Who could effectively win in a nuclear war. US or Russia.

Originally posted by Karl Toussaint
true but nukes have fail safes we haves mislle defense systems and so do they. if contact is made between the two they will explode harmlesely. who will be able to actually hit the other if need arises. we have technology that they dont know about but they also have soome we dont know about. are systems are better but they have more mobile missles not as accurate but still deadly. there are other ways of shotting down missles like lasers, microwaves, and o ther directed ebergy weapons. so if there is 100,000 nukes in the world and all but i think is 6 are not owned by either of the two superpowers there could be 1000 nukes fired and all of them could be downed. we also have stealth bombers but to believe that russia does not have their own stealth program up and running with 1 plane in working order or close to being in working order we are kidding are seleves. russia is very good with keeping secrets and they are allowed to use better interrogation techiiches to get the info they want from our spys.

Gee, how many 10 megaton hydrogen warheads going off would it take to convince you that nobody would win an atomic war?

Originally posted by Thomas Crowne
Fred, the myth of a dead earth after nuclear warfare is exactly that - a myth. It was perpetuated by the liberals who didn't even want to attempt to try and stand up to Soviet aggression.

Still, while all that Nuclear Winter crap is nothing more than junk science, it would take several weeks to determine a "winner" after any sizeable nuclear exchange. On top of that, consider what will become of the world economy after such a war. That is something I never hear anyone mention, but it is a serious factor to be considered.

My God! Do you have no concept of what a couple of thousand nuclear bombs going off would do to the planet? Look at what a plutonium LEAK did at Chernobyl! Everything a hundered miles out will not be habitable to humans for 30,000 years. I wouldn't be too worried about the economy, because once you breath in a molecule of plutonium, you will be dead in a few hours. sheesh. What are your credentials or sources to state that nuclear winter is "junk science"? Please contribute more to the discussion than uninformed opinions please.

^^^
Amen..I was jsut going to bring up the example of chernobyl..
And all this one the Hiroshima anniversary week..
Extremely distasteful..

Uh, yes, I do have a bit of a concept, and I'm also aware that your numbers are not at all realistic. I have a bit of working knowledge nuclear warfare, and also know the difference between a nuclear excahnge and a powerplant incident.

Personally, I'm much more concerned about biological warfare. I have very little working knowledge of it, which might increase my concerns, but I see it as something that is usable by nations, terrorist organizations and the NWO for population-thinning.

Yeah, distateful that they still didn't surrender and another bomb had to be dropped in order to save hundreds of thousands of lives between both of the countries.
What is funny is that you folk want to talk about the use of the bomb with today's knowledge at your finger tips. Not that it would have been prudent to invade Japan rather than drop the bombs, but the bombs were still not completely understood then.

TC is dead right on his last point, about biological warfare being far and away a greater concern.
I would honestly and confidently bet a substantial part of my meager savings that given a week in the library I could easily find out how to cultivate mycotoxins on a wheat crop, and probably even what to mix them with to make them better airborne. Mix with DMSO and it can be asborbed through the skin.
A whole major city with Gulf War Syndrome- sound fun?

Much worse than Nuclear Weapons in my opinion because any half educated jerk can learn about them and even grow the components legally and fairly easily- because it's just a natural, probably legal and only somewhat dangerous mold until you process it right.

That's not even to bring up nationalized bio weapons programs. Now we're talking about REAL weapons- engineered for maximum spread and communicability. The belligerents in a strategic war know the truth about the effects of their weapons. If they don't feel it's enough, who says they won't finish it off with biological for a real scorched earth?

Originally posted by Thomas Crowne
Fred, the myth of a dead earth after nuclear warfare is exactly that - a myth. It was perpetuated by the liberals who didn't even want to attempt to try and stand up to Soviet aggression.

Hmmmm, a limited exchange I would have to agree but an all out one? Even with the Peacekeep force standing down that is alot of dust and fallout

The economy would be pretty much shot and would be strictly a local phenominon. Cities that were not hit would be the worst off (no power, no supplies, no broadband) and someone with a farm away from silos would be far better off.

bio is tricky to get done correct unless its government or big business funding you, you can make bio agents but the quality and quanitity will be limited.

A full out "war games" nuclear exchange just hope you live in the mountains far away from bases , gov and cities lets just say its called mad for a reason. I have charted fallout and down wind hazards lets say it would be very ugly hope you have tons and tons of mres stored up.

I THINK america would win, as they now got more missles than russia, also I think they could get first stricke too, wipeing out half of there arsenal.
This is all my opinion so no flaming

There is a big difference to the radiation that leaked out of the explosion at Chernobyl (and spread all over prypiat) and that from a nuclear explosion.


Basically , radiation in the from of iodine-131 , strontium-90, cesium-137 and some plutonium were released (around 7 billion curies) from chernobyl , and whilst the world was focusing on the effects of the short term iodine-131 , far more strontium and cesium were released , which is far longer acting.

The human body cannot distinguish between cesium and potassium , and so is taken up by the body and absorbed by cells.


Unlike a `bomb` this radiation continued to leak into the environment for considerable time - the core was still operating , but wide open.

Whereas with a `bomb` , you get the flash and bang , and thats about it - the effects are over in a short time - microseconds , not hours.

And so , although similar types of radiation are a by product , the amount is less in a `bomb`

Perhap's nuclear delivery and detonation systems have changed from the obvious air launch, to 'suitcase' type weapons brought into a suspected terrorist boring country and set ready for detonation at strategic locations inside the target area.

Perhap's the open launch is something of the past and personal 'no-name' models are the future?

Dallas

No ones mentions second strikes from SUBS that would follow weeks or months later after a nuke war, also chemical and biological on top of those and i think everyone looses no matter where you are, all soil would be irradiated or chemical or bio attacked city's and oceans too, only 1 safe place would either be deep deep down in earth ground live huge underground cave city's or something OR under sea bases if we built such bases or city's.

[edit on 8-8-2005 by blobby]

Actually, Subs aren't particularly intended for a late strike as far as I know. The beauty of subs, especially with nuclear-armed cruise missiles, is the ability to strike first with very little warning. I tend to think that we'd fire as many of those as we could as early as we could, in hopes of eliminating enemy missiles before they could be launched.

Now here is a question about missile defense that puzzles me a bit. The idea of using nukes to shoot down nukes is anything but new, and it would work. The only problem is the fallout. Why haven't we deployed such systems at sea on a submarine platform? We've got the tracking technology for earlier intercept- why not design a system to use this technology during the ascent or at the apex of an ICBM's flight. Fallout over the ocean, over the pole, or maybe even over the enemy- still not good for the world, but a heck of a lot better than over our own territory. Not only that, but the nukes which are designed to target nukes can be a heck of a lot smaller than the warheads they target, so you get a total reduction in fallout.
Anyone know off the top of their head why such a thing might not be possible?
(and before you bring up the possibility of the defense being sunk, not only is it better than nothing, but we could have a policy of launching at the first sign of such an attempt).

The safeguard complex protecting Grand Forks was the USA`s only operational ABM system.

srmsc.org...

The exo atmospheric interceptor `Spartan` - had anything but a small warhead - it was around 5 MT , and was also of the `enhanced radiation` type - X-Ray enhanced ; www.globalsecurity.org...

The russians still have a comparable system.

[edit on 8-8-2005 by Harlequin]

I'm aware of safeguard (learned about it on one of the Sundance Channel's propaganda reels the other day). What I'm saying is that nolonger being bound by the treaty which formerly restricted each superpower to only one local system, and having the technological advantages we now have (being almost capable of it to kill, but not quite) It seems that a more advanced system of the same type is plausible and probably should be under development (not from a moral standpoint- I'm just saying it's hard to imagine that one wouldn't be).

during the tests , Sprint accuracy had to be `detuned` as in early tests it was actually hitting the target - instead of reaching the lethal area!


I forgot to mention in a previous post:

The main reason why Chernobyl is more dangerous than a `bomb` is quite simple: it is estimated that in the core there was around 190 TONS of fissable material - which is somewhat more than the ~ 2 tons for a heavy lift ICBM warhead (which will be the entire package not just fissable material!!)

Then my point becomes all the more clear- why aren't we employing this technology to destroy missiles over enemy territory, especially considering that the system we're building in Alaska right now tends to miss even in easy scenarios?

a good question ; BUT ,

if a country knew , that its ICBM`s would shot down over there own territory , then IMO it would look for other methods of delivering them - on container ships (for example).


I`ve been working some numbers: In My Opinion - it takes only 20 warheads to kill the usa.

why?

20 strikes on nuclear power stations and the entire country would be covered in fallout and be unuseable for hundreds of years.

What people tend to forget is that there is no such thing as limited nuke exchange between 2 countries it ether fire them all or don’t fire them at all and if some decides to push the big red button its going to bring whole world to a nuclear ware it will not be limited to just two countries.

Because you need to inflict as much damage as possible to all your enemies to have any hope of rising from ashes even a shadow of the power you are.

Originally posted by Harlequin
a good question ; BUT ,

if a country knew , that its ICBM`s would shot down over there own territory , then IMO it would look for other methods of delivering them - on container ships (for example).

True enough, but then any possibility of a miscalculation about the fact that the America's deterrent will survive and the belligerent will suffer retaliation goes right out the window. Nuclear war is all about deterrence afterall.