(January 8, 2023 at 9:27 pm)Thumpalumpacus Wrote:(January 8, 2023 at 8:25 pm)Jehanne Wrote: Agreed. I can understand NYC's reluctance to mention the obvious, but going into any building within the 20 to 25 km kill zone of a thermonuclear bomb seems to be pitiless advice. In addition to the fallout, there is a going to be a firestorm of anything remaining after the initial blast wave, and so, it is going to be impossible for anyone who survives the detonation to remain inside any structure for very long anyways.
The subways or sewers is where people need to go, if they wish to live.
Aside from anything else, the shock wave will follow the path of least resistance and flow along the surface of the ground. Any penetration will only occur under the blast itself, and even so the overcharge will remain largely atmospheric because earth is thicker than air, and energy seeks the easiest outlet.
Penetrator warheads are a thing, but they're not wasted on cities, they're spent on first-strike silos or underground C³I facilities.
The Russians have shown that they have no qualms about attacking and murdering innocent civilians. Any thermonuclear weapons that they would decide to use would almost certainly be denoted 2 to 3 thousand feet above ground. The hypersonic shockwave will be line-of-sight (how could it be otherwise?) which will directly impact buildings from the air but also impact them a second time an instant after reflecting off the ground.
No doubt being on the ground would be an utterly horrible place to be, but being in any building within 10 km of detonation would almost certainly mean that the building one is in is going to collapse or be caught-up in the hellish firestorm that will soon follow.
As a side-note, I have faced some criticism in starting this thread, but I have read interviews of United States government scientists with PhDs in physics working in nuclear weapons research who openly speak of "how fulfilling & meaningful" their work is and "how much they love their jobs". As for me, I think that nuclear weapons are absolutely horrible and should be forever banned by all nations, and would never accept any job supporting them, no matter how much it paid. But, complete nuclear disarmament not yet being "practical" it's good to be prepared if we should be caught-up in the collective insanity of other human beings.
Finally, I think that the NYC emergency management video is not good advice; in my opinion, they should have never made it.
