How many nukes would it take to destroy a city?

Originally posted by StellarX
[ndependent power supplies ( gasoline works just fine) and it's not hard/impossible to shield things when they are not connected to networks or made with the intent to be shielded.

Dream on. Even if you have anything electrical which survives the EMP, how many weeks is your gasoline going to last?

Germany managed to continue functioning and feeding it's citizens under day and night raids creating the defense infrastructure as they went along.

Again, you're kidding. There is no comparison with what germany underwent and a full-scale nuclear attack.
And they had warning of air raids well in advance. It takes several minutes to evacuate the building I work in for a fire drill - how long to you think it would take to get people to a shelter? (assuming there was any space).

With the major reductions that have happened to strategic arsenals cities will not be the first targets or targeted unless they are military hubs.

a) read the title of the thread and b) London will most certainly get several warheads if Britain is a nuclear target.

As for people miraculously surviving it will simply be a question of physics as it typically is and was in Nagasaki and Hiroshima where so many survived despite being caught almost completely unprepared.

If you're using those cities as an example of surviving (and we're only talking a 20kt device, not a modern 400k one) then you're more desperate than I realised.

Why would they be affected by radiation if they are in shelters or widely dispersed in the countryside?

What proportion are in those shelters? Even the Russians only provide shelters for less than 10%. the other 90% will be in trouble.

In conclusion sadly a nuclear war would never have assured mutual destruction and few informed people believed that it would hence the preparations by many countries to create National ABM defenses as well as sufficient passive means to protect it's citizens and absorb whatever damage more active means could not prevent.

By 'many countires' you mean the US and USSR - and the latter realised it was a waste of time early on.

Mututally assured destruction is a sad fact of life.

I still can't believe you honestly think people in cities have any chance:

www.wagingpeace.org...

"The 300kT detonation would create a mass fire with a radius of 3.5 miles in all but the most extreme weather conditions. Under a majority of weather conditions, there would be a mass fire ignited to a distance of just over 4.5 miles from the detonation.

This gigantic fire would quickly increase in intensity and in minutes generate ground winds of hurricane force with average air temperatures well above the boiling point of water (212 degrees F). The fire would then burn everywhere at this intensity for three to six hours, producing a lethal environment over a total area of approximately 40 to 65 square miles - an area about 10 to 15 times larger than that incinerated by the 15 kT atomic bomb which destroyed Hiroshima."

Anyone in a shelter would simply be cooked. And there would literally be no city left. Your idea of some kind of survival is sheer fantasy for city-dwellers.

Originally posted by StellarX. Some of these citizens could then return to cities as soon as the initial nuclear exchanges were done to help in clean up operations and to possibly dig out those trapped in shelters.

See above. No city left to return to.

But regardless of tech, there is no civil defence solution to a hydrogen bomb.

What makes hydrogen bombs so special then?

It's unprecedented power, even if it's "only" a few hudred kilotons..

There has been a lot of research in this area and the facts are very stark.

Nuclear weapons ( presuming the average weapon size of 300-750 KT) exploded at it's nominal best effect height of 2 Km will kill mostly everyone that isn't in a purposely designed shelter for 1-3 Km's in either direction at which point even shallow self made/installed shelters a 1-2 meters under the soil in your garden would allow survival against overpressure and prompt radiation effects.

But, as I mentioned above, you'd get cooked and/or suffocated by the firestorm.
And the shelter only helps if you happen to be in it at the time.

As to these costs estimates range between tens and hundreds of dollars per person in urban areas depending largely on weather basements and buildings are designed and built with such preparations in mind.

Yes, that was the gist fo the completely discredited 'protect and survive' program. Laughable.

www.cybertrn.demon.co.uk...

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Originally posted by Unknown Perpetrator
This StellerX is a nut!

Indeed I mean who would be crazy enough to consider preparing their various countries for natural or not so natural disasters! Imagine such utter silliness.....

checking out the aftermath of Katrina and this weeks economic collapse and he seems to think that we can ride out a Nuclear exchange.

Britain would not as it's utterly unprepared. Russia, Switzerland and a few others could/would because they are suitably prepared.

Piut simply, 10-15% of the respective populations died across a 6 year timespan in WW2... we're talking about this amoun tX4 of people dying in a week plus nearly all the infrastructure going up in smoke.

There is no reason why 10-15% would have to die in a week or weeks. Currently they would but that's always been obvious given the lack of preparation in Britain, most European countries and the US. In fact currently i would be surprised if the numbers are not nearer 50-80%.

Even if parts of the infrastructure survived, the engineers and maintenance people who keep
it operating would be killed...

Why would they be killed? Some kind of mystery biological weapon deployed after the initial nuclear blast? Ever heard of NBC suits?

we're talking about a total systemic breakdown.... and their will to continue to do as they're programmed as sheeple would also be blown away.

We are talking about total systemic breakdowns because no preparations where made other than retaliation in hopes of avoiding the war in the first place.

Even though arsenals have dimminshed, the remaining warheads are still trained on the key targets as to cause as much damage as cold war eras... the number of army/navy/air bases
has dropped too.

Yes, and since Britons are less well defended than ever before the results are pretty obvious.

Not to mention there's a lot of US hardware in forward projected bases that
Russia could engage by conventional means... leaving more ICBM warheads for population centres

Why would they attack population centers? What would be the point of that when you the whole point of taking over countries is to exploit the labor provided for your own purposes? Population centers are hostage targets when a nation refuses to surrender and certainly not part of initial strike plans where you hold as much reserve as you can to continue targeting enemy force concentrations or un destroyed strategic targets.

I'll leave you with this, a study into the combined India/Pakistani arsenal being exchaned 100 15kt bombs

Which is utterly pointless given how ill prepared both these nations are. I wish to discuss what is and has been made possible in countries were suitable preparations have been made and i have and will continue to 'admit' that unprepared nations may be as good as utterly destroyed provided no preparations are made. In fact by the 80's projections made by the US defense specialist suggested that the Us could suffer as much as 160 million dead or incapacitated within weeks of a war with breaking out. This is hardly surprising given how US national ABM assets were dismantled, strategic capabilities reduced and people left generally to fend for themselves.

Stellar

Originally posted by StellarX

Originally posted by Unknown Perpetrator






Even if parts of the infrastructure survived, the engineers and maintenance people who keep
it operating would be killed...

Why would they be killed? Some kind of mystery biological weapon deployed after the initial nuclear blast? Ever heard of NBC suits?

Er...StellarX, are you aware that NBC suits give little if any protection against gamma radiation.

Why would they attack population centers? What would be the point of that when you the whole point of taking over countries is to exploit the labor provided for your own purposes? Population centers are hostage targets when a nation refuses to surrender and certainly not part of initial strike plans where you hold as much reserve as you can to continue targeting enemy force concentrations or un destroyed strategic targets.

You have read my post which contains an extract taken from the UK Joint Intelligence Committee nuclear target list, haven't you? The one that lists all the major UK population centres which are likely to be targeted in a nuclear exchange?

The JIC seems pretty confident that UK cities wouldn't be 'hostage targets'.


The UK Government learned back in the early 1960s (Exercise FELSTEAD, FALLEX 62), that the UK would suffer a calamitous breakdown in the event of being subject to a full nuclear attack.

This is why the UK Government disbanded their Civil Defence Corps in 1968 - the danger caused by fall-out would prevent any search and rescue operation, as would the scale of the destruction. This rendered the CD Corps useless.

The following image is a declassified H.M. Treasury document (obtained via a FOIA request) which gives an indication of thinking amongst senior UK Government circles in the early 1970s.




"(d). A total nuclear attack employing high power missiles which would destroy all but a small percentage of the UK population and almost all physical assets of civilised life.

"As for (d), the money policy would of course be absurdly unrealistic for the few surviving administrators and politicians as they struggled to organise food and shelter for the tiny bands of surviving able-bodied and the probably larger number of sick and dying. Most of the departments' contingency planning might also be irrelevant in such a solution. Within a fairly short time the survivors would evacuate the UK and try to find some sort of life in less-affected countries (southern Ireland?)."



zero lift

I'd say this goes for all countries targetted by a reasonable number of warheads regardless
of demographics and geographical size, not just the UK.


[edit on 9-10-2008 by Unknown Perpetrator]

Here’s an interesting program that uses Google maps to graphically illustrate the effects that a clutch of fusion and fission weapons – including the unnerving Tsar bomb – would have on our cities.

You can also choose to illustrate the damage to our population centers that an asteroid commensurate in size to the projectile that is believed to be responsible for the Chicxulub event would cause.

The colours denote varying physical effects. Click on the marker to attain their descriptions.

Google Maps Nuclear Weapon Simulator

Thanks

Originally posted by Wembley
Dream on. Even if you have anything electrical which survives the EMP, how many weeks is your gasoline going to last?

What's about a standard diesel generator is subject to EMP destruction? Why wont you have enough gasoline stored to last for however many weeks you will require use of the shelter? Why do you keep on presuming utter stupidity and terribly planning even when this is supposedly then all planned out?

Again, you're kidding. There is no comparison with what germany underwent and a full-scale nuclear attack.

There are plenty of comparisons but admittedly not on the same scale or anywhere near as prompt in nature.

And they had warning of air raids well in advance. It takes several minutes to evacuate the building I work in for a fire drill - how long to you think it would take to get people to a shelter? (assuming there was any space).

A nuclear war is not going to start ( which is why it didn't) in half a hour, a few days or even in a week. To move all strategic assets to full readiness takes at least days and to get conventional assets ready enough to exploit ( or at least sufficiently dispersed) takes longer than that. There is no reason why cities could not or would not be evacuated and the question really becomes if sufficient food and stores will be available to feed these citizens where they will be relocated to.

Again the presumption that nuclear wars must happen 'out of the blue' is entirely fallacious and makes a mockery of not only common sense but this entire discussion.

a) read the title of the thread and b) London will most certainly get several warheads if Britain is a nuclear target.

Right and in it's current unprepared state only those in the underground will stand a chance and then only from most prompt effects.

If you're using those cities as an example of surviving (and we're only talking a 20kt device, not a modern 400k one) then you're more desperate than I realised.

I am discussing why a unprepared city were laid waste and it's citizens killed wholesale with 70 000 out of roughly 250 000 dying to immediate blast effects ;

About an hour before the bombing, Japanese early warning radar detected the approach of some American aircraft headed for the southern part of Japan. An alert was given and radio broadcasting stopped in many cities, among them Hiroshima. At nearly 08:00, the radar operator in Hiroshima determined that the number of planes coming in was very small—probably not more than three—and the air raid alert was lifted. To conserve fuel and aircraft, the Japanese had decided not to intercept small formations. The normal radio broadcast warning was given to the people that it might be advisable to go to air-raid shelters if B-29s were actually sighted, but no raid was expected beyond some sort of reconnaissance.

The population of Hiroshima had reached a peak of over 381,000 earlier in the war, but prior to the atomic bombing the population had steadily decreased because of a systematic evacuation ordered by the Japanese government. At the time of the attack the population was approximately 255,000. This figure is based on the registered population used by the Japanese in computing ration quantities, and the estimates of additional workers and troops who were brought into the city may be inaccurate.

According to most estimates, the immediate effects of the blast of the bombing of Hiroshima killed approximately 70,000 people. Estimates of total deaths by the end of 1945 from burns, radiation and related disease, the effects of which were aggravated by lack of medical resources, range from 90,000 to 140,000.[3][23] Some estimates state up to 200,000 had died by 1950, due to cancer and other long-term effects.[1][24][4] From 1950 to 1990, roughly 9% of the cancer and leukemia deaths among bomb survivors was due to radiation from the bombs.[25] At least eleven known prisoners of war died from the bombing.[26]

en.wikipedia.org...

Considering that people were advised to head to air raid shelters only if they observed bombers too many were in factories or not in air raid shelters and of those that were the vast majority survived without injury even thought they were mostly of the sand covered open ended trench variety. So despite being just about as unprepared as people in wooden densely built up city can be casualties amounted to less than half with the great majority of those entirely preventable if everyone where in air raid shelters or took modern day precautions to avoid contamination.

Survival of some structures

Some of the reinforced concrete buildings in Hiroshima were very strongly constructed because of the earthquake danger in Japan, and their framework did not collapse even though they were fairly close to the center of damage in the city. Eizo Nomura (野村 英三, Nomura Eizō?) was the closest known survivor, who was in a basement of modern "Rest House" only 100 m from ground-zero at the time of the attack.[27] Akiko Takakura (高蔵 信子, Takakura Akiko?) was among the closest survivors to the hypocenter of the blast. She had been in the solidly built Bank of Hiroshima only 300 m from ground-zero at the time of the attack.[28] Since the bomb detonated in the air, the blast was more downward than sideways, which was largely responsible for the survival of the Prefectural Industrial Promotional Hall, now commonly known as the Genbaku, or A-bomb Dome designed and built by the Czech architect Jan Letzel, which was only 150 meters (490 ft) from ground zero (the hypocenter). The ruin was named Hiroshima Peace Memorial and was made a UNESCO World Heritage site in 1996 over the objections of the U.S. and China.[29]

en.wikipedia.org...

So yes, with the technology we have had available since world war two citizens could have been given the type of shelters that nothing short of a ground bursting 500 KT warhead could destroy. As for whatever is above ground you would be amazed what can and is rebuilt with national efforts when everyone becomes willing to work their asses off for their daily bread.

In Hiroshima, all utilities and transportation services were disrupted for varying lengths of time. In general however services were restored about as rapidly as they could be used by the depleted population. Through railroad service was in order in Hiroshima on 8 August, and electric power was available in most of the surviving parts on 7 August, the day after the bombing. The reservoir of the city was not damaged, being nearly 2 miles from X. However, 70,000 breaks in water pipes in buildings and dwellings were caused by the blast and fire effects. Rolling transportation suffered extensive damage. The damage to railroad tracks, and roads was comparatively small, however. The electric power transmission and distribution systems were badly wrecked. The telephone system was approximately 80% damaged, and no service was restored until 15 August.

www.yale.edu...

The thing is that the 'doomers' have no conception of the word 'national effort' or what humans beings have proved themselves capable of dealing with to have reached this point in human history. Nuclear weapons wont be the end of us but admittedly as currently unprepared as many nations are the casualties will be far, far higher than they need be.

What proportion are in those shelters? Even the Russians only provide shelters for less than 10%. the other 90% will be in trouble

Ten percent of their citizens many decades ago and ten percent is more than enough to keep your cities functioning until relief workers can be brought in during the following days to aid in restoring services. Either way many readers here are still presuming that the Russian defense was in fact only passive which is far from the truth.

However, Soviet and Russian sources, including former Premier Alexei Kosygin and the Chief Designer of the original Moscow ABM system, confirm that: the SA-5 and SA-10 were dual purpose antiaircraft/missile systems (SAM/ABMs), and that the Hen House and LPAR radars provided the requisite battle management target tracking data. These and other sources cited in The ABM Treaty Charade are not exhaustive.

Nevertheless, CIA has not revised its position on this issue, nor have the U.S. Congress and the public been informed that the ABM Treaty was a valid contract from beginning to end.

In the late 1960s the U.S. sacrificed its 20-year technological advantage in ABM defenses on the altar of "arms control." As Russian sources now admit, the Soviet General Staff was in total control of Soviet "arms control" proposals and negotiations, subject to Politburo review, which was largely pro forma. The Soviet military's objective was to gain as much advantage as possible from "arms control" agreements (SALT).

www.jinsa.org...

Continued

Russia inherited most of the Soviet empire's illegal national ABM defenses. Although the Hen Houses and LPARs located in the successor states created significant gaps in coverage, Russia still controls 12 or 13 of those radars. Consequently, SAM/ABMs still defend most of the Russian Federation from U.S. ICBMs, much of the SLBM threat, and Chinese missiles. Scheduled completion of the LPAR in Belorus will restore complete threat coverage, except for the gap left by the dismantled Krasnoyarsk LPAR. Granted, the Hen Houses are old, but the United States has been operating similar radars for 40 years.

Despite its economic difficulties, Russia continued development and production of the SA-10, adding (in 1992-1993 and 1997) two models with new missiles and electronics and replacing more than 1000 SA-5 missiles with late model SA-10s having greatly improved performance against ballistic missiles of all ranges. Russia is protected by as at least as many (about 8500) SAM/ABMs as in 1991, and they are more effective. No wonder Russia shows little concern for its proliferation of missile and nuclear technology.

Even more impressively, Russia has begun flight-testing the fourth generation "S-400" ("Triumph") SAM/ABM designed not only to end the "absolute superiority" of air assault demonstrated by the United States in the 1992 Gulf War and the 1999 Kosovo operation, but also to improve Russia's illegal ABM defenses against strategic ballistic missiles. The S-400 is scheduled to begin deployment in 2000, more testimony to Russia's commitment to maintaining its national ABM defenses in violation of the ABM Treaty.

www.security-policy.org...

Mututally assured destruction is a sad fact of life.

I still can't believe you honestly think people in cities have any chance:

Well since you are as badly misinformed as you are about this issue it's not surprising that you can't arrive at anything aproximating the truth.

www.wagingpeace.org...

"The 300kT detonation would create a mass fire with a radius of 3.5 miles in all but the most extreme weather conditions. Under a majority of weather conditions, there would be a mass fire ignited to a distance of just over 4.5 miles from the detonation.

There is a reason why the USAF never calculated nuclear firestorms into it's warhead allocation; it's entirely mythical as nuclear weapons effects in modern cities puts out fires and breaks up any combustible rubble by blast effect. Firestorms require stable environments where combustible material are left in place to be slowly consumed and build in intensity.

The Office of Technology Assessment stated that the
conditions needed to support a firestorm (such as
sufficient fuel loading-at least 8 pounds of combustibles
per square foot of fire area) are not met
in most modern American cities, although mass
fires might occur. (Hamburg had 32 lb/sq ft, and
the typical American suburb has about 2 Ib/sq
ft . 22(p22)) This conclusion has been challenged.
Postol states that “attacks on lightly built-up,
sprawling American cities, where the amount of
combustible material per unit area is relatively
low, could well result in extreme conditions
somewhat comparable to those of the firestorms
experienced in Japan and Germany during World
War II. ”11(p17) However, this assertion is based
on a large number of assumptions that Postol
describes as “highly uncertain”11(p29) and ‘‘only
of the most qualitative nature. ”11(p37) Others who
have recently tried to develop criteria for the
development of a firestorm state that the requisite
fuel loading appears to be about four times the
value of 8 lb/sq ft cited earlier.15(p63)
Among the uncertainties is the effect of the blast
wave from a nuclear explosion, which would level
all buildings within a certain radius. If much of
the combustible material were buried under
masonry rubble, some believe it would be more
likely to smolder than to support a firestorm. 24(P4)
A standard Soviet civil defense textbook states:
“Fires do not occur in zones of complete destruction
[overpressure greater than 7 psi]; flames due
to thermal radiation are prevented, because rubble
is scattered and covers the burning structures.
As a result the rubble only smolders.”2

www.oism.org...

External Source

Other cities were also subjected to fire bombing,
and approximate casualty figures are listed in the
Table. 17,18,31,32 Firestorms "frequently killed
more than 5% of the pop~lation'"~(p~~) (so that
about 95% survived). The death rate was influenced
greatly by the adequacy of defensive
measures.

www.oism.org...

This gigantic fire would quickly increase in intensity and in minutes generate ground winds of hurricane force with average air temperatures well above the boiling point of water (212 degrees F). The fire would then burn everywhere at this intensity for three to six hours, producing a lethal environment over a total area of approximately 40 to 65 square miles - an area about 10 to 15 times larger than that incinerated by the 15 kT atomic bomb which destroyed Hiroshima."

Basically you seem to be describing 'hell' and it's not surprising given the fact that doomers and anti war proponents wish to 'avoid' war by making it seem incomprehensibly destructive. That didn't work in the first or second world wars and it most certainly have not prevented the mass destruction visited on various nations since. Nuclear weapons are weapons that will eventually be used and those who refuse to prepare wont be subject to the conditions commonly outlined in the media but will most certainly suffer levels of death and destruction easily avoidable.

Anyone in a shelter would simply be cooked. And there would literally be no city left. Your idea of some kind of survival is sheer fantasy for city-dwellers

Not at all. As the earlier source indicated people inside even world war two air raid shelters were generally safe from firestorm effects unless blast damage had compromised the shelter.

The conflagration in Hiroshima caused high winds to spring up as air was drawn in toward the center of the burning area, creating a "fire storm". The wind velocity in the city had been less than 5 miles per hour before the bombing, but the fire-wind attained a velocity of 30-40 miles per hour. These great winds restricted the perimeter of the fire but greatly added to the damage of the conflagration within the perimeter and caused the deaths of many persons who might otherwise have escaped. In Nagasaki, very severe damage was caused by fires, but no extensive "fire storm" engulfed the city. In both cities, some of the fires close to X were no doubt started by the ignition of highly combustible material such as paper, straw, and dry cloth, upon the instantaneous radiation of heat from the nuclear explosion. The presence of large amounts of unburnt combustible materials near X, however, indicated that even though the heat of the blast was very intense, its duration was insufficient to raise the temperature of many materials to the kindling point except in cases where conditions were ideal. The majority of the fires were of secondary origin starting from the usual electrical short-circuits, broken gas lines, overturned stoves, open fires, charcoal braziers, lamps, etc., following collapse or serious damage from the direct blast.

Fire fighting and rescue units were stripped of men and equipment. Almost 30 hours elapsed before any rescue parties were observable. In Hiroshima only a handful of fire engines were available for fighting the ensuing fires, and none of these were of first class type. In any case, however, it is not likely that any fire fighting equipment or personnel or organization could have effected any significant reduction in the amount of damage caused by the tremendous conflagration.

www.yale.edu...

Real world examples shows that once again the majority of damage resulted from the general unprepared nature of these cities and a largely defeated nation. Since American has not been defeated yet one would expect different levels of preparations and commitment to protection of cities.

The fact that both cities were for all intense and purposes constructed of highly combustible materials without massive resulting firestorms speaks VOLUMES to those who are at all interested in learning or preparation.

Continued

Originally posted by Wembley
See above. No city left to return to.

There were cities left in Hiroshima and Nagasaki and cities built of modern materials will absorb and disrupt weapons effects far better than those cities could and did. Obviously the devastation will be extensive but it does not mean that everything of industrial and economic use will have been utterly destroyed. People are the ultimate 'resource' and their protection and survival will allow for rebuilding efforts.

It's unprecedented power, even if it's "only" a few hudred kilotons..

What's unprecedented about hydrogen bombs when strategic planners have been employing those standards for basically ever?

There has been a lot of research in this area and the facts are very stark.

As i said so reality for most people currently on the planet without having been subjected to nuclear weapon effects.

But, as I mentioned above, you'd get cooked and/or suffocated by the firestorm.
And the shelter only helps if you happen to be in it at the time.

Why wouldn't people be in shelters? Why is the presumption made that people most not only be entirely unprepared but also not employing any preparations when the time comes? Isn't that like arguing that the US navy would lose because all of it's ships will be in harbor, it's planes grounded and it's troops on leave? Why must we involve nonsensical scenarios to arrive at sufficiently horrible outcomes to attempt a negation of the possibility of a world war fought with nuclear weapons.

Yes, that was the gist fo the completely discredited 'protect and survive' program. Laughable.

www.cybertrn.demon.co.uk...

How was it discredited? How can you discredit physics and logic by simply claiming that it was? Are you advocating that our basic preparation for a nuclear war must be that we hope and work towards it never happening presuming that leaders of all countries will agree to this standard?

Stellar

Originally posted by zero lift
Er...StellarX, are you aware that NBC suits give little if any protection against gamma radiation.

No i am not and not all nations have badly designed and produced NBC protective systems. Again the horrendously stupid presumption is made that everyone is for some reason standing on the streets pointing at the shiny 'shooting star'. I shouldn't even respond to this level of ignorance but i suppose i must when it's propagate in this fashion.

The ability to penetrate matter differs greatly among the various types of nuclear radiation. A sheet of paper, a layer of clothing, or an inch of air can stop relatively slow moving, heavy alpha particles. Thus, it is easy to shield against alpha radiation, unless the alpha-emitting substance enters the body. Beta particles are lighter and travel faster than alpha particles. They can penetrate a fraction of an inch in solids and liquids and several feet in air. Gamma rays and neutrons are electrically neutral and thus not slowed by collisions with the target materials. They do not interact strongly as the charged alpha and beta particles do and are therefore highly penetrating. Their ability to penetrate the target material depends upon their energy. High-energy gamma rays may require several feet of material for adequate shielding.

www.chemcases.com...

Please do some basic research.

You have read my post which contains an extract taken from the UK Joint Intelligence Committee nuclear target list, haven't you? The one that lists all the major UK population centres which are likely to be targeted in a nuclear exchange?

Hostage targets, yes. If British armed forces attacked Moscow ( for lack of means to seriously affect Russians strategic abilities ( like Churchill ordered the bombing of Berlin to shift the pressure from the RAF) the Russians could and would have sufficient resources to make Britain pay in kind for a terrorist attack while maintaining sufficient forces to destroy it's strategic ability as well.

The JIC seems pretty confident that UK cities wouldn't be 'hostage targets'.

Propaganda is and always has been propaganda.

The UK Government learned back in the early 1960s (Exercise FELSTEAD, FALLEX 62), that the UK would suffer a calamitous breakdown in the event of being subject to a full nuclear attack.

Well then what else needs be said. Churchill should have just surrendered Britain as well when the Germans threatened with invasion and bombing of Britain. Well done.

This is why the UK Government disbanded their Civil Defence Corps in 1968 - the danger caused by fall-out would prevent any search and rescue operation, as would the scale of the destruction. This rendered the CD Corps useless.

Well i mean if you don't want your assessments proved wrong you better make sure there is no means for anyone to do so. Just disband the civil defenses, navy, army and everything else so the enemy doesn't have any reason to bomb you having the ability to simply send in a division that can't be resisted. I suppose that's how we can achieve world peace...

The following image is a declassified H.M. Treasury document (obtained via a FOIA request) which gives an indication of thinking amongst senior UK Government circles in the early 1970s.

[IMG]http://i49.photobucket.com/albums/f288/linstock/T199925158.jpg[/]

The British government under Chamberlain were entertaining thoughts of a separate peace with Germany as well. This isn't evidence of anything beside the fact that the British government of the time were not acting in the interest of Britons. Who's surprised?

"(d). A total nuclear attack employing high power missiles which would destroy all but a small percentage of the UK population and almost all physical assets of civilised life.

Unlike the conclusions reached by at least a few US commission's tasked with such studies, the government of Switzerland, the former USSR/Russia today, China ( more ideologically prepared than anything else) and a few other who are notable prepared. Any governmental panel that determines that but a 'small percentage' of the UK population would survive should have their citizenship revoked and be exiled to the nation or authorities that paid them to say what they did.

Management Agency (FEMA), the Soviets have built at least 20,000
blast-resistant shelters to protect approximately 15 million people, or
roughly 10 percent of the people in cities of 25,000 or more. The FY 1981
Department of Defense Annual Report to the Congress noted that
"the Soviets will probably continue to emphasize the construction of
urban blast sheltering. If the current pace of construction is continued,
the number of people that can be sheltered will be roughly doubled in
1988." The Soviets apparently plan to evacuate and disperse the general
population to pre-assigned resettlement areas where they will be fed
and either provided with a fallout shelter or put to work building one.

According to Soviet civil defense SOVIET FATALITIES (SAY SOVIETS): "BETWEEN THREE
AND-FOUR PERCENT" manuals, this plan for the evacuation and dispersal of people is designed
to limit casualties in the event of a nuclear exchange to between three and four percent of the
population. Modest, feasible measures to protect machinery from nuclear effects greatly increase
both the probability of industrial survival and U .S. retaliatory force requirements . . .
[FEMA and the CIA] estimate that the Soviet Union, given time to implement
fully these civil defense measures, could limit casualties to around fifty million, about half of
which would be fatalities. This compares to the approximately 20 million Soviet fatalities suffered in
World War II . There is no significant U .S. civil defense effort, and the Soviets
recognize this. The potential impact of Soviet civil defense on our deterrent
could be devastating.

www.tfxib.com...

Soviet Union. The role civil defense plays in Soviet strategy is significant. Based on the view that nuclear war is a clear possibility and that civilization is protectable, the Soviets have implemented a massive and thoroughly integrated civil defense effort.22 Soviet leaders have shown interest in civil defense for many years, but they enhanced their efforts following the 23rd Party Congress in 1966. Despite SALT I agreements in 1972, the U.S.S.R. further intensified its civil defense program. CD currently ranks as a separate force organizationally equal to other Ministry of Defense Forces. The CD chief, General of the Army Altunin (four-star rank), is also Deputy Minister of Defense with three CD deputies of colonel-general (three star) rank serving under him. A Stanford Research Institute (SRI) study23 in 1974 stated that there were at least 35 to 40 active list Soviet army general officers holding posts in the Soviet CD system, which is intricately organized in the 15 constituent republics of the U.S.S.R. The SRI report mentioned a three-year CD military officer candidate school that might indicate the Soviet interest in a continuing civil defense program.

The Soviets spend the equivalent of more than $1 billion annually (the CIA in Soviet Civil Defense estimates approximately $2 billion) on their CD program and have conducted some tests of their city evacuation plans. Although the extent of these tests is not fully known, they concentrate efforts on protecting political and military leaders, industrial managers, and skilled workers. Professor Richard Pipes of Harvard sees the CD organization under Altunin as "...a kind of shadow government charged with responsibility for administering the country under the extreme stresses of nuclear war and its immediate aftermath."24

The potential lifesaving effectiveness of the Soviet CD program is not a matter of unanimous agreement. However, several studies estimate casualty rates as low as two to three percent of the Soviet population in the event of nuclear war.25

www.airpower.maxwell.af.mil...

The vast Soviet network of shelters and command facilities, under construction for four decades, was recently described in detail by Secretary of Defense Frank Carlucci.The shelters are designed to house the entire Politburo, the Central Committee, and the key leadership of the Ministryof Defense and the KGB. Some are located hundreds of yards beneath the surface, and are connected by secret subway lines,tunnels, and sophisticated communications systems. "These facilities contradict in steel and concrete Soviet protestations that they share President Reagan's view that nuclear war can never be won and must never be fought,"Carlucci said (Ariwna Republic, April 3, 1988). These facilities reveal that they are preparing themselves for just the opposite." The shelters are also protected against chemical warfare agents, and stocked with sufficient supplies to allow the leadership to survive and wage war for months.In contrast, the limited US shelter system begun in the 1950s has mostly been abandoned."To have something comparable, we'd have to have facilities where we could put every governor, mayor, every Cabinet official, and our whole command structure underground with subways running here and there," Carlucci said. "There's just no comparison between the two."

www.physiciansforcivildefense.org...

Continued

In the more traditional areas of strategic defense, Soviet military doctrine calls for passive and active defenses to act in conjunction to ensure wartime survival. Physical hardening of military assets to make them more resistant to attack is an important passive defense technique. The USSR has hardened its ICBM silos, launch facilities, and key command and control centers to an unprecedented degree. Much of the current US retaliatory force would be ineffective against these hardened targets.

Soviet leaders and managers at all levels of the government and Communist Party are provided hardened alternate command posts located well away from urban centers - in addition to many deep bunkers and blast shelters in Soviet cities. This comprehensive and redundant system, patterned after a similar system designed for the Soviet Armed Forces, provides more than 1,500 hardened alternate facilities for more than 175,000 key Party and government personnel throughout the USSR. In contrast, the US passive defense effort is far smaller and more limited; it is in no way comparable to the comprehensive Soviet program.

Elaborate plans also have been made for the full mobilization of the national economy in support of the war effort. Reserves of vital materials are maintained, many in hardened underground structures. Redundant industrial facilities are in active production. Industrial and other economic facilities have been equipped with blast shelters for the work force, and detailed procedures have been developed for the relocation of selected production capabilities. By planning for the survival of the essential work force, the Soviets hope to reconstitute vital production programs using those industrial components that could be redirected or salvaged after an attack.

www.fas.org...

If you want a truly interesting discussion i suggest you gather information as to what it would cost to keep a British citizen fed for a year in 1970 ( lets use the WHO daily calorie intake requirements as basis), to create for him the means of evacuation ( preexisting public transportation or whatever) to his settlement point, a safe ( meaning a shelter that has one or two meters of ground cover and ventilation that can house a set number of citizens for up to two weeks at a time) sanitary long term shelter ( lets say a relatively large tent with sufficient ground protection and water proofing to enable washing it down for contaminants ) with sufficient if very basic health care facilities to ensure the containment of typical diseases resulting from relatively crowded living conditions.

Basically do as that nuclear armed, strategic bomber equipped Swiss did; oh wait, they spent some of that money to enable the survival of basically their entire population.

Nuclear

The biggest threats from a nuclear attack are effects from the blast, fires and radiation. One of the most prepared countries for a nuclear attack is Switzerland. Almost every building in Switzerland has an abri (shelter) against the initial nuclear bomb and explosion followed by the fallout. Because of this, many people use it as a safe to protect valuables, photos, financial information and so on. Switzerland also has air-raid and nuclear raid sirens in every village.

en.wikipedia.org...

There are some truly impressive feats of engineering: the air filters, designed to supply those 20,000 souls with 192 cubic metres each of non-radioactive air every day, are indeed breathtaking. So large, the hall they are housed in has the dimensions of a medieval cathedral.

In fact, there are over a quarter of a million of them in Switzerland, because, 17 years after the end of the Cold War, the policy of providing shelters for the entire population still stands. An anxious telephone call to my local civil protection office brings a reassuring answer. "Actually your community has 40% overcapacity in shelters," I'm told.

And down on the main street of my village, new houses are going up, the bulldozers are digging remarkably deep and blast resistant concrete is arriving by the tonne. But why add an estimated 4% to the house price, just to carry on preparing for a threat that has gone away? We asked ourselves this question," he admits. "But then we thought, we've built all these things, so let's just carry on. And there could be new threats around the corner."

news.bbc.co.uk...

And as you can see they are still paying the premium that the far larger British defense budget/economy could have easily coped with.

"As for (d), the money policy would of course be absurdly unrealistic for the few surviving administrators and politicians as they struggled to organise food and shelter for the tiny bands of surviving able-bodied and the probably larger number of sick and dying.

Why were no provisions for food made beforehand? Why should you wait to organize shelter after the attack? Didn't the UK make itself a target by creating a nuclear power? Why not defend yourself by more passive means before threatening others? Why are you fooled by all this insensible posturing and defeatism?

Most of the departments' contingency planning might also be irrelevant in such a solution. Within a fairly short time the survivors would evacuate the UK and try to find some sort of life in less-affected countries (southern Ireland?)."

How would they evacuate? Rafts? What would they pay with? Why wouldn't Ireland be attacked or suffer massively from supposed fallout effects?

What nonsense.

Stellar

[1] Vaporization Point
Everything is vaporized by the atomic blast.
98% fatalities.
Overpress=25 psi. Wind velocity=320 mph.
[2] Total Destruction
All structures above ground are destroyed.
90% fatalities
Overpress=17 psi. Wind velocity=290 mph.
[3] Severe Blast Damage
Factories and other large-scale building collapse. Severe damage to highway bridges. Rivers sometimes flow countercurrent.
65% fatalities, 30% injured.
Overpress=9 psi. Wind velocity=260 mph.
[4] Severe Heat Damage
Everything flammable burns. People in the area suffocate due to the fact that most available oxygen is consumed by the fires.
50% fatalities, 45% injured.
Overpress=6 psi. Wind velocity=140 mph.
[5] Severe Fire & Wind Damage
Residency structures are severely damaged. People are blown around. 2nd and 3rd-degree burns suffered by most survivors.
15% dead. 50% injured.
Overpress=3 psi. Wind velocity=98 mph.

Blast Zone Radii
3 different bomb types
10 KILOTONS 1 MEGATON 20 MEGATONS
Zone Airburst - 1,980 ft Airburst - 8,000 ft Airburst - 17,500 ft
1 0.5 miles 2.5 miles 8.75 miles
2 1 mile 3.75 miles 14 miles
3 1.75 miles 6.5 miles 27 miles
4 2.5 miles 7.75 miles 31 miles
5 3 miles 10 miles 35 miles

Hope that clears up a few things for you.
As a reference the largest nuclear weapon I could find reliable information on was the RDS-220, a 50 megaton airburst device, more information on which can be found here: nuclearweaponarchive.org...

Originally posted by StellarX

Originally posted by zero lift
Er...StellarX, are you aware that NBC suits give little if any protection against gamma radiation.

No i am not and not all nations have badly designed and produced NBC protective systems. Again the horrendously stupid presumption is made that everyone is for some reason standing on the streets pointing at the shiny 'shooting star'. I shouldn't even respond to this level of ignorance but i suppose i must when it's propagate in this fashion.

The ability to penetrate matter differs greatly among the various types of nuclear radiation. A sheet of paper, a layer of clothing, or an inch of air can stop relatively slow moving, heavy alpha particles. Thus, it is easy to shield against alpha radiation, unless the alpha-emitting substance enters the body. Beta particles are lighter and travel faster than alpha particles. They can penetrate a fraction of an inch in solids and liquids and several feet in air. Gamma rays and neutrons are electrically neutral and thus not slowed by collisions with the target materials. They do not interact strongly as the charged alpha and beta particles do and are therefore highly penetrating. Their ability to penetrate the target material depends upon their energy. High-energy gamma rays may require several feet of material for adequate shielding.

www.chemcases.com...

Please do some basic research.

Or alternatively, you could actually read and fully understand what you cut and paste. The main danger in radioactive fall-out (and a full nuclear attack on the UK would produces enormous fall-out levels of gamma) is exposure to very high levels of high-energy gamma radiation.

Please try and understand the following, its not hard - No NBC suit in the world can prevent this type of radiation. You need many feet of concrete, or earth, or steel to give adequate protection form gamma radiation.

When I served in the Royal Observer Corps (part of the United Kingdom Warning and Monitoring Organisation) the maximum wartime dose of gamma radiation was 150 roentgens. UK Government peak estimates of the radiation rates expected in a global nuclear exchange were 20,000 roentgens per hour.

Irrespective of a nations preparations, search and rescue would not be a viable operation for at least 30 days minimum, by which time the majority (probably all) of those in need of search and rescue would have perished.

The JIC seems pretty confident that UK cities wouldn't be 'hostage targets'.

Propaganda is and always has been propaganda.

You really are ingnorant of the facts aren't you?

The Joint Intelligence Committee stands at the apex of the British intelligence process bringing together and analysing intelligence material which flows to it from covert and overt sources: HUMINT from the SIS (MI6), SIGINT from GCHQ, counter-espionage intelligence from the Security Service (MI5), intel from the Defence Intelligence Service, intel from the Diplomatic Service.

One thing the JIC's product wasn't, during the Cold War, was 'propaganda'.

The JIC list of target cities was the basis from which all UK Government Departments developed their wartime contingency planning (more commonly known as Home Defence).

Unfortunately for you, the JIC proves your speculation of 'hostage targets' to be wrong. In a full nuclear exchange, cities would be hit just like any other target.

The UK Government learned back in the early 1960s (Exercise FELSTEAD, FALLEX 62), that the UK would suffer a calamitous breakdown in the event of being subject to a full nuclear attack.

Well then what else needs be said. Churchill should have just surrendered Britain as well when the Germans threatened with invasion and bombing of Britain. Well done.

You're not serious?

Are you that desperate so as to suggest that the UK's Governments realisation of a fact (after conducting extensive planning studies/exercises from 1955) could be compared to the possibility of Churchill surrendering during WW2?

Oh dear *shakes head in disbelief*

Er...I think its safe to say that your main problem in understanding the effects of a full nuclear attack on the UK, is that you assume fighting WW3 would have been conducted in a similar way to fighting WW2?

This is why the UK Government disbanded their Civil Defence Corps in 1968 - the danger caused by fall-out would prevent any search and rescue operation, as would the scale of the destruction. This rendered the CD Corps useless.

Well i mean if you don't want your assessments proved wrong you better make sure there is no means for anyone to do so. *snip*

Do go on StellarX, please show me how the entire UK Government and their scientists got it wrong about the dangers of gamma fall-out.

Have you any idea of how small the UK is and how vulnerable it is to fall-out?

Perhaps you disagree with the ground-breaking Strath Report of 1955, which proved (not speculated) that ten ground-burst H-bombs in shallow waters off the western coast of the UK would render the country unviable.

Just ten.

And before you start, I'd better inform you that Strath has never been proved wrong.

The following image is a declassified H.M. Treasury document (obtained via a FOIA request) which gives an indication of thinking amongst senior UK Government circles in the early 1970s.

[IMG]http://i49.photobucket.com/albums/f288/linstock/T199925158.jpg[/]

The British government under Chamberlain were entertaining thoughts of a separate peace with Germany as well. This isn't evidence of anything beside the fact that the British government of the time were not acting in the interest of Britons. Who's surprised?

Thats one way to look at it, albeit in a very jaundiced way.

Of course another way to look at the statement is to realise that it is an accurate assessment of the effect of a full nuclear attack on the UK.

Which one you believe is up to you, but personally, given your previous assertion that NBC suits would protect one from gamma radiation, I'll stick with the H.M. Treasury.

"(d). A total nuclear attack employing high power missiles which would destroy all but a small percentage of the UK population and almost all physical assets of civilised life.

Unlike the conclusions reached by at least a few US commission's tasked with such studies, the government of Switzerland, the former USSR/Russia today, China ( more ideologically prepared than anything else) and a few other who are notable prepared. Any governmental panel that determines that but a 'small percentage' of the UK population would survive should have their citizenship revoked and be exiled to the nation or authorities that paid them to say what they did.

Likewise, it could be argued that anyone whose massive ego
causes them to ignore the facts produced by their own scientific panel, isn't fit to govern - because their decisions would not be based on fact, but on personal delusion.


zero lift





[edit on 10-10-2008 by zero lift]

Originally posted by LDragonFire
reply to post by Brother Stormhammer

 

I was just going to post that FAS site

It's not just the cities that are targeted, for example in St Louis MO the Boeing factories are targeted, Lambert Airport is targeted, the Harpoon missile factory just North of St Louis is targeted, Scott Air Force base just South East of St Louis is targeted also every single lock and dam along the Mississippi are also targeted.

Here is another

[edit on 22-4-2008 by LDragonFire]

Also I want to point out that this map looks like hundreds of nuclear missiles striking targets in Missouri but keep in mind that all of this carnage would realistically be the work of only about 3-5 missiles since modern MRV'd Topol-M's for example carry anywhere from 8 to 12 MRVS and as such all of those dots, let's say there's 50 dots there of nuclear explosions, that's only about 4-5 missiles, of which Russia alone has 6000+ so you can pretty much kiss goodbye to the entire continental US if they were to launch all of their missiles or rather even 1/6th of them.

Still working on the previous post so this one is getting attention by virtue of being short....

Originally posted by rufusdrak
Also I want to point out that this map looks like hundreds of nuclear missiles striking targets in Missouri but keep in mind that all of this carnage would realistically be the work of only about 3-5 missiles since modern MRV'd Topol-M's for example carry anywhere from 8 to 12 MRVS

The Topol- M is being deployed with 1 warhead but may be relatively easily modified ( it's designed with it in mind ) to carry i think six warheads. As that map indicates it's going to take many, many dozens of missiles to create that kind of overlap.

]and as such all of those dots, let's say there's 50 dots there of nuclear explosions, that's only about 4-5 missiles,

There is a few hundred dots there so we are in fact talking about twenty SS-18 presuming ten warheads each. That is a very large fraction of their S-18 force to expand on one American state....

of which Russia alone has 6000+ so you can pretty much kiss goodbye to the entire continental US if they were to launch all of their missiles or rather even 1/6th of them.

Russian has about 600 odd ( declared or what can be gained from what the Russian defense force/government says) intercontinental ranged ballistic missiles with 3000 warheads between them. Basically you can't blanket the United States or get close to doing so by nuclear methods alone hence i suspect their very large chemical and biological weapon programs.

Again i must insist that even above ground with largely unprepared cities citizens can within a few months erect the type of organizations and civil defenses that could allow the vast majority of citizens to survive and ride out the worse effects in safety. If the nuclear exchange drags on it's a second and third planting seasons food shortages might obviously become very severe but to suffer famine in the first year is simply utter incompetence ( or design) in high circles.

Stellar

That picture is a map of the Whiteman AFB - which no longer has working missile silo`s as the 351st Missile Wing was de-activated in 1995.

therefore all those little dots are targetted elsewhere - as the base itself , home to the 509th Bomb Wing which operates the B-2 doesn`t really need 100 warheads to destroy it,


Gamma radiation is a wave form and doesn`t actually have a residual effect.

edit:

steller just read on ken alibek and his (now 15 year old) knowledge of the russian bio weaponeers - biopreparat

[edit on 12/10/08 by Harlequin]

Originally posted by Harlequin
That picture is a map of the Whiteman AFB - which no longer has working missile silo`s as the 351st Missile Wing was de-activated in 1995.

Which i should have figured out all on my own had i invested more time. Just shows you how the white flag waving/TEOTWAWKI crowd will pick a counterforce target area as evidence that we are all 'doomed'.

therefore all those little dots are targetted elsewhere - as the base itself , home to the 509th Bomb Wing which operates the B-2 doesn`t really need 100 warheads to destroy it,

They don't have those missiles any more ( ten years of missiles being withdrawn from service) so the point is largely moot. As for the B-2's you can waste a few warheads on them but it's not like they can fly each aircraft more than once a week or can operate it from any other location. If the B-2 force gets in one strike each in the opening phases of a nuclear war i would be quite surprised.

Gamma radiation is a wave form and doesn`t actually have a residual effect.

Sad that this has to be explained to some educated people on this forum. Why anyone would be running around above ground at that stage so as to best have themselves killed by prompt weapons effects is hardly ever explained.

edit:

steller just read on ken alibek and his (now 15 year old) knowledge of the russian bio weaponeers - biopreparat

I don't think we should take Alibekov's word for much other than the fact that the Russians were creating chemical and biological agents for defensive/intercontinental use if the US chose to use such weapons aggressively against the wishes of European nations.

I still have to respond to your earlier post. Been planning on that for some days now.

Stellar

Osprey

By last breath the four winds blow
Better raise your ears
The sound of hooves knocks at your door
Lock up your wife and children now
Its time to weild the blade
For now youve got some company

The horsemen are drawing nearer
On leather steeds they ride
They have come to take your life
On thru the dead of night
With the four horsemen ride
or choose your fate and die

Originally posted by StellarX

Gamma radiation is a wave form and doesn`t actually have a residual effect.

Sad that this has to be explained to some educated people on this forum. Why anyone would be running around above ground at that stage so as to best have themselves killed by prompt weapons effects is hardly ever explained.

.

Sorry, I'll have to tackle your ignorance of nuclear physics here (I actually have a degree in physics)

When a thermonuclear bomb goes off, the primary fission precharge doesn't release
all it's radiation in one burst. Uranium 235 splits into smaller fission products such as Iodine and Barium as initial radioactive nuclides . As these decay due to their short half lives, radioactive Strontium and Caesium take over as the main mid/long term radioactive hazards.

The secondary stage is usually 'clean' unless the fusion tamper is swapped for a uranium-238 one.

Initial radioactive nuclides also decay through time into other different 'radioactive' isotopes. It's not a one shot thing

People always think that Gamma is the main threat but shortly after
detonation people can get 'beta burns' from Strontium and alpha radiation which can't pentrate the skin but is deadly when ingested.

The radiological effects aren't just down to the energies or types of radioactive decay, the biological properties of the chemicals play the biggest role. Iodine builds up in the Thyroid gland, Strontium in the bones or bone marrow and Caesium in the muscle tissue....

The latter of the two have half lives of 28 and 30 years, which is great if you're going to grow
your own food on a fallout zone.

Then there is the induced irradiation of soil/earth components in a low altitude or ground burst.




[edit on 13-10-2008 by Unknown Perpetrator]