The Czar bomb

[DerAdlerIstGelandet]

Or be sold to some rogue state or terrorist.

 

[nosredna]

Well I think that they prooved that and more.

 

[timshatz]

I read about that one. The Soviets were shooting for a bomb that was a 100 megatons. My understanding was they got it too. But then, somebody had a reality check and they decided to dial it down to 63 megatons. I think the bomb construction was using the "layer cake" method of making thermo-nukes. As a consequence, by inerting the top layer, they could dial it down.

I don't think it was big enough to wipe out everything in 100 mile radius. It did knock over a building at 30km, broke windows beyond that. Running on memory on this one.

 

[syscom3]

I read about that one. The Soviets were shooting for a bomb that was a 100 megatons. My understanding was they got it too. But then, somebody had a reality check and they decided to dial it down to 63 megatons. I think the bomb construction was using the "layer cake" method of making thermo-nukes. As a consequence, by inerting the top layer, they could dial it down.

I don't think it was big enough to wipe out everything in 100 mile radius. It did knock over a building at 30km, broke windows beyond that. Running on memory on this one.

Essentially you're correct about the construction. The layered design enabled "stages" to boost the performance.

As for the blast radius, the thermal pulse from the bomb was enough to ignite fires and cause burns on unprotected skin at 100 miles (depending on altitude of detonation).

 

[Cyrano]

 

[syscom3]

Some studies in the 90's estimated that a number betveen 1/4 and 1/3 of Russian nukes would have either never gotten out of their silos or have missed their targets if the Cold War ever had heaten into a shooting war.

So it seems Russian nuclear program was a complete failure, if the quality of their ICBMs was so poor, they should have made a shitload more instead of wasting resources on megabombs.

In nuclear warfare, even a miss can destroy your target

 

[Cyrano]

 

[syscom3]

Well if the target is Pentagon and the warhead ends to New Mexico desert I'd say it's a mission failed.

Ummm...... lets be a little more realistic instead of using these types of ridiculous examples.

Maybe you need a primer in CEP? Do you even know what that is?

 

[DerAdlerIstGelandet]

Besides there are a lot of things that it could take out between the Pentagon and the New Mexico Desert.

 

[timshatz]

One more point. They weren't going to shoot just one at the Pentagon, they were going to shoot/drop/lob/whatever 50 of the suckers. Same with the rest of Washington, New York, Philadelphia (ouch, that hurts), Houston, Chicago, ect. The point that most nuclear war strategy falls down is in the number of warheads whizzing around out there (both ways). If (and it is a big if but once the missles start flying it becomes an eventuality not an if) there is a probability of failure as high as 20% (and I have heard similar numbers) then the way to make sure that there is no chance of failure is to launch enough to make the probability of failure irrelevent.

That is why Civil Defense in the Nuclear Era was essentially an exercise in futility. With stockpiles of bombs/warheads in the tens of thousands, the primary targets would've been obliterated even if half the warheads missed. The bombs just would've kept coming and not getting killed would've been a function of luck more than planning.

 

[syscom3]

One more point. They weren't going to shoot just one at the Pentagon, they were going to shoot/drop/lob/whatever 50 of the suckers. Same with the rest of Washington, New York, Philadelphia (ouch, that hurts), Houston, Chicago, ect. The point that most nuclear war strategy falls down is in the number of warheads whizzing around out there (both ways). If (and it is a big if but once the missles start flying it becomes an eventuality not an if) there is a probability of failure as high as 20% (and I have heard similar numbers) then the way to make sure that there is no chance of failure is to launch enough to make the probability of failure irrelevent.

That is why Civil Defense in the Nuclear Era was essentially an exercise in futility. With stockpiles of bombs/warheads in the tens of thousands, the primary targets would've been obliterated even if half the warheads missed. The bombs just would've kept coming and not getting killed would've been a function of luck more than planning.

Good points.

One of the reasons the Soviets used such large warheads on their missles was to offset the lack of accuracy of the missles. Even if they missed by a mile, it didnt matter.