Well, the cat’s out of the bag, now. For those keeping track, forty megatons is well beyond what we generally do with our largest weapons, so the 6-Commando universe seems to have leapfrogged us on nuclear technology. But I guess that’s the way it goes. Another piece of the puzzle is falling into place.
As for me? Wellp. I’m thirty-six now. Thirty-six years, shot to hell, as they say. But I had a wonderful celebration with some friends of mine on Saturday – my first birthday celebration in almost fifteen years, actually – followed by brunch on Sunday with an old mentor of mine, now retired, who happened to be in town for the day. So all in all, I can’t have imagined a nicer way to spend my birthday weekend. I usually find my birthday lonely and depressing, and this was about as great as any I’ve had since I was a kid. Just fantastic. And so, I’m in an uncharacteristically good mood!
And with all that, I got the page done! Yes, indeed. But tomorrow I have four hours of back-to-back meetings to get ready for, so I better turn in and get some sleep. All the best, everyone!
Oh, by the way, I fixed last week’s continuity error. Sharp eye, Mark40930!
The Tsar Bomba was 50 Megatons for comparison, but that’s a hydrogen bomb, not thermo-nuclear, still comparable in terms of yield tho.
Total destruction at 55km (wood & brick structures)
3rd degree burns at 100km
Seen from 1,000km
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tsar_Bomba
Just a notice, a hydrogen bomb is the more common description of a thermo-nuclear-bomb = fusion bomb.
I still hear allot of people refer to them as H-bombs for laymen
Hydrogen bombs and thermonuclear weapons are the same thing. They are essentially unlimited in their potential size, but there are practical limits based on the physical size of the weapon itself, and getting it to its target. Also beyond a certain point it gets to be… Let’s say, a bit serious. Like tackling forces of nature. In our world, the Soviets – the SOVIETS – decided that a bomb that could destroy half of New Jersey was a bit more than they were willing to do, even to their sworn American enemies. In 6-Commando, they seem to have no such compunctions. And there must be a reason.
The Tsar Bomba was originally going to have a yield of 100 Megatons, but the scientists talked their leaders into settling for 50 Megatons; because they calculated that a 100 Megaton device would have created a massive amount of fallout, and blown it over a good chunk of the earth.
The Tsar Bomba’s three stage design was supposed to have Uranium Tampers for the fusion reaction, but the scientists instead put lead tampers into the third stage, and possibly the second stage as well, dropping the bombs output power by half, but also ensuring that the explosion power was 97% fusion, drastically limiting the fallout, and making the Tsar Bomba one of the cleanest nuclear bombs ever built.
By “leap frogging” you mean they are wacko nihilist fools only just a slightly larger scale than we are now. This is the kind of thing that exterminates intelligent life. Or at the very least reduces it to a neo-primitive state to start again and forget their distant past as just mythology. Flying craft, “iron missiles” and beams of sun power destroying millions are just so much fanciful stories as they look to building their own thermonuclear weapons. Yep, humans can be both smart and stupid at the same time. (They can be so smart about the weapons of mass destruction. Amazing creatures–humans. What happened to them….?)
Yes it takes an A-Bomb to explode to start off an H-Bomb to explode. Makes quite the big boom and accompanying mushroom or parasol cloud. Huge things.
I do like the idea that the Tsar Bomba’s yield was limited by the scientists. In our world better targeting was the reason for reducing the yield on warheads. A small bit of grace in an otherwise suicidal idea. We came close several times and if it weren’t for Russians on the scene who took a pause, we could have an unplanned and unexpected nuclear exachange one of several times including 1984. All because of a misread launch of a satellite from Scandinavia.
Sarah: Then lets arm’em and kill all those Godless commie sum’bitches, KILL KILL KILL!!! *Starts frothing at th mouth*
Well, as Curtis LeMay said, all war is immoral, and if you let that bother you, you’re not a good soldier.
“War does not determine who is right, only who is left”
Wasn’t it General Curtis LeMay who wanted a liberal policy in the use of nuclear weapons like in Korea and Vietnam? I wonder how different our world would have been if the president in charge went along with it? As on the global response from Russian and China etc…?
Thank you *Mr. Average* for a quote I can keep and use from my Quotes file!
Don’t we avoid making multi megaton bombs not because it’s hard but because there is no need for anything that big?
Well, that, and the fact that beyond a certain size they get hard to deliver to their targets. The upper limit on yield is about 6Mt per ton of bomb mass, so a 40Mt bomb on top of one of Mike’s missiles would, in our world, be a seven ton warhead, at best, in our world. And those would be pretty finicky, precision-made units that would not be very good for field use. More likely it would approach more like 20 to 22 tons, and that’s a lot of stuff to move around. Somehow the South Americans in the story are sidestepping the efficiency problem. Bending the laws of physics? Hmm…
Or their approaching the problem from a different angle, with much better equipment and a far more refined understanding of nuclear physics than real life scientists had forty years ago.
Thermonuclear weapon design has not seen much in the way of R&D for at least the last thirty years, most weapons production since then has either been using existing designs, or experimenting with smaller, more controlled designs.
Oh. Let me guess? Compact Antimatter Fusion-Ignition charge OR a Laser Pulse Unit?
Glad I was able to help ya out.
I just love how you did the expressions and the exchange in these panels, you can almost hear the tones of disbelief and awe, and the deadpan monotonous delivery coming from the colonel.
Anyways, rest up and try to have a good week!
Thanks! 😉
Where is Rabbi Loew now, to dash away the Aleph and return his Golem to the earth? Itzak and Jakov are going to need a bigger wheelbarrow…
It’s worth noting here- in rather more than passing- the size of the weapon being discussed. 40mT is more than 3x more powerful than the 15mT Castle Bravo shot- the largest US test blast, and it closely approaches the 50-53mT “Tsar Bomba” demonstrator bomb. The Tsar, however, was in no way a practical weapon. This has been miniaturised to a sufficient degree to allow deployment on a theatre-mobile ballistic missile. If detonated above central Moscow, it would destroy everything above ground level for roughly 6-8 miles in every direction, and destroy any unhardened structure to a distance of 15 miles. The fireball would be nearly three miles across, and would produce third-degree full-thickness burns and ignite easily flammable objects and liquids to a range of 35 miles. Metropolitan Moscow, and everything nearby, would be destroyed utterly. If the warhead exploded on or near the ground, the destructive radii shrink by about 45%, but a massive plume of fallout would render everything for hundreds of miles northeast of Moscow, including the Soviet industrial heartland and stratiegic installations in the Urals and European Siberia, uninhabitable. The entire Volga watershed and every city along the river, from Moscow and Nizhny Novgorod to the Black Sea, would be contaminated with intensely radioactive heavy fallout particles.
Casualty estimates (from nukemap.com, assuming a strike on modern Moscow at the above parameters) run from 6-8 million fatalities with about half that number again of immediately survivable injuries. This does not include long-term casualties from the contamination of water and soil.
And Mike has three of the twelve. Golem has nukes, and a mind of his own. Somebody get on the blower to Prague…we need to borrow a Rabbi.
Mike may have more than three of them. He has an internal magazine that holds additional missiles in an auto loader.
How much is Mike hardened for? Would they have to explode it above old Mike and could he take it and still be armed to fire if functioning at all from the EMP?
Kill them all and let God sort the souls. The logic of total war…
Which is why in our world, we figured two times was enough, and have been trying for the last century to prevent a third. The lunacy in the Middle East notwithstanding.
Actually, given the historical trends, we’re overdue for several major wars on the scale of WW2.
Nukes simply put it at bay. Given that India is likely preparing to do surface tests again…
Glad to hear you had a good time.
And oh boy, the athmosphere is so dense and despairing I can almost hear Vera Lynn through some faded out speakers.
😀
It’s a drama, after all.
As a Mexican I am proud to let you all know we can make anything! 40megaton nukes thats nothing!
Well, in 6-Commando, Mexico is part of the United Nations Alliance, not the South American Coalition. But Mexico IS an atomic power, and holds one of the seven permanent seats on the UNA Security Council. The Mexican Navy in particular is a key element of the UNA atomic deterrent. As a matter of fact, you can see the Mexican submarines Anáhuac and Tlacopan launching their missiles at the end of Chapter 2.
va el equipo beaner!
Some people just want to see the world burn, right?
I still wonder what Haulley’s and Zaballa’s plan was in the first place?
Funny you should mention it… 😉
Jesus. 40 meg’s is big even by H-bomb standards. Especially when it comes to something that can be deployed in a practical manner.