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Duck and cover doesn't imply any such thing. It is simply a way to protect yourself in a case like nancyminusone described. A good example is the Chelyabinsk m

Duck and cover doesn't imply any such thing. It is simply a way to protect yourself in a case like nancyminusone described. A good example is the Chelyabinsk meteor event of 2013. Many people went to look out the window to see what was going on, not realizing that the shock wave would come moments later. > A fourth-grade teacher in Chelyabinsk, Yulia Karbysheva, was hailed as a hero after saving 44 children from imploding window glass cuts. Despite not knowing the origin of the intense flash of light, Karbysheva thought it prudent to take precautionary measures by ordering her students to stay away from the room's windows and to perform a duck and cover manoeuvre and then to leave the building. Karbysheva, who remained standing, was seriously lacerated when the blast arrived and window glass severed a tendon in one of her arms and left thigh; none of her students, whom she ordered to hide under their desks, suffered cuts. The teacher was taken to a hospital which received 112 people that day. The majority of the patients were suffering from cuts. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chelyabinsk_meteor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chelyabinsk_meteor

LorenPechtel 1y ago
Exactly. Half a megaton, but high enough up that duck and cover would probably have saved everyone.
crote 1y ago
Okay, so you survive your initial local blast. Now what? Nuclear war won't be a local thing. Your country will be hit by hundreds if not thousands of nukes. Not only is your local city devastated, so is literally every other city. Nobody is coming to help: your government and military no longer exist, there is no emergency response possible, the Red Cross isn't a thing anymore. The electric grid has collapsed. The internet is dead. You're rapidly running out of fuel, heating sources, running water, and food. So what exactly did the whole "duck and cover" do for you? Is surviving the initial blast worth the week or two of complete horror which will inevitably follow? Duck-and-cover maybe makes sense if a nuclear war is going to be a single hit and the rest of society survives to help you recover. But that's not what nuclear war will be like.
- lazide 1y ago
  The US nuked itself literally thousands of times, and that never happened. You’re assuming a far more competent and omnipotent enemy with far more destructive weapons than exists.
  - BobbyTables2 1y ago
    Location, location, location! The US didn’t nuke its critical infrastructure… For example, how many fewer water plants can your city survive on?
    - lazide 1y ago
      There are easily 10x more fresh water plants in the US than nukes in both countries arsenals combined. Not to mention fresh water wells on private property, which are 100x or more. I’m not saying Nukes won’t cause damage - just that there is zero chance they can cause the pervasive, complete destruction of ‘everything’ that movies portray. There just aren’t enough of them. And no one knows enough or is competent enough to identify everything of value. Don’t live in a high value target area though, or next to a major military base.
- MomsAVoxell 1y ago
  Duck and Cover was just one of many aspects of the culture of Cold War - another was indeed, for American families to dig their own survival bunkers. The jingle at school was for the kids, the Sears catalog bunker section, adults.

LorenPechtel 1y ago

Exactly. Half a megaton, but high enough up that duck and cover would probably have saved everyone.

crote 1y ago

Okay, so you survive your initial local blast. Now what? Nuclear war won't be a local thing. Your country will be hit by hundreds if not thousands of nukes. Not only is your local city devastated, so is literally every other city. Nobody is coming to help: your government and military no longer exist, there is no emergency response possible, the Red Cross isn't a thing anymore. The electric grid has collapsed. The internet is dead. You're rapidly running out of fuel, heating sources, running water, and food. So what exactly did the whole "duck and cover" do for you? Is surviving the initial blast worth the week or two of complete horror which will inevitably follow? Duck-and-cover maybe makes sense if a nuclear war is going to be a single hit and the rest of society survives to help you recover. But that's not what nuclear war will be like.

lazide 1y ago
The US nuked itself literally thousands of times, and that never happened. You’re assuming a far more competent and omnipotent enemy with far more destructive weapons than exists.
- BobbyTables2 1y ago
  Location, location, location! The US didn’t nuke its critical infrastructure… For example, how many fewer water plants can your city survive on?
  - lazide 1y ago
    There are easily 10x more fresh water plants in the US than nukes in both countries arsenals combined. Not to mention fresh water wells on private property, which are 100x or more. I’m not saying Nukes won’t cause damage - just that there is zero chance they can cause the pervasive, complete destruction of ‘everything’ that movies portray. There just aren’t enough of them. And no one knows enough or is competent enough to identify everything of value. Don’t live in a high value target area though, or next to a major military base.
MomsAVoxell 1y ago
Duck and Cover was just one of many aspects of the culture of Cold War - another was indeed, for American families to dig their own survival bunkers. The jingle at school was for the kids, the Sears catalog bunker section, adults.