1 gigaton nuclear weapon

[cloud]

People are just overrating the H bomb.. In real terms a Gigaton H-bomb will effectively destroy an area equivalent to a few 10s kilometer, and the fallout will affect say around 40-50 kms radius max(life threatening).. H-bombs are meant to cripple the economy of a nation by destroying large cities and important infrastructures, which gives the opponent ample opportunity to dominate the region with conventional/proxy power...

 

[iskandhar]

People are just overrating the H bomb.. In real terms a Gigaton H-bomb will effectively destroy an area equivalent to a few 10s kilometer, and the fallout will affect say around 40-50 kms radius max(life threatening).. H-bombs are meant to cripple the economy of a nation by destroying large cities and important infrastructures, which gives the opponent ample opportunity to dominate the region with conventional/proxy power...

I don't think people areoverrating... think of the actual power of releasing 1 GT of energy in a short notice, in a small space... ( the last stage of a multi-staged fission device ), this energy release would probably have a magnitude high enough to "ignite" N2 in the atmosphere... creating a self-propagating fusion reaction... it all depends on the rate of energy absortion ( E.M. multispectral opacity ) by the layers of surrounding air, to the rate of energy dissipation... ath these leveles of energy and power, we are talking of an Electromagnetic Shock wave, overriden by a thermal expansion wave, I.E. a Marshak Wave...


So... it all depends on the calculations... but, i have the "gut feeling", that a 1GT Nuke would "ignite" the atmosphere...

 

[cloud]

self-propagating fusion??? Lets just say Impossible even in this century or next, If such a thing was possible, Then there wouldn't exist an earth already as we already had many impacts from Asteroids of much higher level in past and I'm quite sure that many of them exceeded what one gigaton nuke can do at any level including the radioactivity..

 

[iskandhar]

self-propagating fusion??? Lets just say Impossible even in this century or next, If such a thing was possible, Then there wouldn't exist an earth already as we already had many impacts from Asteroids of much higher level in past and I'm quite sure that many of them exceeded what one gigaton nuke can do at any level including the radioactivity..

Impossible..?? i would not dismiss it as outright "impossible" without making calculations : Hans Bethe made such calculations for the explosions of Gadget and for Ivy Mike; his models considered the thermal profile evolution for a fission energy release of Gadget ( multispectral opacity data for atmosphere ) and for fusion energy release of Ivy Mike ( different thermal spectrum ), and concluded it was possible, although extremely improbable... but his calculations were about a 25 Kt energy release, and a 15 Mt energy release.. not a Gt energy release... it all has to do with the relative rates at which energy is absorbed by surrounding air in X and Gamma rays from the "primary" fireball, and dissipated by thermal radiation by overheated air... and an accurate answer can only be given after calculations.... IMHO...

 

[iskandhar]

self-propagating fusion??? Lets just say Impossible even in this century or next, If such a thing was possible, Then there wouldn't exist an earth already as we already had many impacts from Asteroids of much higher level in past and I'm quite sure that many of them exceeded what one gigaton nuke can do at any level including the radioactivity..

Edward Teller's analysis concluded that a self propagating fusion would fail to Ignite deuterium, because the low opacity of low Z elements to hard X Rays/Gamma rays, thus prompting the need to use some sort of high Z material to be used in a Tamper for Inertial compression of fusion fuel, allowing it to be compressed adiabatically ( it is essentially opaque ) by ablation of its outer layers... but N2, and O2, are much more opaque than H2, or D2...

 

[JohnyD]

I believe countries are working to make it more lighter and tactical than bulky and devastating!

 

[Azazel]

People are just overrating the H bomb.. In real terms a Gigaton H-bomb will effectively destroy an area equivalent to a few 10s kilometer, and the fallout will affect say around 40-50 kms radius max(life threatening).. H-bombs are meant to cripple the economy of a nation by destroying large cities and important infrastructures, which gives the opponent ample opportunity to dominate the region with conventional/proxy power...

Are you nuts or what???A giga ton H Bomb will have such a huge blast,The debris of the blast will immediately reach outer space.Tsar bomba with 50 MT had a blast radius over 700 km,people had third degree burns over 100km away.So just imagine a Giga ton H bomb will have a blast range of 1000s of km.

 

[iskandhar]

Are you nuts or what???A giga ton H Bomb will have such a huge blast,The debris of the blast will immediately reach outer space.Tsar bomba with 50 MT had a blast radius over 700 km,people had third degree burns over 100km away.So just imagine a Giga ton H bomb will have a blast range of 1000s of km.

I think, as a rough approximation that within devices with a similar physics ( same kinds of energy release profiles ), the destruction and blast range scale approximately as the cubic root of the energy magnitudes ratio ( it takes a device with 8 times more energy to double the blast range ) .. because the enregy has to be released in a volume, which grows as a cubic factor of the linear range... so :

A device with 1 Gt, would have roughly a blast radius of (1000/50)|(1/3) = 2.714 times the blast range of the 50 Mt device...

Provided we are talking of similar physics ( characteristic time scale ) Ratio of power to energy release, so tha scaling rules apply...

because if other phenomena intervene ( ignition of the atmosphere.. ) , things can become qualitatively ( and quantitatively ) different since scaling is no longer valid...

 

[Azazel]

I think, as a rough approximation that within devices with a similar physics ( same kinds of energy release profiles ), the destruction and blast range scale approximately as the cubic root of the energy magnitudes ratio ( it takes a device with 8 times more energy to double the blast range ) .. because the enregy has to be released in a volume, which grows as a cubic factor of the linear range... so :

A device with 1 Gt, would have roughly a blast radius of (1000/50)|(1/3) = 2.714 times the blast range of the 50 Mt device...

Provided we are talking of similar physics ( characteristic time scale ) Ratio of power to energy release, so tha scaling rules apply...

because if other phenomena intervene ( ignition of the atmosphere.. ) , things can become qualitatively ( and quantitatively ) different since scaling is no longer valid...

Energy released is not the only factor affecting the blast radius The blast radius varies dependent on whether it is a ground burst or an airburst. Further, the height of the airburst above ground affects the radius too.Low altitude airburst can create huge blast waves.

 

[cloud]

Are you nuts or what???A giga ton H Bomb will have such a huge blast,The debris of the blast will immediately reach outer space.Tsar bomba with 50 MT had a blast radius over 700 km,people had third degree burns over 100km away.So just imagine a Giga ton H bomb will have a blast range of 1000s of km.

first of all, megatons multiplied by a number doesn't mean same number number will be used to multiply its effect., infact it reduces exponentially.. So a gigaton bomb should not be more then 3-4 times in its destructive power of that 50megaton bomb. Its also depends upon the geography..

I mean just compare, that 50 megaton is almost 3000 times more then what was used in Japan(13 kt), but the effect were 3000 time more? while A Gigaton is just 20 times that of 50 megaton one..

 

[cloud]

Energy released is not the only factor affecting the blast radius The blast radius varies dependent on whether it is a ground burst or an airburst. Further, the height of the airburst above ground affects the radius too.Low altitude airburst can create huge blast waves.

that 50 megaton was low altitude aairburst only..

 

[Azazel]

first of all, megatons multiplied by a number doesn't mean same number number will be used to multiply its effect., infact it reduces exponentially.. So a gigaton bomb should not be more then 3-4 times in its destructive power of that 50megaton bomb. Its also depends upon the geography..

I mean just compare, that 50 megaton is almost 3000 times more then what was used in Japan(13 kt), but the effect were 3000 time more? while A Gigaton is just 20 times that of 50 megaton one..

When you talk about destructive power so casually,You are not even considering the most destructive of them all Nuclear fallout.a Castle Bravo surface burst of a 15 Mt thermonuclear device at Bikini Atoll had a fallout area extending over 500 km downwind.Majority of this fallout region was severely contaminated,some Japenese fishermen happen pass through these area got exposed, and one of them died causing an international furore.The Castle Bravo fallout spread traces of radioactive material as far as Australia, India and Japan, and even the United States and parts of Europe. Though organized as a secret test, Castle Bravo quickly became an international incident, prompting calls for a ban on the atmospheric testing of thermonuclear devices.Now there is no way I can predict the fallout area of a 1 GT bomb,but it will be pretty bad.

I mean even Soviets got scared of building a 100 MT bomb, and they were reportedly terrified after the Tsar Bomba test.It has been estimated that detonating the original 100 Mt design would have released fallout amounting to about 25 percent of all fallout emitted since the invention of nuclear weapons.Hence, the Tsar Bomba was an impractically powerful weapon.

 

[Azazel]

that 50 megaton was low altitude aairburst only..

Of course,They never tried it again,The plane that dropped only just managed to get out of the harms way.If it was the original 100MT it wouldn't have.

 

[cloud]

When you talk about destructive power so casually,You are not even considering the most destructive of them all Nuclear fallout.a Castle Bravo surface burst of a 15 Mt thermonuclear device at Bikini Atoll had a fallout area extending over 500 km downwind.Majority of this fallout region was severely contaminated,some Japenese fishermen happen pass through these area got exposed, and one of them died causing an international furore.The Castle Bravo fallout spread traces of radioactive material as far as Australia, India and Japan, and even the United States and parts of Europe. Though organized as a secret test, Castle Bravo quickly became an international incident, prompting calls for a ban on the atmospheric testing of thermonuclear devices.Now there is no way I can predict the fallout area of a 1 GT bomb,but it will be pretty bad.

I mean even Soviets got scared of building a 100 MT bomb, and they were reportedly terrified after the Tsar Bomba test.It has been estimated that detonating the original 100 Mt design would have released fallout amounting to about 25 percent of all fallout emitted since the invention of nuclear weapons.Hence, the Tsar Bomba was an impractically powerful weapon.

Don't know about the gigaton bomb fallout area, but what ever it is, it will not be more then 3-4 times greater then what a 15-50 megatons can do. Now think about it, in cold war era, those nations had hundreds and thousand of them such megatons with them to use against each other, yet still they were/are not sure if they could wipe out other..

Plus we need to define the "pretty bad" in our argument.. even a 1 kt (dirty) nuclear bomb is pretty bad for 99.99% of population..

 

[Azazel]

Don't know about the gigaton bomb fallout area, but what ever it is, it will not be more then 3-4 times greater then what a 15-50 megatons can do. Now think about it, in cold war era, those nations had hundreds and thousand of them such megatons with them to use against each other, yet still they were/are not sure if they could wipe out other..

Do you have some academic studies to back that claim or did you made it up.And yes during the cold war they piled up thousands of megatons of such weapons.But they did that based on a mad military doctrine called MAD (Mutually assured destruction).The strategy is effectively a form of Nash equilibrium in which neither side, once armed, has any rational incentive either to initiate a conflict or to disarm (presuming neither side considers self-destruction an acceptable outcome).And all of them were absolutely convinced if the cold war turns nuclear,it would be an apocalyptic scenario.That was the whole point of this doctrine,no one wanted an apocalypse!!!!