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Post by heroeblaster on Jul 26, 2017 21:38:35 GMT
Hello guys!
Several months ago I've read that there is a subtype of Teller- Ulam nuclear weapons that can theoretically be layered with no upper limit and I immediately had an idea of a single bomb being able to glass a whole Earth- like planet like a cyclonic torpedo from Warhammer 40k. That is probably way less efficient than using a lot of smaller ones but for the sake of the rule of cool I went on classical Nukemap and started adding zeroes until thermal radiation radius encompassed the whole world and came up with something just over 100 teratons so I thought "sounds about right" and went with that assumption. However, recently I read that apparently any device larger than a certain point(10mt-100mt) just blows the same 10 square mile chunk of atmosphere into space faster due to Earth curvature protecting from the nuke flash.
So in the end I decided to ask here:
1) In your opinion, what would be the effects of such thing detonating? Apart of immediate ones, is it possible to cause nuclear winter just with this one device? Or any other possible unintended side effects like temperature rising across the world for a couple hours to several hundred degrees or global black rain?
2) If my estimate is wrong, how powerful of a bomb do I need to blow up to destroy all surface structures(shockwave should level buildings on the other side of the world) and is it even possible?
3) How powerful of a nuclear shaped charge do I need to blow a hole in a continental plate all the way to upper mantle? I have no idea how to guesstimate it and I need it for some worldbuilding as they are supposed to be one of three ways to destroy extremely deep "bunkers" that contain transhuman AI server nodes on par with slamming an RKKV into it and drilling for months.
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Post by Enderminion on Jul 26, 2017 22:39:53 GMT
Welcome to the forums, if you want a nuclear winter, it would be better to use Cobalt-59 salted bombs. more smaller bombs is more efficient the only reason you want big bombs is surface and underground earthquake bombs. Atomic shaped charges don't mix with atmosphere, if RKKVs are impossible, then a large number of "normal" KKVs in the same area can work
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Post by heroeblaster on Jul 26, 2017 23:34:50 GMT
Welcome to the forums, if you want a nuclear winter, it would be better to use Cobalt-59 salted bombs. more smaller bombs is more efficient the only reason you want big bombs is surface and underground earthquake bombs. Atomic shaped charges don't mix with atmosphere, if RKKVs are impossible, then a large number of "normal" KKVs in the same area can work Hello Enderminion. Thanks for a warm welcome. I've been lurking for a while here. I thought nuclear winter is caused by ash being thrown into stratosphere by fires caused by nukes and staying there for decades blocking sunlight which starves off all plant life. If i am not mistaken salted bombs coat surface of the Earth in a thin layer of highly radioactive material which would cause lethal doses for humans within hours and would last for several years. It seems that if I want to get nuclear winter I need to nuke forests and cities with low powered bombs. Funny enough the more modern a city is the less it burns. Nukes tend to melt it coating combustive materials in layer of slag before it has a chance to burn. And even though nuclear shaped charges don't mix with atmosphere well there is always brute force way. I think during project Orion it was suggested to use shaped nukes to sink warships from orbit. Even though nuking it would use the device more efficiently it still did a lot of damage hundreds of kilometers away and a stream of nuclear fire is way harder to intercept than a bomber or a cruise missile. In any case, the way I intend to use it is huge surface detonated shaped charge directed 'straight down' to crack a bunker in the upper mantle. Due to some in-world specifics in some cases deploying RKKV is harder than shipping a bomb the size of a skyscraper just over the target.
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Post by Enderminion on Jul 26, 2017 23:40:55 GMT
Welcome to the forums, if you want a nuclear winter, it would be better to use Cobalt-59 salted bombs. more smaller bombs is more efficient the only reason you want big bombs is surface and underground earthquake bombs. Atomic shaped charges don't mix with atmosphere, if RKKVs are impossible, then a large number of "normal" KKVs in the same area can work Hello Enderminion. Thanks for a warm welcome. I've been lurking for a while here. I thought nuclear winter is caused by ash being thrown into stratosphere by fires caused by nukes and staying there for decades blocking sunlight which starves off all plant life. If i am not mistaken salted bombs coat surface of the Earth in a thin layer of highly radioactive material which would cause lethal doses for humans within hours and would last for several years. It seems that if I want to get nuclear winter I need to nuke forests and cities with low powered bombs. Funny enough the more modern a city is the less it burns. Nukes tend to melt it coating combustive materials in layer of slag before it has a chance to burn. And even though nuclear shaped charges don't mix with atmosphere well there is always brute force way. I think during project Orion it was suggested to use shaped nukes to sink warships from orbit. Even though nuking it would use the device more efficiently it still did a lot of damage hundreds of kilometers away and a stream of nuclear fire is way harder to intercept than a bomber or a cruise missile. In any case, the way I intend to use it is huge surface detonated shaped charge directed 'straight down' to crack a bunker in the upper mantle. Due to some in-world specifics in some cases deploying RKKV is harder than shipping a bomb the size of a skyscraper just over the target. A Cobalt bomb bombardment would effectively create a nuclear winter, if you have a skyscraper sized bomb, that is big enough for AM weapons
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Post by heroeblaster on Jul 27, 2017 9:50:40 GMT
Hello Enderminion. Thanks for a warm welcome. I've been lurking for a while here. I thought nuclear winter is caused by ash being thrown into stratosphere by fires caused by nukes and staying there for decades blocking sunlight which starves off all plant life. If i am not mistaken salted bombs coat surface of the Earth in a thin layer of highly radioactive material which would cause lethal doses for humans within hours and would last for several years. It seems that if I want to get nuclear winter I need to nuke forests and cities with low powered bombs. Funny enough the more modern a city is the less it burns. Nukes tend to melt it coating combustive materials in layer of slag before it has a chance to burn. And even though nuclear shaped charges don't mix with atmosphere well there is always brute force way. I think during project Orion it was suggested to use shaped nukes to sink warships from orbit. Even though nuking it would use the device more efficiently it still did a lot of damage hundreds of kilometers away and a stream of nuclear fire is way harder to intercept than a bomber or a cruise missile. In any case, the way I intend to use it is huge surface detonated shaped charge directed 'straight down' to crack a bunker in the upper mantle. Due to some in-world specifics in some cases deploying RKKV is harder than shipping a bomb the size of a skyscraper just over the target. A Cobalt bomb bombardment would effectively create a nuclear winter, if you have a skyscraper sized bomb, that is big enough for AM weapons I feel like that would be a bit of an overkill. Everyone would die from one cobalt bomb anyway as it would irradiate almost all surface of a planet by itself. And as it is a neutron bomb modification it is probably less efficient at causing firestorms.
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Post by Enderminion on Jul 27, 2017 16:02:20 GMT
A Cobalt bomb bombardment would effectively create a nuclear winter, if you have a skyscraper sized bomb, that is big enough for AM weapons I feel like that would be a bit of an overkill. Everyone would die from one cobalt bomb anyway as it would irradiate almost all surface of a planet by itself. And as it is a neutron bomb modification it is probably less efficient at causing firestorms. Cobalt salted bombs are thermonuclear weapons with Co-59 tampers and such, the more Co-59 and fusion the better, Salted bombs are not neutron bombs. also you would need a few salted bombs to fully kill a planet
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utilitas
Junior Member
I can do this all day.
Posts: 59
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Post by utilitas on Jul 27, 2017 20:08:40 GMT
It'd be much more efficient to just detonate a neutron bomb in low to medium orbit. I don't know the numbers, but I'd say a <10MT neutron nuke could wipe out half of all life if aimed right, a lot less if directional. Consider yourself lucky that no-one really knows the numbers.
A very rough estimate for an orbital neutron bomb detonation would be one to cover a semiglobe that takes up very toughly 45° of the explosion radius with enough neutrons to penetrate the atmosphere and irradiate ground level to lethal conditions. While high yield neutron bombs are not effective in atmosphere, there's a reason why we have a treatise against use of nuclear weaponry in space; It wouldn't take much more than 500 kilotons to deliver lethal ionizing radiation over an area of the entire Pacific with one bomb.
But ionizing radiation doesn't really decimate infrastructure, it only leaves everything sterilized. Just sayin'
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Post by Enderminion on Jul 27, 2017 22:56:40 GMT
It'd be much more efficient to just detonate a neutron bomb in low to medium orbit. I don't know the numbers, but I'd say a <10MT neutron nuke could wipe out half of all life if aimed right, a lot less if directional. Consider yourself lucky that no-one really knows the numbers. A very rough estimate for an orbital neutron bomb detonation would be one to cover a semiglobe that takes up very toughly 45° of the explosion radius with enough neutrons to penetrate the atmosphere and irradiate ground level to lethal conditions. While high yield neutron bombs are not effective in atmosphere, there's a reason why we have a treatise against use of nuclear weaponry in space; It wouldn't take much more than 500 kilotons to deliver lethal ionizing radiation over an area of the entire Pacific with one bomb. But ionizing radiation doesn't really decimate infrastructure, it only leaves everything sterilized. Just sayin' where did you get that information? Starfish prime was 1.4Mt and didn't kill anyone, I don't think
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Post by heroeblaster on Jul 30, 2017 18:25:08 GMT
It'd be much more efficient to just detonate a neutron bomb in low to medium orbit. I don't know the numbers, but I'd say a <10MT neutron nuke could wipe out half of all life if aimed right, a lot less if directional. Consider yourself lucky that no-one really knows the numbers. A very rough estimate for an orbital neutron bomb detonation would be one to cover a semiglobe that takes up very toughly 45° of the explosion radius with enough neutrons to penetrate the atmosphere and irradiate ground level to lethal conditions. While high yield neutron bombs are not effective in atmosphere, there's a reason why we have a treatise against use of nuclear weaponry in space; It wouldn't take much more than 500 kilotons to deliver lethal ionizing radiation over an area of the entire Pacific with one bomb. But ionizing radiation doesn't really decimate infrastructure, it only leaves everything sterilized. Just sayin' Doesn't radiation damage fall off insanely fast with distance? To the point if you are not in relatively point blank range it won't damage the ship. I think deployment of nukes in space is banned due to how easy it is to deorbit them literally anywhere with less warning than intercontinental ballistic missiles or even submarine based missiles while also being harder to intercept.
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Post by Enderminion on Jul 31, 2017 3:19:31 GMT
It'd be much more efficient to just detonate a neutron bomb in low to medium orbit. I don't know the numbers, but I'd say a <10MT neutron nuke could wipe out half of all life if aimed right, a lot less if directional. Consider yourself lucky that no-one really knows the numbers. A very rough estimate for an orbital neutron bomb detonation would be one to cover a semiglobe that takes up very toughly 45° of the explosion radius with enough neutrons to penetrate the atmosphere and irradiate ground level to lethal conditions. While high yield neutron bombs are not effective in atmosphere, there's a reason why we have a treatise against use of nuclear weaponry in space; It wouldn't take much more than 500 kilotons to deliver lethal ionizing radiation over an area of the entire Pacific with one bomb. But ionizing radiation doesn't really decimate infrastructure, it only leaves everything sterilized. Just sayin' Doesn't radiation damage fall off insanely fast with distance? To the point if you are not in relatively point blank range it won't damage the ship. I think deployment of nukes in space is banned due to how easy it is to deorbit them literally anywhere with less warning than intercontinental ballistic missiles or even submarine based missiles while also being harder to intercept. a few Km for big nuclear weapons, sometimes inside the fireball. but s/he's talking about neutron or enhanced radiation weapons
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Post by heroeblaster on Jan 6, 2018 1:07:38 GMT
Doesn't radiation damage fall off insanely fast with distance? To the point if you are not in relatively point blank range it won't damage the ship. I think deployment of nukes in space is banned due to how easy it is to deorbit them literally anywhere with less warning than intercontinental ballistic missiles or even submarine based missiles while also being harder to intercept. a few Km for big nuclear weapons, sometimes inside the fireball. but s/he's talking about neutron or enhanced radiation weapons Sorry for a really late reply. I had severe computer issues. From what I thought neutron bombs don’t have a huge range. A 1 kiloton neutron bomb will irradiate anybody unfortunate enough to be at a range of 900 meters with 80 Grays of neutrons. I also saw numbers in low hundreds of kilometers maximum and I don’t see a reason why neutron radiation won’t fall off by the same rules as a conventional nuke. Twice the distance- quarter the intensity. A huge neutron bomb would have to go off lower than ISS to touch the surface with neutrons even if we ignore atmosphere. If we somehow mix casaba with neutron bombs to fire neutrons in a tight cone I don’t think we would get much more than casaba’s result which would be below a thousand km. Also we steered off course a little bit. In that wip setting I have postbiological humans and AI hopping between alternative Earths with devices that work only within LEO and stationary relative to Earth’s crust. So local military sometimes has a need to blast someone who dug in with hordes of drone defenses all over the surface while having bases under kilometers of rock and graphene. I was wondering how hard it is to crack through a continental plate with a shaped nuke due to that. Also I wanted to know more about limitations to the shockwave generated by incredibly powerful explosions. Could you blow up a nuke big enough to level a building on the other side of a planet or would the blast just get wasted above a certain point?
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Post by Enderminion on Jan 6, 2018 1:33:49 GMT
a few Km for big nuclear weapons, sometimes inside the fireball. but s/he's talking about neutron or enhanced radiation weapons Sorry for a really late reply. I had severe computer issues. From what I thought neutron bombs don’t have a huge range. A 1 kiloton neutron bomb will irradiate anybody unfortunate enough to be at a range of 900 meters with 80 Grays of neutrons. I also saw numbers in low hundreds of kilometers maximum and I don’t see a reason why neutron radiation won’t fall off by the same rules as a conventional nuke. Twice the distance- quarter the intensity. A huge neutron bomb would have to go off lower than ISS to touch the surface with neutrons even if we ignore atmosphere. If we somehow mix casaba with neutron bombs to fire neutrons in a tight cone I don’t think we would get much more than casaba’s result which would be below a thousand km. Also we steered off course a little bit. In that wip setting I have postbiological humans and AI hopping between alternative Earths with devices that work only within LEO and stationary relative to Earth’s crust. So local military sometimes has a need to blast someone who dug in with hordes of drone defenses all over the surface while having bases under kilometers of rock and graphene. I was wondering how hard it is to crack through a continental plate with a shaped nuke due to that. Also I wanted to know more about limitations to the shockwave generated by incredibly powerful explosions. Could you blow up a nuke big enough to level a building on the other side of a planet or would the blast just get wasted above a certain point? you might blast off the atmosphere, but a big enough rock can do it so I don't see why a large nuke wouldn't work
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Post by heroeblaster on Jan 6, 2018 1:51:17 GMT
Sorry for a really late reply. I had severe computer issues. From what I thought neutron bombs don’t have a huge range. A 1 kiloton neutron bomb will irradiate anybody unfortunate enough to be at a range of 900 meters with 80 Grays of neutrons. I also saw numbers in low hundreds of kilometers maximum and I don’t see a reason why neutron radiation won’t fall off by the same rules as a conventional nuke. Twice the distance- quarter the intensity. A huge neutron bomb would have to go off lower than ISS to touch the surface with neutrons even if we ignore atmosphere. If we somehow mix casaba with neutron bombs to fire neutrons in a tight cone I don’t think we would get much more than casaba’s result which would be below a thousand km. Also we steered off course a little bit. In that wip setting I have postbiological humans and AI hopping between alternative Earths with devices that work only within LEO and stationary relative to Earth’s crust. So local military sometimes has a need to blast someone who dug in with hordes of drone defenses all over the surface while having bases under kilometers of rock and graphene. I was wondering how hard it is to crack through a continental plate with a shaped nuke due to that. Also I wanted to know more about limitations to the shockwave generated by incredibly powerful explosions. Could you blow up a nuke big enough to level a building on the other side of a planet or would the blast just get wasted above a certain point? you might blast off the atmosphere, but a big enough rock can do it so I don't see why a large nuke wouldn't work Hmm... I wonder how devastating would it be if a huge chunk of atmosphere flows to one side of the planet due to a blast and then flows back in. Apart of two huge shockwaves.
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Post by matterbeam on Jan 6, 2018 2:10:11 GMT
Hello heroeblaster. A sufficiently large nuclear device would dig a very deep crater. The volume of rock and soil excavated to form the crater is blasted into the sky. If it is going fast enough, some may escape Earth's pull. A lot of it falls down slowly instead, but hot winds make the dust drift and cover huge areas of the world. It is unlikely that any nuclear weapon localized in one spot would produce enough energy to heat up the entire world all at once. If the energies are too extreme, they are simply lost a electromagnetic radiation into space. Instead, what you'll have is the ground itself absorbing a lot of this energy and becoming a massive lake of lava topped by hot rock vapours. This heat spreads to the atmosphere, where it is carried to the rest of the planet in a much slower fashion. This is how the planet gets covered in a single big firestorm - not in a flash, but by superheated winds flowing out of a massive hurricane. It is possible to produce a shockwave powerful enough to go around the world with enough force to topple structures. You will have to blow a big part of the atmosphere into space though. For sufficiently power shaped charges, you just calculate the volume of the cone of material you need to remove, multiply by its density, and then by its heat of vaporization. This will give you a rough estimate of how much energy is needed. For example, a 1000m deep cone of 60 degrees has a volume of 349 000 000m^3. Rock has a density of about 3300kg/m^3, so you want to vaporize 1.15 billion tons of rock. This requires very roughly 3.5 exajoules.
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Post by heroeblaster on Jan 6, 2018 12:00:00 GMT
Hello heroeblaster . A sufficiently large nuclear device would dig a very deep crater. The volume of rock and soil excavated to form the crater is blasted into the sky. If it is going fast enough, some may escape Earth's pull. A lot of it falls down slowly instead, but hot winds make the dust drift and cover huge areas of the world. It is unlikely that any nuclear weapon localized in one spot would produce enough energy to heat up the entire world all at once. If the energies are too extreme, they are simply lost a electromagnetic radiation into space. Instead, what you'll have is the ground itself absorbing a lot of this energy and becoming a massive lake of lava topped by hot rock vapours. This heat spreads to the atmosphere, where it is carried to the rest of the planet in a much slower fashion. This is how the planet gets covered in a single big firestorm - not in a flash, but by superheated winds flowing out of a massive hurricane. It is possible to produce a shockwave powerful enough to go around the world with enough force to topple structures. You will have to blow a big part of the atmosphere into space though. For sufficiently power shaped charges, you just calculate the volume of the cone of material you need to remove, multiply by its density, and then by its heat of vaporization. This will give you a rough estimate of how much energy is needed. For example, a 1000m deep cone of 60 degrees has a volume of 349 000 000m^3. Rock has a density of about 3300kg/m^3, so you want to vaporize 1.15 billion tons of rock. This requires very roughly 3.5 exajoules. Thanks a lot matterbeam. I completely lacked math behind my idea. A question though, do I need to vaporize all that rock from the surface to the upper mantle if i want to hit something just below the crust or are there any other forces at work? Like a shockwave that propagates through rock.
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