Re:Animated map of nuclear explosions, 1945-1998
by pjscott on Monday August 09, 2010 @04:36AM
(#1587375)
Most of these are underground; that's the least fallout-producing way of setting off a nuke, since there's no irradiated debris going up into the sky. The second least fallout-producing nuking method is an air burst. The ground bursts are the worst, and also the rarest in the doomsday plans.
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Re:Animated map of nuclear explosions, 1945-1998
by arethuza on Monday August 09, 2010 @07:16AM
(#1587621)
Enemy missile silos and other hardened sites would all receive ground bursts - in the case of the Soviets they had (and Russia may still have) multiple extremely large warheads (25Mt) targeted at places like Cheyenne Mountain and Raven Rock Mountain - these would have been ground bursts and incredibly messy.