Simulating Nightmares

In keeping with the chipper and upbeat nature of the last post, one of the Brickmuppet's crack team of Science Babes informs us that the Federation of American Scientists has recently started running simulations of various scenarios involving nuclear exchanges between the USA and China.


Their published report on the subject is here.

This is a sobering document. The scenarios examined would seem to be beyond possibility...until one remembers the events of 1914 and 1939.


A couple of things leap out. Fallout shelters, despite the protests of the ignorant are a very good thing to have in this sort of situation.

Neutrality does not apply to Tijuana, Quebec, our friends the Bahamians or the Maritimes. 

I question the FAS's targeting assumptions, although it cheers me greatly not to see a big smouldering scab in place of Hampton Roads, I can't fathom that an area with this many military assets would escape while they'd waste a missile on Detroit. This dubious supposition may reflect the fact that China's nuclear deterrent is counter-value, not counter-force, that is, the Chinese ICBMs target cities rather than US Missile batteries. Chinese missiles have big 3 or 5 megaton city buster warheads (assumed to be 4MT in the FAS study).

The FAS study assumes that China has around 20 ICBMs which is the official line, but the Russians credit them with a somewhat larger ICBM force and around 1800 warheads albeit mostly medium range for use against Russia and India and only half on alert. Other estimates go as higher.

The US by contrast can't currently make new nukes and isn't developing any. The FOGBANK fiasco from a few years ago shows what can happen when a technological capability atrophies.

This has implications.

Deterrence rests on the assumption that an attack on the US is national suicide. If the US is attacked by nukes right now it will go full Jacksonian as is our habit when we are REALLY pissed off. The rape of Atlanta or the bombardment of Japan will pale in comparison to what would befall the entity stupid enough to do such a thing. US bombs have much lower yields than other nations but they are all over 300 kilotons and there are about 2000 of them. A society that incited the use of such weapons upon itself would pass into history as completely as the Minoans, the Toltecs or the Carthaginians. This is true for most of the  other nuclear nations as well. That's why there haven't been any nuclear attacks since Nagasaki. Note though that as our deterrent decays and/ or is whittled away in arms control treaties the notion that a nation, especially one led by admirers of Mao Tse-Tung  might come to the conclusion after ruthless cost benefit studies of omelets versus eggs that any retaliation would be endurable.

The FAS study is science fiction now, it's an exceedingly unlikely set of scenarios. However that may not be the case in a decade or so.

There's also the unpleasant possibility of a nuclear nation in the grip of someone who is utterly bat-scat bonkers and to whom deterrence is of limited value...which brings up a question I've had for a couple of months about the seemingly 'gimp' performance of the North Korean nuclear tests. None have even been as powerful as Little Boy. The biggest was 10 kilotons and a few were only a few hectotons, but it occurs to me that these are all  in the ballpark of the weapons built around the now decomissioned W-54 warhead the US developed in the 1960's. Weighing only about 50 pounds its yield could be varied from 200 tons of TNT to one kiloton. It was used in backpack bombs, air to air and air to ground missiles and a perfectly functional but somewhat dubiously conceived atomic bazooka. Impressively, the W-54 warhead was able to give a yield of 6 kilotons as demonstrated in the SOCORRO shot of the Hardtack 2 test series, though tactical applications of the weapons that used it  required lower yields.

Using the new and improved online nightmare facilitator here are some simulations of the w-54 at various settings. This will also give a fair idea of what to expect from crude terrorist devices as well, though those will probably be dirtier due to inefficiency. For some reason the simulator defaults to Manhattan. Alex Wellerstien must not like Manhattan.

.02 kilotons is basically a blockbuster...


...with the added effect of lethal radiation. Small nukes give off a lot of rads in comparison to heat/blast. The green is the extent of lethal radiation, the tiny inner colored circles represent additional mischief.


1 kiloton was generally the top yield setting for this physics package.



From center to  outside: Orange=fireball/plasma Red=heavily reinforced buildings demolished almost precisely overlapping is Dark Yellow= wood and most combustibles spontaneously burst into flame Dark Grey=most normal buildings (residential/non-reinforced brick ect) demolished. Light Yellow= 3rd degree burns on all exposed skin. Leaves, fabric other & flammables are  likely to burst into flame. Green=horrible radiation death (see Barefoot Gen) Light Grey=all windows smashed.



An airburst at the same yield...note the difference.



6 Kilotons was as far as I know the maximum yield produced by the W-54 warhead.


This is a fearsome amount of damage from a 50 -100 pound weapon. Imagine large numbers scattered over the general area.


A groundburst creates nasty  fallout, which I omitted for clarity from the other images. Unlike Hiroshima and Nagasaki this leaves ground zero HIGHLY radioactive and craps death a good distance away.



A 5 megaton hit. This is the standard  city-buster warhead on China's DF-5 ICBM. All of lower Manhattan is razed as is much of Brooklyn and Staten Island. Everything in orange is or soon will be engulfed in a firestorm


Because I can't get my head around them ignoring Hampton Roads, and I don't want New Yorkers to think I dislike them as much as Alex Wellerstien seems too.


^{As to why ground zero is the administration building at ODU...I have no comment.}

Posted by: The Brickmuppet at 01:36 PM | Comments (9) | Add Comment
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