What are all of the effects of the nuclear blast?

If your 5 miles away from the blast and your in a underground shelter will you still survive>

nagasaki, hiroshima. multiply those effects by about 50 to compensate for advances in nuclear technology. in short, you will most probably be very very very dead.

underground 5 miles away - underground what? a cardboard box? if it was a full blown fallout shelter i guess you could survive. i wouldnt know considering my lack of close contact with nuclear explosions throughout my short life.

but being serious, if you are out in the open, the blast will probably kill you, unless you make it to some sort of doorway or something - it is possible to survive. you could be underground but if you are near buildings they could collapse on your shelter ((nuclear bombs these days can flatten all but the biggest structures within 10 miles) find a picture of hiroshima or nagasaki). if you survive the blast and go outside before about 2 weeks is up, depending on the size of the nuke, or if you were in the open and remain there, there is a high risk of absorbing lethal doses of radiation leading to radiation sickness. all you have to do is look in a book of world war 2 or a website to see the effects of that.

the type of explosion effects these kind of things - an air explosion causes the radiation to go into the atmosphere, causing long lasting widespread damage. if it is a ground burst, then more infastructural damage will be caused, but the radiation would go quicker.

when you think about it, nukes are not very nice.

please excuse the sarcy comment about the box.

The blast radius depends on the strength rating of the particular bomb. Other effects besides the direct blast, are: contamination of areas down-wind of the blast, contamination of standing water and food sources, and the perimeter of the blast zone would also be uninhabitable.

You're forgetting thermal radiation, which would fry you almost instantly if you faced the blast. If not, don't worry, the overall temperature of the atmosphere should cook you anyway. Again, if you face the blast, even very far away, it would get you blind for the rest of your life. In a high-grade underground shelter, these effects are not of a problem.

Fallout radiation would become the major concern a few hours after the detonation, contaminating the area for years, and would probably kill you a few days later out of radiation poisoning, still assuming you're out in the open. In a shelter, this would condemn you in living in your shelter all that time, assuming buildings didn't collapse on it after the blast.

The blast itself would destroy virtually everything except superbuildings worth several millions of dollars. On humans, it would cause severe ear and lung problem, assuming you're still out in the open, but don't worry, the other effects will take care of you and you won't suffer these problems for too long. In a shelter, you would feel an earthquake that would be all.

If you have any other questions, ask them and I'll gladly answer them.

[This message has been edited by TheLordOfTheBobs (edited 07-05-2003).]

Oh yeah I forgot to mention the EMP too, which would jam every electronic componants forever, but wouldn't harm humans. I'm not sure if it would affect anything in an underground shelter if it was deep enough.

you guys are forgetting that if a nuke goes off in a place where there are densely built, tall buildings, the force of the bomb would obliterate those building and crush anything underneath.

So: You got extreme heat, combined with the sheer impact of the bomb's explosion. Lets say that doesn't kill you since your far enough away. If you somehow manage not to get crushed by debri and rubble, you'll soon (within hours, maybe a few days) start to feel the effects of the radiation (which goes way farther than the actual explosion). Now say you somehow manage to survive, perhaps in your extremely high tech bunker that protects you from all radiation. Now what? There's no point in going outside because it'll only expose you to the radiation (which'll last for a few centuries) and the horrible sand storm outside. In fact, the impact of a modern nuke would probably throw up several dozen square miles of dust, which would be enough to throw the climate of the area completely out of whack, block the sun, and start a local (and soon global) ice age. Crops all over would fail, cattle would die within a matter of days, and throw the surviving population into frenzy.

So, aren't you glad your tax dollars (50 trillion or so) go towards a good cause?

m3divinewind, I guess you have very limited knowledge of nuclear weapons in general.

1. Extreme heat: look above, see thermal radiation.

2. "you guys are forgetting that if a nuke goes off in a place where there are densely built, tall buildings, the force of the bomb would obliterate those building and crush anything underneath.": Err... no. In your everyday nuclear war, explosions either take place in altitude, or on the surface, not underground. Dense buildings at ground zero would be most likely vaporised away by a thermonuclear explosion, some may stand the direct shock of a low-yield A-bomb.

3."the sheer impact of the bomb's explosion": It's called initial blast, and negative effect. Look above.

4."If you somehow manage not to get crushed by debri and rubble, you'll soon (within hours, maybe a few days) start to feel the effects of the radiation (which goes way farther than the actual explosion).": If you're close enough to have buildings collapsing all around you, thermal radiation will kill you way before radiation.

5."it'll only expose you to the radiation (which'll last for a few centuries)": Wrong. Radiation at ground zero last for about 3 or 4 decades, at most. In a global thermonuclear war(which is most likely to happen if ever a nuclear weapon was detonated on US territory), radiation would and should be enough to wipe out most of humanity and maybe would last a lot longer.

6."and the horrible sand storm outside.": There is no sand strom in a nuclear detonation.

7."modern nuke": The newest nukes are almost 15 years old, and generally don't go over 20 megatons, and those almost don't exist anymore, thanks to START 1 and 2.

8."which would be enough to throw the climate of the area completely out of whack, block the sun, and start a local (and soon global) ice age": Don't mix muclear detonation and nuclear winter. There is hardly enough dust in a nuclear cloud to ever change anything in the climate. In a nuclear war, there might be a slight decrease a global temperature but nothing enough to "throw the climate of the area completely out of whack".

9."So, aren't you glad your tax dollars (50 trillion or so) go towards a good cause?": There is no way the US government can collect 50 trillion dollars in income taxes.It would mean the the average American citizen would have to pay about 180 000 dollars in taxes each year.

So, aren't you glad my help made you realize how ignorant you are in matter of nuclear warfare?

[QUOTE]Originally posted by TheLordOfTheBobs:

The newest nukes are almost 15 years old, and generally don't go over 20 megatons, and those almost don't exist anymore, thanks to START 1 and 2.

Not trying to contradict you or anything, but I thought that most "modern" thermonuclear weapons were 50 megatons. Then again I am probably wrong, seeing as I dont know much on this subject.

Questions: What is the radius of the fallout after a thermonuclear blast? Do atmospheric conditions effect the fallout?

No, 50 megaton thermonuclear bombs do not exist, since they are strategically useless: if you ever wanted to destroy cities of bases, better use many little ones which are way smaller (today's H-bombs are about as long as a sofa), than use a gigantic one (tsar bomba was the biggest thermonuclear in the world with a yield of about 57 megatons, was 30 feet long and 7 feet large) too difficult to carry and about 100 times more radioactive.

1. Depends of device's power, geography of the area and weather conditions, but if my memory's correct, a 1 megaton explosion in high altitude would contaminate as far 150-200 miles away a few weeks or months after the detonation, and it would be impossible for humans to live there for at least 2 years (150-200 miles away), and on ground zero for 35 years.

2. Yes.

[This message has been edited by TheLordOfTheBobs (edited 07-07-2003).]

Our Gravity Bomb nukes have Dial-a-Yield, which can be anywhere from 5 kilotons to 1-2 megatons. For comparing blast effects, Kiloton is one thousand tons of TNT. Mega is one million.

The way we are taught to "survive" a nuclear blast, Face it and shut your eyes at once, and drop to the ground with your head towards the blast. Try to cover as much skin as possible. Wait until you feel the blast go out, then get sucked back in. Don't get up until debris stops falling.

From what I understand, Most modern NATO and Warsaw Pact nukes are "clean" meaning that ground objects aren't tainted as bad or at all with radiation. However, don't expect third world nations to have this included.



In all however, you have a much better chance of surviving a powerful nuke blast then you do a neutron bomb detonation.

A good site about this is www.fas.org (http://www.fas.org)

Gravity bomb nukes? WTF are you talking about?

quote:Originally posted by TheLordOfTheBobs:

Gravity bomb nukes? WTF are you talking about?

I'm talking about the B-61 and B-83. Free-Fall Bombs then, if that clears it up.

Dial-a-yield doesn't and cannot exist. Yield is affected by the quantity, type and quality of the nuclear explosive used. Once the nuke built, to change its yield you would have to take some parts away, which may render detonation impossible.

"Most modern NATO and Warsaw Pact nukes are "clean" meaning that ground objects aren't tainted as bad or at all with radiation." No nuke in the world isn't radioactive, you should know that.

"In all however, you have a much better chance of surviving a powerful nuke blast then you do a neutron bomb detonation." You'll survive neither. A powerful blast equal to about 6-7 psi (which is still a few miles away from ground zero) would bring severe internal and external organ damage, which are most likely to kill you.

A small yield bomb (1 kiloton) the efeects would be felt somewhere around .5 to 1 km (1/2 mile) up to 100 kilo about 2.5 to 3.5 km (1 1/2 to 2 miles and for much larger 10 megatons or better about 15 km or 10 miles. Thats for the initial blast area in an airburst. The americans built a 52 mt bomb in the 60s or 70s and the russians had close to a 100mt. It doesn't make much difference anyhow, if some crazed dip shit launches one on the good ol USA or an alleged ally, Bush will launch everything they have and blame it on some other dumb shit when the world falls apart. Hopefully we all go in the first 5 seconds.

America never built a 52 megaton bomb, only the russian did with Tsar Bomba (estimated to 57 megatons)in 1961 or 1962. Tsar Bomba was originally intended to be a 100 Mt bomb, but since it would have upped the global radiation level by 25%, they chose to make a 50 Mt one instead.