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From: ken@njitcccc.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.politics,net.sci
Subject: Re: Plutonium, Water, Tactical vs. Strategic
Message-ID: <163@njitcccc.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 22-May-86 11:14:34 EDT
Article-I.D.: njitcccc.163
Posted: Thu May 22 11:14:34 1986
Date-Received: Sun, 25-May-86 11:33:11 EDT
References: <358@drutx.UUCP> <1063@whuxl.UUCP> <2384@jhunix.UUCP> <708@whuts.UUCP> <260@anasazi.UUCP>
Organization: NJ Inst of Tech., Newark NJ
Lines: 27
Xref: watmath net.politics:16313 net.sci:928
Summary: Bomb blast effects

In article <260@anasazi.UUCP>, john@anasazi.UUCP writes:
> >in an airburst.  Strategic weapons (the big ones) could wipe out a 300
> >mile radius.
> This is real garbage. Typical tactical weapons leave craters a few hundred
> yards in diameter (go read Scientific American for details). Strategic
> weapons may wipe out a 3 to 5 mile radius, not 300 miles! I once calculated
> the number of 1 Mt bombs, optimally spaced, and detonated at optimum altitude,
> necessary to wipe out Phoenix, AZ. It would take around 45. If your numbers
> were right, it would just take one or two. I believe that blast effects
> go down with the CUBE root of radius, not the Square root. Thus a 20 Mt
> bomb (about as big as anyone bothers to build) would wipe out an area
> with only 10 times the radius of the Hiroshima bomb.
Pretty good estimate. I've got one of those handy dandy calculators.
Assuming a 20 megaton bomb detonated at optimum burst height, with
peak pressure to destroy buildings (not hardened) set at 50 psi,
the destruction radius will be 2.6 miles.

-- 
Kenneth Ng: uucp(unreliable) ihnp4!allegra!bellcore!njitcccc!ken
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