in order to enjoy basic modern civilisation, but A-country needs B-country to enjoy not outright dying within one week.

[Sikon]

A lot of people seems to think that an all out GTW would be the literal end of mankind. Im not in a position to dispute that, but does anyone know what the odds are that mankind would literally be wiped out by either the bombs themselves or the effects?

Mankind would survive.

One should keep in mind how much the result of any nuclear war is going to vary by nation. For example, if India and Pakistan nuke each other, neither of them is going to unload 1000 nukes on Argentina. Even if a hypothetical all-out exchange between the top powers like the U.S. and Russia somehow occurred, there are continents and countries in the world which would be hit by relatively fewer (if any?) nukes than the primary respective enemies.

As mentioned at the Nuclear Weapons FAQ site online, the active U.S. arsenal in 1998 was on the order of 9000 devices deployed (~ 2300 megatons), and Russia had around 6000 strategic warheads active in 2001 (~ 2900 megatons). There have been declines in the past few years since then. Each of the other nuclear powers has far smaller arsenals, no more than tens to several hundred each at most (Britain, France, China, India, Pakistan, Israel).

So, if it somehow occurred today, a full-scale global nuclear war would involve no more than roughly around 15000 strategic devices with a combined yield around 6000 megatons or less. Such arsenals are designed for military purpose rather than being remotely capable of sterilizing earth's 60,000,000 square miles of land area. They would be used in manners like putting a number of devices on a high-priority enemy target to be extra sure of taking it out, not spread totally all over the place attempting to kill all the farmers in a neutral nation.

Fallout would be at lethal levels in some locations but typically far less somewhere like the middle of South America away from the bulk of detonations. Certain square miles get high levels while other portions of earth's 200,000,000 square mile area do not.

Historically, above-ground atmospheric nuclear tests have amounted to about 440 megatons (189 MT of that fission yield). The most in a single year was 170 megatons in 1962, after 1961 when various tests included the record 50-megaton Tsar Bomba detonation. Since that occurred away from population centers, such gives an idea of the amount of exposure when the fraction traveling far is heavily diluted or spread out. Following that year, world average annual effective dose from such reached a peak of 150 µSv, subsequently declining to 5 µSv in 2000. The average person receives 2400 µSv a year from natural sources, though such is variable depending on location with many receiving 10000 µSv annually or more.

Thus, proportionally, one can estimate that a nuclear war involving the atmospheric detonation of around 6000 megatons rather than 170 megatons would result in no more than on the order of 5000 µSv/year exposure typically over a region of earth's 200 million square mile area far from the primary targeted areas, even though it would be orders of magnitude higher in some particular areas. That is on the order of 5 mSv/year or 0.005 Sv/year for some people in untargeted countries, which is no more than what a substantial portion of the world populace receives today from natural sources. Depending on some details, this is not a precise figure but good enough for an order-of-magnitude estimate.

Direct obvious symptoms from radiation exposure occur at around 100 rems or 1 sievert. Substantial (~ 10%) mortality without medical treatment occurs at 300 rems or 3 Sv, reaching 50% mortality at 4.5 Sv, and so on. An exposure on the order of 0.005 Sv/year from fallout in a region of earth's surface distant from primary targets differs from such levels by literally orders of magnitude.

From this it should be very clear how there would be no truly global lethal radioactive fallout, not even close to such by orders of magnitude. Rather, extreme fallout up to a number of Sv exposure would occur over some square miles, some areas of some targeted countries, while other portions of earth's 200,000,000 square mile area would experience only on the order of 0.005 Sv/year from distant detonations. Forty years later, the latter figure would have declined to around 0.2 mSv/year (compared to average exposure of 2.4 mSv/year from natural sources), like that from atmospheric nuclear tests declined from 150 to 5 µSv between 1963 and 2000 as the shorter half-life isotopes mostly decayed away.

People in some regions would be very poorly off and many not survive, depending on the location, but the world as a whole would have some countries surviving and maintaining modern technology. For all the horrors and suffering for many, it wouldn't be remotely close to the end of mankind (nor would the world be full of sci-fi-style mutant survivors any more so than occurred after Hiroshima or Nagasaki, since, though there is some increase in birth defects, beyond a certain degree someone just dies).

[Gil Hamilton]

I think the idea is that a countryside without a city will be destitute and may even be much harder up for even basic survival, but a city without a countryside will die. Period. "B-country" needs "A-country" in order to enjoy basic modern civilisation, but A-country needs B-country to enjoy not outright dying within one week.

You can say the same for most small towns in B-country as well. Few small towns can possibly survive if they were left isolated with their own resources.

[fnord]

Stuart, isn't protection factor x simply dividing the (gamma, neutron, etc) dose you would normally have received unprotected by x? Eg a PF40 shelter would divide the radiation dose received by 40?

Or am I completely out to lunch?

[Adrian Laguna]

Guns are also a declining asset. As the ammunition runs out we'll be making weapons in blacksmiths shops. Its interesting to see what the designers will come up with, using modern know-how with 17th century assets. We'll probably see bows and arrows come back into fashion - and that means metal body armor.

The Afghanis make Ak-47s with crude blacksmithing tools up in the Hindu Kush. Not sure about the ammunition, though.

Eventually when conditions permit, our new society moves back to rebuild the A-country. It'll be a long, long time before there is another Federal Government (such things need technology to survive - a calculated guess is that it would take two centuries before a powerful central government evolved again - if it evolves)

This is such an odd statement to make. You can have powerful absolutionist central governments with bronze age technology.

[Junghalli]

This is such an odd statement to make. You can have powerful absolutionist central governments with bronze age technology.

But effectively ruling a country the size of the continental United States without railroads would be somewhat difficult.

[loomer]

Guns are also a declining asset. As the ammunition runs out we'll be making weapons in blacksmiths shops. Its interesting to see what the designers will come up with, using modern know-how with 17th century assets. We'll probably see bows and arrows come back into fashion - and that means metal body armor.

The Afghanis make Ak-47s with crude blacksmithing tools up in the Hindu Kush. Not sure about the ammunition, though.

Eventually when conditions permit, our new society moves back to rebuild the A-country. It'll be a long, long time before there is another Federal Government (such things need technology to survive - a calculated guess is that it would take two centuries before a powerful central government evolved again - if it evolves)

This is such an odd statement to make. You can have powerful absolutionist central governments with bronze age technology.

Ammunition is actually very easy to make. All you need are a few basic chemicals, metals of some kind (ideally lead and brass, but you can use anything really - you can even just recycle old casings and put BOLTS in them), and a press. This is an industry a lot of small towns could support for a fair while.

Hell, you can even make a functional, if clumsy and dangerous, round out of a bolt, an old casing, and some matches. I'm not kidding you. It won't be that powerful or accurate, and it'll really fuck up your gun, but if you have a war break out and need ammo, well. It'll be made from whatever at hand, be it matches or whatever.

Any town with military veterans would have a better chance, since IIRC the US Army teaches soldiers how to make improvised powder - all you need that isn't easily acquired with primitive technology (wood charcoal and alcohol are important but easy to get) is potassium nitrate and sulfur, both of which can be fairly easily made in large quantities with any kind of chemical or fertilizer industry.

A more reliable propellant that would probably see a lot of use is the American improvised red/white propellant, made from granulated potassium nitrate, granulated white sugar, and powdered iron oxide, with a little fresh water. Sugar is easily farmed and refined, water is generally not an issue, it's VERY easy to farm rust... And Potassium nitrate? Yeah, you can get that from your own piss or animal shit.

So long as you have basic machining tools, you can make a fully functional assault rifle with ammunition of a reliable nature for years to come. While they'll be a far cry from the M4 series or an AK-74, they'll be better than an old hunting rifle or muzzle loading black powder weapons.

[charlemagne]

In this situation the US has a terrific advantage over the rest of the world. Its called the Second Amendment. The B-country population is largely armed, sometimes quite heavily. They do exactly what Founding Fathers envisaged - provide a body of armed people whom the local authority can assemble to maintain order.

I don't believe that almost everyone being armed "from the start" ist an advantage that huge. Arming people to create some order maintaining body wouldn't be that hard even in "private gun free" countries like Germany. With 15% of the population still alive, there'll be enough survivors with access to arsenals, like policemen and military personell, and there are military bases everywhere, even and especially in rural places. And somehow I find the thought that at first only more or less competent people would be the ones with access to real firepower more comforting than an "everybody's packing" scenario.

Of course not everyone is trained in the use of firearms, but there should be enough survivors who served in the military and received some basic training, because it's mandatory to do either that or civil service once you turn 18.

[lukexcom]

With 15% of the population still alive, there'll be enough survivors with access to arsenals, like policemen and military personell, and there are military bases everywhere, even and especially in rural places. And somehow I find the thought that at first only more or less competent people would be the ones with access to real firepower more comforting than an "everybody's packing" scenario.

Yet those military bases and arsenals are *precisely* what will be targeted for destruction. Furthermore, military bases aren't everywhere, they are expensive infrastructure to maintain. See the many rounds of BRAC that took place in the US for example.

[charlemagne]

Yet those military bases and arsenals are *precisely* what will be targeted for destruction. Furthermore, military bases aren't everywhere, they are expensive infrastructure to maintain. See the many rounds of BRAC that took place in the US for example.

Well you got a point there, and furthermore, I just realized that I confused this thread with the "85% of world population die" scenario

[Stuart]

I'm not necessarily sure I agree with your assessment totally, Stuart. I think you underestimate just how much B-Country needs A-Country in this day and age. My aunt, who works for the New York State government often jokes that if the upstaters got their way and New York City fell into the ocean (or New Jersey, which ever is worse), then the wailing sound you'd hear next would be New York State falling into complete and utter poverty because of how dependent they are on New York City for money, resources, and organization. A- and B- country are symbiotic, not necessarily one supporting the other. There are alot of towns in existence that are rural or sub-rural that simply cannot exist without being supported by the food trucks and organization provided by centralized civilization.

There's a standard saying about big cities; they're 72 hours from food riots and a week from cannibalism. That's true, cut the big cities off from their sources of supply and they'll collapse with terrifying speed.

Remember we're talking about the aftermath of a nuclear war here; complete and utter poverty would be a most acceptable state of existance compared with the alternatives. Also, when we'retalkinga bout the A-country, that also includes the dormitory suburbs that surround the big cities; they exist only to provide living accommodation for people who work in said cities. To all intents and purposes, they are part of those cities.

Take away the support and communications with the outside world and you'll have a stranded population that is going to turn on each other because without modern conveniences, even a few thousand people is well past the areas carrying point and no amount of pointing out that America has Guns, God, and Glory is going to change that they don't have enough food or medicine or electricity. People will survive that, but its not going to resemble what we call civilization and B-Country citizens will eat each other alive in order to survive

That's the basis of most post-apocalypse films etc. The interesting thing is that it doesn't actually happen that way. The big cities are likely to tear themselves apart because they are non-survivable anyway, they just don't have the resources to continue their existance. However smaller communities are a lot more stable and a lot more resilient than people give them credit for. Look at the history of some of the major disasters that have struck wide areas (that mix A-country and B-country) and you'll see that at work. Basically, people are a lot smarter and a lot more adaptable than you give them credit for.

I think the idea is that a countryside without a city will be destitute and may even be much harder up for even basic survival, but a city without a countryside will die. Period. "B-country" needs "A-country" in order to enjoy basic modern civilisation, but A-country needs B-country to enjoy not outright dying within one week.

Perfect summary of the situation. Expresses the situation very succinctly.

Stuart, isn't protection factor x simply dividing the (gamma, neutron, etc) dose you would normally have received unprotected by x? Eg a PF40 shelter would divide the radiation dose received by 40?

Or am I completely out to lunch?
Stuart, isn't protection factor x simply dividing the (gamma, neutron, etc) dose you would normally have received unprotected by x? Eg a PF40 shelter would divide the radiation dose received by 40? Or am I completely out to lunch?

Not completely out to lunch but taking a specific application of the protection factor calculation and applying it generally. The PF of a shelter, properly expressed, calculates also its resistance to heat and blast. It's no use, for example, building a shelter that highly resistant to radiation if its also highly flammable or so fragile blast will destroy it.

This is such an odd statement to make. You can have powerful absolutionist central governments with bronze age technology.

Sure - over a very limited area. But how do you run a modern centralzied state over something the size of the United States when the means of communication is a package of messages carried on horseback? (extreme example but you get the point). Yes, centralzied states were run in times past and obviously they were highly autocratic ones. But their radius of commnad was severely limited, basically to the distance messages could be received and transmitted. The way they tended to work in reality was that the provincial governers themselves had near total autocratic powers and they also tended to devolve those to local governers. Read Caesar's "The Civil War" for a picture of how this tended to work. The current model where the government in Washington could issue a decree and everybody would know about it immediately is gone. What would happen is that power would devolve down to the level where authorities could transmit their instructions. My guess would be that's county-level in the US with the states being a vague authority "out there". Reconstructing communications networks would take a long time, primarily because the nodes of such communications are co-located with large smoking holes in the ground.

The Afghanis make Ak-47s with crude blacksmithing tools up in the Hindu Kush. Not sure about the ammunition, though.

Yes, they do. And the products are so dengerous that it's extremely unwise to use them. Word of warning, there are Martini-Henry rifles out there for sale. Beware, some have Afghan Khyber Pass components in them. They could blow up in your face.

But ask a more significant question. Where does the steel they use come from? And what are the other demands for such steel that is available.? What are the resources (time, labor etc) that would have to be invested in making that Khyber Pass AK-47 as opposed to a bow and arrow?

Ammunition is actually very easy to make. All you need are a few basic chemicals, metals of some kind (ideally lead and brass, but you can use anything really - you can even just recycle old casings and put BOLTS in them), and a press. This is an industry a lot of small towns could support for a fair while.

The key words there are "for a while". This is the hardest thing to get people to remember when talking about this kind of situation. Wer're not talking about a situation like a hurricane where everything goes to hell and, after a week, aid arrives and the world gets put back together. We're talking about a situation where the world has gone to hell and its never going to get any better not from the point of the people there. Recovery is going to take generations. Yes, we can reload cartridge cases and botch up bullets and that will gkeep us going for a while. But, there is a finite number of times a case can be reloaded, there is a finite number of times a botched bullet can be fired down a barrel before that barrel is irreperably damaged. Since guns and ammunition are limited assets, why use them for anything less than a serious emergency? Especially when a bow and arrow can do the job of bringing down a deer just as well (some may argue better).

If you want a good comparison of the level of technology available and how society is likely to work, look at 17th Century colonial America.

don't believe that almost everyone being armed "from the start" ist an advantage that huge. Arming people to create some order maintaining body wouldn't be that hard even in "private gun free" countries like Germany. With 15% of the population still alive, there'll be enough survivors with access to arsenals, like policemen and military personell, and there are military bases everywhere, even and especially in rural places.

One problem. No arsenals. They are also co-located with large smoking holes in the ground. Military bases likewise. Imagine a small town somewhere that's suddenly in this situation. They've seen the fireballs rising, they know civilization as they knew it has all gone. What they have on hand is it. The U.S. cmall town will have a substantial volume of weaponry already in private hands, plus a very large volume of ammunition, reloading supplies etc.

And somehow I find the thought that at first only more or less competent people would be the ones with access to real firepower more comforting than an "everybody's packing" scenario.

You might change your mind if you're out collecting berries or hunting deer and you find yourself being tracked by wild dogs (of four- or two-legged varieties). The plain fact is that most B-country Americans are at least minimally competent with weapons and those that aren't can be taught by those that are. Just remember one thing. If you're attacked, you can't pick up the phone and call the police, there is no phone and there are no police. You're on your own and your defense - and the life of yourself and your family is in your hands. Now, do you really want to be without a gun?

[loomer]

I note you didn't take into account my point about the actual materials needed to make gunpowder. With those materials, some sturdily built bolt-action rifles, and a moderate level of metal refining (assuming copper is available), you don't need to keep recycling old casings. You can make them, and the bullets are exceptionally easy to make with any kind of lead supply (ask any wildcatter/reloader.)

Or is it so very hard to refine piss and shit, grow some sugar cane, purify a bit of water, and get some damn rust?

[charlemagne]

You might change your mind if you're out collecting berries or hunting deer and you find yourself being tracked by wild dogs (of four- or two-legged varieties). The plain fact is that most B-country Americans are at least minimally competent with weapons and those that aren't can be taught by those that are. Just remember one thing. If you're attacked, you can't pick up the phone and call the police, there is no phone and there are no police. You're on your own and your defense - and the life of yourself and your family is in your hands. Now, do you really want to be without a gun?

Well yeah, that situation might be mind-changing.

But still, a large portion of adult men has undergone basic military training, so there's bound to be survivors who know their way around guns and can teach others. Then there's sport shooters (marksmen?), there's shooting ranges/clubs in most towns, and I guess sport guns are better than no guns. The rareness of guns might become an issue around here, but as soon as people start organizing and stop wandering about the place alone it shouldn't pose that big of a problem.

Thinking about it, a friend of my girlfriend's even completed a hunter course last year, and where my gf is from - a more rural place overall - hunting rifles and the likes aren't that uncommon. In case of a nuclear holocaust we'd be best off on her grandmother's/uncle's farm anyways, they don't keep livestock (save a dozen or so chicken) or till their fields nowadays, but the machinery and the know how are still there, so starting again with the farming wouldn't be that hard. I also should bring my uncle along who's an expert German shepherd breeder, I reckon large trained dogs might come in handy, too.

[Stuart]

I note you didn't take into account my point about the actual materials needed to make gunpowder. With those materials, some sturdily built bolt-action rifles, and a moderate level of metal refining (assuming copper is available), you don't need to keep recycling old casings. You can make them, and the bullets are exceptionally easy to make with any kind of lead supply (ask any wildcatter/reloader.)

Mostly because I concur with you on those points. The problem though remains time. These extemporized propellent mixes play hell with barrels. Rifling new barrels is likely to be a serious problem (many countries that nominally make their own guns actually import the rifled barrels). The other problem is how long will supplies of lead etc last? Remember you can count on the fact that trade will cease for years and only restart slowly. The problem isn't finding short-term solutions, they're two a penny, its gettings et up for a situation that could last for decades or centuries.

But still, a large portion of adult men has undergone basic military training, so there's bound to be survivors who know their way around guns and can teach others. Then there's sport shooters (marksmen?), there's shooting ranges/clubs in most towns, and I guess sport guns are better than no guns. The rareness of guns might become an issue around here, but as soon as people start organizing and stop wandering about the place alone it shouldn't pose that big of a problem.

Thinking about it, a friend of my girlfriend's even completed a hunter course last year, and where my gf is from - a more rural place overall - hunting rifles and the likes aren't that uncommon. In case of a nuclear holocaust we'd be best off on her grandmother's/uncle's farm anyways, they don't keep livestock (save a dozen or so chicken) or till their fields nowadays, but the machinery and the know how are still there, so starting again with the farming wouldn't be that hard. I also should bring my uncle along who's an expert German shepherd breeder, I reckon large trained dogs might come in handy, too.

You might change your mind if you're out collecting berries or hunting deer and you find yourself being tracked by wild dogs (of four- or two-legged varieties). The plain fact is that most B-country Americans are at least minimally competent with weapons and those that aren't can be taught by those that are. Just remember one thing. If you're attacked, you can't pick up the phone and call the police, there is no phone and there are no police. You're on your own and your defense - and the life of yourself and your family is in your hands. Now, do you really want to be without a gun?

Well yeah, that situation might be mind-changing.

But still, a large portion of adult men has undergone basic military training, so there's bound to be survivors who know their way around guns and can teach others. Then there's sport shooters (marksmen?), there's shooting ranges/clubs in most towns, and I guess sport guns are better than no guns. The rareness of guns might become an issue around here, but as soon as people start organizing and stop wandering about the place alone it shouldn't pose that big of a problem. Thinking about it, a friend of my girlfriend's even completed a hunter course last year, and where my gf is from - a more rural place overall - hunting rifles and the likes aren't that uncommon. In case of a nuclear holocaust we'd be best off on her grandmother's/uncle's farm anyways, they don't keep livestock (save a dozen or so chicken) or till their fields nowadays, but the machinery and the know how are still there, so starting again with the farming wouldn't be that hard. I also should bring my uncle along who's an expert German shepherd breeder, I reckon large trained dogs might come in handy, too.

You're very fortunate - but compare your situation with that of the UK where firearms are in short supply and people capable of using them even more so. Handguns are commonplace in the US, but in other parts of the world, they're much less so.

[Sikon]

Guns are also a declining asset. As the ammunition runs out we'll be making weapons in blacksmiths shops. Its interesting to see what the designers will come up with, using modern know-how with 17th century assets. We'll probably see bows and arrows come back into fashion - and that means metal body armor.

Eventually when conditions permit, our new society moves back to rebuild the A-country. It'll be a long, long time before there is another Federal Government (such things need technology to survive - a calculated guess is that it would take two centuries before a powerful central government evolved again - if it evolves) [...]

Where does the steel they use come from? And what are the other demands for such steel that is available.? What are the resources (time, labor etc) that would have to be invested in making that Khyber Pass AK-47 as opposed to a bow and arrow? [...]

If you want a good comparison of the level of technology available and how society is likely to work, look at 17th Century colonial America.

With talk about bows and arrows, 17th-century tech level, prolonged lack of any rapid long distance communication, and the guess of two entire centuries before a central government again, you seem to be making some major implicit assumptions here about all the rest of the world.

Even in the poorest regions of Africa, no third-world countries today are entirely limited to primitive technology alone for generations, especially not since one way or another some of their populace tends to end up with some imported AK-47s, a few radios, and the like from countries with industry.

For the sake of an extreme nuclear war scenario, pretend there was somehow an all-out exchange between the world's top nuclear powers today. Could you go into the details behind your expectations? How are you expecting neutral countries from Brazil to Indonesia to be after the war and why?

To even start to get a little close to the universal near-permanent primitiveness you seem to be assuming, it almost sounds like you may be expecting the U.S. and/or Russia in that scenario to unload a bunch of nukes onto every neutral country with some industry from Mexico to South Africa. Naturally, I'm less privy to nuclear targeting policies than you may be from where you are said to have worked. Still, even if there weren't any moral concerns, I can't see how competent military planners would want to make so many extra enemies unnecessarily, nor, for example, match such with apparent U.S. military doctrine or one that most of my fellow Americans would support. Surely you aren't suggesting that?

If the preceding isn't the case, then I'm not seeing how there wouldn't be a bunch of neutral nations surviving the war with less damage, leading to a bunch of results outside of your depicted scenario. That would include at least a few imported radios for long-distance communication in the U.S. within a few years even if (doubtfully!) somehow none here survived the war, among many other things.