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How Powerful is "the BOMB" today?

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olimario

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I was reading a Natioal Geographic article about the BOMB and how it's still effecting the world 60 years later. They has this great timeline and something caught my eye...
The bomb dropped on Hiroshima was a 15 kiloton atomic bomb and the one on Nagasaki a 21 kiloton bomb. Russia, a few year later, tested a 1.6 megaton hydrogen bomb.

Oppenheimer warned that bombs would grows tremendously in power, but have they? How powerful is our most devestating bomb today?
 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tsar_Bomba

54 Megatonnes is the largest ever detonated.

Don't know what has been developed since but in theory you could make an H-Bomb as big as you wanted. I think the general purpose nuclear missile has multiple smaller warheards in the 1 megatonne range to give a 'shotgun' effect of city levelling explosions. This is all relative of course as 1 megatonne is f'kin enormous.
 
refreshZ said:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tsar_Bomba

54 Megatonnes is the largest ever detonated.

Don't know what has been developed since but in theory you could make an H-Bomb as big as you wanted. I think the general purpose nuclear missile has multiple smaller warheards in the 1 megatonne range to give a 'shotgun' effect of city levelling explosions. This is all relative of course as 1 megatonne is f'kin enormous.

A 1 megaton shotgun effect? holy shit.
I can't even imagine what this would do to a city. Thanks GOD a bomb hasnt been used in an act of war since WWII.
 
olimario said:
A 1 megaton shotgun effect? holy shit.
I can't even imagine what this would do to a city. Thanks GOD a bomb hasnt been used in an act of war since WWII.

Actually, each seperate warhead within a single missile is independantly targetted and although devasting on a ridiculous scale is less crude than a 'shotgun' effect (bad choice of words). Of course, your can't get much cruder than a massive explosion so, again, its all relative.
 
With a Tsar Bomba you can pretty much eliminate living in Western-Germany for like 75 percent.

And destroy every big metropolis district such as Paris , New York, Tokyo. Mexico City.
 
Last time I checked, it would take about 300 of the biggest bombs to make the planet uninhabitable for quite some time. Anybody know if this is still true?
 
Ghost said:
wouldnt that...you know....destroy the earth?

Nah, we can easily destroy ourselves and all life on Earth but at end the Earth will just have some large craters. Blowing up the Earth ala Starwars style is impossible (well atm).
 
Crow said:
Nah, we can easily destroy ourselves and all life on Earth but at end the Earth will just have some large craters. Blowing up the Earth ala Starwars style is impossible (well atm).

The Empire is working on it. Don't worry.

cheneypalpatine1.jpg
 
Iamthegamer said:
Last time I checked, it would take about 300 of the biggest bombs to make the planet uninhabitable for quite some time. Anybody know if this is still true?

Considering we have like tens of thousands of nuclear weapons, we can probably beat the crap out the planet like several times over. Freakin' scary.
 
A big enough cobalt bomb exploded over the Pacific would be enough to make this place uninhabitable IIRC. But that'll never happen. PEACE.
 
I think the US has something like 10 or 12 thousand and russia has like 8 or 9 thousand. Most of ours are 10 to 50 megatons
 
Iamthegamer said:
Last time I checked, it would take about 300 of the biggest bombs to make the planet uninhabitable for quite some time. Anybody know if this is still true?

When the mostly fragmented Shoemaker-Levy 9 Comet struck the surface of Jupiter, scientists observed that one fragment know as Nucleus G struck with a force of about six million megatons- seventy five times more than all nuclear weaponry in existance. The fragment was about the size of a small mountain.

The impact that lead to the extinction of dinosaurs was caused by an object roughly six miles across. Yet life survived. 'Habitable' is really a relative term.
 
Lets put it this way, one nuclear sub in the US navy has enough destructive capability to do more damage than all the destruction done in ALL of WW2 combined. Sucks huh?
 
The US premier 'deterrent' weapon is the fabled Peacekeeper missile

lgm118_4.jpg


Circular Error Probable (radius within which the missile is pretty guaranteed to hit in): Doesn't matter

Carries 10 independent MK-21 warheads which can each hit areas in different parts of a country.

Menu of death aboard one of these single warheads.

MM I/A-Mark 5 - 1.2-MT / W59

MM I/B-Mark 11 - 2-MT / W56

MM II-Mark 12 - 170-kt / W62 - MIRV

MM III-Mark 12A - 375-kt / W78 - MIRV

MM III-Mark 21A - 300-kt / W87 - single warhead

As of the SALT talks we should have in our silos predominantly Mark 21As which is a single missile.... so that people somewhere out in space can sleep better I guess.

Peace_Reentry-kmr.jpg

The last sight you are likely to see.


But there is always the possibility that someone might be able to disable all of the 500 or so MMIIIs and 50 or so MX variants sitting around, in which case you'll likely be awakened with a gift from:


ssbn726_view_s.jpg


US Ohio Class

Carries 24 Trident I or II (doesn't matter really, either would cause a bad day)

A single Trident 2 missile normally carries 5-8 warheads but could be fitted with 12-14. The yield of any single warhead being 100kt

Circular Error Probable (radius within which the missile is pretty guaranteed to hit in) : 90m (i.e. within the size of a football field!)


A single Ohio class SSBN could render most countries in the world the bitch of the United States.

The United States has 18 of this single class of SSBN.


So really, it doesn't matter how powerful they are any more... any one of them is just destructive beyond conventional comprehension.
 
Kangu said:
The impact that lead to the extinction of dinosaurs was caused by an object roughly six miles across. Yet life survived. 'Habitable' is really a relative term.

Its a matter of 'which' life will survive. Aquatic life at depth will most certainly survive, but humans can bend over and kiss it.
 
Isnt the meaning of life to live life to the fullest? Fucking deturents i swear. If any of those fucking things were to upset life i dont think i would be living it too much. Though that one pictures of the 50megaton are very impressive.

Are we sure thats the biggest one ever blown up? Cause some of those underground tests were freaking huge as well.

Just hope we arent making more H-bombs that would just make me very upset. Cause we only have one planet and we've fucked it up enough. I dont think thats an answer. More destruction does not mean more life.
 
xabre said:
You must be so proud.

Nope, because it doesn't END there. If any of these weapons are used, its likely that many of these weapons will be used and the consequences for everyone - even people not involved in the initial volley will be catastrophic. Mankind/society will not survive in that aftermath... things will be very mad max-ian even after a limited exchange of only a few warheads.

Its my hope that aliens arrive before we get to that point...
 
Phoenix said:
Its a matter of 'which' life will survive. Aquatic life at depth will most certainly survive, but humans can bend over and kiss it.

Mammals survived too. We came out of nowhere and took over the place. It's also hard to speculate regarding any type of life and the effects of a meteor impact on it. The impact that wiped out the dinosaurs didn't wipe out snakes, crocodiles or other lizards that were around at the time. Some species of plankton were completely wiped out whilst others were unaffected. Corals largely survived, yet if there were years of twilight following the impact then this should not be!

Overall however you are correct. The survival ratio of land based creatures was close to 10%, whereas water based creatures had a survival rate nearer to 90%.
 
Here is a bit of trivia that most likely noone will care about.

But when the ruskies tested Tsar, the shockwave circled the earth 3 times!

And made just about everyone in washington collectively shit their pants.

Its my hope that aliens arrive before we get to that point...
rumsfeld.jpg

The aliens dont look too friendly.
 
You know what's good with all these horrible advancements though? There's equally good advancements. Like for example, take a look at Spider-man 2. Once our sun finally goes out, we have the ability to create a brand new one as long as nobody drops it in the ocean.
 
pnjtony said:
I think the US has something like 10 or 12 thousand and russia has like 8 or 9 thousand. Most of ours are 10 to 50 megatons

I thought Russia had roughly 14k and the US 10k? I think they are slowly coming down though becouse 15 years ago it was alot more. During the collapse these bombs just disappeared which is good to know.
 
Socreges said:
Pheonix often seems anti-war.... but then displays such pride and an obvious hard-on for US military capabilities. ;P

I am anti-war without clear provocation, but I will admit to being impressed with how adept man is in coming up with cool ways to kill himself and how obsessed he is with making so much of it that he pretty guarantees his own destruction and likely extinction if he uses any of his cooler toys.

Dr. Zaius said:
Because you are a man. And you were right
-- I have always known about man. From the
evidence, I believe his wisdom must walk
hand in hand with his idiocy. His emotions
must rule his brain. He must be a warlike
animal who gives battle to everything around
him -- even himself."

- Planet of the apes (the original good one...)
 
I saw a documentary recently that Jupiter is actually our life saver in the solarsystem. Jupiter's strong gravitation is absorbing all the astroids that are on it's way to hit earth. Basicly Jupiter is our shield.
 
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