3 ms·
The Cold War-era guidance I’ve seen online said that the main threat is aggregate fallout in the first few days, and that it doesn’t take all that much mass and
by D13Fd 2y ago
The Cold War-era guidance I’ve seen online said that the main threat is aggregate fallout in the first few days, and that it doesn’t take all that much mass and distance to attenuate the radiation. So if you are in a basement surrounded by earth, with a multi-story house on top with the doors and windows closed, it sounds like you’ll do nearly as well as someone with a bunker.
- perihelions 2y agoThere's another key difference: normal buildings lose all of their windows in a large explosion. Alex Wellerstein's calculator says that "glass windows can be expected to break" at 1 psi (7 kPa) overpressure, i.e., out to 13.9 km distance (!) from the smallest-size modern MIRV warhead (350 kilotons). https://nuclearsecrecy.com/nukemap/ https://nuclearsecrecy.com/nukemap/ (Do you happen to have a link to that specific Cold War guidance?)
- lazide 2y agoMany (most?) parts of the US don’t have basements, and/or don’t have multiple stories.