Why Nuclear War Is.... A MAD Scenario

[KSK]

Yeah, those power transmission lines are going to stand up well to a nuke as well.

I suppose they could go underground but they won’t be for the same reason that combustion plants aren’t going to be made seriously nuke-proof. Too expensive.

And frankly, if the nukes start flying hard enough that a nuclear winter happens - well good news. There’s not going to be much left for those windmills/solar panels/combustion plants to power anyway.

I’ll stick with my green powah fantasies thanks. Because ‘will not survive a nuclear war’ is a critical flaw in pretty much damn near everything.

Unless you were just trying to troll me. In which case, job well done, have an internet cookie.

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

Ummm...

Most transmission lines and windmills are 'in the country' / out in the boonies. They're not jam-packed around the targets (city centers, military installations, or ports, rail yards, hydroelectric or other point sources of power generation / economic activity).  

Recall that anything outside of the blast zone remains standing and even some of the stuff in the overpressure zones remains standing - especially if cylindrical. 

So the windmills are fine.  

The smart thing to do is to 'harden' them against EMP so that afterwards people can rebuild easier. 

[kerbiloid]

5 hours ago, KSK said:

Yeah, those power transmission lines are going to stand up well to a nuke as well.

You need these lines anyway, and they can be repaired much easier than 100+ m high windmills.

5 hours ago, KSK said:

I suppose they could go underground but they won’t be for the same reason that combustion plants aren’t going to be made seriously nuke-proof.

They are put inside a building. This automatically makes them stronger.

And also the big iron things are not designed to catch any aerial flow, rather than windmills (and solar panels as well, as they must be lightweight, thin, and large).

5 hours ago, KSK said:

And frankly, if the nukes start flying hard enough that a nuclear winter happens

I didn't say "nuke winter", I said "volcanic winter".
This happened not once in history, a year or two without summer, after a strong volcanic eruption.

13 minutes ago, JoeSchmuckatelli said:

Most transmission lines and windmills are 'in the country' / out in the boonies. They're not jam-packed around the targets (city centers, military installations, or ports, rail yards, hydroelectric or other point sources of power generation / economic activity).  

Aim the, and they will become a target, what's a problem.
You even don't need accuracy, it's a large fragile target.

14 minutes ago, JoeSchmuckatelli said:

The smart thing to do is to 'harden' them against EMP so that afterwards people can rebuild easier. 

They are sails.

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

6 minutes ago, kerbiloid said:

They are sails

They are not targeted because they are dispersed.  It is a waste of assets in a world of uncertainty and redundancy. 

The only thing a good Cold Warrior would do is to make sure that an air burst EMP covered the region.  A.  Singular. 

No 'big wind' events 

[Spacescifi]

1 hour ago, JoeSchmuckatelli said:

They are not targeted because they are dispersed.  It is a waste of assets in a world of uncertainty and redundancy. 

The only thing a good Cold Warrior would do is to make sure that an air burst EMP covered the region.  A.  Singular. 

No 'big wind' events 

 

I think kerbiloid is referring to the 'volcanic winter' because it had been publicized that one of our mountains.... if turned into a volcano (something you could do potentially do with nukes) would be catastrophic for the US.... literally darkening the sky worse than a nuclear winter would do on it's own.

As you said it is best such never occurs. Nuclear war is less about winning and more about putting your opponent on life support as it were, barely clinging to life.

 

It's about damage, so I would not even rule out a second pandemic (engineered) to finish the job.

Seriously. .. don't want nations doing their best to annihilate each other.

Edited March 12, 2022 by Spacescifi

[sevenperforce]

8 hours ago, kerbiloid said:

Btw a critical weakness of all those "green powah" fantasies.

Nuclear and combustion power plants are compact and can be made well-protected by meters of concrete, their parts can be easily moved to restore the destroyed ones.

While any windmill and solar panels would be blown away by even a low-yield nuke around.

Agree. Nothing wrong with wind and solar — they are important — but nuclear is arguably “greener” than both. And incredibly vital. 

[kerbiloid]

1 hour ago, sevenperforce said:

Agree. Nothing wrong with wind and solar — they are important — but nuclear is arguably “greener” than both. And incredibly vital. 

Nobody told about the ecology.

[darthgently]

On 3/10/2022 at 3:46 PM, DDE said:

"Moria-sized dungeons of Zheleznogorsk."

Well, there's an eye-opener and no mistake.  Nice use of literary reference.  Now that I look at it the name even seems dwarvish in that context, lol

[DDE]

1 hour ago, darthgently said:

Well, there's an eye-opener and no mistake.  Nice use of literary reference.  Now that I look at it the name even seems dwarvish in that context, lol

Ironmount? Of course it does. Now add in the city's flag...

Spoiler

 

Edited March 12, 2022 by DDE
Added a spoiler

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

3 hours ago, Spacescifi said:

kerbiloid is referring to the 'volcanic winter' because it had been publicized that one of our mountains.... if turned into a volcano (something you could do potentially do with nukes) would be catastrophic for the US

I read his writing differently: he's clearly aware of supervolcanoes and mass extinction events (having referenced the Deccan Traps and Siberian Traps in other discussions. 

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/11/201110133152.htm#:~:text=The largest mass extinction occurred,marine animals such as mollusks.

There is a virtually zero chance of a nuclear event triggering volcanic eruptions, FYI, and you cannot turn any mountain into a volcano with nukes. 

... 

Let's try to dispel the nuclear winter thing. 

First off, when you decide to use a weapon - you want to get the maximum effect desired from it.  There is a reason for the analog to KT of TNT - because functionally it's just a bomb, like any other bomb, and we use bombs to destroy or damage targets.  Bombs do this by exploding and the shockwaves through the earth or the air transmit the force to the target. I'm going to skip a whole lot of explanation, but basically there are three 'altitudes' you kick off the bomb for specific effects. 

• Generally, most will be detonated well above the surface (fireball gets close to the surface or just kisses it) in order to damage or destroy the widest possible area around the target.  This leaves virtually no, or a very small crater, but maximizes damage to buildings and other surface installations.  Not a whole lot of material gets pulled into the atmosphere for the vast majority of the bombs thrown. 
• At certain places, planners decide to detonate the bomb at either subsurface / surface primarily to target subterranean facilities or hardened targets.  This will have a fairly large crater, but the affected area will be very localized around the impact zone.  These are the ones that have the highest probability of displacing material into the atmosphere.  Most of it will be heavy and will drop locally - but some will reach the stratosphere and spread. Again - the surface /subsurface detonated bomb is specifically targeted, thus not general or common. 
• Finally a few will be detonated high in the air for the EMP effect - which leaves no crater at all, and displaces no material into the atmosphere. These are done high enough that users don't need a whole lot of them to saturate the enemy country. 

So most bombs are not going to be creating deep craters or dragging tons of material into the stratosphere.   Even the ones that do... Won't bring that much up, compared to what volcanoes do. 

You can Google Map search for the Nevada test site and see scores of craters left from near surface detonations and try to estimate how much material they displaced - and then compare that number to the five cubic kilometers of material lofted by Pinatubo. 

 

https://www.google.com/amp/s/eos.org/articles/pinatubo-25-years-later-eight-ways-the-eruption-broke-ground

 

Certainly Pinatubo caused some cooling... But it didn't cause a year without summer. 

 

 

[magnemoe]

1 hour ago, JoeSchmuckatelli said:

I read his writing differently: he's clearly aware of supervolcanoes and mass extinction events (having referenced the Deccan Traps and Siberian Traps in other discussions. 

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/11/201110133152.htm#:~:text=The largest mass extinction occurred,marine animals such as mollusks.

There is a virtually zero chance of a nuclear event triggering volcanic eruptions, FYI, and you cannot turn any mountain into a volcano with nukes. 

... 

Let's try to dispel the nuclear winter thing. 

First off, when you decide to use a weapon - you want to get the maximum effect desired from it.  There is a reason for the analog to KT of TNT - because functionally it's just a bomb, like any other bomb, and we use bombs to destroy or damage targets.  Bombs do this by exploding and the shockwaves through the earth or the air transmit the force to the target. I'm going to skip a whole lot of explanation, but basically there are three 'altitudes' you kick off the bomb for specific effects. 

• Generally, most will be detonated well above the surface (fireball gets close to the surface or just kisses it) in order to damage or destroy the widest possible area around the target.  This leaves virtually no, or a very small crater, but maximizes damage to buildings and other surface installations.  Not a whole lot of material gets pulled into the atmosphere for the vast majority of the bombs thrown. 
• At certain places, planners decide to detonate the bomb at either subsurface / surface primarily to target subterranean facilities or hardened targets.  This will have a fairly large crater, but the affected area will be very localized around the impact zone.  These are the ones that have the highest probability of displacing material into the atmosphere.  Most of it will be heavy and will drop locally - but some will reach the stratosphere and spread. Again - the surface /subsurface detonated bomb is specifically targeted, thus not general or common. 
• Finally a few will be detonated high in the air for the EMP effect - which leaves no crater at all, and displaces no material into the atmosphere. These are done high enough that users don't need a whole lot of them to saturate the enemy country. 

So most bombs are not going to be creating deep craters or dragging tons of material into the stratosphere.   Even the ones that do... Won't bring that much up, compared to what volcanoes do. 

You can Google Map search for the Nevada test site and see scores of craters left from near surface detonations and try to estimate how much material they displaced - and then compare that number to the five cubic kilometers of material lofted by Pinatubo. 

 

https://www.google.com/amp/s/eos.org/articles/pinatubo-25-years-later-eight-ways-the-eruption-broke-ground

 

Certainly Pinatubo caused some cooling... But it didn't cause a year without summer. 

Agree here, now probably most nukes would be used to take out other missiles, these would be ground bursts but blast would be 100-500 kt. Higher payloads = older missiles with lesser accuracy and  fewer but larger warheads.
It has been some multi megaton warheads designed to destroy very heavy dug in bases like Cheyenne Mountain but this is rare. 

Now you could probably use these sort of nukes to try to trigger an volcano by hitting it hard enough but this is not something you help your war effort much, you rater want to take out command centers and as this is silo launched missiles you want to launch them fast as the enemy will be targeting them and as these targets is likely to have ABM you want multiple missiles.

Also the US did not nuke Tokyo at the end of WW 2 as they wanted some who could surrender, and they burned most of it earlier. 

[Spacescifi]

 

I think I saw it publicized that if you nuked an earthquake fault line you could trigger earthquakes or a volcano eruption.

 

Of course even if you could, I reckon managing to hit just the right spot when more obvious targets are available would make it an unlikely target.

 

Arguably the most lethal thing around are the nuke toting subs.... since the world could burn to the ground and they would STILL be around to finish the war.... or what's left of it anyway.

[SunlitZelkova]

3 hours ago, JoeSchmuckatelli said:

I read his writing differently: he's clearly aware of supervolcanoes and mass extinction events (having referenced the Deccan Traps and Siberian Traps in other discussions. 

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/11/201110133152.htm#:~:text=The largest mass extinction occurred,marine animals such as mollusks.

There is a virtually zero chance of a nuclear event triggering volcanic eruptions, FYI, and you cannot turn any mountain into a volcano with nukes. 

... 

Let's try to dispel the nuclear winter thing. 

First off, when you decide to use a weapon - you want to get the maximum effect desired from it.  There is a reason for the analog to KT of TNT - because functionally it's just a bomb, like any other bomb, and we use bombs to destroy or damage targets.  Bombs do this by exploding and the shockwaves through the earth or the air transmit the force to the target. I'm going to skip a whole lot of explanation, but basically there are three 'altitudes' you kick off the bomb for specific effects. 

• Generally, most will be detonated well above the surface (fireball gets close to the surface or just kisses it) in order to damage or destroy the widest possible area around the target.  This leaves virtually no, or a very small crater, but maximizes damage to buildings and other surface installations.  Not a whole lot of material gets pulled into the atmosphere for the vast majority of the bombs thrown. 
• At certain places, planners decide to detonate the bomb at either subsurface / surface primarily to target subterranean facilities or hardened targets.  This will have a fairly large crater, but the affected area will be very localized around the impact zone.  These are the ones that have the highest probability of displacing material into the atmosphere.  Most of it will be heavy and will drop locally - but some will reach the stratosphere and spread. Again - the surface /subsurface detonated bomb is specifically targeted, thus not general or common. 
• Finally a few will be detonated high in the air for the EMP effect - which leaves no crater at all, and displaces no material into the atmosphere. These are done high enough that users don't need a whole lot of them to saturate the enemy country. 

So most bombs are not going to be creating deep craters or dragging tons of material into the stratosphere.   Even the ones that do... Won't bring that much up, compared to what volcanoes do. 

You can Google Map search for the Nevada test site and see scores of craters left from near surface detonations and try to estimate how much material they displaced - and then compare that number to the five cubic kilometers of material lofted by Pinatubo. 

 

https://www.google.com/amp/s/eos.org/articles/pinatubo-25-years-later-eight-ways-the-eruption-broke-ground

 

Certainly Pinatubo caused some cooling... But it didn't cause a year without summer. 

 

 

The nuclear winter thing doesn't come from ground bursts against siloes and bunkers. It primarily comes from the fires that burn in cities afterwards.

That said, there is a decent amount of evidence pointing against it- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_winter#Kuwait_wells_in_the_first_Gulf_War

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

1 hour ago, magnemoe said:

try to trigger an volcano by hitting it hard enough

That's not how volcanoes work - the lava isn't kept down because it's corked... It's corked (or rather, crusted over) because the lava/magma is quiescent or has retreated.  When the subterranean circumstances are just right - the volcano is going to blow (or ooze) regardless of what is going on at the surface; like water, it will find a way. 

So if you could pop the top of a volcano, the best you can hope for is an exposed lava lake... Not something exciting.  That is reserved to the earth itself. 

Edited March 12, 2022 by JoeSchmuckatelli

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

23 minutes ago, Spacescifi said:

 

I think I saw it publicized that if you nuked an earthquake fault line you could trigger earthquakes or a volcano eruption.

 

Of course even if you could, I reckon managing to hit just the right spot when more obvious targets are available would make it an unlikely target.

 

Arguably the most lethal thing around are the nuke toting subs.... since the world could burn to the ground and they would STILL be around to finish the war.... or what's left of it anyway.

There was a whole lot of PopSci speculation way back when... Mostly fear mongering speculation. 

The subsurface nuclear explosion does have a measurable seismic signature, but to my knowledge no detonation has triggered any secondary earthquake along any fault. 

 

Like volcanoes - faults aren't just waiting for us to jolt them for all hell to break loose.  They are expressions of massive processes that need to have the 'just right' combination of factors to do something exciting. 

Think about this - we currently cannot predict either earthquakes or eruptions (outside of a few hours or days for some volcanoes).  If you had the tech to perfectly predict where an earthquake was likely - given a buildup of pressure in a specific part of a strike slip fault or something - you could (maybe) target it to get it to go off when you want it to, as opposed to sometime randomly...but would that knowledge coincide with the political situation for which you want to launch the nukes? 

 

Also - what are you getting for that?  A 3.2?  A 6.4?

 

No guarantee that you will get an 8... And even if you could the fact that humans are engaged in a global nuclear war would still be the headline 

[Snark]

Some content has been removed.  For the third time, please avoid politics, folks.  Do not post political content, and if someone else does, do not respond to it.

Thank you for your understanding.

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

Mea Culpa: I was one of those who inadvertently wandered away from the theoretical.

 

 

[Arugela]

On 3/10/2022 at 9:12 AM, tater said:

The video is a weaksauce version of what I fully expected my entire childhood.

Unsure why it is spread over so very many hours unless modern forces are concerned about missile fratricide.

 

Well, we are down to 14k nukes from 90k or so at it's peak. Or something like that. The old numbers were probably bigger.

[tater]

5 hours ago, Arugela said:

Well, we are down to 14k nukes from 90k or so at it's peak. Or something like that. The old numbers were probably bigger.

That's a plus!

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

7 hours ago, Arugela said:

Well, we are down to 14k nukes from 90k or so at it's peak. Or something like that. The old numbers were probably bigger.

 

2 hours ago, tater said:

That's a plus!

Also - when looking at the broad number of warheads; don't default to thinking they're all on ICBMs waiting to kill cities.  A whole bunch have been reserved for local and short-range tactical use.

Quote

The United States and Russia still actively deploy 230 and 2,000 tactical nuclear weapons respectively—arsenals that are not regulated by treaty, unlike strategic nuclear weapons.

...

The term “tactical” implies shorter-range, less destructive, and more “useable” weapons intended for striking battlefield targets and forward bases in sparsely or unpopulated areas, not wiping out cities, factories and power plants across the globe

However:

Quote

Russia has developed more precise, longer-range dual-capable missiles which can be used to deliver either a conventional or nuclear warhead, creating dangerous ambiguity

Russia Has A Massive Stockpile of 'Tactical' Nuclear Weapons - 19FortyFive

 

So... perhaps not has 'calming' as one might think.  But depending upon where you are in the world (i.e. some place like Pucallpa, Peru or Mbahiakro, Cote d'Ivoire) this might be more or less comforting.

[Arugela]

8 minutes ago, JoeSchmuckatelli said:

 

Also - when looking at the broad number of warheads; don't default to thinking they're all on ICBMs waiting to kill cities.  A whole bunch have been reserved for local and short-range tactical use.

However:

Russia Has A Massive Stockpile of 'Tactical' Nuclear Weapons - 19FortyFive

 

So... perhaps not has 'calming' as one might think.  But depending upon where you are in the world (i.e. some place like Pucallpa, Peru or Mbahiakro, Cote d'Ivoire) this might be more or less comforting.

Yea, I think russia only have like 700 something actual ballistic missiles. But I assume some of them or more are mirvs with a bunch of warheads. I think some of the counts are total warheads and not just missiles. The rest are a lot of in storage nukes or something. Not sure on the details. But that is what stuff I was reading sounds like.

The only downside to less missiles is the safer a nuclear exhange appears to be for a single country the more likey a small scale nuclear exchange is. Which could lead to problems or a larger exchange. So the large missile might make 0 exchanges happen. Where smaller numbers might make it seem like a better idea and lead to a higher chance of actual use.

Edited March 17, 2022 by Arugela

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

1 hour ago, Arugela said:

the safer a nuclear exhange appears to be for a single country the more likey a small scale nuclear exchange is

This is actually my greatest secret fear.

Once that box is opened...

 

I cannot forget that humanity's ability to be horrible to one another is not always deterred by our abhorrence of that trait.  We also have the ability to justify pretty much anything to ourselves; regardless of the ultimate cost.  Dresden and Tokyo were 'conventional' while Hiroshima and Nagasaki were novel and, sadly, convenient.  We have a history that shows our capacity w/o the use of nuclear weapons; and the only thing holding us back is willpower. 

I hate to admit to myself - but in some ways its simply a matter of time before something stupid happens.

Edited March 17, 2022 by JoeSchmuckatelli

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

Edit:  

I go back to a phrase I read long ago, attributed to Ambrose Bierce: "War is the untying of a political knot with the teeth, that would not yield to the tongue."

I firmly hope that we continue to be able to find political solutions to our problems that don't require that particular tooth.

[DDE]

2 hours ago, Arugela said:

Yea, I think russia only have like 700 something actual ballistic missiles. But I assume some of them or more are mirvs with a bunch of warheads. I think some of the counts are total warheads and not just missiles. The rest are a lot of in storage nukes or something. Not sure on the details. But that is what stuff I was reading sounds like.

[steve9728]

Instead of discussing the crisis of a possible nuclear war in the future, we already have a nuclear safety crisis at hand: a powerful earthquake measuring 7.4 on the Richter scale struck the waters off Fukushima, Japan, on the 16th of this month.  Given the history of the earthquake that affected the Fukushima nuclear power plant 11 years ago,and by delaying and withholding information, TEPCO made a Level 3 nuclear accident into Level 7. It is reasonable to assume that we are facing a considerable threat of nuclear contamination.

And because of ocean currents, if a nuclear facility on the east coast of Japan were to be affected and cause a nuclear leak, East Asia will not be the first place to be affected.