What a Nuclear Attack in New York Would Look Like

New York Magazine ^ | 06-12-2018 | Ferris Jabr etc.

[NRx]

...But the current state of dread, while entirely understandable, has overshadowed two crucial realities about the threat of a nuclear calamity. First, a nuclear attack on the United States could well come not from the skies but from the streets. Experts warn that it would be relatively easy for terrorists to build an “improvised nuclear bomb” and smuggle it into America. Building a ten-kiloton bomb nearly as destructive as the one dropped on Hiroshima would require little more than some technical expertise and 46 kilograms of highly enriched uranium — a quantity about the size of a bowling ball. The second reality we have failed to understand is what a nuclear detonation and its aftermath would actually look like. In our imaginations, fueled by apocalyptic fictions like The Road and The Day After, the scale and speed of nuclear annihilation seem too vast and horrific to contemplate. If nuclear war is considered “unthinkable,” that is in no small part because of our refusal to think about it with any clarity or specificity. In the long run, the best deterrent to nuclear war may be to understand what a single nuclear bomb is capable of doing to, say, a city like New York — and to accept that the reality would be even worse than our fears.

...When such a bomb explodes, everyone within 100 feet of ground zero is instantaneously reduced to a spray of atoms. There are photos from Hiroshima and Nagasaki showing eerie silhouettes of people cast against a flat surface, such as a wall or floor. These are not, as is sometimes claimed, the remains of vaporized individuals, but rather a kind of morbid nuclear photograph.

[IndispensableDestiny]

Is 46 kilograms about 100 pounds? Seems like a lot.

That is a lot, unless these nuclear terrorists are shockingly incompetent. Are they hiring real nuclear physicists and engineers to design their weapon or just Gender Studies majors?

Little Boy contained 64 kg of HEU. Only about 1 kg fissioned. That's the nature of a gun type design.

[Fido969]

Can the effect be multiplied with hydrogen?

[ifinnegan]

Thanks.

I do not see any casualty results. I see very clear the area if ionization radiation or other blast consequences.

No casualty data, though.

Maybe I’m missing it.

[ifinnegan]

Thanks again.

I found the casualty option and yes, it is and I thought.

It’s not including estimated casualties from radiation syndrome.

It is very good in pinpointing the area of interest with respect to different doses, eg

“500 rem radiation dose; without medical treatment, there can be expected between 50% and 90% mortality from acute effects alone. Dying takes between several hours and several weeks.”

[Gene Eric]

You know that Staten Island voted for Trump, right?

[bert]

Staten Island would be collateral damage

[Pollster1]

Little Boy was 70 years ago. Today they have laptop computers that can do the numerical methods computations, plus they have all the information that has leaked out over time. They should be able to do much better with far less uranium.

[kanawa]

[DownInFlames]

Use nuke2

[Gene Eric]

As would a few FRiends...

[AppyPappy]

The difficulty would be creating the bomb so it cannot be detected. I saw one Harpoon scenario where an Iranian sub was trying to a nuclear mine in Boston Hahbuh

[bert]

It is far worse in California where there are many many FRiends

[T-Bone Texan]

A nuclear attack on America, including NYC, was discussed in the novel Warday by Whitley Strieber and James Kunetka.

It went into detail about salvage ops in the city.

Salvors were precluded from receiving any type of formal medical treatment due to the high rads they received. They were stripping all the buildings of valuable copper wire, which was no longer produced.

It is an odd book, written from an early 1980s sensibility.

[ifinnegan]

I did. Thanks.

I’ll look again at the options.

[Riley]

A nuclear attack on America, including NYC, was discussed in the novel Warday by Whitley Strieber and James Kunetka.

Strieber wrote some prescient stuff. I remember reading 'Nature's End' in about 1981, wherein his characters carried around a 'laptop computer' that could access other computers and facilitate communication on a vast, global network. The antagonist was a guy named 'Singh' IIRC, who's forces could track your access to this network and locate you. I read that and Warday back then.