rb@ccird1.UUCP (Rex Ballard) (05/02/86)
This article actually contains three parts. The response to the main question, "how can water vapor burn?", a conservative worse case scenario of what could happen, and a possible argument FOR small tactical nuclear weapons. Although much of this is political, I am leaving it in net.sci so as to allow those who might have the knowledge to refute some of the theories presented to do so. If my theories are wrong, please explain why, if the facts are wrong, please give the facts. I'm not a nuclear physicist (I can't even spell it). Most of my information comes from bits and pieces of information given in the general press including UPI, NPR, and network news, and various other general programs. In article <13439@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU> desj@brahms.UUCP (David desJardins) writes: >In article <796@ccird2.UUCP> rb@ccird2.UUCP (Rex Ballard) writes: >>>thousand pounds of plutonium. >> >>There are lots of other things to worry about.... Things like possible >>ignition of water vapor in the atmosphere.... > > Water vapor is the *product* of combustion. How could it be "ignited"?? Water vapor can be super-heated back into it's componant parts, hydrogen and oxygen, which can be re-cumbusted. The superheating can be generated by a fusion reaction. Under normal circumstances and tests, there is a limited chain reaction. This is why a nuclear airburst of a 20 Kiloton bomb can wipe out a larger area than a ground zero explosion. When we begin to talk about 3000 20 Megaton bombs in nuclear airburst configurations with targets spaced within a 200 mile radius of each other, preferably on a cloudy day, we could see a "blanket effect" of burning hydrogen/oxygen between the individual targets. Some small amount of hydrogen would be fused into helium, but more importantly, anything under that "blanket" would be "cooked", possibly to the melting point of steel, in a matter of seconds. Current tactical weapons (the small ones), leave craters in underground tests of up to 3 miles. The same weapons above ground, could wipe out a 100 mile radius in an airburst. Strategic weapons (the big ones) could wipe out a 300 mile radius. Of course, defensive nuclear weapons would try to stop offensive ones before they reach their targets, probably over the atlantic and pacific oceans, where there is lots of humidity. In addition, the pressure of the heated gas, the ionized gases, and changes in electromagnetic charges could expose much of the outer atmosphere to solar winds, which would blow away the outer layer of the atmosphere. If enough ozone were lost, most surface creatures would be exposed to excessive ultra-violet radiation, and at the same time possibly extreme cold do to the loss of the heat retaining ionisphere. This is great for plants, but not so good for mammals, I don't know about reptiles and insects. There is a possibility that if you were living in a nuclear submarine, capable of producing oxygen from the ocean, and lived off the deep sea for a few hundred years, you might be able to surface and return to a somewhat normal life. Of course, subs from the "other side" would be hunting for you, and you would be hunting for them. You would also have to have both men and women aboard the subs to perpetuate the species. Civilization would tend to digress into an almost ritualistic "religion" since few of the crew would know why the technology aboard the sub worked, but instead only knew how to keep it working. Just as a mathmatical excercise, the 20 Kiloton bomb dropped on Hirosima leveled a 3 mile radius. The field strength force of a bomb is 1/distance**2 right? Let's say n=f/(d*d). The force at the three mile point would have been 20/9 or about 2 KT. n=f/(d*d) (d*d)*n=f d*d=f/n d=sqrt(f/n) d=sqrt(20000/2) d=sqrt(10000) d=100 Is this math right? So in other words, a ground zero explosion of a 20 megaton bomb would level a 100 mile radius. The same bomb in an airburst would level an even larger radius (2X I think), without allowing for the "chain reaction" of a similar large bomb in a close proximity, say 400 miles away. Remember, this is only the folks who would be killed instantly. Many people would be blinded, radiation poisoned (from the fusion reaction, not the plutonium), burned only with 2nd degree burns over their bodies, and deafened by shock waves. Don't H-bombs make a big BOOM :-)? Of course most major hospitals would be fried, as would most power plants, communications centers, and trained workers. We could compound that by pointing out that flammable materials such as gas mains would follow the lines and cause lots of secondary fire-works. And of course little water to put them out. About the only thing worse than dying in a nuclear war would be surviving long enough to experience the pain and suffering with no hope of long term survival. Reguarding plutonium vs. water vapor risks, remember that it only takes a few ounces of plutonium to trigger the fusion bomb. When we speak of a 20 Megaton bomb, we are talking about the explosive force equivalant to 20 Million Tons of TNT, not a bomb that contains 20 million tons of plutonium. Some tactical weapons (the very small ones) are very small, only 1 or 2 Kilotons, enough to level a shopping center or (more likely) an airport. Their main advantage is that they are about the size of a ping-pong ball and are therefore easy to deliver but hard to shoot down. They can be installed in small "gliders" and can be flown "through the doors of the kremlin", assuming they aren't jammed before they get there. In lightly populated areas, the leveling of a 1000 foot radius would be irritating, but hardly destroy civilization as we know it. It is very important to determine which weapons are being discussed, where they would be used, and how many would be used at one time. Theoretically, IF these tactical "micro-bombs" could be used without escalating into a full scale exchange of Strategic weapons, they would be about as destructive as napalm or various conventional weapons. IF tactical weaponry did not lead to launch of strategic weaponry, use of such devices would substantially lower the cost of delivery systems, reduce the man-power needed to gain a strategic position, and reduce the risk to pilots who could drop such weaponry from relatively safe altitudes and positions. In fact, much of the research into delivery systems have been the subject of various jokes. When we had an H-bomb the size of a hand grenade, they couldn't find any volunteers to throw it :-), the government researched the possibilities of using "frisbies" as delivery systems. Estes was actually granted a small (<$1 million) grant to come up with a remote controllable model rocket. You can buy simplified versions of several of these delivery systems at your local hobby shop. The problem, for both sides, is that there is no such understanding. If such tactical weapons were actually used, tested, or deployed in an improper manner, it would be a violation of the various treaties, and grounds for counter assault using progressively larger weapons, with the eventual possibility of an all out exchange of strategic nuclear weapons. Naturally, the U.S. would like to be able to set a threshold of say 1 Kiloton, because we have smaller bombs in this size range, but the U.S.S.R. doesn't have much of anything under 8 kilotons (2 mile radius). Also, the U.S. would like to be able to use many micro-bombs to be sure of getting the desired target, however, if the U.S. sends 20 1 Kton bombs, why shouldn't the U.S.S.R. treat that as the equivilent of 1 20 Kton bomb, and respond with 1 20 Kton bomb on an equally populated area? The fact that both sides have used weapons such as napalm and special explosives with destructive power of a 1 Kton bomb doesn't seem to bother anyone. It's the fact that they are "nuclear" devices which sends everyone running for the "no nukes now" campaign. The fact that the delivery systems for this power are very expensive and vulnerable doesn't bother anyone. Would you rather have 20 jet fighters and an aircraft carrier delivering 5 Ktons worth of 200 pound missles, or 1 fighter dropping 5 Ktons worth of 5 pound "model rocket/gliders"? It would be nice if a 5 Kton attack using conventional weapons, such as the attack on Libya, were considered the equivilant to a 5 Kton attack using nuclear weapons. It might make both sides think twice before using any sort of explosive force. But, if we have to use that kind of force, shouldn't we do so in the most cost-efficient manner possible, costs being reckoned in both dollars and human lives? I haven't heard what the radiation levels would be for these <1 Kton fusion weapons. Would it be worse than other conventional weapons such as phosphorous bombs?
throopw@dg_rtp.UUCP (Wayne Throop) (05/08/86)
> From: rb@ccird1.UUCP (Rex Ballard) > This article actually contains three parts. I don't mean to be offensive here, but it also contains more conceptual errors than you can shake a stick at. I will nevertheless shake my stick most vigorously. Rex had asked for correction/comment on scientific points, so take my comments in a sort of spirit of good-natured co-operation. Don't regard my comments as definitive, but I've tried to point out where things are said that make no sense at all. The quick summary version of my comments is "This is a very unrealistic conception of the use of nuclear devices for war. You are worrying about the *WRONG* *THINGS*" > Water vapor can be super-heated back into it's componant parts, > hydrogen and oxygen, which can be re-cumbusted. True enough. But the breakdown will *consume* energy, and the burning will *release* (at most) the same ammount of energy. Not much of a net effect. Water vapor in the air might have effect on just how the blast effects propogate, and so on, but this will have nothing much to do with "burning" per se. > The superheating > can be generated by a fusion reaction. Under normal circumstances > and tests, there is a limited chain reaction. Describe these "normal circumstances". Which possible "chain reaction" are you talking about here... nuclear, chemical, dominoes toppling, what? > This is why a nuclear > airburst of a 20 Kiloton bomb can wipe out a larger area than a ground > zero explosion. The term "ground zero" is applied equally to airburst, groundburst, and underground explosions. It refers to the spot on the ground closest to the explosion. (The term is a little ambiguous in hilly terrain, but this is usually minor and not worth worrying about). > When we begin to talk about 3000 20 Megaton bombs in nuclear airburst > configurations with targets spaced within a 200 mile radius of each > other, preferably on a cloudy day, we could see a "blanket effect" of > burning hydrogen/oxygen between the individual targets. Nope. As mentioned above, the water vapor would first absorb energy, then release it. If anything, the effect would be more *mild* than the effect on a clear day. I also doubt that much of the cloud cover would be close enough to undergo this type of "burning", even for the largest warheads. > Some small > amount of hydrogen would be fused into helium, Some small ammount indeed. Effectively zero. Except the deuterium and tritium in the warhead itself, of course. > [...] > In addition, the pressure of the heated gas, the ionized gases, and > changes in electromagnetic charges could expose much of the outer > atmosphere to solar winds, which would blow away the outer layer of the > atmosphere. If enough ozone were lost, most surface creatures would > be exposed to excessive ultra-violet radiation, and at the same time > possibly extreme cold do to the loss of the heat retaining ionisphere. > This is great for plants, but not so good for mammals, I don't know > about reptiles and insects. I'm not sure what "changes in electromagnetic charges" these are. Explosions intended to produce EMP effects might indeed affect the ionisphere. Unlikely to "blow" significant ammounts of it into space, however. And any that it did would have little or nothing to do with the solar wind. It might indeed also disrupt the "ozonosphere" also. This wouldn't be good for anyone, including plants. Also, the ionisphere doesn't retain the earth's heat. That's done much much lower. The temperature dropping effect popularly known as "nuclear winter" has nothing to do with heat loss however, but with lack of incoming heat (reflected from clouds caused by firestorms and other atmospheric dust). > There is a possibility that if you were living in a nuclear submarine, > capable of producing oxygen from the ocean, and lived off the deep > sea for a few hundred years, you might be able to surface and return > to a somewhat normal life. Of course, subs from the "other side" > would be hunting for you, and you would be hunting for them. You > would also have to have both men and women aboard the subs to > perpetuate the species. Wait a minute. You go from "some disturbances in ionosphere" to "no oxygen left"? How is this possibly justifyed? Also, I doubt that even the most luxurious submarines in the fleet are provisioned for "a few hundred years", so most of those points are moot. And I doubt very much that the crew of a nuclear sub could maintain it for very long without shore-based people and equipment. The crew knows how to *use* the sub, not how to *build* it or *maintain* it (at least not in the most global sense or major repair and refitting). > Civilization would tend to digress into > an almost ritualistic "religion" since few of the crew would > know why the technology aboard the sub worked, but instead only > knew how to keep it working. Glad *someone* knows what "civilization" would do after a nuclear war. Is the new religion "Ubizmatizm"? Maybe I need to get a copy of the Book of Ubizmo before it doesn't exist anymore? > Just as a mathmatical excercise, the 20 Kiloton bomb dropped > on Hirosima leveled a 3 mile radius. The field strength force > of a bomb is 1/distance**2 right? Let's say n=f/(d*d). > [...etc...] > Is this math right? Right I suppose. But I think blast effects are proportional to energy/volume, so would decline as cube of distance, not square (sort of like tides, right?). But I'm not sure I'm remembering that correctly, but I vaguely remember something like "thousand times as powerful a bomb means ten times the total kill radius". That would mean that a 20-megaton bomb would have a total kill radius on the order of 30 miles or so. Seems about right. On the other hand, the above seems correct for radiation effects, so it might be able to ignite firestorms over hundreds or thousands of square miles. If anybody really cares about exact numbers here, go to the library and look them up (I note that such things aren't in my general reference sets, sadly enough). > So in other words, a ground zero explosion of a 20 megaton bomb > would level a 100 mile radius. The same bomb in an airburst > would level an even larger radius (2X I think), without allowing > for the "chain reaction" of a similar large bomb in a close > proximity, say 400 miles away. What "chain reaction is this"? > Don't H-bombs make a big BOOM :-)? Damn right they do. A is for Atom; they are all so small, That we have not really seen any at all. B is for Bomb. They are much bigger. So mister you better keep off of the trigger. > Reguarding plutonium vs. water vapor risks, remember that it > only takes a few ounces of plutonium to trigger the fusion bomb. > When we speak of a 20 Megaton bomb, we are talking about the > explosive force equivalant to 20 Million Tons of TNT, not a bomb > that contains 20 million tons of plutonium. Ounces, schmounces. Even the smallest thermonuclear weapon needs several *pounds* (not ounces) of plutonium to trigger fusion. And most of it will still be plutonium after the explosion. *HOWEVER*, even with the entire 30,000 or so warheads, this amount of plutonium wouldn't, repeat *WOULDN'T* be the most dangerous byproduct of the detonation of all those weapons. Other fission byproducts of even the cleanest bombs are *much* worse than plutonium, (due to the extremely short half-lives). I've said it before, I'll say it again. Plutonium isn't what to worry about in a nuclear war. Nor is "water vapor burning". You needn't invoke new, imaginary bogeymen to make nuclear war horrible. Effects of blast, prompt radiation, secondary firestorms, fallout, and climatic disturbance will swamp most other effects. These are bad enough to worry about. > Some tactical weapons (the very small ones) are very small, only 1 or > 2 Kilotons, enough to level a shopping center or (more likely) > an airport. Their main advantage is that they are about the size > of a ping-pong ball and are therefore easy to deliver but hard > to shoot down. Holy Shit! Excuse my french, but what planet did the bomb designer come from anyhow? "Size of a ping-pong ball?" Just a supercritical mass of plutonium itself is about the size of a softball (or maybe a baseball, if a real genius of a designer is at work, maybe). And that doesn't include the hardware to detonate it, nor space to keep it subcritical until use. Granted, tactical nukes can be the size, say, of a toaster.... but a *ping* *pong* *ball*? Get real. Maybe you haven't played ping-pong lately, but those things are about three times the size of my thumb. Maybe a Galifrayan could pack a functioning fission bomb into that much space, but I doubt a human could in these primitive times. > Theoretically, IF these tactical "micro-bombs" could be used without > escalating into a full scale exchange of Strategic weapons, they would > be about as destructive as napalm or various conventional weapons. Right. I'm glad you agree that that is a mighty big IF. Actually, it is a mighty big IIIIIIIII FFFFFFFFF IIIIIIIII FFFFFFFFF III FF III FF III FFFFFF III FF III FF IIIIIIIII FF IIIIIIIII FF > In fact, much of the research into delivery systems have been the > subject of various jokes. When we had an H-bomb the size of a hand > grenade, they couldn't find any volunteers to throw it :-), the > government researched the possibilities of using "frisbies" as delivery > systems. Estes was actually granted a small (<$1 million) grant to > come up with a remote controllable model rocket. You can buy > simplified versions of several of these delivery systems at your > local hobby shop. If this is a tip-off that the whole posting is a joke, you may consider me suckered in. I don't (after due consideration) think the whole posting is a joke. Have a laugh at my expense, if you wish. (On the other hand, those Estes remarks suggest some NASA jokes... hmmmm, something about "Did ya hear about NASA's new solid rocket supplier? Yeah, they fired Morton Thiokol, and hired Estes..." ) > Would you rather have 20 > jet fighters and an aircraft carrier delivering 5 Ktons worth of > 200 pound missles, or 1 fighter dropping 5 Ktons worth of 5 pound > "model rocket/gliders"? Lesse now. 5 Ktons of TNT in 200 pound missiles. That's (10 missiles per ton) 50,000 missiles, among 20 jet fighters (two into five K) or 2,500 missiles per fighter. Damn small missiles, what? Looking at it another way, we have 20 fighters carrying a half a million pounds of payload each. What planet were these "fighters" designed on, again? (You did imply this was 20 fighters for one flight, right?) Face it folks, it just isn't practical to deliver nuclear scale firepower with conventional weapons, period. Nuclear reactions are hundreds of thousands (or even millions) of times more powerful. Not that I think it is a good idea to deliver nuclear scale firepower with *nuclear* weapons, mind you. If you want large scale non-nuclear weapons, try kinetic, gravity-powered weapons (drop large rocks from the moon, for example). Still not cost-effective, but more practical than "fighter" planes with a half-million-pound payload. > I haven't heard what the radiation levels would be for these > <1 Kton fusion weapons. Would it be worse than other conventional > weapons such as phosphorous bombs? First, <1 Kton fusion weapons don't exist. Tactical weapons are all fission. Second, since when did chemical explosives or incindiaries pose *any* particular radiation hazard? (That is, the direct answer to your question is "yes, it would be much, much worse".) -- Wayne Throop <the-known-world>!mcnc!rti-sel!dg_rtp!throopw
john@anasazi.UUCP (05/10/86)
In article <393@ccird1.UUCP> rb@ccird1.UUCP (Rex Ballard) writes: >please give the facts. I'm not a nuclear physicist (I can't even >spell it). Most of my information comes from bits and pieces of >information given in the general press including UPI, NPR, and >network news, and various other general programs. Yeah... this part is obvious. It is a shame you didn't look in any available book about nuclear blast effects, etc, before putting out this article. Your style of writing makes it seem very authoritative, but your numbers are sheer garbage! This is too bad, because you probably mislead some folks. I wish I could provide you with the exact numbers, but I recently moved and my book on nuclear weapons effects, and it's associated "nuclear effects calculator" are missing. However, I can still give you pretty good approximations. See below: >and tests, there is a limited chain reaction. This is why a nuclear >airburst of a 20 Kiloton bomb can wipe out a larger area than a ground >zero explosion. Sorry, an airburst wipes out a larger area for a much more obvious reason: more ground area is exposed to the prompt radiation and shock wave because it is LINE-OF-SIGHT to the blast. Furthermore, more of the energy is directed towards structures on the surface. In a ground burst, a lot of the energy goes down, into the earth, and up towards the sky. In an air burst, the energy which goes "down" hits a wider area because "down" is a town or whatever. > >When we begin to talk about 3000 20 Megaton bombs in nuclear airburst >configurations with targets spaced within a 200 mile radius of each >other, preferably on a cloudy day, we could see a "blanket effect" of >burning hydrogen/oxygen between the individual targets. Some small I really don't have the facts to back up this, but I doubt you do either. I suspect that someone with a better knowledge of physics would calculate that the energy released by the burning H2 O2 would be peanuts compared to that initially released by the bomb. >weapons (the small ones), leave craters in underground tests of up to 3 >miles. The same weapons above ground, could wipe out a 100 mile radius >in an airburst. Strategic weapons (the big ones) could wipe out a 300 >mile radius. This is real garbage. Typical tactical weapons leave craters a few hundred yards in diameter (go read Scientific American for details). Strategic weapons may wipe out a 3 to 5 mile radius, not 300 miles! I once calculated the number of 1 Mt bombs, optimally spaced, and detonated at optimum altitude, necessary to wipe out Phoenix, AZ. It would take around 45. If your numbers were right, it would just take one or two. I believe that blast effects go down with the CUBE root of radius, not the Square root. Thus a 20 Mt bomb (about as big as anyone bothers to build) would wipe out an area with only 10 times the radius of the Hiroshima bomb. >Just as a mathmatical excercise, the 20 Kiloton bomb dropped >on Hirosima leveled a 3 mile radius. The field strength force >of a bomb is 1/distance**2 right? Let's say n=f/(d*d). The >force at the three mile point would have been 20/9 or about >2 KT. The radius was a lot less than 3 miles. People survived less that 1/2 miles from ground zero. Your force calculation is nonsense. KT is not a measure of force, it is a measure of energy. >Is this math right? > No >So in other words, a ground zero explosion of a 20 megaton bomb >would level a 100 mile radius. The same bomb in an airburst See above! >Of course most major hospitals would be fried, as would most power >plants, communications centers, and trained workers. We could compound >that by pointing out that flammable materials such as gas mains would >follow the lines and cause lots of secondary fire-works. And of course >little water to put them out. About the only thing worse than >dying in a nuclear war would be surviving long enough to experience >the pain and suffering with no hope of long term survival. Hey, we all know that nuclear war sucks. The effects you describe would be true in a full scale nuclear war without SDI. Do you really think that the proponents of SDI are this STUPID? They may not be able to build a system that works (who knows), but I suspect they looked a little closer at the collateral damage than your writings would imply. >Some tactical weapons (the very small ones) are very small, only 1 or >2 Kilotons, enough to level a shopping center or (more likely) >an airport. Their main advantage is that they are about the size >of a ping-pong ball and are therefore easy to deliver but hard >to shoot down. They can be installed in small "gliders" and Nice try... maybe the size of a large hand grenade. What is your source for the "ping-pong" ball size? >Theoretically, IF these tactical "micro-bombs" could be used without >escalating into a full scale exchange of Strategic weapons, they would >be about as destructive as napalm or various conventional weapons. >IF tactical weaponry did not lead to launch of strategic weaponry, >use of such devices would substantially lower the cost of delivery >systems, reduce the man-power needed to gain a strategic position, >and reduce the risk to pilots who could drop such weaponry from >relatively safe altitudes and positions. > I'm not sure what this has to do with the Plutonium discussion, but let me flame a little failed logic in the above paragraph. Even if the weapon was the size of a pinhead, you still have a small problem delivering it in a strategic (read... long range) exchange. First of all, you need a propulsion system that will go several thousand miles. You can't simply scale a ballistic missile down very far. The total size of the thing is not simply ratioed to the size of the warhead. One which simply tried to put a pea across the ocean would still be a pretty big machine. >In fact, much of the research into delivery systems have been the >subject of various jokes. When we had an H-bomb the size of a hand >grenade, they couldn't find any volunteers to throw it :-), the It was a small fission bomb, not an H-bomb. >The problem, for both sides, is that there is no such understanding. >If such tactical weapons were actually used, tested, or deployed >in an improper manner, it would be a violation of the various treaties, >and grounds for counter assault using progressively larger weapons, >with the eventual possibility of an all out exchange of strategic >nuclear weapons. > >Naturally, the U.S. would like to be able to set a threshold of say 1 >Kiloton, because we have smaller bombs in this size range, but the >U.S.S.R. doesn't have much of anything under 8 kilotons (2 mile >radius). Also, the U.S. would like to be able to use many micro-bombs >to be sure of getting the desired target, however, if the U.S. sends 20 >1 Kton bombs, why shouldn't the U.S.S.R. treat that as the equivilent >of 1 20 Kton bomb, and respond with 1 20 Kton bomb on an equally >populated area? What in the world are you talking about? If we went over and dropped rocks on Moscow, it would be an act of war. There is no reason at all to drop micro-nukes... any nuclear blast will be detected as such... after all, the flash has a very distinctive, double humped, signature, and there is the small fact of radiation. >I haven't heard what the radiation levels would be for these ><1 Kton fusion weapons. Would it be worse than other conventional >weapons such as phosphorous bombs? Good grief! The answer to this should be obvious to anyone! A phosphorous bomb has no radiation whatsoever! Any fusion or fission weapon does... lots of it. -- John Moore (NJ7E/XE1HDO) {decvax|ihnp4|hao}!noao!terak!anasazi!john {hao!noao|decvax|ihnp4|seismo}!terak!anasazi!john terak!anasazi!john@SEISMO.CSS.GOV (602) 861-7607 (day or evening) 7525 Clearwater Pkwy, Paradise Valley, AZ, 85253 (Home Address) The opinions expressed here are obviously not mine, so they must be someone else's.
ins_akaa@jhunix.UUCP (Ken Arromdee) (05/17/86)
>>When we begin to talk about 3000 20 Megaton bombs in nuclear airburst >>configurations with targets spaced within a 200 mile radius of each >>other, preferably on a cloudy day, we could see a "blanket effect" of >>burning hydrogen/oxygen between the individual targets. Some small >I really don't have the facts to back up this, but I doubt you do >either. I suspect that someone with a better knowledge of physics would >calculate that the energy released by the burning H2 O2 would be peanuts >compared to that initially released by the bomb. Er--where is this H2 going to come from? If the hydrogen comes from the dissociation of water into H2 and O2, the burning of the H2 will release exactly as much energy as was used up in the dissociation in the first place. Conservation of energy, you know... -- "We are going to give a little something, a few little years more, to socialism, because socialism is defunct. It dies all by iself. The bad thing is that socialism, being a victim of its... Did I say socialism?" -Fidel Castro Kenneth Arromdee BITNET: G46I4701 at JHUVM and INS_AKAA at JHUVMS CSNET: ins_akaa@jhunix.CSNET ARPA: ins_akaa%jhunix@hopkins.ARPA UUCP: {allegra!hopkins, seismo!umcp-cs, ihnp4!whuxcc} !jhunix!ins_akaa
ken@njitcccc.UUCP (05/22/86)
In article <260@anasazi.UUCP>, john@anasazi.UUCP writes: > >in an airburst. Strategic weapons (the big ones) could wipe out a 300 > >mile radius. > This is real garbage. Typical tactical weapons leave craters a few hundred > yards in diameter (go read Scientific American for details). Strategic > weapons may wipe out a 3 to 5 mile radius, not 300 miles! I once calculated > the number of 1 Mt bombs, optimally spaced, and detonated at optimum altitude, > necessary to wipe out Phoenix, AZ. It would take around 45. If your numbers > were right, it would just take one or two. I believe that blast effects > go down with the CUBE root of radius, not the Square root. Thus a 20 Mt > bomb (about as big as anyone bothers to build) would wipe out an area > with only 10 times the radius of the Hiroshima bomb. Pretty good estimate. I've got one of those handy dandy calculators. Assuming a 20 megaton bomb detonated at optimum burst height, with peak pressure to destroy buildings (not hardened) set at 50 psi, the destruction radius will be 2.6 miles. -- Kenneth Ng: uucp(unreliable) ihnp4!allegra!bellcore!njitcccc!ken bitnet(prefered) ken@njitcccc.bitnet New Jersey Institute of Technology Computerized Conferencing and Communications Center Newark, New Jersey 07102 Vulcan jealousy: "I fail to see the logic in prefering Stan over me" Number 5: "I need input"
bl@hplabsb.UUCP (Bruce T. Lowerre) (05/24/86)
> > ... > > go down with the CUBE root of radius, not the Square root. Thus a 20 Mt > > bomb (about as big as anyone bothers to build) would wipe out an area > > with only 10 times the radius of the Hiroshima bomb. > Pretty good estimate. I've got one of those handy dandy calculators. > Assuming a 20 megaton bomb detonated at optimum burst height, with > peak pressure to destroy buildings (not hardened) set at 50 psi, > the destruction radius will be 2.6 miles. All very true. However, 50 psi overpressure is overkill! An overpressure of just 5 psi is enough to cause distruction and damage to non-reinforced buildings. At 5 psi, the radius of destruction is 12 miles.