Nuclear survival kit? ROFL!

If a nuke hits in your city, F^&*ING RUN!

There ya go, free survival lesson.

No charge.

Originally posted by thelibra
I've read where the concussion blast from a nuke or some other tremendous sources of energy can kill anyone inside a sealed environment because there's nowhere for the change in pressure to go. I'm not sure if that makes sense, but if I had a completely sealed self-contained bunker, and a powerful enough concussion blast hit it, I'd be killed as it the concussion force travelled through the pressurized air around me.

Others are probably more qualified to answer, but I'd say you'd need to be fairly close for this to happen, in which case you'll have other problems. Probably best to try to get to where overpressure will not be so great.

I don't have a bunker, but if I was to think about it on the cheap, I'd want a nice long deep trench which could recieve a large corrugated pipe, I mean like 15 feet in diameter (whatever will travel on the back of a flatbed) and a length slightly shorter than the trench. You'd need trench engineer safety to prevent soil collapse while your digging of course and machinery to dig and lift (shovel and crane). Lower the huge pipe into the ground. Then you could seal the ends with arc welder and sufficient steel, add two vertical tubes upward (one for ventilation and one for entry), then once the whole thing is sealed, bury the bottom half so that just your two openings are above ground, conceal them and ensure the door is blast-rated. Then you'd a have a viable underground place with sufficient dirt all around it and pressure would only be able to get in through your shafts. These would need to be sealed.

I have seen one built like this on the web for a reasonable amount.

Next problem though: Thermo-bari weapons. Big blast of pressure and heat. Big huge vaccuum left in the wake that either sucks the air out of your lungs or even your lungs out of your chest. Best way to protect? A sealed environment.

Yes, like a submarine protects against pressure, so can a blast shelter protect, and of course the portions of the shelter which are solidly underground wouldn't be too affected unless the nuke is close. Overpressure will find gaps for air, and the smaller the gap, the faster the air will come of course. Naturally sealing the entrance above ground will require robust steel and suitable doors/seals. I would want some kind of firing position from inside also, but which can also be sealed. I'd want a way to clear people off my location if they were trying to smoke me out of my shelter. Remember that any hungry person outside knows that a shelter probably has food and medicine and so they will certainly try to come inside. Probably you don't want them leaving and bringing friends so best to deal with them right there. I suppose you could make the shelter large enough to recieve some wounded also but this could prove fatal given the nature of human emotions in close quarters.

What's a man to do? Which is the bigger risk? What scale of either would be neccessary? How can one survive carpet-bombing of thermobaries and concussion blasts? I guess you can't prepare against everything, but I'd rather have as many angles as possible considered.

We'll probably do best if we learn from the people we bombed into the stone age forty years ago. Their motto was: Dig, dig dig.

Thanks for the links and info. Very informative!!

I definitely feel a lot of people really wouldn't know what to do...

I didn't know half of this!!

so thanks again!

What about making a huge bunker (about 100m squared) seperated into rooms that grows its own food and has some way of getting water. Also has radiation suits, medical facilities and an entrance and exit, a sort of nuclear fallout pit stop for survivors.

Would a buried vehicle be a workable solution to a shelter?

This could be done by digging a deep enough trench so the roof of the car is below ground-level, together with an inclined ramp to roll the car down into the trench and backfilling, leaving enough space to be able to enter/exit through the driver/passenger side windows. Alternatively, earth and stone could be piled around a vehicle above ground-level until it is covered.

Would be warmer and more durable than a tent or other form of portable shelter, and if the vehicle was still able to run when it was buried, could be unearthed and used to escape further afeild once the initial 'social shock' has subsided