What is the range of a nuke?

Question

hi, I was thinking about a modern nuke and was wondering wats the range of a modern nuke? I live about 12miles out from new York, would I be oblibirated, just the actual blast, not fallout

Answer 1

Depends upon size (Megatons) and where it is detonated.   If it is detonated on the ground there is a lot more radioactive debris thrown up into the air and downwind you have a lot more problems.  If it is detonated above ground you have less radioactive debris but a much bigger blast radius.  

You also have to assume the bomb may not hit exactly where planned.  If shooting for New York City would they shoot for a symbolic target like the Statue of Liberty or for the center of population density.  Also,  would they try to take it all out with one big bomb or a bunch of smaller bombs spaced over a greater area?

A bigger bomb would make a bigger target for any kind of missile defense system so I would assume they would use smaller bombs spread over a greater area as that would be harder to defend against.

Lastly,  are they going for first strike or retaliation?  If they are going for first strike,  they will be shooting at military targets such as our ICBM sites in North and South Dakota, Wyoming,  etc.  Also our B1 and B2 bases in the mid-west as well as our submarine bases and anywhere they think there might be a SLBM sub.  In that case,  you might be safe as they will not be shooting at cities.

However,  if they are going for retaliation they are going to assume whatever nuclear weapons we have would have been already launched.  No sense in shooting an empty missile silo.  So in that case they would go for the cities.   At 12 miles I would not give you good odds of survival.  The blast may not kill you but the radiation blast will probably give you sufficient rads that you will get sick and die over the next week or two.   Even if you survive those,  how are you going to get food and water as the infrastructure is going to go to pot and if you do not have supplies and a means of defending them ready, you may just find starvation in your future.

Pessimistic ain't I?  

Answer 2

Striker7,

It depends upon several factors:

Size of warheads

Number of warheads

Elevation of the blast

Weather

Too many factors to give you an honest answer.

"Ranger"

Answer 3

Depends on the size of the missile.  Some can go almost 1/2 way around the world.

Answer 4

The biggest thing the Russians can destroy over 40 square miles.

(the actual blast radius is about 3 square miles)

Answer 5

Depends what country?

Answer 6

Well, fallout not included, you may very well be:

-Blinded

-Burned

-Deafened

-Cut (by flying glass)

If a common, ICBM-class strategic nuke hit NY.

Now, most modern nuclear missiles have what are called MIRV warheads-that is, Multiple Independent Reentry Vehicle warheads, which involve about 10 individual nukes per missile. TO achieve saturation of targets, these warheads may be positioned in an overlapping pattern, so as to cover a larger area than a single warhead of larger magnitude could.

In this case, you probably wouldn't even know that a nuke was coming--you would just be vaporized by one of the detonations.

Keep in mind, the Russians have a missile called the SS-18 Satan, which can carry up to 50 individual MIRVS--talk about carpet bombing...of a state...

Answer 7

Depends on the yield of the nuke.  If you're worried about an attack by Russia, then we're talking at least 4-5 (if not more) strategic nukes at NYC.  If your talking about a terrorist attack with a suitcase nuke or 1 nuke in a lead-lined cargo ship from NorKor or other rogue state, then each would have differing effects.  

Check out the following sites which shows the distance of obliteration from various kilotons of yield and whether its an airburst or ground burst detonation:

http://meyerweb.com/eric/tools/gmap/hyde...

http://www.fas.org/main/content.jsp?form...

The fireball from a 10-kiloton explosion at ground level would reach a radius of 200 meters, hence would have a diameter of 400 meters or about a quarter of a mile. Everything within this radius would be completely destroyed. In the case of a badly designed or badly implemented bomb that yielded only 1 kiloton, the fireball would have a diameter about 2.5 times smaller, hence about 150 meters.

The surface explosion of a 100 kiloton weapon, as conceivably might be stolen from the arsenal of an advanced nuclear-weapon state, would produce a fireball 1 kilometer in diameter.  Russian SLBMs, in an all out nuclear exchange would presumably cover the whole city with numerous nukes. Trust me, 12 miles from ground zero will not be enough in a full scale exchange..