[FRIAM] Through a Screen Darkly
Steve Smith
sasmyth at swcp.com
Fri Mar 11 13:26:11 EST 2022
Marcus -
For whatever reason, the map image you attached doesn't show any radii
but I (think I) appreciate the link to the calculator.
<darkness alert>Too Dark Don't Read (TDDR)
I did a demonstration study for DHS circa 2002 using Keyhole (pre-google
earth) to provide a more visceral (first person POV) of what
suitcase-sized nukes could do in a city (like DC). The nuclear effects
code was unclassified and provided mainly radii for about a dozen
effects starting with blast/overpressure, thermal pulse, visual system
damage, direct radiation, fallout, etc. We then coupled that with
infrastructure and population models and the cascading effects. 10kt
is very ugly in any population center. Conventional weapons are almost
purely blast/thermal harm, the rest is a bonus on nuclear. Fallout and
cascading effects are by far the worst at those scales.
I didn't learn anything new exactly except maybe the one detail that if
you are going to be looking toward a nuclear detonation from far enough
away to survive the thermal effects and the overpressure and building
collapses that come with it, then you are better off staring at it at
the point of ignition, because the "flash blindness" it causes will keep
you from then staring raptly at the fireball (as everyone in the movies
do) because this will cause permanent retinal burns. This reference
minimizes the likelihood of retinal burns, but I was informed otherwise,
I think simple logic is on my side?
https://www.atomicarchive.com/science/effects/flash-blindness.html
Just imagine the effect of all the airliner pilots on approach to
BWI/Reagan when both pilot and copilot are in their seats who might go
blind for 2 minutes if the EMP doesn't take out their fly-by-wire
controls? We still had 9/11 images in our heads a that point, so one
suitcase nuke and some percentage of aircraft on takeoff-landing coming
down... hell...
Energetically nuclear weapons are fairly trivial on a global scale
(1000W/square meter flux from the sun across the dayside surface for
example), I think the whole arsenal of all the countries is on the order
of one major hurricane. Non-trivial but not biosphere disrupting. It
think Mt. St. Helens was 400MT energetically (order 10 "supers")... but
the stratospheric particulates (nuclear winter) were a fraction of the
equivalent in nukes.
Yes, the "green glass lined holes" left in the top 10-100 meters of the
earth surface would be trivial by some measure. But poison fallout and
stratospheric particulates would ramp up fast with anything more than a
few "surgical" theater-scale strikes. This is part of the reason for
developing "neutron" weapons, to enhance battlefield casualties with
limited infrastructure damage and latent radiation... "clean nukes" I
think they called them. Just as wicked as the "vacuum bombs" people have
talked about. Suck the air out of human's lungs without knocking down
the buildings they are hiding in. Pretty. On the other end are the
cobalt/salted weapons designed to *enhance* fallout and latent radiation
harm to living things. Not unlike the Roman's habit of "salting" the
enemies fields so they can't recover their agriculture in less than
years, decades, generations.
This whole discussion puts a harsh spotlight on the worst in human
nature captured well by Thomas Lux's poem The People of the other
Village
<https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/48485/the-people-of-the-other-village>.
10,000 brutal, beautiful years,
Darkly,
- Steve
On 3/11/22 10:06 AM, Marcus Daniels wrote:
>
> Steve writes:
>
> < If you are suggesting that the use of nuclear weapons by NATO or
> Russia in this conflict would be limited to "a handful" (1, 2, 3
> digits?) exchanged from each side, and the result of *that* would
> result instead in Glen's "tacit demonstration". >
>
> Here's 50 kt yield in the context of the country. (Courtesy of
> https://nuclearsecrecy.com/nukemap/)
>
> I’m just saying it could go on a while. I think Putin doesn’t give a
> damn about his armed forces, and would not treat a battlefield
> exchange the same way he would treat an attack on Moscow.
>
>
>
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