Let's punch this puppy into a website. One nuclear armed madman plus large city... Not including fallout. How many millions dead?
@ai6yr The extended impact zone, (30 to 150 km from the epicentre), could potentially encompass major metropolitan areas including portions of #jerusalem and #telaviv , depending on wind direction during the initial 48-hour critical period. Wind patterns during this crucial timeframe would determine whether these population centres, home to over 1.5 million people, would require immediate mass evacuation or extended shelter-in-place orders lasting weeks or months https://www.habtoorresearch.com/programmes/what-if-iran-attacked-the-dimona-reactor/
What If: Iran Attacked the Dimona Reactor? - Al Habtoor Research Centre

A single strike on the Dimona reactor would not merely be a military escalation—it could trigger a geopolitical cascade from the Negev to the Nile Delta and the Saudi border. With widespread radioactive fallout, mass displacement, and the collapse of agriculture and tourism, this scenario transcends conventional deterrence and redefines the entire regional security paradigm.

Al Habtoor Research Centre
@ai6yr omg is this a website?
NUKEMAP by Alex Wellerstein

NUKEMAP is a website for visualizing the effects of nuclear detonations.

NUKEMAP by Alex Wellerstein
@Smoljaguar @ai6yr ngl I live near multiple military bases, and have casually wondered how I’d fare…trying to decide if I should look lol
@tiamat271 @ai6yr being close is actually a good thing because you'll get euthanised in the initial strike instead of having to endure 3rd degree burns and radiation poisoning, + living through an apocalypse!
@Smoljaguar @tiamat271 <insert apocryphal kruschev quote here>

@Smoljaguar @tiamat271 @ai6yr

the safest place to be is at the epicenter. you'll never see it coming and will be instantaneous.

@coolcalmcollected @Smoljaguar @ai6yr that does sound like a much better way to go when you put it that way…
@ai6yr
That’s the size of the bomb dropped on Hiroshima. Imagine a fusion bomb.
@ai6yr in complete honesty, it’s impossible to take anything he says seriously because it’s so erratic, bombastic (ha!), and generally just bullshit. And yet, we must take him seriously because he can do real damage.
@ai6yr So the only flaw is that they would most likely use a Minuteman III which would have a nominal yield of 300KT
@cvvhrn @ai6yr
Why would he only use one?

@Dougfir @ai6yr

I would assume because of the fallout literal and political would be more than the cult GQP can bear

If you start hitting places on the gulf side you may frag our "allies" with fallout etc

@cvvhrn @Dougfir It's bad to nuke the people who give you planes
@ai6yr @cvvhrn @Dougfir It's bad to nuke people.
@driusan @ai6yr @cvvhrn
And yet here we are.
@Dougfir @driusan @cvvhrn Well, I'd argue it's bad to nuke ANYTHING (plants, animals, planets, people, fungi, etc.)
@ai6yr @Dougfir @cvvhrn maybe squirrels or mosquittos.
@driusan @cvvhrn @Dougfir Ah, but even a tactical nuke at the squirrel hideout on the hill next to my house will make Los Angeles uninhabitable for a generations. (well, at least for those who don't want extra limbs)
@ai6yr @cvvhrn @Dougfir but I thought Los Angeles has already been uninhabitable for generations.
@ai6yr @driusan @cvvhrn
Fun little story from back in the day.
We would have air raid drills in junior high in the 60s. One fine day, our teacher said don't bother climbing under the chairs. Between March AFB and Norton on the other side of Box Springs mountain, there was no way any of us would survive. While probably true, that was less comforting than he intended.

@Dougfir @ai6yr @driusan @cvvhrn I have similar memories. I learned that our local Air Force base was also part of the Strategic Air Command system, and that we were one of the top ten initial targets. I used to lie awake at night wondering if someone was pushing the red button thousands of miles away—how long would it take a nuke to reach us?

#goodtimes #childhoodnightmares

@Dougfir @ai6yr @driusan @cvvhrn
So yeah, I went to an elementary school adjacent to the Alameda, Naval Air Station, and this was during the Vietnam war, and we too, had to do the duck and cover under our desks, unfortunately, as has been the case since my time began…

Even at the age of seven, I was a highly logical thinker and had the audacity to inform the teacher that hiding under our desks was a waste of time because we were gonna get blown up anyway

Yeah, that was a phone call to my parents …

@MsMerope @Dougfir @ai6yr @driusan @cvvhrn I grew up in SoCal...I remember those duck and cover drills all through elementary school. I lived in El Toro when there was still a Marine Air Station.

I couldn't figure how my desk was going to do anything, in any disaster situation.

@julescelt01 @MsMerope @Dougfir @ai6yr @driusan The ducked under the desk made for easier charred carcass identification

@cvvhrn @julescelt01 @Dougfir @ai6yr @driusan

assigned seats were necessary for a number of reasons...

@cvvhrn @julescelt01 @MsMerope @Dougfir @ai6yr @driusan they used to upset me too, I also knew they would do nothing. I wanted to watch out the window and see the light show

@MsMerope @Dougfir @ai6yr @driusan @cvvhrn

LOL.

i had a similar discussion about how a wooden desk wasn't going help either a nuclear bomb or a tornado. :)

my mom's ambition, never realized, was to be able to walk into a school office where my sister and i attended and not be instantly recognized by the entire office staff. :)

Duck And Cover (1951) Bert The Turtle

Enjoy the videos and music you love, upload original content, and share it all with friends, family, and the world on YouTube.

YouTube

@MsMerope @Dougfir @ai6yr @driusan @cvvhrn

gack!

i think we got a 60s remake but it was still "duck & cover"...

@paul_ipv6 @MsMerope @Dougfir @ai6yr @driusan @cvvhrn I didn't understand this at the time, but the bigger a bomb is, the larger is the penumbral area where the blast/radiation doesn't kill you but the flying debris does. In the 1950s bombs were getting very big. Later, as missile guidance got more precise, they switched to smaller but more numerous bombs. In a full exchange survival may be pointless. But if you do want to survive for a while, even a thin barrier can really increase your odds.
@hattifattener @paul_ipv6 @MsMerope @ai6yr @driusan @cvvhrn
I can understand that as an adult but back in the 60s, I would never have understood such nuances.

@hattifattener @paul_ipv6 @MsMerope @Dougfir @ai6yr @driusan

Spot on. As missiles became more accurate, the emphasis on city busters like the W-53 (Largest even in service int he US) which was a whopping 9MT or 600x the Hiroshima blast delivered by a Titan II which had a CEP of up to 1.5km, where as a modern Trident D5's CEP is 90m or so its W88 warhead is up to 475kt

@hattifattener @paul_ipv6 @MsMerope @Dougfir @ai6yr @driusan

Yep, assuming you survive the initial blast wave, radiation exposure has three primary things you can mitigate

1) Time, less time exposed is a no brainer
2) Distance, get far away from the source. Easier said than done in a full exchange
3) Shielding: The more the better but even an improvised shelter made up of a trench that you reinforce and cover with dirt will provide a degree of shielding

https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/tr/pdf/AD0787483.pdf

@MsMerope @Dougfir @ai6yr @driusan @cvvhrn

We had a bomb shelter built into the hillside opposite my elementary school. It was also used for community events - I remember getting the polio vaccine on a sugar cube there. Perhaps one of my earliest memories.

When I was a bit older-old enough to swear- the air raid siren went off in the middle of the night. This also was during the Cold War. I remember thinking “Oh no, those bastards, they wouldn’t would they?”

I really don’t (didn’t?) want to go back to those feelings of insecurity.

@MsMerope @Dougfir @ai6yr @driusan @cvvhrn “It’ll be really quick though! You’ll never know what hit you” [ cue Tom Lehrer’s ‘We Will All Go Together When We Go’ ]

@Dougfir @ai6yr @driusan @cvvhrn 😂

I can't remember what the outside circumstances were - a big storm, I think- but I remember a kid in class asking me once if we were going to die.

I answered "Yes, eventually" without even thinking about it, and only after the horrified silence spread through the room did it occur to me that that wasn't the answer they wanted.

@GinevraCat

Yeah, practice saying "Not today!"

@Dougfir @ai6yr @driusan @cvvhrn

@ChuckMcManis
I learned quickly. This is my goto phrase now.

@Dougfir @ai6yr @driusan @cvvhrn

@ChuckMcManis @GinevraCat

Agreed.

My child came running in tears during his fifth birthday party and asked if he was going to die (his little friend trundling behind was not reassuring: "Yes yes yes, everybody dies"). I told him "Yes—but I'll die first" and he went right back to playing cheerfully, existential angst fully at rest.

Anyway, it's nice to be useful like that.