Are Nuclear Bombs Really that Bad? By James Reed
It is a common assumption that if a nuclear bomb goes off in your back yard, well, you have a bad day. But, seriously, is the nuclear threat what it is cracked up to be? I just had this entry from Quora.com go to my email box, and found this interesting take on the question, saying in short, for the science phobic, that bombs are not the end. Worth thinking about.
Some sorta good news on that front.
The whole “fallout everywhere" thing was pushed quite hard in the 60s to the 80s by America — based largely on Ivy Mike and similar multi-megaton blast at ground level. This was all re-evaluated in the 1990s.
There were three hundred above-ground nuclear tests. A number of those were of very large weapons — many of which were many times larger than any weapons currently in service. The general doctrine now is: rather than one hideously huge, expensive and frankly more likely to fail (and much harder to maintain, launch, aim) weapon — use two or three much smaller weapons spread out around around a target.
This has a couple of effects: less collateral damage, and less fallout.
Anyhow, 300 above-ground tests…and except Castle Bravo which turned out to accidentally be almost triple the power they intended (which also paved the way for much smaller and cheaper ’large’ weapons) not one person has died from the radiation from any of these tests — short or long term.
To be blunt, because so much modelling was done with much larger weapons and using ground bursts: fallout was found to be both a much smaller hazard, and for a much shorter length of time.
And, ironically, nuclear weapons have been found to be much less effective than originally modelled. Which sounds insane, obviously. The two small weapons in Japan killed 80 and 60 thousand people.
But these were cities largely made of wood, bamboo and paper. Firestorms are what killed most civilians in Japan during WW2. If you look at Ukraine, large numbers of thermobaric weapons have been used on cities — and these are very nearly identical in operation, without radiation — to tactical nuclear weapons. Yet, no firestorms.
So two of the most terrifying effects sold to me in the 70s and 80s are far less of a factor than they were sold to me: nuclear winter, and mass fallout.
Also, with smaller weapons in use, prompt or “instant" radiation damage is much less serious as is heat. This is because of the inverse square law and the inverse cube law — if you're twice as far away from something, the effect is the inverse square of the nearer effect. The inverse cube law is if you have X effect at Y kilotons, if you want to double the area of damage, you have to take into account the effect will also be doubled in the third dimension, so to get double the area on the ground, you have to cube the power of the weapon (because a 1 X 1 X 1 cube of “blast" is not half the power of a 2 X 2 x 2 cube, and 4 X 4 X 4 is not double the 2 'cubed' one.). This is why it's better to cover twice the area with two small weapons rather than a 8x larger one — 6/8 of your weapon is wasted hitting things either outside your larger target, or blowing up nothing in the stratosphere.
So, far less powerful weapons would be used than in the 70s and 80s, which are also known to give out less fallout than thought, kill less people than thought, fewer firestorms than thought, and due to being smaller — will affect smaller areas.
Now you know why America and NATO aren't trying to match Russian nuclear weapons numbers: they know they are far more expensive than their effects would seem to dictate, and further: studies if the effects of Chernobyl show that other than a few people onsite at the time — the total deaths from the largest release of radiation of history are about sixty, total. That's it.
Also, the numbers of weapons in arsenals is quite deceptive. Half of a nuclear arsenal at any one time must be out of service because they must be stripped down every five years (and totally scrapped and replaced after 20 years) and the neutron initiators must be replaced, and all the plutonium segments must be checked and remachined, along with the explosive lenses, etc. Also, any larger weapons above about 20–30kt must have their fusion fuel filtered and replaced, or the second stages will fail.
If you don't do this, these weapons fizzle, potentially turning a 250–500kt weapon into a 10 or 20kt weapon and the world's most expensive fireworks display, detonating 4 or 5 miles up and literally killing nobody. Or worse, the first stage detonating without a neutron initiator or asymmetrically, and turning a 100kt airburst into a 1 or 2kt very dirty thermobaric bomb but 4 miles high, again killing nobody.
Don't get me wrong: nuclear weapons are the most powerful and dangerous weapons ever made. But for a couple of million dollars, you can lay 20 or 30 large thermobaric weapons across a hundred square miles in an overlapping pattern with zero fallout and if you miss a few…just do it again and no one will demonise you for pressing The Button.
If Russia uses tactical nuclear weapons on Ukraine or anyone else, it is very, very likely several hundred non-nuclear weapons will turn their entire launch systems into tiny bits of junk in about 30 minutes.
It's also very likely that if they use tactical nuclear weapons almost all of them will fizzle.
Almost all of their military budget the last 30 years has been turned to dachaus and superyachts…”
That does give an alternative point of view, and that is what we are here for.
Comments