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Nuclear War Survival Skills (1987) [pdf]
- euroderf 5y agoIf Putin lobs a small nuke into the North Sea as a warning shot, what does the West do ? Maybe stop shipping war materiel into Ukraine, but then anything else ? Nobody is going to lend the Russian army a helping hand unless it's to accept their surrender.
- pelasaco 5y agoThe book is nice, and really eye-opening, but in the practice, the bomb will probably be dropped when people are living their life, so probably the people that you love won't be all at home under the shelter. So imagine the scenario where your kid is in kindergarten, your wife/husband at work. You can survive the drop on your little basement, but you will want to go out to save your beloved as soon as you can, instead of stay 14 days there eating tuna, drinking bottled water and cranking your little shortwaves radio.
- jacknews 5y agoI will guess that some form of internet will survive a nuclear exchange, but what is likely to be the best way to connect to it? IP over ham radio?
- ohiovr 5y agoThe preferred way to survive nuclear war is to not to provoke one in the first place.
- capableweb 5y agoNo, it's not. And thinking like that is not helpful. "Best way to get rid of a drug addiction is to not get addicted in the first place" is similarly helpful, which is not at all. There are ways to act that maximises the chance of surviving a nuclear attack, just like there are ways of maximising the chance of getting rid of a addiction.
- JacobThreeThree 5y agoThe preferred way to survive nuclear war is to maximize the chance of not provoking one in the first place.
- q1w2 5y agoAgain, you're doing a semantic dance around the question. I, personally, am not in control of global politics. However I am, personally, in control of building a shelter in my basement.
- firebaze 5y agoYou could do both, though. Take care lunatics don't cause global disruption by influencing your sphere of influence. Works in recursion, at least.
- ekianjo 5y ago> There are ways to act that maximises the chance of surviving a nuclear attack, This reads like a monty python skit
- andrepd 5y agoIf you survive a nuclear attack you will wish you were dead. Any "nuclear attack survivability guide" is probably counterproductive because it reinforces the illusion that there is any such thing as a world the day after a nuclear attack. It's all over.
- itisit 5y agoPrevention is better than cure.
- hackertux 5y agoPreviously discussed here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15305892 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15305892 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28481782 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28481782
- cosmiccatnap 5y ago
- cscurmudgeon 5y agoBrowseable HTML version: http://www.ki4u.com/free_book/s73p911.htm http://www.ki4u.com/free_book/s73p911.htm
- samwillis 5y agoSeems to be down, believe it’s this: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_War_Survival_Skills https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_War_Survival_Skills https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=VPFTAAAAMAAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=Nuclear+War+Survival+Skills&source=bl&ots=BnoIQa5SOq&sig=rFAkjQpYf0n_Js-u4EEdP9oWklM&hl=en&sa=X&ei=cpodUM7MCcjj0QHPqYHgAQ&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=Nuclear%20War%20Survival%20Skills&f=false https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=VPFTAAAAMAAJ&printsec=fr...
- sva_ 5y agoIPFS: bafykbzacedqk3izhcrqsk4lmnebhmi6dv2sn4h2nundwnyhuu5hmbleoqqiqm https://cloudflare-ipfs.com/ipfs/bafykbzacedqk3izhcrqsk4lmnebhmi6dv2sn4h2nundwnyhuu5hmbleoqqiqm https://cloudflare-ipfs.com/ipfs/bafykbzacedqk3izhcrqsk4lmne...
- samwillis 5y agoThis is basically the perfect use case for IPFS.
- CodeGlitch 5y agoIn the past we had bit torrent... Which would also do the job?
- Noe2097 5y agoCan't help but think about The Day After https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Day_After https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Day_After
- andrepd 5y agoOr "Threads", an even bleaker and realistic look at what a nuclear exchange looks like.
- ekianjo 5y agoYou better watch Threads for a more accurate take.
- gcheong 5y agoIt certainly feels like we’re having something of a Dr. Strangelove moment at this point. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dr._Strangelove https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dr._Strangelove
- Diederich 5y agoAmazing movie, had a big impact. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xNQ694QzLqY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xNQ694QzLqY
- carabiner 5y agoWe will all need this soon.
- csee 5y agoAny recent update on the correctness of the 'nuclear winter' concept?
- giantg2 5y agoThere's this: https://www.huffpost.com/entry/nuclear-war-global-warming_n_828496 https://www.huffpost.com/entry/nuclear-war-global-warming_n_...
- hdjjhhvvhga 5y agoTo everybody reading this. Maybe in the 50s or 60s it made sense when Russians had 50 nukes or so. Now they claim they have a few thousand. I believe 10% of these will nuke them during takeoff, based on the deplorable state of their equipment we see now. Maybe a few ICBMs will be shot "down" in the last moment but I'm not sure how much this will help. When the world around you dies, do you really want to survive? I would prefer to live in the city and quickly die with my friends rather than move 200 miles away from civilization and experience inevitable illness, famine, nuclear winter and painful death. Also, I don't believe a nuclear war will happen because those who actually push the buttons proved in the past they are far more rational than their leaders.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- code_duck 5y agoCheck out this graphic: https://www.reddit.com/r/dataisbeautiful/comments/t4hyik/oc_number_of_nuclear_warheads_by_country_from/ https://www.reddit.com/r/dataisbeautiful/comments/t4hyik/oc_... Russians had about as many warheads in the 60s as they do now. In the 50s they had twice as many as China does now.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- baybal2 5y agoBy mid cold war, RAND calculated that it will take 20 years for the US to reach full reconstruction to pre-war level in an even of a Total Nuclear War
- slibhb 5y ago> When the world around you dies, do you really want to survive? Yes. > I would prefer to live in the city and quickly die with my friends rather than move 200 miles away from civilization and experience inevitable illness, famine, nuclear winter and painful death. I despise this attitude. Almost everyone who gets old dies painfully. Are you going to kill yourself at 45 to avoid aging? And this idea that only life in a city is worth living -- what the hell? Of course life lived hand to mouth outside a city is worth living.
- mysecretaccount 5y agoHave to admit, my nuclear war anxiety has never been as high as it is now.
- dom96 5y agoSame. I have already done at least one bit of prep: buying a Geiger counter.
- hdjjhhvvhga 5y agoWhile I understand your anxiety, it is baseless. This mad person who is so afraid of even his close collaborators that he sits several meters away from them wanted something very different: capturing a country he felt he lost. Who will praise him if there is nobody on the Earth? Also, make no mistake, his inner circle is full of people who know how to calculate risks and will betray their colleagues in a blink. Putin might be cornered but a collective suicide is not exactly the dream of people around him.
- javajosh 5y agoThe anxiety definitely has a basis: we live in a world where individual humans control powerful nuclear weapons that can be delivered, without real possibility of interception, and with minimal warning, right over every major city. The only real safeguard we have are the chain of human soldiers between the leader, the launch order, and the launch. There are like 10 brains in the world that can order a launch, and best case 10 brains to launch. So the world's nuclear safety is in 110 brains, best case, 10 brains, worst case. Brains, meanwhile, are highly plastic. Emotion, impulse, greed, fear - these are universal human drives. Now attach them to ever growing control over resources, power, to see your will be done, to cheat and get away with it, but only if you keep escalating... How could this possibly end with Putin backing down? My belief: Putin will order a launch. This will result in either nuclear war, if his proxies are loyal to him, or his immediate loss of power, if his proxies are not.
- mysecretaccount 5y agoWhy are you so certain that Putin will order nuclear armageddon?
- Flatcircle 5y agoI looked into what to do: If a bomb goes off, don't look at the blast, go to an area in your house without windows and little air access, close the doors and wait there for 24 hours. Ideally, it's a closed basement surrounded by ground and concrete. If not, maybe a bathroom wine cellar, etc. the idea is to isolate yourself from the surrounding radiation in the air. Hopefully, you have a shortwave radio with fresh batteries or one you can hand crank. Because cellphones and access to information will be limited, the shortwave radio is important because ideally, city officials will be broadcasting where to avoid going outside and safety instructions. Don't go outside within the first 24 hours, as small radiation particles will fall on you and cause serious health issues. If you do go outside get rid of all your clothes and take a shower, don't use conditioner which binds radioactive material to your body. They say that after 24 hours, radiation levels should drop off significantly, since the winds will hopefully blow them away. But that's why a shortwave radio is important to have, so you know which directions of the city are getting the radiation.
- csee 5y agoI'd suggest longer than 24 hours if you have the supplies to do so. The radiation will continue to drop off quickly into day 2 and 3.
- pelasaco 5y agoif you live alone and has no one to care of, sure. Otherwise all that is irrelevant if your family was in the school, work, etc.
- sandworm101 5y ago>> it's a closed basement surrounded by ground and concrete. Underground parking garages. The goal is to have lots of mass between you and the glowing stuff and a concrete monolith does that. All those 90-degree corners in the structure will then mitigate any blast damage without risk of being trapped behind any door. Just like an earthquake, you want to be far away from glass. A wet climate is also better as rain will wash the fallout out to sea. And not too cold. Fallout and snow is a bad combination. Just look at how dirty streets become when the snow melts. That's where the fallout will concentrate. So the best place to be on the day is probably a parking structure in a non-targeted city somewhere the pacific northwest.
- Barrera 5y agoThe books thesis is that nuclear war is far more survivable than the public has been led to believe. It's an eye-opening perspective for sure. But this is not the kind of book you're going to be able to use in a crisis. The appendixes contain how-tos for: 1. building a fallout shelter 2. building a ventilation device for the shelter 3. building a dosimeter The problem is that these instructions are mixed with commentary. Lots of it. There are half a dozen or so types of shelter you can build. Which one do you build? Go figure. What should be simple recipes are ordeals in concentration. I can only imagine the kinds of heated conversations that would take place should this guide be pulled out and used in anger as the hand crank radio crackles with terrifying reports of unthinkable events. What the book has going for it is field testing. The methods described were tried out on regular folk who were paid to participate and paid bonuses for certain milestones. The author claims good results. Apparently this was all done as part of a federally-sponsored program that no politician wanted to see become public policy. One of the most useful parts of the book is a prediction of fallout zones across the US. The author notes that even at the time of publication, this was 10 years old. Imagine a map of the US with greyscale clouds running left/right. Darker means more potential for fallout. Really hard to do given uncertainties, but maybe valuable for big-picture planning. I'm not aware of a more modern map.
- q1w2 5y agoWith some basic tools, a very simple shelter can be constructed with 2-3 days. Sufficient enough to keep you alive and radiation free. The real trick is not starving after.
- giantg2 5y agoTo be fair, no book is going to be very useful in a crisis. It's helpful only if you read and prepare before hand. In the actual crisis, there likely won't be time to read it, gather supplies, build a shelter, etc.
- Markoff 5y agoI mean everyone should be familiar to seek shelter with food and water at least for few days and you will have then plenty of times to read while waiting for going outside. Just not exactly sure how you are gonna read PDF after EMP caused by nuclear bomb.
- acqbu 5y agovery useful, thanks, will definitely need it in the immediate future - getting ready & prepped!
- bdz 5y agoThe US Army's Survival manual is much more useful imo. It's an actual guidebook covering all kind of survival techniques and practical informations (very basic things too like how to build a fire which most urban people doesn't even know) https://irp.fas.org/doddir/army/fm3-05-70.pdf https://irp.fas.org/doddir/army/fm3-05-70.pdf For nuclear and other hazards see chapter 23/page 358 (Survival In Man-Made Hazards)
- yrgulation 5y agoOk, here we are. I actually favourited this post and going to share it with others. This is 2022.
- the_courier 5y agoAnyone else re-playing all the Fallout games as way to prep?
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- baybal2 5y agoRussia has around 1000 warhead maximum possible first launch capacity in the most optimistic scenario. If Russia saves submarine second strike, it will be 800. If Russia will chose to hold off land-based second strike, it goes to 550. If Russia chose to reserve some of its most powerful ICBMs as a reserve for the "dire friend" China, I would give it to be 300 warheads. If the nuclear command & control centre is destroyed by a pre-emptive strike, there will be no coordinated first strike, but uncoordinated launches by individual units, highly conditional on officers resolve to fight an now unwinnable war.
- javajosh 5y agoDo you know how such officers are chosen? I was speculating that these are relatively quiet, cushy postings. Or perhaps such postings are boring, and reserved for punishment? In any event, what are the odds that either a) a verified order from Putin is ignored, or b) that a field officer would launch based on loss of contact with C&C? I get into such detail because it is my guess that Putin won't back down, and will escalate until he gives a launch order, and it will be up to these field officers to reject a first launch order (or question the veracity of a retaliatory launch order).
- baybal2 5y agoI have no idea, except that money is not spared on missile troops, and they are kept well fed at all times to ensure their loyalty. If you seen videos of Soviet missile submarines with Jacuzzi, this is about that. So far one thing is universally confirmed, launch officers get autonomy when "Contact is lost, and Moscow is confirmed destroyed." How much destroyed is counted as destroyed? Nobody knows, probably because officers themselves don't know, and don't delve into such scenario.
- lobocinza 5y ago> Soviet missile submarines with Jacuzzi I find hard to believe that. Submarines are very cramped and would not have space for non-essentials. Also Russia is not know for caring for it's soldiers (or citizens).
- giantg2 5y agoSome interesting stuff in here. Some of it could even be useful for "normal" things, like the pump information. I do wonder how much is outdated and that there are likely newer tech and designs that could work for some things. I also wonder how much warning the government would give the people in order to seek shelter. I guess they do an OK job of it in HI (false alarms). But I wonder if they would even bother telling the highly populated east coast in a full scale event due to the panic and subsequent issues for the survivors.
- GoodJokes 5y ago
- lamontcg 5y agoWho is trying to make me afraid of nuclear war, when this situation so far does not seem like nuclear war is imminent?
- AtlasBarfed 5y agoHere are the concern points: The invasion itself is a bit insane. In winter? An invasion? The preparations look slapshod, the troop morale of the invaders seems to be low to begin with. It doesn't reek of desperation, since there was no imminent threat to Moscow. It seems like insanity, or worse, dementia. Putin is a strongman, a narcissist, a sociopath. He cares not for the fate of this world. He may have terminal cancer (speculation, a possible reason the invasion seems rushed and ill-timed). Some men just want to see the world burn. Putin may be cornered. What is the endgame of this invasion? Humiliation is the minimum. A sign of weakness where he is deposed and likely assassinated in the process. A NATO or EU member Ukraine with a well-armed and seasoned populace (probably several million Ukrainians are training to be soldiers, and are very motivated to be good soldiers) that HATES you, and only about 300 miles of distance. Putin has lost this war already it seems. This nutso strategy seems to only work if he assumed all of Ukraine would lay down for his forces like Crimea. That's not happening, and there will be drones, TOW missles, MANPADS, and more arms flooding in from bordering NATO countries to arm and help the Ukrainians. Putin is paranoid of NATO/EU encroachment into his sphere. This was supposed to be his grand rebuke / riposte to the gradual incursion into his sphere of influence. But now it has failed badly, and from Putin's standpoint, strengthens the West's hold on Ukraine, buttresses the regime, motivates the populace. That leaves Belarus as the only buffer/border state, and they invaded Ukraine, and have a despot that likely can be easily deposed with NATO/EU allies to the north, south, and west. Belarus has invaded Ukraine too, so Ukraine has a casus belli to counterinvade them.
- Markoff 5y ago> In winter? Yes in winter, you don't won't to go through UA wetlands when they melt. https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/interactive/2022/ukraine-russia-invasion-geography-weather/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/interactive/2022/ukrain... https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/russia-tiny-window-invade-ukraine-26080257 https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/russia-tiny-window-...