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Vecchio 10-03-2005, 20.22.44
Howard Berkowitz
 
Messaggi: n/a
Predefinito Re: U.S. knew agent going to airport

In article <j02131h897fs9bt0d70dr209urd7v8sh9k@4ax.com>,
[email]activated_95b@earthlink.net[/email] (remove underscore) wrote:
[color=blue]
> On Wed, 09 Mar 2005 23:55:28 -0500, Howard Berkowitz
> <hcb@gettcomm.com> wrote:
>
>[color=green]
> >I would have to disagree. While many don't understand that an ERW was
> >indeed a nuclear weapon (probably boosted, but not thermonuclear), the
> >idea was that the lethal radius of radiation would be greater than that
> >of the thermal and blast effects.
> >
> >If the radii are the same, you'd get hard kills on the tanks with no
> >bonus against the crews. It wasn't just that it was a low-yield bomb,
> >but a low-yield bomb with enhanced prompt radiation (and probably
> >reduced fallout)[/color]
>
> Tanks are heavily armored and survive blast very well. Since the
> neutrons pass through the armor they kill the crews. The problem with
> the 'regular' nukes was that any blast large enough to disable a tank
> would also destroy towns and villages several miles away.
>[/color]
Right. But I'm taking issue with the argument that the blast, heat, and
radiation kill radii are the same in either type of bomb. If radiation
kill were not, even in a regular bomb, greater than the blast radius, we
would not have seen cases of immediate radiation sickness at Hiroshima
and Nagasaki -- they would all have been killed by blast. Yet there
were people displaying radiation sickness symptoms within minutes of the
blast -- not long enough to absorb lethal amounts of fallout. The sort
of isotopes produced by that sort of bomb is unlikely to emit radiation
intense enough to produce symptoms in minutes. Exposure of hours, yes.

One cannot completely generalize about any of these radii, as they will
vary with burst height and other conditions. The higher the burst, in
general, the larger the thermal and radiation radii. The lethal thermal
radius, in a non-enhanced-radiation bomb, will usually be greater than
the lethal (immediate) radiation radius.

Blast radii are more complex to predict, because a nuclear explosion at
least some distance above the ground has two shock waves due to the Mach
effect -- the second, caused by reflections through now-superheated air
through which the shock passes more quickly, is worse than the first,
with the caveat that the Mach second wave will be less that 50 PSI. 50
PSI is more than enough to destroy reinforced concrete civilian
buildings, but not things like missile silos. I'd have to check the
vulnerability tables, but 50 PSI is not going to be trivial even to
armored vehicles. To exceed it, you have to have the target in the
initial shock wave of the second fireball.

Remember also that while 50 PSI blast may not be enough to destroy the
tank, it's still going to fling around the crew, perhaps fatally.
Still, the radiation kill radius of an ERW is going to be considerably
wider than the blast radius.
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