Guess the MegaTons of This Nuke

[Smitty-48]

I'm not worried at all, I don't worry about that which is beyond my control, I just live in the now, and in the now, I am simply engaging in an intellectual exercise as to the strategic confrontation which is brewing, if it kills me it kills me, whatever, I'm way past the age where I think I'm going to live forever, but I don't dwell on what's going to get me, I'm not laughing at the North Koreans, but I'm not flipping out about them neither.

It's just military analysis, which is a hobby of mine, no more no less. If I was the POTUS, I would be worried about it, because that would be my job, but since I'm not the POTUS; not my problem.

[I just Lurk]

I was told the origin of the vault boy in fallout doing the thing with his thumb was that children were taught that if the thumb covered the mushroom cloud they were at a safe distance from the blast. Any truth to that?

Not safe from the blast. If the mushroom cloud is smaller than your thumb, then you are outside of the area of radioactive fallout. Or so ive heard

[Speaker to Animals]

The only way you would know for sure is to look for a shaped explosion, and since they detonated underground, you cannot say for sure. From what I have read there is a good chance it was based on a Russian design which was technically for EMP.

I doubt they would go for surface and aerial blasts. It's too ineffective for them when EMP takes out the whole nation. It would be stupid, really, and they certainly are smart little bastards.

[Smitty-48]

Not safe from the blast. If the mushroom cloud is smaller than your thumb, then you are outside of the area of radioactive fallout. Or so ive heard

Ah, no, not actually how it works, the fallout plume actually comes down well downwind of ground zero, so if you can see the mushroom cloud, it's rather more likely that you are not in the fallout zone. That's not to say you haven't soaked up some serious rads, but more likely that is from the neutron flash, right into your cells, no fallout required.

[Smitty-48]

With a fusion bomb, almost all the energy is expended into fusion, light, heat, neutrons, gamma rays, x-rays etcetera, the only fallout, comes from the uranium casings which contain the stages of the bomb, but that radioactive material is seeded into the burning debris, which goes up, over, and down, so there is a sweet spot, where it is passing right over your head in the stratosphere. On the other side of that sweet spot, it comes back down, as black radioactive rain.

So for example, If a multimegaton yield H-bomb goes off in Michigan, I am right in the center of the lethal fallout zone, but I certainly cannot see Detroit from here.

[Smitty-48]

The only way you would know for sure is to look for a shaped explosion, and since they detonated underground, you cannot say for sure. From what I have read there is a good chance it was based on a Russian design which was technically for EMP.

I doubt they would go for surface and aerial blasts. It's too ineffective for them when EMP takes out the whole nation. It would be stupid, really, and they certainly are smart little bastards.

No, I don't think so, first of all, they don't know how effective EMP would be, and they don't likely rely on the wildly hysterical estimates of it as you do, and second, they're not likely inclined to let you off easy without any nuclear fallout, and third, they are testing an ICBM with PBV, which is endo-atmoshperic by its very nature, so even if EMP was as effective as you claim, again, they clearly aren't relying on that, they clearly intend to deploy weapons for surface and air burst, since that is what they are building, absolutely no evidence whatsoever that they are building an "EMP only bomb", quite the contrary in fact.

[Speaker to Animals]

The only way you would know for sure is to look for a shaped explosion, and since they detonated underground, you cannot say for sure. From what I have read there is a good chance it was based on a Russian design which was technically for EMP.

I doubt they would go for surface and aerial blasts. It's too ineffective for them when EMP takes out the whole nation. It would be stupid, really, and they certainly are smart little bastards.

No, I don't think so, first of all, they don't know how effective EMP would be, and they don't likely rely on the wildly hysterical estimates of it as you do, and second, they're not likely inclined to let you off easy without any nuclear fallout, and third, they are testing an ICBM with PBV, which is endo-atmoshperic by its very nature, so even if EMP was as effective as you claim, again, they clearly aren't relying on that, they clearly intend to do deploy weapons for surface and air burst, since that is what they are building, absolutely no evidence whatsoever that they are building a "EMP only bomb", quite the contrary in fact.

Hysterical estimates? Don't tell me that, like capps, you have no idea how this works? It's just a product of a mathematical equation, dude. It's VERY doable.

Gamma ray bursts knock electrons out of atoms in the atmosphere. If you shape the explosion right, you create a wave that blankets the countryside for a pretty long distance. It completely wrecks an exposed electrical grid like the shitty one we have in America. This country is wide open for such an attack.

[Smitty-48]

No, I do understand how it works, and based on how it works, the estimates you are repeatedly citing, are wildly hysterical and not founded on solid evidence.

In addition, as they would only have one shot at this, the assertion that they would rely entirely on EMP, is strategically nonsensical.

[Speaker to Animals]

Well, I have college physics background that sort of indicates to me that you probably don't understand it at all. I had capps on the line a few months ago denying electromagnetism was a thing. Do you want to go down that road too?

I am telling you flat out, it's not really that much more difficult than building a fusion bomb in the first place. If you can build a fusion bomb, you can build them for EMP. It's just a matter of shaping the final blast so that you get an even burst at every altitude.

[Smitty-48]

No, as this is where you go into your appeal to authority screeching and pointlessly repeating yourself over and over, and then eventually you start calling people "cunts" for disagreeing with you, and it's not only ridiculous, it's boring, you've way overplayed that hand, so I'll just let you blather on, I've said my peace on it.

As I said, it's intellectual exercise, I'm not up for going round and round in a fallacy cavalcade with an hysterical screecher, that's not interesting to me.