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How destructive are nuclear weapons really?

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Re: How destructive are nuclear weapons really?

#111

Post by chakalakasp »

mupuff1234 wrote: post #30

> For instance, priority targets in New York City are likely to include Bayonne/Port Elizabeth and Red Hook in Brooklyn instead of Manhattan, as Moscow cares more about New York as a place where armies can sail for Europe than as a place where investment bankers live. This person is delusional. The financial hub of the world is definitely a much higher value target than another port in an armageddon type scenario.

NYC is essentially leveled in any kind of attack that includes countervalue.

https://raw.githubusercontent.com/davidteter/OPEN-RISOP/main...

Re: How destructive are nuclear weapons really?

#112

Post by slaymaker1907 »

pmoriarty wrote: post #103

I strongly encourage anyone who wants a taste of what nuclear war would look like to watch Threads [1]. Despite being the most terrifying depiction of nuclear war that I've ever seen, and it is probably overoptimistic. After the fall of the Soviet Union, a general in charge of UK's nuclear strategic defense met with his Soviet counterpart and asked the latter what he thought of Threads and the latter laughed and said…

In most of the analysis I've seen, those who die immediately will be the fortunate ones. Starvation is a horrible way to go, and even if nuclear winter doesn't happen, we probably won't have the necessary technology in place to produce food for the remaining population.

Re: How destructive are nuclear weapons really?

#113

Post by cmurf »

extheat wrote: post #76
dv_dt wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And this would be back hundred+ years in civilization, with the easiest energy extraction sources for coal/oil etc already gone. Humanity would have a very hard time following the same tech/energy ladder back to now.

I don't think so, I think humans would probably be able to build back pretty quickly given the tech and manufacturing capability we have today. Yeah, 95% of it may have been destroyed worst case, but even at The biggest problem I see is the amount of habitable land on the Earth. For short periods of time, people wandering in nuclear wastelands will mostly be OK, however it's not safe to inhabit so we'd have to move t…

Absurd. This kind of war destroys the government. You can only speculate what replaces it. And it'll probably be the winners (or non-losers) who dictate.

95% dead is a lot of corpses and demolished infrastructure with no fuel to operate heavy machinery to clean up anything.

Europe after WW2 had the Marshall Plan. Who does this for WW3? China? India? Why not just take the intellectual property? There's no longer anyone, person or government force or leverage to protect it. If cities are destroyed expertise is probably not 95% destroyed, but closer to 99%.

I think the current geopolitics is wiped out. At least the belligerents. Not only are their governments physically destroyed, but they have no legitimacy. They just allowed the worst failure in human history to occur.

There's no assurances what happens next.

Re: How destructive are nuclear weapons really?

#114

Post by earleybird »

samarama wrote: post #102
snemvalts wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And the average yield is just 300-800 kt. A lot less than the megaton size bombs of the cold war.

Where did you get that number from?

3rd paragraph, although parent may have a typo - rather than 300 - 800 it says 300 - 500

In practice, most strategic nuclear warheads today are in the 300-500 kT range, with tactical weapons being smaller. If we take the American W88 (455 kT) as representative of this range

Re: How destructive are nuclear weapons really?

#115

Post by echoradio »

pmoriarty wrote: post #103

I strongly encourage anyone who wants a taste of what nuclear war would look like to watch Threads [1]. Despite being the most terrifying depiction of nuclear war that I've ever seen, and it is probably overoptimistic. After the fall of the Soviet Union, a general in charge of UK's nuclear strategic defense met with his Soviet counterpart and asked the latter what he thought of Threads and the latter laughed and said…

Came by to mention Threads. [1] The collapse of society spurred by nuclear war is a pretty horrific thing.

If Threads taught me anything about being prepared for “surviving” a nuclear war in a metropolitan area, it’s to stock up on alcohol and drugs so your impending death is not as painful.

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Threads_(1984_film)

Re: How destructive are nuclear weapons really?

#116

Post by ClumsyPilot »

empthought wrote: post #70
philipkglass wrote: post #21

There are some good points here mixed with some large assumptions. The good points: - Weapons fuzed for high-altitude air burst, which maximizes the damage area at the expense of not being able to kill hardened targets, are not going to produce dangerous fallout. - The typical warhead now is significantly smaller than the multi-megaton ones that were typical during the era of the Cuban Missile Crisis. The large assum…

"people who already knew how to farm without artificial fertilizers. Today we are nearly 8 billion and a much smaller fraction have any experience farming." As if it were an expensive and impractical proposition for more people to grow a little food. The reason fewer people engage in farming is that fewer people need to engage in it, and it is neither well-rewarded nor an intrinsically desirable activity for most peo…

John deer tractors digitally brick themselves if you replace a part without authorisation. Most modern Ag machinery will be gone. Modern farms don't plant seed from their last harvest, specialised farms cultivate seeds, and 'normal' farms buy them and plants them - that system will be gone. Most agrochemicals will be gone.

Is your plan to give a random joe a field and a hoe? They will get maybe 30% of the yield a proffeshional farmer would. That means a famine. And they will be unavaliable for any other much-nessesary construction and repair work, because without specialised equipment it's weeks of back-breaking work just to harvest 1 field of potato.

Average person does not even know the difference between a potato seed and a potato tuber, let alone the optimal varieties, time for planting, etc. Which will be impossible anyway, because the infrastructure is gone.

And because you will have random idiots planting potato without any knowledge of disease and pest control, they will run rampant and cause famine:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Famine_(Ireland)

Re: How destructive are nuclear weapons really?

#118

Post by extheat »

cmurf wrote: post #113
extheat wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think so, I think humans would probably be able to build back pretty quickly given the tech and manufacturing capability we have today. Yeah, 95% of it may have been destroyed worst case, but even at The biggest problem I see is the amount of habitable land on the Earth. For short periods of time, people wandering in nuclear wastelands will mostly be OK, however it's not safe to inhabit so we'd have to move t…

Absurd. This kind of war destroys the government. You can only speculate what replaces it. And it'll probably be the winners (or non-losers) who dictate. 95% dead is a lot of corpses and demolished infrastructure with no fuel to operate heavy machinery to clean up anything. Europe after WW2 had the Marshall Plan. Who does this for WW3? China? India? Why not just take the intellectual property? There's no longer anyon…

I don’t think it’s absurd. Maybe overly optimistic, but life has found a way to make it to where it is today. I have no reason to not believe that humans would still be around and kicking (even some of the Dinosaurs survived to today...). Yes most of the governments would be gone—natural law would take over. But in the end, there are going to be survivors. Some of them are smart. Most of them can talk, read, write and so forth. If you view a nuclear war as completely destroying the planet, I think that’s the problem. Even with all the (known) present nuclear warheads on the planet, we don’t have enough to destroy every meter of land on the planet. That would require deliberate and pinpoint precision, most likely not going to happen. The Earth is just too big. There will be technologically advanced places that will persist—no matter what. And they’re the keys to gradually returning the planet to where it once was. It’s not going to be a quick process, it’s going to happen on the scale of 10+ years, but it will get done. If this was not the case we can forget about going to Mars or even the Moon and just call it impossible.

Re: How destructive are nuclear weapons really?

#119

Post by empressplay »

Other things to consider:

Weapon reliability -- particularly on the Russian side. Will many / most of their ICBMs even get off the ground? Will the warheads actually work properly? I'm not saying they're all duds but if I was Russia I'd maybe keep 100 maintained for the sake of demonstration.

Willingness to launch -- this is probably a bigger problem on the Russian side (the Americans brainwash their soldiers better!) Even if they use tricks like obfuscating targets or claiming the target is an uninhabited 'demonstration' someone still has to push the button.

European Theatre -- Russia needs its subs to try to stop UK / American subs from nuking them so they're not likely deployed around NA (instead hunting for enemies closer to home) and thus can't destroy the silos.

As such they can't attack the US using ICBMs because they will face massive retaliation. The only way Russia can survive such a war would be to have an exchange with Europe and assume the US will not launch ICBMs (a fair assessment).

The rest of the West will be far too distracted dealing with the humanitarian crisis generated by the blasts in Europe to care about Russia.

So, if the West were to imply an invasion of Russia directly, Russia's best course of action would be to nuke a few cities in non-nuclear countries in Western Europe. At that point an invasion of Russia would be untenable (due to the need to deal with the figurative and literal fallout), and although nuclear retaliation might ensue (but not more than tit for tat), it would not be existential to Russia. And nobody would risk poking the bear again.

This is Putin's thinking and why we're not invading Russia (or even Ukraine).

However, I'd like to point out that even the destruction of a single largish city will completely ruin any appetite on the part of the West to either inflict such damage themselves or encourage any encores. You will see anti-war protests in the West on an unprecedented scale. There will be uncontrolled rioting in the streets. Any democratic government that engages in further nuclear activity will likely not survive politically and neither will their parties.

This is Putin's 'escalate to de-escalate' scenario.

While what is happening in Ukraine is horrific and terrible I'm afraid we're stuck unless we develop an appetite for this sort of shit. Which is itself horrible and terrible.

Re: How destructive are nuclear weapons really?

#120

Post by [deleted] »

coffeefirst wrote: post #32
happytoexplain wrote: post #10

>not an existential threat to humanity ... [but] it would be a humanitarian catastrophe unprecedented in human history, as the global economy breaks down and regions are pushed back on their own resources. This could easily kill more people than the war itself, particularly in densely-populated areas, but I would expect things to stabilize at a technology level of maybe the late 19th/early 20th century and start back…

Yeah, this is the same type of article that, from the comfort of the author's arm chair, says things like: "well humanity survived the black death, basically no matter what we're going to be fine." You can only shrug it off looking at the abstract numbers. You absolutely do not want to live through a period of history that's anything like that.

[deleted]
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