wdstarr@athena.mit.edu (William December Starr) (02/09/90)
From: wdstarr@athena.mit.edu (William December Starr) My apologies to all if this has been discussed do death already, but... I have a few terchnical questions about tactical or "battlefield" nukes: (1) What ranges of boompower are we talking about here? One or two kilotons, half to one kt, a tenth to a half a kt, or what? (2) How many delivery options are available, and do the options vary with the boompower? (3) What radii of death/destruction/disablement do these things pack, both in terms of damage from heat/shockwave, damage from flashburn (including hard radiation), and temporary/permanent human blindness from the flash? (4) In terms of fallout and lingering radiation at ground zero, are these things generally "clean" or "dirty," or are they a mixed bag, depending on what battle commander has called for? (5) In general, the electromagnetic pulse (EMP) from a nuclear detonation plays holy hell with electronics systems. Am I correct in assuming that following the first use of a battlefield nuke, everybody on the battlefield would be reduced to communicating my messengers, Aldis Lamps (sp?) and semaphore? Further, to what extent would a pocket nuke knock out vital electrical systems (say, the wiring from batteries to distributor caps) in just about everything more sophisticated than an M-16? -- ---- William December Starr <wdstarr@athena.mit.edu>