I suspect nuclear weapons are surprisingly useless for military purposes. They can flatten a city, but those who are underground may survive the blast and heat

I suspect nuclear weapons are surprisingly useless for military purposes. They can flatten a city, but those who are underground may survive the blast and heat effects surprisingly well. The radiation is awful, but it comes mostly from fallout, and any attacking troops are as subject to that as the defenders. I suppose a tactical nuke could be useful against a massed army formation, or blow a hole in a defensive line. But a force defending in depth doesn't present those kind of opportunities. Nuclear weapons could be strategically important in their destruction of productive facilities and people, and their destruction of crucial point targets (such as an opponent's nuclear missiles). And of course they are enormously destructive and dirty. But they're mostly terror weapons. And there are the enormous downsides of these things, which overwhelm any benefit they might accrue. There are reasons no one has used these things since WW II. Chemical weapons are a different matter, and I am a little worried they may appear before this is all over.