3 ms·

I didn't think so many nukes had been set off. Before knowing that fact, I'd have thought 2,000 nukes would give radiation poisoning to a decent portion of the

• pjscott 16y ago
  Most of these are underground; that's the least fallout-producing way of setting off a nuke, since there's no irradiated debris going up into the sky. The second least fallout-producing nuking method is an air burst. The ground bursts are the worst, and also the rarest in the doomsday plans.
  • arethuza 16y ago
    Enemy missile silos and other hardened sites would all receive ground bursts - in the case of the Soviets they had (and Russia may still have) multiple extremely large warheads (25Mt) targeted at places like Cheyenne Mountain and Raven Rock Mountain - these would have been ground bursts and incredibly messy.
• Ras_ 16y ago
  Modern (fission-)fusion bombs are cleaner and more efficient than old fission bombs. Low efficiency means that the nuclear reaction doesn't end with the explosion. The remaining heavy nucleus decay at their normal rate and radiate. The biggest one, Tsar Bomba was luckily very efficient. "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." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tsar_Bomba http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tsar_Bomba