Animation: Effects of dropping a "Bunker Buster" Nuke

http://www.ucsusa.org/global_security/nuclear_weapons/nuclear-bunker-buster-rnep-animation.html

So very true.

Nuclear fallout reaching Afghanistan, Pakistan, and India? I'm sure that's what the powers-that-be want. All ya gotta do is say "oops" and now we weaken a future potential threat without them doing anything back.

- N

so yes if a 1 megaton weapon used on a NUCLEAR facility could cause that much damage depending on the winds thats kind of a worst case scenario though.

like a straw in a tornado going through the soft spot on an infants head.

I dobut we would use a 1 megaton warhead something more like 25 kiloton AND we wouldnt drop it on a nuclear site.

hitting tunnel entrances isnt an option either it would easily be repaired. And would be just as difficult to locate as the bunkers.


http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/873336/posts

"Saddam 's most lavish and well-equipped bunker is said to be buried 90 metres underneath the main presidential palace in Baghdad ." SLIGHTLY less then 1000 feet lol

the bunker COULD be 1000ft deep but most arent.


i agree with not knowing where the bunkers are thats about it the rest of this is horribly one sided spin. Even those with limited critical thinking ability can see the many flaws in that presentation.

Like most accademic no idea of real military employment of weapon systems, in open publications I already know of conventional systems that can penetrate that far into the ground, as for targeting there are several ground penetrating radar systems that would be capable of handeling the task, and if the nuclear option was used the detonation point would be below the leval of the target chamber to assure total destruction and seal the sight from radiation leakage, this has been achieved in many atomic test through the years. even in conventinal weapons the scenario would be very similar.

The Hiroshima Bomb was somewhere between 13 and 16 kilotons. The whole ecosystem in that area is fucked up and dying. Under the assumption that a bunker bomb can really get some depth with a nuclear warhead (mind you I would want to see evidence of this), is it 100% guaranteed that radiation won't negatively impact life on the surface and is it guaranteed that the warhead will exclusively go off deep underground?

There's shit underground that's also part of the ecosystem BTW. Nukes in any way or form are a STUPID idea because they destroy life long after the blast and for longer than our lifetimes.

I am sure there are alternatives that aren't poisonous long term.

Actually the only reason the ecosystem is screwed up where the 1945 hiroshima bomb hit is because it is in the middle of a freaking city.

I disagree that it is the only reason...

True enough. Its also Japan, a chain of islands where man has been systematically wiping out all but a handful of plants and animals for the last two thousand years. If it wasn't farmable, it went out the door. Now, with the massive importation of food from overseas, even the domesticated stuff is beginning to go. To make room for, guess what, more people.

Now lets get something straight about radiation. Most radiation produced by bombs is in the form of a single massive flash of radiation that is there, screws up or flash-fries anything in range, and is then gone forever. Residual radioactive particals, usually some dust consisting of what little fissionable material in the bomb wasn't spent, is usually pretty minor. The stuff generally has a short half life and is at safe levels of radiation in a period from hours to weeks. Residual radiation becomes more pronounced with obscenely big bombs like America's Bravo or Russia's Tsar Bomba. Most nukes in existence are actually pretty small though, being designed to hit individual strategic targets and not whole cities though. In recent decades, we have also been getting better at making more efficient bombs. These need less radioactive fuel for the same amount of 'bang' and thus cause less residual radiation.

If you actually want to cause a massive amount of suffering, rather than sniping an individual target, you use what is called a Salted Bomb... though all nations have so far been ethical enough not to significantly research, test, or produce these.

FYI: Just to tell you how much scale matters, the fifty megaton Tsar Bomba released 25% of all fallout emitted since the invention of nuclear weapons. On top of the two nukes actually used in WW2, about 2000 were used globally in regular testing to date. About 30 times on american soil and about 150 in the former USSR, the rest on islands and the like at the ass end of the world.

Yep the fallout doesn't last forever and Japan has done "wonders" to their agriculture in Hiroshima. What doesn't however happen is a 'flash' and all the radiation damage goes away.

Genetic damage to bacteria, viruses, worms, birds, plants, etc. can persist and fuck up healthy variations during reproduction. The long term result is death death death.

With all that testing going on, we've seen increases in volcanic and seizmic activity and all we need is for one of those tests to set off a massive erruption like Yellowstone (that would obliterate 3/4 of the U.S. right there).

Consequently, the U.S. was trying to conduct some serious fallout studies and it was politically nixed. Any way I look at it, Nukes are a bad choice and I don't stand alone in this assertion. Some notable figures have said some interesting things on the subject:

"We have yet to fully grasp the monstrous effects of these weapons, that the consequences of their use defy reason, transcending time and space, poisoning the earth and deforming its inhabitants."(1)

-- General Lee Butler, former head of U.S. Strategic Command, December 4, 1996

"The destructive power of nuclear weapons cannot be contained in either space or time. They have the potential to destroy all civilization and the entire ecosystem of the planet."(2)

--International Court of Justice, July 8, 1996

Genetic damage tends to go away after a dozen or so generations for most plant and animal species. Critters with scrambled genes more often or not die, are unable to breed, are or have their offspring outcompeted by unaffected examples of the species, or are so slightly altered that nobody would notice without a full DNA workup. On top of that, we aren't talking about nature preserves being bombed here. We are talking about the heart of a city... one place where ecological balance basically doesn't exist and the foodchain consists of dumpsters and things that feed from dumpsters. And you don't keep obviously sick livestock.

As for nukes causing geological upheaval, I doubt that would be even possible. If it is possible, it would require one of the so-big-as-to-be-useless bombs like Tsar Bomba put in a calculated spot drilled into an active magma dome or faultline in tension. Otherwise, the energy released would be a whisper of a shadow compared to the stresses parts of the earth's crust are under.

Oh, and if every nuke were detonated at once, civilization might well crumble and stay dead for a few decaded... but I doubt life itself would blink twice.

I am sure there are alternatives that aren't poisonous long term.
How close is http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neutron_bomb?

Has anybody addressed, What will be the results if Iran aquires the bomb and uses one or several, what will be the ecological damage then, and I would be willing to bet that they would use it against Israil, and then were is Palistine for the Palistinians, dose this mean that Iran really cares about the Palistians, to turn their Palistine into a nuclear waste land?

Do you consider Iranians less rational beings than Americans, BR?

How close is http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neutron_bomb?

To an acceptable nuclear weapon? Not close at all.

Genetic damage tends to go away after a dozen or so generations for most plant and animal species. Critters with scrambled genes more often or not die, are unable to breed, are or have their offspring outcompeted by unaffected examples of the species, or are so slightly altered that nobody would notice without a full DNA workup. On top of that, we aren't talking about nature preserves being bombed here. We are talking about the heart of a city... one place where ecological balance basically doesn't exist and the foodchain consists of dumpsters and things that feed from dumpsters. And you don't keep obviously sick livestock.

This doesn't seem to be happening at Hiroshima... it's contradicting this assertion.


As for nukes causing geological upheaval, I doubt that would be even possible. If it is possible, it would require one of the so-big-as-to-be-useless bombs like Tsar Bomba put in a calculated spot drilled into an active magma dome or faultline in tension. Otherwise, the energy released would be a whisper of a shadow compared to the stresses parts of the earth's crust are under.

I don't doubt it at all. Compare the frequency of seizmic / volcanic activity stemming from 90's on forward compared to the past. The difference is stark. Now is there a 1:1 correlation? That hasn't been researched yet so the assertion certainly is not conclusive. Is there evidence of a correlation? Yep and we can even suppliment the tried and tested 'actions and reactions' concept.


Oh, and if every nuke were detonated at once, civilization might well crumble and stay dead for a few decaded... but I doubt life itself would blink twice.

If every nuke (I am assuming on the planet) were detonated at once, the earth might fragment into a few pieces. We'd lose our internal dynamo, atmosphere, orbit, and level of gravity. The roaches wouldn't even be able to survive that.

If every nuke (I am assuming on the planet) were detonated at once, the earth might fragment into a few pieces. We'd lose our internal dynamo, atmosphere, orbit, and level of gravity. The roaches wouldn't even be able to survive that.

Yeah, and monkeys would fly out of my butt.

The danger to life on earth from massive nuclear explosions lies in throwing up giant clouds of dust which would block out the sun. All of the nukes ever built aren't even close to powerful enough to blow the earth apart.

Hey, it's your butt. That's not 'THE' danger. It's a danger (good ol' fashioned nuclear winter). I disagree that the worldwide collection of kilo and megaton nukes don't have the capacity to break the planet when used together. It's not gurantee and not an impossibility. It's saddening how quickly people jump to defend nuclear wepons.

I disagree that the worldwide collection of kilo and megaton nukes don't have the capacity to break the planet when used together. It's not gurantee and not an impossibility.

Yeah, okay buddy. It's also "not impossible" that a suitcase containing a billion dollars in cash will magically materialize in my living room. But that doesn't mean I'm going to plan my life around the possibility.


It's saddening how quickly people jump to defend nuclear wepons.

Pointing out that you don't know what you're talking about is not the same as defending nuclear weapons.

Well, the only way to find out for sure is by experiment. Anyone got a spare planet?

Blow the earth apart? Crap. You would have to literally de-orbit the freaking moon into the earth to do that... and I think that would more likely force the mantle to slosh out over the crust than actually blow the planet up. You aren't taking into account the sheer scale of the earth and how much force it takes to throw a given mass out of terrestrial orbit. All the world's nukes wouldn't equal the tiniest fraction of that energy release.

Secondly, longterm nuclear winter relies on the idea of extremely large quantities of dust and particulates being blown to extreme altitudes where they can not easily precipitate out. Only truely massive nukes detonated at ground level, as opposed to airbursts, can do this at the scale required. Anything smaller has about the same effects as a forest fire or a burning oil field. It can screw with the local climate for days or weeks, but it isn't one of these civilization-collapsing winters you seem to imagine.

The irony of using nuclear weapons to stop the production of nuclear weapons...............

The irony of using nuclear weapons to stop the production of nuclear weapons...............
It's called poetic justice. You want enriched uranium, Iran? Here's a special delivery of weapons grade material. Enjoy.

I have a suggestion.

Simply put four to ten of these bunker buster bombs in exactly the same spot at three minute intervals.

Problem solved.

Yes I do consider the Irainians less stable than the U.S., Listen to their retorick, look at their consept of inshallah, and their hatred of Israel, what do you see stable about them?

Yes I do consider the Irainians less stable than the U.S., Listen to their retorick, look at their consept of inshallah, and their hatred of Israel, what do you see stable about them?

They are very steadily following the teachings of the
Quran: ISLAMIC WORLD DOMINATION. Iran is not crazy

Droll, like a martini very dry___________desert dry!

Animation: Effects of dropping a "Bunker Buster" Nuke

http://www.ucsusa.org/global_security/nuclear_weapons/nuclear-bunker-buster-rnep-animation.html
Cool. That'll fuck a bunker up right well. :D

Blow the earth apart? Crap. You would have to literally de-orbit the freaking moon into the earth to do that...
Either that or shoot a 120km asteroid at .9c right at the earth...that'd more split it in half that really 'blow it apart'.
Or you could use a MASSIVE (read: bigger than practically produceable) seismic charge in the core of the earth. The problem is, if you put anything in the core, it'll get crushed by the massive magnetic forces.

Yes I do consider the Irainians less stable than the U.S., Listen to their retorick, look at their consept of inshallah, and their hatred of Israel, what do you see stable about them?
Hi buffalo,

You know Amehenjads rhetioric is only a crowd please to distract attention away from social and domestic issues. Very similar to our frined mr Bush in many respects

Yes but he is just the front end of some very radicle Islamic Fundalmentalist, who have been more than true to their word, all you have to do is look at the body count, and the upheavel they have caused and nothing they have said leads one to doubt their word about what their intentions are.

GBYAY Zakariya, Salam

i have a moon you can buy for 19.95 usd!!!! want my paypal info?

:p