All we need is a solar frame, pandemic, or string of larger earthquakes in some parts of the globe. That would cause some nuclear plants to meltdown. Life on Earth would become impossible. No need to worry about some accidental nuclear war. Damn, we're dumb.
Nukes of Hazard (2013)
61–70 of 176 posts
Re: Nukes of Hazard (2013)
#62Earlier quoted context omitted.
Fall-out effects from such a large & dirty H-bomb detonated at ground level would have been pretty bad - you wouldn't want to be downwind of such an event. [Edit 1] Actually, if you consider the indirect effects of the use of such a weapon - particularly the large number of refugees fleeing contaminated areas, huge numbers of injured etc. while such a detonation wouldn't destroy an entire state it would probably redu…
>> suggesting that the hundreds of weapons the Soviets had pointing at the UK were complete overkill... As Schlosser says in his book - because of the lack of coordination between the Air Force, Army, US Navy and Missile Forces, at one point there was something like 400(sorry if I remembered the number wrong,but it was in hundreds) nuclear rockets aimed at Moscow, many of them with multi-megaton payload. If they were…
A point that bears repeating is that this level of overkill was actually counterproductive. One way of disabling a high efficiency nuclear device is to blast the thing with neutrons (causing a premature and incomplete fission reaction in the core of the weapon). This was actually how the Sprint ABM system was intended to destroy its targets:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sprint_%28missile%29
Now picture the skies over Moscow with ~400 warheads coming in, most of them having been launched in a coordinated wave by Minuteman, Titan, or MX missiles within the space of a few minutes: it turns out that the prompt neutron pulse, blast, EMP, or thermal effects from one incoming warhead can disrupt another if it arrives within 10 seconds of the first. This is termed nuclear fratricide:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_fratricide
... And there were enough weapons in play during the Cold War that this was a thing war planners worried about.
Re: Nukes of Hazard (2013)
#63The UK's leaders wrote "Letters of last resort" to their nuclear submarine commanders, explaining what to do if the government was destroyed: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Letters_of_last_resort It's terrifying that nuclear war was considered likely enough to do this.
My understanding was they still do: I read somewhere (can't find the link now, sorry) that when the system was explained to Tony Blair on his second day in office, he went white.
Firing the nukes after the destruction of the government is 50% of the purpose of Trident. It's a second-strike deterrence weapon. It's not as if it could be practically used as a first-strike weapon independently of the US, there aren't enough warheads to obliterate Russia or China on our own.
Re: Nukes of Hazard (2013)
#64[deleted]
Re: Nukes of Hazard (2013)
#65The movie plug is in the article but most of us are only skimming so let me plug it again: http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/dr_strangelove/
I didn't like 2001, maybe because in 2014 its harder to appreciate, and it has a very slow pace. Dr. Strangelove a much easier watch.
Re: Nukes of Hazard (2013)
#66Earlier quoted context omitted.
>> suggesting that the hundreds of weapons the Soviets had pointing at the UK were complete overkill... As Schlosser says in his book - because of the lack of coordination between the Air Force, Army, US Navy and Missile Forces, at one point there was something like 400(sorry if I remembered the number wrong,but it was in hundreds) nuclear rockets aimed at Moscow, many of them with multi-megaton payload. If they were…
A point that bears repeating is that this level of overkill was actually counterproductive . One way of disabling a high efficiency nuclear device is to blast the thing with neutrons (causing a premature and incomplete fission reaction in the core of the weapon). This was actually how the Sprint ABM system was intended to destroy its targets: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sprint_%28missile%29 Now picture the skies ove…
One explanation of the massive overkill that the US had for a lot of the Cold War came down, essentially, to badly stated requirements.
Apparently, the US military were tasked with destroying 50% of the socialist world's industrial capacity - which you could do by destroying 50% of the factories completely or 100% of the factories by at least 50%. However, if you attack say a shoe factory (the example given) with an H-bomb aiming to achieve at least 50% destruction you do actually get 100% destruction. So all factories were targeted.
NB I used the phrase "socialist world" as, at least until well into the 60s, the SIOP aimed to destroy everyone even vaguely left of center whether they were actually allies of the Soviets or not (e.g. China, Albania, Yugoslavia etc.).
Pretty sure I read this in "The Bomb - A Life" by Gerard DeGroot, but I could well be wrong!
Re: Nukes of Hazard (2013)
#67The article claims that a nine-megaton blast would wipe out "most of the state of Arkansas". Wikipedia claims the lethal radius on a bomb of that size is about 20 miles for thermal effects ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B53_nuclear_bomb#Effects ), which is around 2% of the area of Arkansas; other effects are described as having an even smaller radius. I suspect, but cannot prove, the wikipedia number is more likely t…
There's a nuclear detonation simulator here: http://nuclearsecrecy.com/nukemap/
Here's a link with the numbers plugged in: http://nuclearsecrecy.com/nukemap/?&kt=9000&lat=34.7464809&l...
Arkansas would not be "wiped out".
Re: Nukes of Hazard (2013)
#68All we need is a solar frame, pandemic, or string of larger earthquakes in some parts of the globe. That would cause some nuclear plants to meltdown. Life on Earth would become impossible. No need to worry about some accidental nuclear war. Damn, we're dumb.
Can you back that up with some numbers, or a source perhaps? Because that just sounds like fearmongering. We've already had two nuclear plant meltdowns, and life on earth is doing just fine.
Re: Nukes of Hazard (2013)
#69Earlier quoted context omitted.
Not really a confusion: if the letter of last resort (sealed orders to be opened in the event the Government is destroyed) says "launch the nukes", you do have a sort of dead man's switch, assuming the sub's captain follows the orders I've always understood "dead man's switch" to literally mean something operating without human intervention. Probably explains the confusion! That said, the options available to the com…
I also find it interesting that the effectiveness of these orders rely purely on the captain's sense of duty, as (assuming the system has worked correctly) the only other person who knows what they say is dead.
It wouldn't be opened by the captain alone. I don't know about the US procedures, but in the Soviet army/navy the sealed orders would most likely be opened by a trio of the captain, deputy and the 'political officer'; and captain deciding to do otherwise would be a valid reason to remove him from command on the spot, if the other two disagree.
Re: Nukes of Hazard (2013)
#70Earlier quoted context omitted.
The largest nuclear detonation set off by the United States was Castle Bravo. It was fifteen megatons. It had serious fallout issues, but it did not cause the kind of damage that is claimed for this weapon. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Castle_Bravo
>but it did not cause the kind of damage that is claimed for this weapon I don't know, what you are referring to here, but to my opinion, given the distances of a relatively wide area with very limited population, the results where grave enough. Generations of the inhabitants where contaminated and had babies with many defects or deaths born. I guess the descendants of these poor people still struggle with the effect…
"Horrible effects" and "wiped out" mean very, very different things and can't be used interchangeably, especially if you're writing an article that pretends to be serious.