A chilling Cold War-era map has surfaced, providing a stark outlook for the United States post-nuclear warfare, with predictions indicating that up to 75% of the population could die from radiation in the most affected states. The world’s nuclear-armed countries include the US, UK, France, Russia, and China, as well as Pakistan, India, and North Korea.
The bigger question isn’t radiation but (a) breakdown of order and (b) impact of EMP. My go-to way to analyze much of this is “Lucifer’s Hammer” by Niven and Pournelle, plus the writings of Matthew Bracken.
Loading...
More effective, less radiation: blow the nukes outside the atmosphere, positioned right above the long transmission crisscrossing the country. That EMP attack would blow the transmission equipment at both ends of the lines. You know, the kinds of massive transformers that have months-long lead times to order, which is only compounded by the problem of not being able to make them domestically and they’re ordered from China.
Nearly no radiation hazard, no damage on the ground other than the electrical grid, and we’ll all be in Mad Max mode by the time someone gets around to showing up with an army months later.
Loading...
I’m not near as concerned about an EMP as I used to be. Two words, “Schweitzer Engineering.”
Loading...
We still make a lot of the big transformers here in the US. But we’ve outsourced virtually all the smaller grid transformers, like the common pole-top round grey ones. So we’d have to wait for said foreign country to fix THEIR stuff before they would be shipping US any.
I have read and watched a lot of sci-fi and disaster novels and movies. There are some great stories out there. But as an engineer, I realized they are works of fiction.
Loading...
Same here. And yes, a lot of fiction only has a tenuous connection to reality. The better kind of SF is solidly based, though, for the plot aspects that aren’t explicitly imaginary. I mentioned Lucifer’s hammer specifically because I found the analysis of “the days after” far more plausible than those in the wildly optimistic TV movie “the day after”.
I remember a comment from SF superstar Robert A. Heinlein about the background work he did for one of his stories, involving a flight around Jupiter. He wanted to get the details right so he calculated the relevant orbits. This was not easy, since he was writing in the 1940s. He mentioned he got a long piece of wrapping paper from a friendly butcher, and worked the equations on that by hand.
Solving differential equations in longhand is not my idea of fun, but some people are that dedicated to their crat.
Loading...
I don’t know what you are referring to with “The Day After.” I found “The Day After Tomorrow.” “One Second After” is about an EMP but it is far from optimistic.
While far from an expert, I have done more research on the effects of nuclear weapons that anyone I know. I certainly do not want to be in any major city if things go hot, but with proper preparation in a decent location I would feel pretty comfortable about the odds of making it through the first few months after of a major exchange.
As an engineer I have always been impressed with Heinlein because of his attention to those sorts of details.
Loading...
I wouldn’t worry about nukes.
Every serious enemy we ever had is already here with everything they need to collapse our country in a matter of hours.
Turn off the power and the internet and we will turn ourselves inside out for the next 20+ years.
And they could make it look like someone else did it.
Matt Bracken is spot on. They don’t need to nuke us. All the rest of the world has to do is survive us destroying ourselves. (Which Russia and China are busy doing as we speak.)
We’re going down anyway. No way out of it.
Why start a nuke war with us?
Loading...
Exactly. Can they wait long enough for us to fall out of the tree and into their hands like the overripe fruit one of those famous communist leaders compared the United States with?
Iran might be a problem with that, since there’s a religious cult eschatological element to their threat.
Loading...
Outdated map. Showing fallout patterns on the missile fields which is an unlikely scenario today. More likely to be city busting which will be airbursts. Not so much fallout then but it will suck to be in the cities.
Loading...
Why not both? Missile fields to reduce retaliation, then the cities to destroy long-term resistance.
Loading...
Taking out the missile fields requires high accuracy and good TOT coordination. Not clear that anyone has that. Anyway the boomers have more than enough retaliatory firepower to make the rubble bounce.
Loading...
At this point if the DC and top 10 urban areas got destroyed we’d likely give the perpetrators a medal. Hit the blue enclaves and the country turns pretty red.
No more NYC, LA, Chicago, SF, the South Bay, Denver, Seattle, Austin, Portland, Atlanta, etc.
Loading...
“At this point if the DC and top 10 urban areas got destroyed we’d likely give the perpetrators a medal. Hit the blue enclaves and the country turns pretty red.
No more NYC, LA, Chicago, SF, the South Bay, Denver, Seattle, Austin, Portland, Atlanta, etc.”
I’ve been wondering if someone will issue an RFP for this to get a quote and start a GoFundMe to pay for it.
Loading...
The fallout isn’t really as bad as many movies have made it out to be. After a few weeks most of it has decayed. There will be pockets of it that do last quite a bit longer. I’d also expect cancer rates to climb a bit, but nothing like the apocoliptic radiated landscape that Hollywood suggests. Note that there are people living in Hiroshima and Nagasaki today.
Loading...
Depends on if the aggressor targets concentrations of existing dumps for nuke waste like Hanford, storage casks at nuke power plants, etc. since those have tons of radioactive mats vs a few pounds in a warhead.
Alternatively radiological warfare with dirty bombs or neutron warheads are employed.
Loading...
While they could target those sort of sites I’d say it’s unlikely. There are more important things to target and those warneads are not cheap nor plentiful.
Dirty bombs of the “conventiona explosive scattering radioactive materials” type would be unpleasant, but limited in area of effect and “dirty” warheads of the inefficient sort…well, why would you waste the expensive fissionable material and reduce the blast on purpose?
Neutron bombs? The whole point of them was that it left the area safe withing a very short time frame. You kill the enemy troops with the neutron radiation, and leave the equipment and infastructure relatively undamaged and can invest the area with your own troops quickly.
The bigger question isn’t radiation but (a) breakdown of order and (b) impact of EMP. My go-to way to analyze much of this is “Lucifer’s Hammer” by Niven and Pournelle, plus the writings of Matthew Bracken.
More effective, less radiation: blow the nukes outside the atmosphere, positioned right above the long transmission crisscrossing the country. That EMP attack would blow the transmission equipment at both ends of the lines. You know, the kinds of massive transformers that have months-long lead times to order, which is only compounded by the problem of not being able to make them domestically and they’re ordered from China.
Nearly no radiation hazard, no damage on the ground other than the electrical grid, and we’ll all be in Mad Max mode by the time someone gets around to showing up with an army months later.
I’m not near as concerned about an EMP as I used to be. Two words, “Schweitzer Engineering.”
We still make a lot of the big transformers here in the US. But we’ve outsourced virtually all the smaller grid transformers, like the common pole-top round grey ones. So we’d have to wait for said foreign country to fix THEIR stuff before they would be shipping US any.
Related: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/vdkj5nOsrfM
(if you are an EE and not familiar with Chris Boden, you should be)
I have read and watched a lot of sci-fi and disaster novels and movies. There are some great stories out there. But as an engineer, I realized they are works of fiction.
Same here. And yes, a lot of fiction only has a tenuous connection to reality. The better kind of SF is solidly based, though, for the plot aspects that aren’t explicitly imaginary. I mentioned Lucifer’s hammer specifically because I found the analysis of “the days after” far more plausible than those in the wildly optimistic TV movie “the day after”.
I remember a comment from SF superstar Robert A. Heinlein about the background work he did for one of his stories, involving a flight around Jupiter. He wanted to get the details right so he calculated the relevant orbits. This was not easy, since he was writing in the 1940s. He mentioned he got a long piece of wrapping paper from a friendly butcher, and worked the equations on that by hand.
Solving differential equations in longhand is not my idea of fun, but some people are that dedicated to their crat.
I don’t know what you are referring to with “The Day After.” I found “The Day After Tomorrow.” “One Second After” is about an EMP but it is far from optimistic.
While far from an expert, I have done more research on the effects of nuclear weapons that anyone I know. I certainly do not want to be in any major city if things go hot, but with proper preparation in a decent location I would feel pretty comfortable about the odds of making it through the first few months after of a major exchange.
As an engineer I have always been impressed with Heinlein because of his attention to those sorts of details.
I wouldn’t worry about nukes.
Every serious enemy we ever had is already here with everything they need to collapse our country in a matter of hours.
Turn off the power and the internet and we will turn ourselves inside out for the next 20+ years.
And they could make it look like someone else did it.
Matt Bracken is spot on. They don’t need to nuke us. All the rest of the world has to do is survive us destroying ourselves. (Which Russia and China are busy doing as we speak.)
We’re going down anyway. No way out of it.
Why start a nuke war with us?
Exactly. Can they wait long enough for us to fall out of the tree and into their hands like the overripe fruit one of those famous communist leaders compared the United States with?
Iran might be a problem with that, since there’s a religious cult eschatological element to their threat.
Outdated map. Showing fallout patterns on the missile fields which is an unlikely scenario today. More likely to be city busting which will be airbursts. Not so much fallout then but it will suck to be in the cities.
Why not both? Missile fields to reduce retaliation, then the cities to destroy long-term resistance.
Taking out the missile fields requires high accuracy and good TOT coordination. Not clear that anyone has that. Anyway the boomers have more than enough retaliatory firepower to make the rubble bounce.
At this point if the DC and top 10 urban areas got destroyed we’d likely give the perpetrators a medal. Hit the blue enclaves and the country turns pretty red.
No more NYC, LA, Chicago, SF, the South Bay, Denver, Seattle, Austin, Portland, Atlanta, etc.
“At this point if the DC and top 10 urban areas got destroyed we’d likely give the perpetrators a medal. Hit the blue enclaves and the country turns pretty red.
No more NYC, LA, Chicago, SF, the South Bay, Denver, Seattle, Austin, Portland, Atlanta, etc.”
I’ve been wondering if someone will issue an RFP for this to get a quote and start a GoFundMe to pay for it.
The fallout isn’t really as bad as many movies have made it out to be. After a few weeks most of it has decayed. There will be pockets of it that do last quite a bit longer. I’d also expect cancer rates to climb a bit, but nothing like the apocoliptic radiated landscape that Hollywood suggests. Note that there are people living in Hiroshima and Nagasaki today.
Depends on if the aggressor targets concentrations of existing dumps for nuke waste like Hanford, storage casks at nuke power plants, etc. since those have tons of radioactive mats vs a few pounds in a warhead.
Alternatively radiological warfare with dirty bombs or neutron warheads are employed.
While they could target those sort of sites I’d say it’s unlikely. There are more important things to target and those warneads are not cheap nor plentiful.
Dirty bombs of the “conventiona explosive scattering radioactive materials” type would be unpleasant, but limited in area of effect and “dirty” warheads of the inefficient sort…well, why would you waste the expensive fissionable material and reduce the blast on purpose?
Neutron bombs? The whole point of them was that it left the area safe withing a very short time frame. You kill the enemy troops with the neutron radiation, and leave the equipment and infastructure relatively undamaged and can invest the area with your own troops quickly.