Aliens attack! Nasty locust skull suckers with super tech built by slave worlds...

[Lancer]

They come in ships and start blasting everything with ray guns, then sucking the brains of the dead as well as the living. They set up nests and start raising humans for brain food. You are the president. Your military has been smashed, your people are being rounded up and the men are forced to impregnate women before having thier brains sucked out and bodies discarded.

The only option that is left, the final chance for mankind's freedom, is to nuke the world into a radioactive desert, useless to the aliens, and trying to survive based underground for a few thousand years. The aliens would likely survive due to their tech, but our planet would be useless to them. They would have no reason to stay. Humanity itself might not survive...

Do you take this option even though it would kill anyone still alive on the surface?

[MrFun]

OMG!!!!!

TeH commie locusts!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Lancer]

I guess I'm bored.

[GePap]

Only problem is that all the nukes in all the arsenals of the world would not do enough damage to make the Earth unlivable nor even undesireable.

[Immortal Wombat]

Nuke the icecaps and Amazonia and start teh great unstoppable global warming spiral of death.

[GePap]

Sorry, but you could not really "nuke" the icecaps, at least not really with surface blasts.

As for "global warming spiral", all the dust thrown up by the big Megaton explosions would work to counteract that.

[Lancer]

"Only problem is that all the nukes in all the arsenals of the world would not do enough damage to make the Earth unlivable nor even undesireable."

This goes against everything I've ever heard and believed.

"Nuke the icecaps and Amazonia and start teh great unstoppable global warming spiral of death."

Same difference, pretty much.

I considered that the radiation would make the world unlivable for a reasonable sized food source that would make it worth the aliens hanging around.

[GePap]

Originally posted by Lancer


This goes against everything I've ever heard and believed.
.

Well, then you have been grossly missinformed.

First of all, strategic nuclear arsenals today are much smaller than before, and few if any of the big multimegaton monsters are left behind-only so many 20+ Megaton weapons were made. It would take one of these huge nukes to really scar the Earth itself and a significant area. (by that I mean several dozen square miles, of the millions of square miles that cover the earth's landmasses).

But just think of the two cities that were nuked- Hiroshima hardly became a desert, now did it? Neither did Nagasaki.

And nukes were made to attack human settlements, which cover only a small portion of the earth's landmass itself.

Overall people have a very imaginative sense of what most nukes would do. What they imagine is the effects of the most gargantuan weapons, specifically the least common.

[Lancer]

"First of all, strategic nuclear arsenals today are much smaller than before, and few if any of the big multimegaton monsters are left behind-only so many 20+ Megaton weapons were made. It would take one of these huge nukes to really scar the Earth itself and a significant area. (by that I mean several dozen square miles, of the millions of square miles that cover the earth's landmasses)."

There are still plenty of nukes in the arsenals of the US, Russia, some in China and the other, smaller nuke powers...France, GB, India, Pak... My understanding is that the persistant radiation would be the problem for human survival, not the damage on the ground.


"But just think of the two cities that were nuked- Hiroshima hardly became a desert, now did it? Neither did Nagasaki. "

These were tiny 20 kt mininukes by today's standard.

"Overall people have a very imaginative sense of what most nukes would do. What they imagine is the effects of the most gargantuan weapons, specifically the least common."

I imagine that using a significant portion of just the nukes of the US would create enough radiation to exterminate all exposed human life.

[Immortal Wombat]

Originally posted by GePap
As for "global warming spiral", all the dust thrown up by the big Megaton explosions would work to counteract that.

If you were nuking ice, then all the dust would be water, and would contribute to that.

[GePap]

Originally posted by Lancer
There are still plenty of nukes in the arsenals of the US, Russia, some in China and the other, smaller nuke powers...France, GB, India, Pak... My understanding is that the persistant radiation would be the problem for human survival, not the damage on the ground.

Only the declared 5 powers ever got to thermonuclear devices, and even then, most of theirs are in the mid hundred kiloton range. Its unlikely that Israel, Pakistan, and India have any nukes more than say 3 times the size of the Hiroshima bomb.

You do more damage by launching multiple 300 KT attacks on a city spaced out to maximize the area in the 90% effectiveness range than dropping one single large bomb, since there is a lower return as bombs get bigger.

These were tiny 20 kt mininukes by today's standard.

Yes, but you are talking radiation. Actually, thermonuclear bombs are "cleaner" than simple fission devices. The most dangerous radiation, simply because it hangs around, is alpha and beta radiation, which is made up of heavier particles. You get a higher percentage of those heavy radioisotopes form a purely fission bomb. The high heat of a hydrogen bomb emits less of these as a percentage of its power.

I imagine that using a significant portion of just the nukes of the US would create enough radiation to exterminate all exposed human life.

Actually, no, they would not.

You might very significantly increase the rates of cancer and birth defects and the number of sterile individuals, but you would get far more radiation from an exposed nuclear core than a bomb. So making sure all the nuke plants of the world melted down would probably give you more radioation, in terms of making sure a radiactive cloud spread far and wide.

The thing is, there is lots of life that can take much more radiation than us.

And in the end, if some species found out a way to cross the voids of space, the probably have VERY good radiation shielding.

[notyoueither]

Originally posted by GePap


Well, then you have been grossly missinformed.

First of all, strategic nuclear arsenals today are much smaller than before, and few if any of the big multimegaton monsters are left behind-only so many 20+ Megaton weapons were made. It would take one of these huge nukes to really scar the Earth itself and a significant area. (by that I mean several dozen square miles, of the millions of square miles that cover the earth's landmasses).

But just think of the two cities that were nuked- Hiroshima hardly became a desert, now did it? Neither did Nagasaki.

And nukes were made to attack human settlements, which cover only a small portion of the earth's landmass itself.

Overall people have a very imaginative sense of what most nukes would do. What they imagine is the effects of the most gargantuan weapons, specifically the least common.

Where do I buy an ass so big to pull **** like that out of?

[GePap]

How many classes on the theories of nuclear war have you taken?

You are certainly one of those people who have shown a rather magical imagination as to the global effects of a nuclear device.

[Lancer]

GePap, I hope you're right.

[notyoueither]

Originally posted by GePap
How many classes on the theories of nuclear war have you taken?

You are certainly one of those people who have shown a rather magical imagination as to the global effects of a nuclear device.

You took a night class, and you are an expert on nuclear warfare?

Tell us how many warheads the US has stockpiled, and of what magnitude they are.