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That would be a lot of ICBMs. The city center is not residential. Most people that work in the city center for city's like houston or LA commute from one of man

That would be a lot of ICBMs. The city center is not residential. Most people that work in the city center for city's like houston or LA commute from one of many different cities. Just to wipe out half of houston you would need to simultaneously strike at least a dozen different locations. The idea was, if there is a missile on the way or if other cities are being attacked, the sprawl would allow evacuating a lot of people. I do think it is an effective strategy. Look at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, tokyo and kyoto were spared for different reasons but they were spared. No sense in wiping out every single city. For the US, a nuclear attack would probably be against symbolic populated cities like new york, san francisco or chicago, ideally the US would surrender after that point and if there is no surrender, military targets would make more sense (hawaii,san diego,san antonio,anapolis,etc...). The idea is, if you have a small number of targets to defend you can defend them better. Just like with infosec, you want to reduce attack surface so you minimize exposed services or inputs.

cgriswald 6y ago
Sparing Tokyo worked because Japan didn’t have the capability to retaliate. Any launching during the mid-to-late Cold War would have been a massive first strike and possibly a retaliation at the same scale. In the early Cold War it may have been a reasonable strategy, but as another poster notes that’s a very narrow window for changing how a city grows. Even if there was an effect, I’d be very surprised if the signal wasn’t wiped out first by railroads and then by cars.
- gpderetta 6y ago
  Also Japan was hit by bombs in the low tens of kilotons. Modern bombs are in the megaton range.
  - andi999 6y ago
    Tsar Bomb has around 50 Megatons. Radius of total destruction 35km.
    - leetcrew 6y ago
      scary, but not entirely relevant. most modern launch systems carry (sometimes multiple) warheads with a much lower yield: 500 kt or less.
- ClumsyPilot 6y ago
  Tokyo and other Japanese cities were burned to the ground with mass firebombing, not spared. The goal was to get Japan to surrender, and Emperor was considering it. His generals were fanatically opposed, and if the Emperor were to be killed by the bomb, they would fight to the last man, woman and child. US administration could then pick it's poison - leave Japan as is, suffer and inflict massive casualties from a ground invasion, or commit nuclear holocaust.
gpderetta 6y ago
> That would be a lot of ICBMs That's what MIRVs are for. The strategy, if it existed at all and it isn't just a post-hoc explaination, was probably designed around the time the strategic bomber was the primary, and only, method of delivery of atomic bombs.
- badrabbit 6y ago
  Good point, I think rockets that re-enter from space were not a thing prior to the 60's and even then I bet they didn't expect thousands of them owned by multiple nations. I did not know about MIRVs, this comment thread has been educational.
dylan604 6y ago
Every single city that was targeted had multiple rockets assigned to them. Each rocket was just a launch vehicle similar to SpaceX launching Falcon9s with multiple Starlink satellite, each nuclear rocket was equipped with MIRVs (multiple independent re-entry vehicles). So one rocket launched would result in multiple targets. You could target each MIRV at different parts of the suburban sprawl. Pretty damn effective.
sudosysgen 6y ago
It wouldn't be a lot of ICBMs, actually. In reality, it wouldn't even take a single ICBM. Playing around on Nukemap, 5-6 800kt warheads are enough to kill the majority of people in Houston and give third-degree burns to the rest. A Russian RS-28 Sarmat ICBM should be able to carry 10-15. Or, with a single 20 megaton warhead, it would kill 1 300 000 people immediately and injure 2 000 000 people.
nilpunning 6y ago
Tokyo was not spared. On March 9-10th 1945 it endured the most destructive and deadly air attack in human history, killing somewhere between 90-100,000 people (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombing_of_Tokyo_(10_March_1945) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombing_of_Tokyo_(10_March_194...). Perhaps by August 6th when the atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, the major targets in Tokyo had already been destroyed.
birdyrooster 6y ago
Have you ever seen East Tokyo? The destruction from the firebombing in WW2 is still quite obvious even today even looking at a map.
- badrabbit 6y ago
  I did not know the extent but I was aware they were bombed like berlin and london. I meant when they planned the nuke attack Tokyo and Kyoto were on the list but they were removed for different reasons.
adrianN 6y ago
MAD did not allow for "surrender". You either wipe out your enemies military completely before they manage to launch most of their rockets, or you both die. There is no targeting of symbolic locations and then calling it quits.
- badrabbit 6y ago
  MAD is worse case scenario right? I think in reality if nukes are used both sides will be aware of MAD and it will be to compliment conventional warfare.
mr_toad 6y ago
> No sense in wiping out every single city. This was pretty much the strategy towards the end of the war. More than 60 Japanese cities were firebombed, civilian casualties probably exceeded those killed in Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

cgriswald 6y ago

Sparing Tokyo worked because Japan didn’t have the capability to retaliate. Any launching during the mid-to-late Cold War would have been a massive first strike and possibly a retaliation at the same scale. In the early Cold War it may have been a reasonable strategy, but as another poster notes that’s a very narrow window for changing how a city grows. Even if there was an effect, I’d be very surprised if the signal wasn’t wiped out first by railroads and then by cars.

gpderetta 6y ago
Also Japan was hit by bombs in the low tens of kilotons. Modern bombs are in the megaton range.
- andi999 6y ago
  Tsar Bomb has around 50 Megatons. Radius of total destruction 35km.
  - leetcrew 6y ago
    scary, but not entirely relevant. most modern launch systems carry (sometimes multiple) warheads with a much lower yield: 500 kt or less.
ClumsyPilot 6y ago
Tokyo and other Japanese cities were burned to the ground with mass firebombing, not spared. The goal was to get Japan to surrender, and Emperor was considering it. His generals were fanatically opposed, and if the Emperor were to be killed by the bomb, they would fight to the last man, woman and child. US administration could then pick it's poison - leave Japan as is, suffer and inflict massive casualties from a ground invasion, or commit nuclear holocaust.

gpderetta 6y ago

> That would be a lot of ICBMs That's what MIRVs are for. The strategy, if it existed at all and it isn't just a post-hoc explaination, was probably designed around the time the strategic bomber was the primary, and only, method of delivery of atomic bombs.

badrabbit 6y ago
Good point, I think rockets that re-enter from space were not a thing prior to the 60's and even then I bet they didn't expect thousands of them owned by multiple nations. I did not know about MIRVs, this comment thread has been educational.

dylan604 6y ago

Every single city that was targeted had multiple rockets assigned to them. Each rocket was just a launch vehicle similar to SpaceX launching Falcon9s with multiple Starlink satellite, each nuclear rocket was equipped with MIRVs (multiple independent re-entry vehicles). So one rocket launched would result in multiple targets. You could target each MIRV at different parts of the suburban sprawl. Pretty damn effective.

sudosysgen 6y ago

It wouldn't be a lot of ICBMs, actually. In reality, it wouldn't even take a single ICBM. Playing around on Nukemap, 5-6 800kt warheads are enough to kill the majority of people in Houston and give third-degree burns to the rest. A Russian RS-28 Sarmat ICBM should be able to carry 10-15. Or, with a single 20 megaton warhead, it would kill 1 300 000 people immediately and injure 2 000 000 people.

nilpunning 6y ago

Tokyo was not spared. On March 9-10th 1945 it endured the most destructive and deadly air attack in human history, killing somewhere between 90-100,000 people (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombing_of_Tokyo_(10_March_1945) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombing_of_Tokyo_(10_March_194...). Perhaps by August 6th when the atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, the major targets in Tokyo had already been destroyed.

birdyrooster 6y ago

Have you ever seen East Tokyo? The destruction from the firebombing in WW2 is still quite obvious even today even looking at a map.

badrabbit 6y ago
I did not know the extent but I was aware they were bombed like berlin and london. I meant when they planned the nuke attack Tokyo and Kyoto were on the list but they were removed for different reasons.

adrianN 6y ago

MAD did not allow for "surrender". You either wipe out your enemies military completely before they manage to launch most of their rockets, or you both die. There is no targeting of symbolic locations and then calling it quits.

badrabbit 6y ago
MAD is worse case scenario right? I think in reality if nukes are used both sides will be aware of MAD and it will be to compliment conventional warfare.

mr_toad 6y ago

> No sense in wiping out every single city. This was pretty much the strategy towards the end of the war. More than 60 Japanese cities were firebombed, civilian casualties probably exceeded those killed in Hiroshima and Nagasaki.