Nuclear War is very popular with the North Jersey board game people. It's one of those games they played the shit out of when there weren't good board games. When you go to the local cons like Dexcon and Dreamation, they still hold full tournaments.
I've meet the creator of that game. He makes box bands that I use for my board game. That game was munchkin before munchkin existed, not worthy of play unless you like silly next to nuclear war.
That designer has an *insane* biography - "Douglas Malewicki is an American game designer, aerospace engineer, and inventor. He spent much of his career working for aeronautics and space companies on famous projects such as the Apollo moon landing vehicles, the Stealth bomber, Cessna aircraft's first private jet, Robosaurus, and Evel Knievel's Snake River Canyon X-1 rocket-powered motorcycle. His 150+ miles-per-gallon California Commuter cars that hold the Guinness Book of World Records fuel economy records for street-legal vehicles driven at freeway speeds. His Malewicki Equations describe the maximum altitude and coast time of a vehicle such as a model rocket."
Unrelated to nuclear bomb tech, but speaking of nuclear war themed board games, I did make a team-based reskin of jungle speed based on identifying bombers and jets and helos between the US and USSR. It also had nukes which involved turning launch keys. I also experimented with adding cities/bases and being able to divide your card piles between them.
It was pretty fun but would be expensive to sell because a good red phone for the totem would cost a few bucks.
I've been to a lot of head shops - AKA, the shops with the bongs in - and they are WICKED paranoid about having weed in the shop, because it's pretty common for cops to spot-check them, keep an eye on them, etc for obvious reasons. It's not going to be universal, but most of them won't sell weed. Or tell you where to buy it. I even know some that will bar you from the shop for life if they find out you've come into the shop while you're carrying.
The one exception I've encountered was in a little town in New South Wales called Nimbin, but that's an odd case, last time I went there you could buy weed basically everywhere. One of the dudes at the Bi-lo supermarket was selling weed from the deli counter. Then again, this is a town where they have a very open, well known weed festival. It's called Mardi-grass.
The US is developing a modernized version of the B61. This means a precision, guided, small-yield (50-150kt) weapon that can be delivered like a cruise missile.
A weapon that would be easy to justify using as part of a "limited" nuclear strike.
A weapon which would be the "ideal" strike vehicle to arrest a North Korean attack without irradiating the entire peninsula.
What's the fallout yield? How quickly can an area so nuked be declared "safe?"
Fallout is a function of the ratio of fission to fusion in the secondary. If we assume (we don't know) that these devices have dirty jackets, then the middle yields will be the "cleanest," since most of the output will be from the fusion triggered by the primary (which itself is an obligatory boosted fission device).
If these are clean devices with non-fissile jacketing, then the highest yield setting will be the "cleanest."
As for fallout or area re-entry...
An airburst of 150kt from a thermonuclear device will have negligible fallout beyond the blast radius. But in a surface strike...
80 days is a rough estimate for when much of the area could be re-entered with relative safety in terms of long-term exposure to harmful radioactive isotopes. But research is scant, so YMMV.
For some perspective, the most powerful weapon the US ever fielded would have a third-degree-burn radius that is horrific and terrifying to even imagine. And that's only 9Mt. The Castle Bravo test was 25Mt. Tsar Bomba was capable of 100Mt.
The US is developing a modernized version of the B61. This means a precision, guided, small-yield (50-150kt) weapon that can be delivered like a cruise missile.
A weapon that would be easy to justify using as part of a "limited" nuclear strike.
A weapon which would be the "ideal" strike vehicle to arrest a North Korean attack without irradiating the entire peninsula.
The missile is also a "bunker buster", burrowing into the ground before detonating, minimizing the fallout compared to an airburst.
That's not good. Making a smaller nuke that with more precise aim makes it easier to convince someone, or convince yourself, that it's ok to use it.
Thus two questions:
1. If a non-nuclear weapon had a similar capability, could it be used?
2. If the small, precise nuclear weapon were to be used for the specific instance of arresting an active North Korean nuclear attack on Japan/Korea, would it be justifiable?
1) A nuclear weapon is worse than a non-nuclear weapon of the same explosive force because of radioactive fallout. Would you rather get blow to bits by a grenade, or burned by radiation?
2) Are you sure that pulling the lever to move the train to the other track is going to result in less people dying? Was there another lever you could have pulled that would have had an even better result?
Fire bombing in the Second World War was just as deadly as the nukes. It just took more planes flying over. In say a botched invasion of a country like Iraq is probably just as destructive, but then it's just spread over time. Drone strikes could accumulate as many deaths as a strike with as little danger to your own troops given enough time too.
2) Are you sure that pulling the lever to move the train to the other track is going to result in less people dying? Was there another lever you could have pulled that would have had an even better result?
You can never be sure. But inaction is a choice regardless.
If you want a level hypothetical, how about this?
Dude has a gun in a public place. He's shot two people already. He's pointed his gun at a third person. Do you pull a lever that will kill him right at that moment, or do you wait to see if the third person gets shot?
You know, by numbers alone, any WMD attack on Seoul is practically guaranteed to kill more people than even a strategic nuclear strike on NK capabilities... =(
I wonder, in some future date, whether an orbital rail gun or some type of "point heavy thing at earth and throw it really fast" would be more or less technologically sophisticated than designing, building, and maintaining an ICBM type thermonuclear arsenal as the US has today.
That's ignoring the politics and such mostly. Yes an orbital platform is a target, is banned, etc etc.
Assume some major upheaval and no powers can stop, let's say Italy, from either setting up orbital bombardment bases, or some kind of thermonuclear fleet. So if they are starting today with no assitsence from classified sources, so only publicly available information, which is a better allocation of their sciencers and enginizards?
Fire bombing in the Second World War was just as deadly as the nukes. It just took more planes flying over. In say a botched invasion of a country like Iraq is probably just as destructive, but then it's just spread over time. Drone strikes could accumulate as many deaths as a strike with as little danger to your own troops given enough time too.
Yeah, actually military officials were decidedly "meh" about the results of Hiroshima and Nagasaki because one bomb only did slightly more damage than the firebombing had done.
For some perspective, the most powerful weapon the US ever fielded would have a third-degree-burn radius that is horrific and terrifying to even imagine. And that's only 9Mt. The Castle Bravo test was 25Mt. Tsar Bomba was capable of 100Mt.
I used to be smack in the middle of that orange. Now I'm halfway between Perth Amboy and that Rt 35 marker. I guess now I can head to my town's slice of the bay, and break out the sticks and marshmallows?
1) A nuclear weapon is worse than a non-nuclear weapon of the same explosive force because of radioactive fallout. Would you rather get blow to bits by a grenade, or burned by radiation?
There's also immediate radiation: gamma and x rays. These get blocked by even having like a curtain in front of you, but if you're exposed...
1) A nuclear weapon is worse than a non-nuclear weapon of the same explosive force because of radioactive fallout. Would you rather get blow to bits by a grenade, or burned by radiation?
There's also immediate radiation: gamma and x rays. These get blocked by even having like a curtain in front of you, but if you're exposed...
1) A nuclear weapon is worse than a non-nuclear weapon of the same explosive force because of radioactive fallout. Would you rather get blow to bits by a grenade, or burned by radiation?
There's also immediate radiation: gamma and x rays. These get blocked by even having like a curtain in front of you, but if you're exposed...
Alpha , and to a degree beta radiation is so arrested. Gamma rays are not stopped nearly so easily...
2) Are you sure that pulling the lever to move the train to the other track is going to result in less people dying? Was there another lever you could have pulled that would have had an even better result?
You can never be sure. But inaction is a choice regardless.
If you want a level hypothetical, how about this?
Dude has a gun in a public place. He's shot two people already. He's pointed his gun at a third person. Do you pull a lever that will kill him right at that moment, or do you wait to see if the third person gets shot?
Sure, pull the lever. But maybe there was another way to stop them?
Police in the US have somehow found it pretty easy to apprehend people on shooting rampages without killing them, as long as they are white.
Comments
I've never played it.
It was pretty fun but would be expensive to sell because a good red phone for the totem would cost a few bucks.
Yes, we were going to nuke the moon to show the Soviets what-for.
The one exception I've encountered was in a little town in New South Wales called Nimbin, but that's an odd case, last time I went there you could buy weed basically everywhere. One of the dudes at the Bi-lo supermarket was selling weed from the deli counter. Then again, this is a town where they have a very open, well known weed festival. It's called Mardi-grass.
A weapon that would be easy to justify using as part of a "limited" nuclear strike.
A weapon which would be the "ideal" strike vehicle to arrest a North Korean attack without irradiating the entire peninsula.
If these are clean devices with non-fissile jacketing, then the highest yield setting will be the "cleanest."
As for fallout or area re-entry...
An airburst of 150kt from a thermonuclear device will have negligible fallout beyond the blast radius. But in a surface strike...
80 days is a rough estimate for when much of the area could be re-entered with relative safety in terms of long-term exposure to harmful radioactive isotopes. But research is scant, so YMMV.
You can satisfy your morbid curiosity to extreme detail here:
http://nuclearsecrecy.com/nukemap/
1. If a non-nuclear weapon had a similar capability, could it be used?
2. If the small, precise nuclear weapon were to be used for the specific instance of arresting an active North Korean nuclear attack on Japan/Korea, would it be justifiable?
2) Are you sure that pulling the lever to move the train to the other track is going to result in less people dying? Was there another lever you could have pulled that would have had an even better result?
If you want a level hypothetical, how about this?
Dude has a gun in a public place. He's shot two people already. He's pointed his gun at a third person. Do you pull a lever that will kill him right at that moment, or do you wait to see if the third person gets shot?
I wonder, in some future date, whether an orbital rail gun or some type of "point heavy thing at earth and throw it really fast" would be more or less technologically sophisticated than designing, building, and maintaining an ICBM type thermonuclear arsenal as the US has today.
That's ignoring the politics and such mostly. Yes an orbital platform is a target, is banned, etc etc.
Assume some major upheaval and no powers can stop, let's say Italy, from either setting up orbital bombardment bases, or some kind of thermonuclear fleet. So if they are starting today with no assitsence from classified sources, so only publicly available information, which is a better allocation of their sciencers and enginizards?
Police in the US have somehow found it pretty easy to apprehend people on shooting rampages without killing them, as long as they are white.