The Real Scale(s) of a Nuclear Weapon - A reality check

originally posted by: dfnj2015
a reply to: hutch622

I got that. You link was awesome. But NYC is the default. You would think Texas would be a bigger target for terrorism because of the oil fields.

Nope. It's NYC. Not only is it the biggest city in North America, all the banking records are there. And the most meaningful stock exchange, and most of the "movers and shakers". It's a natural. Plus, all of these are very concentrated spatially, and if you catch one over Manhattan, you can obliterate quite a huge amount of capital with one small nuke. Plus, with a very small amount of effort, you can all be made to die of thirst. Or, I can sail in to the seaport with a very crappy fizzle yield nuke and kill you all that way, or wait for a thermal inversion and burn a few ounces of plutonium chips on top of the Empire State Building and kill everyone downtown the hard way.

NYC is a terrorist's dream. It's irresistible. You live there, or near there, it's curtains, first round.

Same with LA. The sad/ironic part: no one in the "flyover" states will really care. Ta.

a reply to: neo96

Yeah I'm 31 and I am alive and well. Woot. Still have to work.. Damnit.

a reply to: neo96

Yeah seriously. Kids these days don't know what it was like. I grew up just outside of Washington, DC. Any day could have been our last.

a reply to: dfnj2015

But NYC is the default.

Its all for effect would be my guess . I dropped the tsar bomba on William creek here in south Australia and the deaths totalled ten .

a reply to: olddognewtricks

Still could happen. Every time I go to DC. I always ask myself what if today was the day. It always crosses my mind once every time I visit. So you might be misled.

a reply to: 4N0M4LY

I now work right across the water from DC! If anything like that does happen...ATS will lose one if it's leading lights.

New York City is used as an example because it's a massive population center with big buildings and lots of people. It's easier for people to visualize destruction using monuments and landscapes that people are familiar with.

That being said, if there ever were a first strike against the United States it would come in the form of all major cities being hit simultaneously. From San Diego and LA all the way up the west coast, and every major capitol and military base all the way across the country to DC and New York. And as a response the US would in turn launch at every major city and military base in Russia, China, North Korea, etc etc. If any one was around long enough after the first strike the second strike would hit smaller population centers and destroy what may have survived from crops and livestock. The resulting radioactive fallout would cause a nuclear winter lasting at least several years... it depends on the rule of sevens(every seven-fold increase in time results in roughly a ten-fold reduction in intensity) and how many of the bombs are air burst or ground detonated. I digress, none of this would even matter because most of us would be dead in the first strike. Aren't nuclear weapons fun?

Just like the old computer from the movie Wargames: the only way to win a game of global thermonuclear war is to not play.

originally posted by: hutch622
Its all for effect would be my guess . I dropped the tsar bomba on William creek here in south Australia and the deaths totalled ten .

It would end up being the northern bits of WA and the central bits of NT. That's where the military parts are.

Grant you, the deaths would be mostly furriners.

a reply to: 4N0M4LY

I watched that video and it brought tears to my eyes.

The thought of killing that many people with the push of a button is evil.

To think there is that much hate in the world makes me feel like crawling back to my bed, pulling my blanket over my head and just hiding.

a reply to: jafo1973

Human race in a nutshell. The power to do great things and the power to end our entire species all in the same basket.

originally posted by: markosity1973
It is also why we must stop at all costs the proliferation of the bomb.

North Korea is the most obvious example of such power in the hands of mad men.

Sometimes progress is a bad thing. The nuclear bomb has definitely not brought us anything good.

I'm going to take a very unpopular stance here, devils advocate and all that.

The bomb has saved millions of lives. If not for the advent of the bomb, it is pretty much a given that Stalin would not have stopped his push West after taking Berlin.

Even if you disagree with that, it is a certainty that NATO and the old Warsaw Pact would have duked it out. Without the fear of MAD, the threshold for going to war would have been greatly reduced, and a non-nuclear WW3 would have ensued.

The fear of mutually assured destruction makes super powers 'behave' in some ways.

All this being said, I agree the bomb should go. Waaaaay to many instances have passed when the button was almost pushed. As recently as 1995, Yeltsin had the nuclear briefcase opened and almost launched. The reason? Denmark (Sweden maybe, i forget) launched a satilite unannounced and the missile appeared to be heading to Moscow and a decapitation strike was suspected.

We should start with how powerful nuclear bombs arnt

nuclearsecrecy.com...

Start there I recommend the tsar 50 and tsar 100

Now let's start with the 50 since it has been tested this is a big bomb big as in they had a mod a cargo plane to get it in there and drop it

The 100 is so big it was never tested due to the fact the plane can't outrun the blast

So no 1 and no 2 biggest known bombs ... that will probly never be used ur not strapping one of these to a icbm ur not putting one in a suitcase

So now I advise u to check out nk bomb detonate it in ur city not a good thing but they won't be doing a lot of damage

Now they are some serious hardware I just want to point out this is not a rod of god or anythig
We can't actually blow up the planet

The real danger lies when they block out the sun and rain from the sky

So as long as the big boys keep there finger off the button where fine

The shock wave from the tsar bomb broke windows 500 miles away.

To every NATO-western creep, there's and there will constantly be an equal and opposite nuclear proliferation reaction!

originally posted by: xenon129
The shock wave from the tsar bomb broke windows 500 miles away.

I heard it almost took the plane out too.

Big badda boom.

We grew up about a mile to the left. So we always expected to go if Boston was hit.

Traditional Nuclear detonation should worry you near as much as a higher altitude EMP blast to our energy grid.......

People would pray to have been in the blast zone of a normal detonation after that happened.........

war is good.

It's good for the economy. Go Boeing, Lockheed, tech companies which sell tech products. Tomahawk missile - $1 million each more or less. Future ones will be $1.5 million....excellent job creation! Go Raytheon!

www.marketwatch.com...

It's good for gun makers. More fear, more gun sales!

It's good for R&D budgets to create more tech...more science!

It's good for medals, ribbons, and promotions to soldiers / officers.

If you believe some historians, our technological advancement is tied to war - so you wouldn't have your iPhone if it wasn't for war. See it's good.

It's good for TV ratings. It's good for historians to make more documentaries and Hollywood dramatizations. Go CNN and Fox and Dailymail! More clicks! More ad revenue!

It's good for construction companies who get to rebuild.

It's good for believers...who just might get an express ticket to "heaven." You can go be with Jesus now.

I mean, so people die. We're overpopulated anyway. 7 billion+. I mean, "nobody" studies and really learns from history anyway...it's all quickly forgotten - relatively speaking. I mean, how many people changed their lives in a dramatic fashion due to 9/11....I did...but most people did not...on that note...

9/11 created the TSA....housing real estate boom - because of endless printing of stimulus, no, I meean money, no, I mean debt / deat(h). Endlessly rising stock market! See...violence and war is good. Get that through your big fat skull!

a reply to: dfnj2015

I think this one is even more terrifying: Threads (full movie)