Nukes And ICBM

[Gatekeeper]

Everyone:

It's my understanding that the nuclear warheads targeted on American cities today are 350 kilotons, with multiple warheads assigned to hit each city (with varying factors affecting the number of warheads).

I believe most military targets have between 450 kiloton and one megaton warheads aimed at them, and Cheyenne Mountain is supposed to have between four and seven 25-megaton warheads targeted on it.

CYBERAmazon

[korn469]

Here are a couple of sites to check out to get information about the effects of a nuclear war

http://www.fas.org/nuke/hew/News/Bigsubpages/Bigsubpage26.html

that is a list of sites

http://www.nap.edu/books/0309036925/html/

this is an online book version of a study called
The Medical Implications of a Nuclear War (1986)
while dated it does contain a great deal of useful information

http://www.fas.org/nuke/hew/index.html

and as always the fas high energy weapons archive, it contains everything you need to know about nuclear weapons, if uranium came with the site you would be in business

http://www.nukefix.org/

a nifty little program that provides alot of up to date information, this program gives you a good explanation of many different issues associated with a nuclear war

http://www.survivalring.org/nwss/s60p759.htm

another online book, it gives civil defense tips, and some less apocolyptic appraisals of a nuclear war, still it has good stuff but it is a bit dated (1987)

http://www.survivalring.org/hazmaps.htm

this has a number of links to different maps, you can find everything from fallout risk to tornados

http://www.nrdc.org/nuclear/

this is another excellent site with up to date information, it has numerous links to tons of really good information

http://www.nrdc.org/nuclear/warplan/warplan_start.pdf

a study entitled THE U.S. NUCLEAR WAR PLAN: A TIME FOR CHANGE, it discusses SIOP in depth and provides results for computer simulations of nuclear attacks, they have pictures that illustrate an attack on a Russian silo complex and they show how radiation would kill millions of Russians, i highly recommend taking a look at this

http://www.nti.org/e_research/e1_russia_1.html

a brief overview of the NCB and missile arsenals of russia, with links to China, Iran, India, and North Korea

http://www.msnbc.com/news/616710.asp

an msnbc article from earlier in the year, it describes in a more detail Soviet plans for using small pox to wipe out survivors of a nuclear war, one little interesting fact is that it said after 1968 the Soviets targeted Chinese cities in addition to US (and probably NATO) ones

http://www.msnbc.com/news/717299.asp

an msnbc artile from earlier this month, it tells about a study that concludes 15,000 americans died from cancer caused by fallout from atmospheric testings done between 1951-1962

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anyways though Cyberamazon is correct, in the 70's and 80's the US and the Soviet Union changed from making bigger and bigger warheads to making more accurate MIRVed warheads so that one missile would carry many small nuclear warheads in the 100-500kt range, in addition to warheads being more likely to hit their targets smaller warheads do more damage per kt than big warheads do, so four 250kt warheads would destroy a greater area when airburst at their optimal height than a single 1000kt (one megaton) warhead, though i'm not positive but i think that big warheads might be better for groundbursts against deep bunkers and dams (places like Cheyenne Mountain)

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but i agree the civ3 nuclear warfare model could be better

[steelehc]

At the risk of pushing this thread farther off topic:

big warheads might be better for groundbursts against deep bunkers and dams (places like Cheyenne Mountain)

Against bunkers and places like Cheyenne Mountain, a real big warhead might be useful, but against most dams, a simple 1000 pound penetration bomb would do the job, I think.


As for Civ3, I think the nuclear model is somewhat poor. ICBMs should be more powerful, and tactical weapons should be less powerful.


Steele