Nuke Map

Drag market to a target and then pick a blast yield (several historical yields are offered). Stunning depiction of the biggest nuclear bomb the USSR ever tested.

http://nuclearsecrecy.com/nukemap/


My only preparation for this could be a morphine stockpile. The lucky would be out of town at the time.


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Wow, thank goodness the cold war never went hot. You should check out the documentary narrated by William Shatner, "Trinity and Beyond: The Atomic Bomb Movie" by Peter Kuran. Goes through historical footage of nuclear testing. Fascinating and scary as hell.

Cool map, I just hope it never really comes in handy!

You know what ... that was educational.
What I learned is that the nuclear threat to our large cities is much LESS than I expected. Much less.

Try setting the detonation level to 20kT, or even 100 kT, and centering it on Los Angeles. Only a small fraction of the city is destroyed. The bottom line is that if our citizens stayed calm and responded well - there would be more than adequate emergency facilities and hospitals left to cope with the injuries and casualties. That's actually very reassuring. Americas big cities are so BIG that it's pretty much impossible to take them out ... except by a widespread natural disaster (like a huge earthquake or hurricane).

Maybe the real conclusion here is that the US media, and the "climate of fear", that seems to pervade our thinking needs to be swept away. We are more in danger from widespread fear, confusion and panic - than we are from the nuclear threat.

Pete2

The initial blast alone from 100 Mt (Tsar Bomba) could completely take out San Francisco, the Silicon Valley, the North Bay, and the East Bay. Neighboring areas remotely close to the destruction zone would also undergo substantial collateral damage. Further, the nuclear fall out would cause massively more carnage just to be sure.

If a 100 Mt bomb hit the Los Angeles area, the nuclear fallout would contaminate the water supply for those who happened to survive the initial blast. The fallout would also directly sicken everybody near the area. Anybody who has spent time in L.A. knows the traffic is mind-numbing stagnant 24-hours of the day. If you add a 100 Mt bomb into the mix, commerce would be completely inoperable and the entire region would be rather dangerous for years. In short, there would no longer be a Los Angeles.

There's a lot more going on than just the initial blast.

The blinding flash as well as the shock wave effect on tissues and then the radioactive fallout for potentially hundreds of miles make this weapon (like poison gas) simply unacceptable.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Effects_of_nuclear_explosions

Actually, it would be much greater now that all ICBMs have MIRV (Multiple Independently Targeted Reentry Vehicle). The old ICBM's (Titan, etc.) had a single very large warhead so they had to be powerful. The now out of service MX Peacekeeper had 13 MIRVs! I believe one of the Start treaties has now limited the allowable number of MIRV's to 10 but I'm not sure. So in theory, one modern ICBM could do tremendous damage on a large city.

I'm not especially concerned about ICBM, SLBM and strategic bomber threats. Nobody who has those weapons particularly wants to end the human race, and there isn't anything I can realistically do to prepare or defend against such a threat.

While vanishingly unlikely, the more realistic threat is one or perhaps a few small bombs planted by terrorists.

ireckon

A 100 megaton A-bomb is a whopping big bomb. Nobody plans on doing that stuff these days. Most atomic explosives are at much smaller levels. US bombs are typically not larger than 100 kT for a lot of purposes. The biggest French bomb is 300 kT. The old screwball days of massive hydrogen bombs are largely gone ... military generals realized there is no point in destroying the whole Earth.

It's almost inconceivable that terrorists could smuggle a bomb yielding 20 kT - or at least the task would not be easy. It might be the kind of thing they could do in Pakistan, but it's a major challenge for them in a western country. Take a look at the physical dimensions of the Hiroshima bomb. That's the size of a crude weapon with that power. It's just too large for anyone to smuggle anywhere.

So yes ... there would be a problem with contamination and fallout. But overall, the problem is something that could be managed. That's my impression.

Pete2

I am more concerned today with first, a nuclear reactor leak due to failures (accidental, intentional)at a nearby plant & second a terrorist dirty bomb incident. (Very low % event and most likely low yield device) but I think more likely than a launch event between country's.


A few years back the Palo Verde nuke plant, the closest to me, published a prevailing wind chart laid over a map of the Phoenix metroplex of 5M people. It showed what direction and strength a 'realistic' meltdown would do to the valley. As I live 50 miles away it didn't hit my house though it did affect where I might be in the city at any given time.

I tried to find it online but was unsuccessful. If I find it in my box of old office stuff, I post it.

thanks for the link. eyeopening.

most of the comments so far seem to me to assume there's only one warhead.

everyone believes in redundancy - think 9/11.

let's hope the most we ever see here is one warhead. and that it never happens.

Exactly. Soviet strategy relied upon many targets, and a great many warheads. In the Seattle area there are a number of targets worthy of a warhead or two: Trident sub bases at Bangor, Everett Naval Station, Boeing plants in Everett and Renton, Joint Base Lewis McChord, Yakima sat comm station, Hanford nuclear reservation etc etc. And those just ring the urban populated areas, and you haven't even begun to consider what your secondary targets might be. In the event of a concerted air and missile attack of nuclear warheads, the Pacific Northwest would be carpet bombed. And a terrorist bomb of any yield on any of these targets including civilian populations would ruin your day.