Nuclear Weapon question

[RRoan]

A 50 Gigaton nuke goes off near Washington DC. Just how much of the east-coast is destroyed?

[Col. Crackpot]

A 50 Gigaton nuke goes off near Washington DC. Just how much of the east-coast is destroyed?

The Baltimore-Washington metro area would be completely obliterated. well The Delmarva Penninsula as well as Northern Virginia... It depends. Is this an airburst or a ground burst?

[RRoan]

Airburst.

[Raxmei]

http://www.stardestroyer.net/Empire/Science/Nuke.html

Is there a point to this question?

[Alliance SpecForceTrooper]

A 50 Gigaton nuke goes off near Washington DC. Just how much of the east-coast is destroyed?

Only in La-La Land, cause there is no such thing as a 50 Gigaton weapon.

[RedImperator]

According to Mike's calculator, you're looking at widespread destruction of non-reinforced buildings out to 257 kilometers from the hypocenter. So you're looking at widespread destruction as far north as Philadelphia and as far south as Richmond. Most of Maryland and all of Delaware will be flattened. So will the northern third of Virginia, a wide area of southern Pennsylvania (including Harrisburg), and sizeable portions of New Jersey and West Virginia. The zone of near-total destruction, where only the strongest reinforced buildings will survive, would extend 60 miles from the hypocenter and complete encompas Baltimore, Arlington VA, Alexandria VA, Fairfax County VA, and Frederick, MD.

The thermal pulse would inflict third degree burns as far away as Atlanta, Toronto, Chicago, and Boston. The burn zone encompases the entirety of every state on the eastern seaboard except Maine, Georgia, and Florida, and Florida is the only state on the Atlantic coast completely outside that zone.

Note that as wanked out as this sounds, it's actually a pretty inefficient way to kill as many people as it will. You'd do better with 50,000 1mt weapons, or 500,000 100kt weapons. Remember that half of an airburst's energy is wasted--it flies off into space--and much of the energy from this wankanuke that does reach the ground will be spent on open fields, forests, and the sea (1/3 of the total destruction zone is comprised of the Chesepeake Bay). The blast wave is limited by the speed of sound, so people further away from the hypocenter will have plenty of time to find shelter or even evacuate. As well, a lot of targets that are within reach of the bomb on a 2d map will be shielded by mountains, clouds, tall buildings, and the like.

[phongn]

Mike's calculator assumes optimal airburst altitude. It might not even really scale properly to such huge devices, for that matter.

[Junghalli]

Only in La-La Land, cause there is no such thing as a 50 Gigaton weapon.

Maybe in the future there would be, it could be for a book he's writing or something.

[SirNitram]

Mike's calculator assumes optimal airburst altitude. It might not even really scale properly to such huge devices, for that matter.

The horizon becomes the limiting factor, really.

[Alliance SpecForceTrooper]

Maybe in the future there would be, it could be for a book he's writing or something.

By then, it would be easier to lob a small asteroid at the target.

[Dennis Toy]

trying to nuke DC RRoan?

why would you use such an overkill when a 20 MT nuke will do.

[SirNitram]

Maybe in the future there would be, it could be for a book he's writing or something.

By then, it would be easier to lob a small asteroid at the target.

I'm sorry, are you going to contribute? He asked a question, it's not that hard to try and be on topic.

[RedImperator]

Mike's calculator assumes optimal airburst altitude. It might not even really scale properly to such huge devices, for that matter.

The horizon becomes the limiting factor, really.

D'oh! Yeah, I forgot about that. That's what you get for working with a ruler and a Rand McNally road atlas. So Chicago might be safe.

The blast would still follow the curvature of the Earth, though, right? The horizon won't be a factor there, and neither will the terrain along the Atlantic coastal plain.

[RRoan]

By then, it would be easier to lob a small asteroid at the target.

Asteroids aren't usually lined with Cobalt-60.

trying to nuke DC RRoan?

why would you use such an overkill when a 20 MT nuke will do.

I was trying to find a place that is near the center of the Eastern-Seabord, and DC seemed appropriate for that purpose.

[Raxmei]

A single bomb is less efficient at causing damage kiloton for kiloton than a multitude of smaller bombs. That's part of why we went MIRV on our missiles. A nuke's blast goes out in three dimensions and you only really need two. Splitting the blast up spreads things out horizontally, reducing the vertical wastage. You also get to pick the distribution so you only hit the good parts and ignore the empty fields. In short, you'd be better off using something like two thousand ten megaton bombs (or some other distribution, this probably isn't the best) peppered over the coast than you would be with one 20 gigaton bomb.

[Ace Pace]

A single bomb is less efficient at causing damage kiloton for kiloton than a multitude of smaller bombs. That's part of why we went MIRV on our missiles. A nuke's blast goes out in three dimensions and you only really need two. Splitting the blast up spreads things out horizontally, reducing the vertical wastage. You also get to pick the distribution so you only hit the good parts and ignore the empty fields. In short, you'd be better off using something like two thousand ten megaton bombs (or some other distribution, this probably isn't the best) peppered over the coast than you would be with one 20 gigaton bomb.

Ask Seer Stuart for particulers

But what would be a better terror weapon? Something that irradiated half the east coast or something that destroys the cities?

[SirNitram]

Mike's calculator assumes optimal airburst altitude. It might not even really scale properly to such huge devices, for that matter.

The horizon becomes the limiting factor, really.

D'oh! Yeah, I forgot about that. That's what you get for working with a ruler and a Rand McNally road atlas. So Chicago might be safe.

The blast would still follow the curvature of the Earth, though, right? The horizon won't be a factor there, and neither will the terrain along the Atlantic coastal plain.

Put it like this: The majority of the damage, IIRC, is from the flash. The flash is light. No LoS, no damage. The shockwave might actually go further in such large booms, though I'm not sure.

[Ace Pace]

The horizon becomes the limiting factor, really.

D'oh! Yeah, I forgot about that. That's what you get for working with a ruler and a Rand McNally road atlas. So Chicago might be safe.

The blast would still follow the curvature of the Earth, though, right? The horizon won't be a factor there, and neither will the terrain along the Atlantic coastal plain.

Put it like this: The majority of the damage, IIRC, is from the flash. The flash is light. No LoS, no damage. The shockwave might actually go further in such large booms, though I'm not sure.

Flash and heat, the flash will only cause blindness, heat will cause the burns.

[Kuroneko]

A 50GT airbust would have to be at minimum h = 40km altitude; for Earth mean radius R = 6.371e3km, the horizon is at an angle t = acos[R/(R+h)] = 6.4 degrees away, which is about 710km (440mi) in every direction from the detonation point as measured on the Earth's surface. Chicago would be safe from the direct thermal pulse of the blast, although it is still near enough for secondary effects (such as radiation scattering) to be have problems. For an 80km altitude, the horizon is almost exactly 1000km (620mi) away.

[Ace Pace]

A 50GT airbust would have to be at minimum h = 40km altitude; for Earth mean radius R = 6.371e3km, the horizon is at an angle t = acos[R/(R+h)] = 6.4 degrees away, which is about 710km (440mi) in every direction from the detonation point as measured on the Earth's surface. Chicago would be safe from the direct thermal pulse of the blast, although it is still near enough for secondary effects (such as radiation scattering) to be have problems. For an 80km altitude, the horizon is almost exactly 1000km (620mi) away.

At 80KM, wouldn't it be more of an EMP pulse and there would be no fallout?
Lack of fallout would kill radiation damage.

[RedImperator]

The horizon becomes the limiting factor, really.

D'oh! Yeah, I forgot about that. That's what you get for working with a ruler and a Rand McNally road atlas. So Chicago might be safe.

The blast would still follow the curvature of the Earth, though, right? The horizon won't be a factor there, and neither will the terrain along the Atlantic coastal plain.

Put it like this: The majority of the damage, IIRC, is from the flash. The flash is light. No LoS, no damage. The shockwave might actually go further in such large booms, though I'm not sure.

The heat flash causes injuries further out and starts fires, but the blast wave is what breaks things. I think in the balance the blast kills more people with flying debris or by collapsing buildings on them, but I can't say for sure. It's definitely what causes most of the infrastructure destruction., unless you luck out and the thermal pulse touches off a firestorm (lots of dry leaves laying around a wooden subdivision or something).

[SirNitram]

The heat flash causes injuries further out and starts fires, but the blast wave is what breaks things. I think in the balance the blast kills more people with flying debris or by collapsing buildings on them, but I can't say for sure. It's definitely what causes most of the infrastructure destruction., unless you luck out and the thermal pulse touches off a firestorm (lots of dry leaves laying around a wooden subdivision or something).

I sit corrected.

[RedImperator]

By then, it would be easier to lob a small asteroid at the target.

Asteroids aren't usually lined with Cobalt-60.

If you're trying to generate fallout, a giant bomb lined with cobalt 60 (or anything else) isn't going to do much. Remember that surface area squares as interior volume cubes, so a single giant bomb (and a 50gt bomb would be enormous) would have less surface area to line with cobalt than thousands of smaller bombs.

As well, if fallout is what you want, your best bet is thousands of groundbursts.

trying to nuke DC RRoan?

why would you use such an overkill when a 20 MT nuke will do.

I was trying to find a place that is near the center of the Eastern-Seabord, and DC seemed appropriate for that purpose.

Trenton, NJ would be a better choice just going by population distribution. Philadelphia and New York would both be in the total destruction zones, you'd still pummel Baltimore and DC, and you'd even catch Boston at the edge of it.

[phongn]

At 80KM, wouldn't it be more of an EMP pulse and there would be no fallout? Lack of fallout would kill radiation damage.

There might still be fallout if any any vaporized bomb material and atmospheric vapor is irradiated and still falls to the ground (even at 80km, there's a lot of energy going down). As for EMP, I have no idea what altitudes are required to generate it.

[Sea Skimmer]

Ask Seer Stuart for particulers

But what would be a better terror weapon? Something that irradiated half the east coast or something that destroys the cities?

20 gigatons is about the yield of the ENTIRE US nuclear arsenal, at its peak. You don't need a 'terror weapon' (what a stupid concept) with that much firepower, because you can utterly destroy any nation you want while still having a huge margin left over.