I cant remember what forum i was on, but there was a link posted to this laboratories website that showed a map and you can put the epicenter and it goes through the different bomb sizes and shows the damage path. It was interesting and my gf is wanting to see it. anyone remember?

 

post pix of GF please...

http://fas.org/programs/ssp/nukes/nu...effctcalc.html

 

The Little Boy bomb dropped on Hiroshima was about 13 kt

 

Never saw this before, pretty cool model. Might mean nothing, but anyone think there's a reason NY isn't on the list of example cities?

 

There is another model out there that allows you to use Google Maps.

Frankly I think it's a little irrelevant. The Tsar Bomb was the biggest ever detonated (100 mega tons), that was in the 1960's. If you set it off over Alcatraz it would wipe out everything from Marin to Gilroy... and we have gotten MUCH better at building nukes in the last 40 years.
The energy they can release now is so massive they can wipe out any population center at will

 

100 mega tons for the tsar bomb, you're right, but the test made by the russians was 50 MT in fact.

 

That's pretty interesting how much of a difference it makes when it is delivered via automobile vs aircraft.

 

Yeah for some reason it's way better to detonate up in the air instead of on the ground. If anyone could explain, i'd like to know why.

 

"The principal military advantage of an air burst over a ground burst is that the energy from the explosion (as well as any shell fragments) is distributed more evenly over a wider area; however, the peak energy is lower."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_burst

 

More pertinent from that wiki

I would think, also that air burst would provide more "fuel" for the fission or fusion reaction.

 

Nah, you're not burning anything in a nuclear detonation. There's a conventional explosive used to bring the fissile material together into a critical assembly and keep it there long enough to get your reaction going. But it doesn't need or use anything that's not inside the bomb casing when it arrives.

 

This is why I am not a scientist.

 

Actually modern warhead yields are a lot lower, because nobody needs a giant bomb nowadays. Those gigantor bombs were built for a couple of reasons: cold-war saber rattling, and crappy missile accuracy. But they were bigger, trickier to build and more expensive.

Missiles of the day couldn't be relied upon to hit their targets accurately. If you think you'll miss, use a bigger warhead so it doesn't matter so much. Modern delivery systems are reckoned much, much more accurate. So they use smaller warheads.

The Tsar Bomba was an air-dropped giant. It was far too big and heavy to be mounted to a missile. Anything with that yield would need to be carried by a clumsy slow-moving bomber deep into enemy territory. A propaganda device rather than a serious deployment prospect.

 

Also, most latter day nukes were MIRVs instead of a single warhead.