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That's One Helluva 'Kaboom'
Damion and I were talking about what, exactly, might happen if a terrorist managed to actually truck a nuke next to the white house and light the fuse. This gives us an idea. Tracks in nicely with "blast echos" as well. A 25 megaton airburst over the Washington Monument would probably get us all the way out in Herndon. Wild.
Important to note these really aren't terrorist-quality weapons. This is the stuff that was mounted on ICBMs (hence the "blast echo" connection). From what I have read, the consensus is a terrorist nuke, should one ever show up, will be much smaller. Well, smaller on a nuclear scale anyway, on the order of Hiroshima.
Oh yeah, MUCH smaller.
The U.S.'s 9 megaton convincer was large enough that a B52 could only carry two at a time after being modified.
The warheads shown in "True Lies" are about the right size, but wouldn't be man-portable (and would give that helicopter some serious balance issues). Your payoff with one of those (we think) is about 150KT. Good for about the first mile from ground zero with an airburst, less for ground burst.
There are man-portable mushrooms, some with healthy yields. Can't get past the problem of ground burst, though. In the concrete canyons of NYC? Couple of blocks, more along the roadbeds.
Whitley Strieber got it right in "Warday", all those years ago. The greatest number of casualties will come from the public fear of the consequences of a nuclear attack, not the attack itself.
Posted by: drlivipr on June 4, 2003 09:41 PM