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Sure, I didn't intend to downplay the seriousness of nuclear war. It would be horrific and damaging to an extent never seen before. My point was just that the

Sure, I didn't intend to downplay the seriousness of nuclear war. It would be horrific and damaging to an extent never seen before. My point was just that the logic of having only a few nukes while everyone else has many more doesn't work. China has 145 cities that have more than 1 million people. You wouldn't be a serious threat to their industrial base with only a few nukes, and so the effect of your deterrence would be minimal.

Retric 3y ago
Those aren’t all independent cities. Suzhou is next to Shanghai and you devastate them both with a single nuke. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suzhou https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suzhou My guess is an 10MT H-bomb could kill ~20 million people by aiming at Suzhou despite the city only having 6.7 million people. Honestly to cripple China with minimal nukes 2-3 Starfish Prime style Nuclear electromagnetic pulses could disable most of their east coast before you target individual cities. Also, responding in kind to a limited nuclear exchange may be appropriate if you think an adversary still has a large stockpile. There is a lot of uncertainty involved.
- scrumper 3y ago
  I'm not sure any country is fielding 10 megaton monsters anymore. Maybe Russia has a few. The biggest weapon in the USA's inventory is "only" 1.2 megatons and that has to be dropped by an airplane so it's not going to have much chance of landing on Shanghai. Most weapons now are an order of magnitude smaller (hundreds of kilotons), with a high degree of accuracy ("circular error probable") obviating the need for extreme yield. Nukemap, known to lots of people here, can help you explore your predictions. Here, I airburst a B-83 over Shanghai so you don't have to: https://nuclearsecrecy.com/nukemap/?&kt=1200&lat=31.2322758&lng=121.4692071&hob_psi=5&hob_ft=10887&casualties=1&ff=50&psi=20,5,1&zm=8 https://nuclearsecrecy.com/nukemap/?&kt=1200&lat=31.2322758&... Sleep tight...
  - Retric 3y ago
    Nukemap is rather optimistic, you aren’t getting the kind of medical attention to give people who got a 500rem dose a 50/50 shot of survival after a nuclear bombing. It also ignores fallout, secondary fires, etc. Hard to say what hypothetical countries arsenals actually look like. The B-41 was supposedly 5.2 megatons of TNT per tonne of bomb designed in the late 1950’s. At 5 tons each a non reusable falcon 9 could get ~4 different 25 Mt bombs to LEO and possibly more on a ballistic trajectory. So it’s not like monsters don’t fit on rockets, saturation bombing is just more effective.

Retric 3y ago

Those aren’t all independent cities. Suzhou is next to Shanghai and you devastate them both with a single nuke. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suzhou https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suzhou My guess is an 10MT H-bomb could kill ~20 million people by aiming at Suzhou despite the city only having 6.7 million people. Honestly to cripple China with minimal nukes 2-3 Starfish Prime style Nuclear electromagnetic pulses could disable most of their east coast before you target individual cities. Also, responding in kind to a limited nuclear exchange may be appropriate if you think an adversary still has a large stockpile. There is a lot of uncertainty involved.

scrumper 3y ago
I'm not sure any country is fielding 10 megaton monsters anymore. Maybe Russia has a few. The biggest weapon in the USA's inventory is "only" 1.2 megatons and that has to be dropped by an airplane so it's not going to have much chance of landing on Shanghai. Most weapons now are an order of magnitude smaller (hundreds of kilotons), with a high degree of accuracy ("circular error probable") obviating the need for extreme yield. Nukemap, known to lots of people here, can help you explore your predictions. Here, I airburst a B-83 over Shanghai so you don't have to: https://nuclearsecrecy.com/nukemap/?&kt=1200&lat=31.2322758&lng=121.4692071&hob_psi=5&hob_ft=10887&casualties=1&ff=50&psi=20,5,1&zm=8 https://nuclearsecrecy.com/nukemap/?&kt=1200&lat=31.2322758&... Sleep tight...
- Retric 3y ago
  Nukemap is rather optimistic, you aren’t getting the kind of medical attention to give people who got a 500rem dose a 50/50 shot of survival after a nuclear bombing. It also ignores fallout, secondary fires, etc. Hard to say what hypothetical countries arsenals actually look like. The B-41 was supposedly 5.2 megatons of TNT per tonne of bomb designed in the late 1950’s. At 5 tons each a non reusable falcon 9 could get ~4 different 25 Mt bombs to LEO and possibly more on a ballistic trajectory. So it’s not like monsters don’t fit on rockets, saturation bombing is just more effective.