100 MT Nuclear Bomb Damage

I heard someone say that if a 100 MT nuclear bomb were detonated in Cardiff in Wales, people would not find a trace of anything for 20 miles in all directions. He also said that the blast or wind would flatten London which is about 150 miles away and people in Scotland (loads further away) would get radiation sickness.

I find it hard to believe that London could be flattened if it was that far away.

I also think they would find a trace of something as nuclear weapons become ineffiecient as they get bigger.

He said that it would just take 3 of these size weapons to kill most people in the UK.

Am I right in thinking he is mostly wrong, or am I wrong?

PS - I am aware that a 100MT weapon has never been detonated or is hardly likely to ever explode in Cardiff.

have a look at this site, it gives details up to 20MT explosions in terms of damage

A 100MT Nuclear weapon, detonated on the British Isle, would kill everyone.

Vaporized or not, you would be dead in a matter of a few hours.

Anything within a 500 miles radius from ground zero would feel the affects of AT LEAST 350MPH, radioactively charged wind. That would be enough RADS to kill your cells within a few hours.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think anyone ever made a 100 MT bomb. I think the Soviets built the biggest bomb which was about 50 MT ish. After that, everyone seemed to plan for using a large amount of small warheads in any future nuclear exchange.

zero lift

I think the soviets built a 100 MT but only detonated it at 50-60 MT. I believe it was called the Tzar Bomb.

I managed to dig up some pictures of that Tzar Bomb









Wow. Incredible

[edit on 23/6/04 by Hyperen]

nukes should be banned and shoved up the **** of the poeple who make them

sorry for the bad language but I hate nukes

A 100MT nuclear bomb would kill everyone in the British Isles not just of the blast but of radiation, and it will also spread to ther close by nations like France.

that's the combined effects of several nuclear wars in one single device.

but i'm more worried about the "baby" nukes...10-12 kilotons and hidden in some trash bin somewhere in a major city.

I'd love to see a source on what you've posted, AD5673

I have no source czakky. It's called science. Learn something about nuclear bombs, and the radiation they release. Though dont take me the worng way. I am not trying to be rude.

Originally posted by AD5673
I have no source czakky. It's called science. Learn something about nuclear bombs, and the radiation they release. Though dont take me the worng way. I am not trying to be rude.

Firstly, I consider myself quite learned in the subject.

Radiation released from a 100MT device would be huge, I dont think actual figures exist (if they do, can somone send me a link?). However, the radition released from nuclear device has quite a small range, its the fallout that carries radioactive particles. These particles would not kill everyone in the british isles through radiation either, unless the wind can blow in more than one direction at once. Show me actual facts + figures, not assumptions and "science"

www.fas.org...

home.earthlink.net...

www.tuberose.com...

tis.eh.doe.gov...
Bad thing is (also sad) i couldnt find any pictures of nuclear radiation mutations.

None of the above links give any information concerning nuclear weapons in the 100Mt range, only on smaller devices and the effects of ionizing radiation. Also, I've got no urge to see muation pictures

[edit on 23-6-2004 by czakky]

[edit on 23-6-2004 by czakky]

100 mt nukes even though powerful they are unneeded just drop 20-25 ICBM's it does the same amount of damage.

I like the "just drop 25 ICBM's" idea , somehow I think a 1 to 25 warhead ratio is a better deal

I suck at math but you guys give it a go....

A standard rule of thumb for recalculating blast effects for various sizes
of bombs is to take the megatonage of the new bomb divide by the megatonage
of the old bomb, take the cube root of the results and multiply that times
the radius of blast effect. Example to compare a 1 KT (0.001 MT) to a 1,000
KT (1MT) 1,000 divided by 1 = 1,000. The cube root of 1,000 is 10
(10x10x10=1,000). Therefore you can take the blast effect at X feet (or
miles) for a 1 KT and multiply that distance by 10 to get approx. the same
effect for a 1,000 KT bomb. Other common multipliers would be:

Mulitplier/divider cube/cube root 1 KT multiplier 1 MT divider
2 2x2x2=8 8 KT 125 KT (0.125MT)
3 3x3x3=27 27 KT 37 KT
4 4x4x4=64 64 KT 16 KT
5 5x5x5=125 125 KT 8 KT
6 6x6x6=216 216 KT 4 KT
7 7x7x7=343 343 KT 3 KT
8 8x8x8=512 512 KT 2 KT
9 9x9x9=729 729 KT 1 1/3 KT
10 10x10x10=1,000 1,000 KT (1 MT) 1 KT

So this shows that if you want to double the damage distance for a given
size of bomb you need to increase the power by a factor of 8. If you want
to double that distance again you need a bomb that is 8x8 or 64 times as
powerful. This is why you can get the same amount of damage done with 10-40
KT bombs spread out as you can with a 1,000 KT (1 MT) bomb.


more

r_thermal = Y^0.41 * constant_th
r_blast = Y^0.33 * constant_bl
r_radiation = Y^0.19 * constant_rad

If Y is in multiples (or fractions) of 2.5 kt, then the result is in km (and all the constants equal one). This is based on thermal radiation just sufficient to cause 3rd degree burns (8 calories/cm^2); a 4.6 psi blast overpressure (and optimum burst height); and a 500 rem radiation dose.

Yes it would be bad but not as bad as everyone makes it out to be, it is much more effective to use smaller multiple wardheads and this is the doctirne that is in use.

Blast Effects

For example, as a result of a surface burst of a 15 Mt thermonuclear device at Bikini Atoll on March 1, 1954, a roughly cigar-shaped area of the Pacific extending over 500 km downwind and varying in width to a maximum of 100 km was severely contaminated.

www.fas.org...

The above quote was taken from the above link. This was a surface blast of a 15MT nuke. Even if we just said the yield affect was 5 times greater for a 100MT compared to a 15MT you would have radiation effects of over 2,500km downwind, with SEVERE contamination of up to 500KM downwind.

I dont know about you but 2,500km is quite far since the isle of great britain is only roughly 850km long I expect the affects of a 100MT nuke would be quite devestating. Since I assume that the air current probably flows south/ south east over this region I think a nice air burst over Edinburgh would be sufficeint to highly radiate all of the United Kingdom.

encarta.msn.com...

Here is some info about the size of the British Isles

www.aussurvivalist.com...

put in the amount in KT so 1,000kt = 1 MT therefore the amount of a 100MT would be 100,000kt and set the distance at 200 miles or even 500 miles. You will see that after 2 weeks in a regualr frame house you would have received between 22 and 528 RADS and be very sick.

At 168 miles from ground zero you would by receiving 3000 RADS an hour 9 hours after the detonation since 1000 RADS is death, basically you would have been dead for over 5 to 6 hours already.



[edit on 23-6-2004 by robertfenix]

Originally posted by czakky
None of the above links give any information concerning nuclear weapons in the 100Mt range, only on smaller devices and the effects of ionizing radiation. Also, I've got no urge to see muation pictures

[edit on 23-6-2004 by czakky]

[edit on 23-6-2004 by czakky]

I wasnt looking for links concerning nuclear weapons in the 100Mt range. I was looking for stuff on radiation.