[Jeff Head]

The point is...for most attack, short of hitting embedded bunkers, that is how the nuclear missiles would be used.

[RayChuang88]

Actually, both the Russians and Americans more or less admitted that their missiles aimed at each other's military installations were mostly designed to detonated at ground level to ensure something close to a 100% kill on its intended target--ICBM launch silos and its related underground command bunkers. The result attack on each other's missile sites would have resulted in a HUGE amount of fallout being blown into the air, far more than an attack on a city where the warhead detonates at around 10,000 feet for maximum above-ground area destruction.