in a debate on nuclear weapon usage in Robotech, someone posted a webpage that claims a 20Mt device will:
Ground Zero to Two Miles:
Within 1/1000th of a second, a fireball would form enveloping downtown and reaching out for two miles in every direction from ground zero, the point where the bomb went off. Temperatures would rise to 20 million degrees Fahrenheit, and everything--buildings, trees, cars, and people--would be vaporized.
Two Miles to Four Miles from Ground Zero:
Out to a distance of 4 miles, the blast would produce pressures of 25 pounds per square inch and winds in excess of 650 miles per hour. These titanic forces would rip buildings apart and level everything, including reinforced concrete and steel structures. Even deep underground bomb shelters would be crushed.
Four Miles to Ten Miles from Ground Zero:
As far as six miles from the center of the explosion, the heat would vaporize automobile sheet metal. Glass would melt. Out to a distance of ten miles in all directions, the heat would still be intense enough to melt sheet metal. At this distance, the blast wave would create pressures of 7 to 10 pounds per square inch and winds of 200 miles per hour. Reinforced concrete buildings would be heavily damaged and all other buildings--masonry and wood frame--would be leveled.
Sixteen Miles from Ground Zero:
At a distance of 16 miles from the center, the heat would ignite all easily flammable materials--houses, paper, cloth, leaves, gasoline, heating fuel--starting hundreds of thousands of fires. Fanned by blast winds still in excess of 100 miles per hour, these fires would merge into a giant firestorm more than 30 miles across and covering 800 square miles. Everything within this entire area would be consumed by flames. Temperatures would rise to 1400 degrees Fahrenheit. The death rate would approach 100%.
Firestorms of this type, though on a smaller scale, developed in Hamburg and Dresden and in parts of Tokyo after conventional bombing attacks during World War II. The information gained from these experiences has particular relevance to the question of fallout shelters. In these earlier firestorms only those who left their bomb shelters had any chance of surviving. Those who remained in underground shelters were killed, roasted as their bunkers were turned into ovens and suffocated as the fires consumed all of the oxygen in the air.
Did I miss something, or are these 'facts' all bullshit? Does anyone know what kind of device would generate this kind of a blast?Beyond Sixteen Miles:
At 21 miles from ground zero, the blast would still produce pressures of two pounds per square inch, enough to shatter glass windows and turn each of them into hundreds of lethal missiles flying outward from the center at 100 miles per hour. At 29 miles away from the center the heat would be so intense that all exposed skin, not protected by clothing, would suffer third degree burns. To a distance of 32 miles second degree burns. Even as far as 40 miles from ground zero anyone who turned to gaze at the sudden flash of light would be blinded by burns on the retina at the back of their eyes.
