I did the best I could to accurately map and represent what an atomic war of this type would actually look like. The primary targets attract mostly large, 100-kiloton bombs, while the secondaries and opportunity targets attracted the “smaller” 10 to 20-kiloton weapons. One hundred kilotons is about the largest practical fission bomb that can be built and delivered in their universe. In our world, where hydrogen weapons rapidly superseded atomic bombs, we never built atom bombs bigger than about 30 kilotons, but of course thermonuclear weapons can be far bigger than that.
Prevailing winds in this part of Africa are from the southwest, turning northwest as they approach the Central African Republic. Although plumes from atomic bombs are much smaller than those of hydrogen weapons, they generate a lot more “dirty” byproducts, so most of central Africa is in big trouble in this scenario. That’s what they meant by “continental scale” on the last page. This map shows about seven hundred and fifty bomb blasts, and there would also have been airbursts that would not have generated downrange fallout, not shown on the map. This, let me tell you, is a grim thing to study up on.
Well, anyway. I have a busy week to get ready for, so I’m going to just turn in at this point. Until next week, folks.
The worst part of a nuclear “end of the world” war briefing:
Power Point slides.
xp
At least she’s not reading them out loud.
That’s what I do, when I feel like I need to punish one of my classes.
I have a special, well-designed PPT for that. 320 slides. Eight hours of me presenting that thing in a monotonous voice has broken every troublemaker so far.
With animated transitions, I’m sure. To make certain they all have headaches by the end of it into the bargain.
I like the way you think!
I expect an eerily jocular Mr. Atom to give us that happy boost over “our friend the atom” spiel. Irony dripping from the stanchions.
“Ahhh… which blue dot are we again?”
“That one…the one glowing in the dark…“
They’re all glowing in the dark.
“In other words…we’re screwed.” 🙁
In the words of Dave Bowman, “Well, we’re in very serious trouble.”
Do we have the global projections as well captain?
Have to see about that. 😉
“My reccomended course of action, as approved by the commanding officer, is to establish the sovereign nation of Haulleya, to be ruled by Colonel-Emperor Haulley the First, Long May He Reign”
Personally I thought back at the end of chapter 4 when Haulley went into dreamland and Mike was leading the surviving F.S.R personnel back to base, I was thinking (joking mind you.) that Mike would declare Himself as God and lead what was left of humanity for the next Fifty to hundred years as a robot tank sun god.
😉
Colonel Haulley wouldn’t want to be king even if he could. He wouldn’t even want to be a general. He’s a rank-and-file soldier at heart, not a Man Who Would Be King.
You’re right, only Sean Connery can be the Man Who Would Be King… Though perhaps Sarah could be convined to be She Who Must Be Obeyed… and now I’m breaking out the movie references.
“Put your head between your legs, and kiss your ass goodbye.” 🙁
I think you may have overestimated the potential fallout effects from small weapons (small being a relative term).
The ever handy Nukemap shows that fallout from c20KT weapons is tiny compared to the AO shown above.
http://nuclearsecrecy.com/nukemap/?&kt=20&lat=-2.8856273&lng=23.4745931&airburst=0&hob_ft=0&fallout=1&zm=6
Nukemap was very helpful. The larger areas are from 100-120kT blasts, significantly more powerful. Smaller, “tactical” atomics are visible towards the south of the map, in the orange zone at the northern part of Angola – those are 20kT bombs. And all told there are… let me count… 786 detonations visible. Of these, 275 are in the 100-120kT range, and the remainder are 10-30kT. I think I got it pretty close to the mark.
Wow. That is….a lot of red there. So, radioactive apes there now.
Also…1200 KT? Does this account for one single bomb here, or for several. Because I read once, that the absolute maximum of a fission weapon would be roughly around 500 KT, everything above that would require fusion.
The launch mass she’s referring to is total destructive power of all weapons used. I believe you’re right that 50kT is the largest bomb we can produce with atomic fission. Boosted weapons can approach 100kT I think, but they’re very big and unwieldy. Hydrogen bombs of course can be effectively unlimited in size. In their world I figure they can make them up to about 100kT each, and mind you, that’s five to ten times the size of the original A-Bombs used at the end of the War, so it’s very big.
Oh, misread there something, thought there was 12 hundred and not 12 thousand kilotons. So…the entire area was hit then by roughly 12 Megatons, which is…less than the nuclear test ‘Castle Bravo’ by the US in 1954 in our timeline at roughly 15 Megatons. They are lucky (as lucky as somebody can be after a nuclear war) that they did not have fusion-style bombs allready. Then they would have really been fucked up, if they had used the same amounts of fusion-bombs as they were doing with fission boms.
Also, quote from Wiki: ‘The amount of energy released by fission bombs can range from the equivalent of just under a ton of TNT, to upwards of 500,000 tons (500 kilotons) of TNT’
From what I’ve read on the subject (I make no claims of being an expert beyond this) 100 to 120 kT is the largest truly practical weapon, though it is possible to build deployable fission bombs up to 1.0MT. The problems involved are significant, though. First, a bomb that large can be subject to premature or even accidental detonation, since the warhead could become a critical mass simply under its own weight. Second, the inside of such a warhead could go critical sooner than the outside, and so it could contaminate the rest of its mass and lead to incomplete or inefficient detonation. Or, you could make the warhead in lots of smaller pieces, but the more pieces you have the harder it is to make them all condense into a critical mass all at once.
In the world of 6-Commando they do have bombs up to about 300 or 350kT, which are what you find on the tips of intercontinental atomic missiles aimed at major enemy industrial cities. But they aren’t really “practical” weapons, but mainly parts of a hold-back deterrent in case of last resort. In the Congolese DRZ, where the civilian and industrial targets are secondary, more smaller bombs are used. However, the cumulative effect is just as bad if not worse, since ground detonation to strike at hardened targets leaves a lot more fallout drifting around.
One benefit of better targeting is that the warheads can be smaller since you would need less to cover any misalignments in the final phase targeting for the missile. Small though it is every little bit less helps.
In other words our O.T is F.U.C.K.E.D
Bye bye, central Africa. Or so it seems.
Well, we’ll see. But I admit they’re in very serious trouble, clearly.
OK. That looks really not good.
But we need a little legend at the bottom. You know, light orange — use some sunscreen, yellow — three eyed mutant babies, red — radioactive zombie apocalypse.
And am I the only one impressed by that young woman’s madz graphic design skilz?? How long did she have to put that together? Her talents are wasted!
Computer-readout, I’m afraid. Captain Da Costa is not the artistic type.
By the way, red represents approximately 500 Sv/hour, with each successive color band representing reduction by half, with the exception of the orange band to the south which represents the edge of the Southernmost plume, which actually has more radioactive debris as the concentration descends against prevailing winds.
Two words: Black rain…
…Michael Douglas? 😉
Allegedly most of the radiation deaths after either Hiroshima, Nagasaki or both were due to contaminated rain water, “black rain”.
Supposedly the victims was dehydrated, either from radiation, burns or just being without water until rescue, which made them drink the severely contaminated rain water.
Let’s just hope that nobody is hiding a “Dr. Strangelove”-style doomsday device. 🙁
It was to be announced at the Party Congress on Monday. As you know, the premier of the FSR loves surprises.
Ohh boy, just realized.
The headwaters of the Nile River (specifically, the White Nile) are IN the affected area. Even if this nuclear exchange is miraculously limited to this particular region (which seems less and less likely), the primary water supply for one of the most populous parts of Africa has been directly compromised.
Ouch. 🙁
Also the entirety of the Congo River, as well as Lake Victoria and the majority of the Upper Zambezei River. Big, big trouble.
Meh. Anyone who used to live in those areas who wasn’t in a shielded bunker when the bombs fell is dead or dying from radiation poisoning anyway, so them finding potable water is irrelevant.
As for the people in the bunkers (like our protagonists) those in the yellow and orange areas, and those outside the contaminated areas, well I hope there’s filter tech for removing radioactive fallout from water…
Well if they go through with it it will do what Hitler didn’t have a chance to do to Africa. Such a devastation would be an abomination. No one will be free from the effects of this. 100 years from now it would still be felt on a scale that most would call “Biblical” only larger. Human folly at its finest. The only thing greater is the coming Hot House Earth from all the changes humans have made to the ecosphere over the decades.
500 warheads will put the Earth into a “Nuclear Winter” not much difference from a giant meteor strike or Mount Toba style caldera explosion putting up enough debris to block most of the sunlight. It may only be in a band that would still make colossal changes to the Earth’s temperature gradients.
I guess they didn’t switch to neutron warheads did they? That way there would be no fallout, just the initial gamma ray bursts upon detonation to kill all life within a mile radius or more.
If I understand it correctly, the “Nuclear Winter’ concept has supposedly been shot down by a number of more recent studies. Unsure what the “current’ thinking is.
BTW, Neutron warheads DO create fallout, it is just that their footprint is so small compared to other nukes. Besides which, they are tactical weapons, intended to take out massed military units and the like. Against ‘hard’ targets like bunkers, they are useless, and to do significant damage to something as big as an entire city, one would need to precisely target a whole bunch of them. They are a highly specialized weapon, in other words, and arguably of very limited value in a general exchange like this one.
“I don’t want to set the world on fire…”
“War, War never changes.”
Nicely portrayed map!