Can someone explain the world effects if a Nuke was used on New York?

Originally posted by lilblam SkepticOverlord, is this site hosted at your house?

No. The server is in Texas. And why Manhattan! ... it's the best place on earth to live man!

We are assuming here that the nuke will be dropped from the air in the same way that the A-Bombs were dropped on Japan. The only way that would happen is if a terrorist was able to get a nuke in a plane and detonate it from from above NY.

I think that if NY is nuked, it would be a land-based device smuggled into the city itself. The results, therefore would be different (assumedly) to what happened in Japan.

[Edited on 7-1-2004 by ThePook]

That was the gist of my last post. A ground based blast would be much smaller.

Ok so let's assume an atomic bomb is dropped in NYC somewhere. Now, they have much bigger bombs than the Hiroshima (measured in kilotons).. I think like 10 times more powerful, if not 100. But either way, the devastation will be really huge. Now, there are 2 things that will follow. The immadiate distruction/chaos/panic effects, and what follows afterwards. It's a given that it'll be a shock to everyone in the world, despite all the warnings.

So the blast it self kills millions, destroys NYC physically, and also sends waves of dread/panic throughout the nation. I'd expect martial law to be declared on television within minutes, as the country goes to red alert kind of state. We hear nuclear alarms going off all over the country. People who still have fallout shelters panic, and go into them and turn on their old 60's TV's in there and listen up The military will be on the scene in minutes, quaranteeing NYC and any survivors as they are now radioactive. They might not ever be let out of quarantine, as you cannot cure radiation, right? The survivors won't be allowed any other human contact after this.. might as well be dead. Armed military personnel, helicopters, and military planes will be ALL over the country and EVERYONE will be ordered to stay where they are. We will all be prompted to not panic, and because we are officially in martial law, we will be ordered to stand by for further orders from the government. Don't forget, martial law means government is given ABSOLUTE dictotorship-like powers... no questions asked. The constitution is instantly scrapped also. Including the rest of our rights, whatever was left of them anyway

As martial law is announced, Americans will expect some sort of retaliation, and they don't care really who we kill. The thing is, after such an attack, we're not allowed to NOT know who did it and not attack someone back - even if we truly don't know... just like after 9/11 we WILL attack someone, most likely a scape goat that had nothing to do with the attack like Syria or Iran to appease the revengeful state of mind in all of the American sheeple who just want blood, and don't care whose it is. The stock market probably will crash, the economy will basically get destroyed, again, this is an emergency don't forget!

The rest of the world will look on in shock. Britain, France, and possibly a few other nations will either also declare martial law or at least militarize themselves and be on national high alert status and be ready for anything. I would suspect that they just stand back and watch as America decimates the middle east and anything else they choose. Of course, THAT would be the time when we find out that the middle east DOES indeed have WMD's and they will be launched/used either against us or the nearest ally like Britain or something. That will be a great time to test our missile defense system, and see how well it can block incoming attacks. Maybe we have laser-guided sattelite defense system.. sattelite just blasts the missile with a laser and it blows up before it even crosses the ocean. We'll see. If not, I suggest we DIG our own nuclear fallout shelter QUICK

After that, I'd expect something like WWIII to occur, and basically martial law will be here indefinitely... probably until the war is over.. which will leave only a few survivors at best. The government will fight and make up excuses why martial law is necessary.. and no one will even be able to say/do anything against it.. they will be shot on sight like in Nazi Germany.

I will be walking around on the street carrying a big sign that says "Welcome to the End Times! Please make yourselves at home, and as comfortable as you can. Enjoy the Ride!". Well not really, but I expect this condition in our world to occur VERY soon based on the crap we're in at the moment and other evidence.

Look at Denver Airport murals... this is basically what the government wants, and plans. They reveal themselves openly in the murals but interestingly enough it's not a huge scandal. Oh well. It's just art, right?

These are all assuming a military attack (where the bomb is actually exploded in the air to increase the radius of destruction).

Terrorists would need a mode of delivery. A missile or a jet. You can't just pack a suitcase with a nuclear bomb and then explode it. ESPECIALLY not a 25 megaton bomb, unless you've really been working out.

I would say the chances of a nuclear facility going meltdown is far greater than the chances of a nuclear bomb on mainland America.

Also, nuclear bombs are waaaay expensive. Check Ebay.

If it DID happen, I wouldn't even want to think about the effects. Look at Hiroshima, they're STILL feeling the radiation effects.



jakomo



[Edited on 7-1-2004 by Jakomo]

cgi.ebay.com...

I found an atomic bomb on eBay for only $300.00
without tax that is. Oh and I think that's without shipping also.. but I'm not sure. Quick someone bid, starting bid is $250.00. We can nuke them first!

Ok I have reason to believe that this MIGHT be only a picture with signatures. But ya never know!

Edit: I was hoping it was a picture of the BOMB they are selling, and the BOMB has signatures on it! Damnit I was fooled once again. It's not easy to fool me, so props to the extremely genius seller. What a trick! I was about to buy it thinking it's a nuclear bomb too... whew.. lucky I am as smart as I am..

[Edited on 7-1-2004 by lilblam]

I actually am a physicist but not a nuclear one.

I think it is very unlikely that terrorists could get a bomb greater than 10-15 kilotons. Unless Pakistan were to actually give them one of their better bombs.

Above that, you need fairly high technology. Terrorists could not make them on their own.

The two key technologies:

A) tritium boosting in the primary. This is simple, but getting tritium is hard, and unlike Plutonium and Uranium it decays, 1/2 life 11 years. So presumably if they got bombs from the breakup of the USSR then the tritium would be decayed.

B) thermonuclear secondaries. this is what you need for big explosions, say 100 kilotons and above, unless you have a physically monster fission bomb which is very unlikely for a terrorist---requires too much fissile material. It is not easy to design a thermonuclear bomb correctly. There are very stringent material and computational requirements. These can only be manufactured professionally. One key criterion is a highly efficient and optically "clear" fission primary, which requires tritium boosting.

The USSR and Russia are pretty careful with their *strategic*, i.e. thermonuclear missile and air-drop weapons. The danger is in the smaller tactial weapons which are probably fission only. It would actually be better (for us) if the terrorists stole a modern one as that would mean that it is probably tritium boosted, and hence would require frequent maintenance and tritium replenishment which the terrorists would not be able to do easily.

But tritium boosting is not necessary, and possibly the Russians (and US but the US dismantled them and re-used them already) made tactical warheads without tritium for the very reason that they wouldn't need maintenance. If these are sititng in a shed somehwere, it would really sucketh.

As opposed to Hiroshima, which is an airdrop, the radius of destruction given the same kilotonage would be lowered, but the amount of fallout would be SIGNIFICANTLY greater. Fallout can KILL. In Hiroshima & Nagasaki, the fallout was essentially only the radioactive remnants of the bomb itself. Yes this gets radioactive enough that even a little dust spread out over huge clouds is deadly.

In a ground burst, the initial surge of neutron radiation is so intense that it causes additional transmutation (especially if you have heavy metals like in a city, e.g.) of the ground stuff into new radioactive material.

In terms of causing terrorist panic, loss of life, and economic damage and denial, then a ground burst would be worse for us, and better for the terrorists. If they can bring it in a truck or ship and wrap it with something which absorbs neutrons and turns into something particularly nasty, maybe cobalt, it could be really really bad.

Note though that we should not compare necessarily to Chernobyl. the amount of fallout from Chernobyl was, in quantity, much larger than a single nuclear weapon. On the other hand, Chernobyl's reactor was not in the middle of a densely populated city---if it were (idiotically) the fallout danger would have been catastrophic.

Hey wow, good info!

Fear of the unknown is worse than fear of the known.

What is the purpose of this thread?

does someone have contacts that they are feeding?

we could have launched stuff into orbit with each blast! What is the purpose of this thread? Maybe to correct someones illusion about survivingin that concrete building at Hiroshima!

[Edited on 24-1-2004 by tr]

the fall out would either blow inland or out to sea. hopefully out to sea. and as for the ecmnomic status i have no #ing clue.

So the fallout would be like a really bad case of sunburn? Would SPF 1,000,000 do the trick?