1MTon+10Mton air-burst explosion near my home

[rolnor]

This is a simulation of a 1Megaton blast at the town Karlskoga near me. The town has very large defence industry with blast-protected workplaces so a large bomb is to some degree necessary though a 1Mton bomb is extremely unlikely to be used. I live about the same distance from ground-zero as "Svartå", in my case 24km, and will not be directly affected by heat or blast. Even windows will not break. You can simulate fallout with this site but I didnt get it working properly. I am thinking about my basement in my house, I would like cover the windows that are close to the ground
I am thinking of making boxes around them and fill these with sand, a lot of sand. It would be less work than with concrete and should protect against fallout radiation if thick enough. If the door gets jamed or obstructed I could dig out from the basement through the windows instead, pushing the sand away. This is a air-burst, a ground burst is probably more likely and then the blast-radius is much smaller. I also include a 10Megaton blast but that is offcourse not realistic, these large bombs are rare. Even in this case my house will not burn but its getting close.Fallout is not very likely because these are air-bursts.

 

[Illini Warrior]

I'd be worried about a Russian invasion and occupation - those weapons manufacture facilities wouldn't be an immediate threat and a great benefit capture - Russia will be more hesitant to be using nukes in territory it will be occupying and needing to be more functional ....

conditions could change if Sweden joins NATO and those forces move into the country - military bases would become a bigger threat and defenses strengthened against invasion ...

 

[rolnor]

Yes, Putin has twice during the last month repeated that if Sweden files a NATO-membership application, Russia will be forced to take military action. The second largest political party in my country has promised that they will file such application immidiatley if they winn the next ellection here in the fall this year. So, we could became a target for Putins war-machine on the night when the result from the uppcomming referendum is published. Maybe not an invasion but something else. My town is so small, its really a village with a few hundred residents so I feel I am not a immidiate target at all, but offcourse war would mean something terrible also for me.

 

[rolnor]

The weapon manufactury in Karlskoga also make an lot of the explosives, like TNT, used in grenades as well as proppellants for rockets/missiles. We have had accidents in the plants where windows in the town where blown-out even tens of km from the nitroglycerine producing factorys.

 

[GaRp58]

I am reading your discussion and want to add a small piece of info. I think both of you can already know that normal flour for making bread will explode in an atmosphereic mixture. Back in the 1940's, one of Hitlers experts designed a "coal dust vacume bomb". The idea was to make a bomb that works in two stages, first a small explosion to spread the coal dust and create a much more dangerous "atmospheric" situation than just the normal 18% of oxygen and 78% nitrogen we breathe. The second explosion is then much more stronger because not only does the explosive detonate and ignite the oxygen in the area, it also ignites inside the cloud of coal dust which also detonates and creates a combined detonation which neither the original bomb or the coal dust alone could do. Russia has over 10 years ago designed the "aerosol bomb". Imagine not using coal dust, but an aerosol like liquid propane or butane. Just as strong as a small nuclear bomb, but with absolutely no fallout. ALSO!!! YOU CANNOT HIDE IN A BUNKER OR FOXHOLE!!!
The explosion creates a VACUME as it destroys and burns all oxygen in the area of detonation. This means it will either burn your lungs inside your body OR it will suck the low air pressure out of your lungs in a foxhole, cave, bunker or tank and kill you instantly....no hiding or protection will save you...here are two videos. One to show the function and the other from russian propaganda to show the real size.

 

[rolnor]

Yeah, thats nasty stuff. You could use ethylene oxide gas and get even more explosive power, the gas containes small molecules with strain in them and this makes it very powerfull. This gas is good to mix with oxygen if you want to open a safe, inject it through a small hole in the safe and ignite with a fuse. This was a tip I got in the army during my military service.

 

[Dave2001]

This is a simulation of a 1Megaton blast at the town Karlskoga near me. The town has very large defence industry with blast-protected workplaces so a large bomb is to some degree necessary though a 1Mton bomb is extremely unlikely to be used. I live about the same distance from ground-zero as "Svartå", in my case 24km, and will not be directly affected by heat or blast. Even windows will not break. You can simulate fallout with this site but I didnt get it working properly. I am thinking about my basement in my house, I would like cover the windows that are close to the ground
I am thinking of making boxes around them and fill these with sand, a lot of sand. It would be less work than with concrete and should protect against fallout radiation if thick enough. If the door gets jamed or obstructed I could dig out from the basement through the windows instead, pushing the sand away. This is a air-burst, a ground burst is probably more likely and then the blast-radius is much smaller. I also include a 10Megaton blast but that is offcourse not realistic, these large bombs are rare. Even in this case my house will not burn but its getting close.Fallout is not very likely because these are air-bursts.View attachment 15682View attachment 15680

BUT, what will the EMP do to you??????

 

[rolnor]

There is a consensus that a modern car, with all its electronics, will not be affected by EMP. EMP induces electric currents in metal, but the metall needs to be of some length, like a 20m cable. The metallic hull of a car does protect it in some way but mainly it is spared because it is so "short". Mobile phones, iPads etc. are even smaller and will not be harmed by EMP. But they can probably be destroyd if you charge them when the SHTF. A very old radio with tubes instead of transistors is even more safe.

 

[Dave2001]

So , will a car act like a Farraday Cage??

 

[rolnor]

In some fashion it will but mainly its so "smalll" that no large currents are induced by EMP.

 

[GeorgiaPeachie]

There is a consensus that a modern car, with all its electronics, will not be affected by EMP. EMP induces electric currents in metal, but the metall needs to be of some length, like a 20m cable. The metallic hull of a car does protect it in some way but mainly it is spared because it is so "short". Mobile phones, iPads etc. are even smaller and will not be harmed by EMP. But they can probably be destroyd if you charge them when the SHTF. A very old radio with tubes instead of transistors is even more safe.

There are experts in the field of EMPs that disagree with your above statement. So, don’t count on your car working. That could be a deadly assumption If you are planning on using it.

 

[DrHenley]

In some fashion it will but mainly its so "smalll" that no large currents are induced by EMP.

A high altitude nuclear EMP (HEMP) has three components, E1, E2, and E3. The E1 component is the highest frequency (affecting the shortest of circuits) and is the one that can destroy integrated circuits without them even being connected to a power source (including automobile ignition modules). It is also the easiest to shield against however, so metal automobile bodies may be sufficient shielding from the E1 component. I think the jury is still out as to what degree modern automobiles will be affected. There is a lot of disagreement among the "experts" about this. (I don't there there are any true experts)
Since circuits that are powered up during an EMP are affected to a much larger degree, it's possible that only automobiles that are running at the time will be affected.

 

[rainingcatzanddogs]

U.S. EMP Commission Test Results – Key Points

• 50 vehicles built between 1987 and 2002 were exposed to a spectrum of EMP blasts (up to 50kV/m in strength).
• 3 out of 50 vehicles shut down while driving.
• All 3 of these vehicles continued rolling until they safely coasted to a stop.
• 1 of those vehicles was disabled completely and would not restart.
• 2 of those vehicle restarted without an issue.
• Many nuisance issues arose from the 50 exposed vehicles including radio interference, strange and erratic behavior from headlights, turn-signals or brake-lights, and one vehicle needed to have its dashboard replaced

The EMP test indicates that roughly 15% of running vehicles (within that age range) may shut down if exposed to an EMP blast at or over 25kV/m over a wide range of area. In other words, short of a massive solar flare, only a nuclear explosion or purpose-built EMP would create the kind of pulse needed to cause the shutdown effect to occur.

We have a '84 Army Blazer, a 1992 chevy 1500, a 1998 F350 diesel truck, a 2002 jeep, a 2009 car and a 2013 250 diesel truck...so we run the gamut and I can tell you the reliance upon electronics just to keep the engines running has very much changed through the decades. One of my sons is a mechanic for a major car dealer and as his further training has gone, it is mostly learning to deal with the electronics integrated into the workings within the newer cars.

As an interesting side note, OBD 1 scanners only support vehicles on or before 1995 and OBD 2 scanners only work on vehicles made on or after 1996, though not sure if that is due to the changes in vehicle tech or the scanners themselves or both.

I agree with @GeorgiaPeachie, looking at the engines of these newer vehicles, I wouldn't count on having a running vehicle in the event of a detonation...

Additionally, according to Dr Peter Vincent Pry (the head of the US EMP Commission) Russia, China and North Korea are all known to have developed and tested weapons known as Super EMP weapons, designed specifically to significantly enhance the EMP effects well beyond the tested 50k/vm.

 

[rainingcatzanddogs]

…Moreover, modern electronics, in part because they are designed to operate at much lower voltages, are much more vulnerable to EMP than the electronics of 1962 exposed to STARFISH PRIME and the Kazakh nuclear tests. A similar EMP event over the U.S. today would be an existential threat.

16 (EMP Commission Executive Report, op. cit., pp. 4-8).

…Damage and upset to electronic systems will happen from E1 EMP field strengths far below the academic’s “15,000 volts/meter or higher.” A one meter wire connected to a semiconductor device, such as a mouse cord or interconnection cable, would place hundreds to thousands of volts on microelectronic devices out to ranges of hundreds of miles for low-yield nuclear devices. Based on omission and other experience with many EMP tests, semiconductor junctions, operating at a few volts, will experience breakdown at a few volts over their operating point, allowing their power supply to destroy the junctions experiencing breakdown.

….The same academic and many other non-experts also ignore system upset as a vulnerability. Digital electronics can be upset by extraneous pulses of a few volts. For unmanned control systems present within the electric power grids, long-haul communication repeater stations, and gas pipelines, an electronic upset is tantamount to permanent damage. Temporary upset of electronics can also have catastrophic consequences for military operations. No electronics should be considered invulnerable to EMP unless hardened and tested to certify survivability.

https://docs.house.gov/meetings/HM/HM09/20171012/106467/HHRG-115-HM09-Wstate-PryP-20171012.pdf

Who is right and who is wrong? I'm not much of a gambler, especially where the well being of my family/group is concerned. Prepare for the worst, hope for the best!

 

[rolnor]

Thanx, the data available to me is not complete, then. I can find my sources if I look into it, they clearly say that a modern car and mobile phones are not disabled. But nobody really knows so, yes, I agree that precautions are good.
Here is from wikipedia:

 

[DrHenley]

The Wikipedia articles on EMP are poorly sourced unfortunately. Any time you talk about EMP effects, you have to distinguish between the different components, and you have to distinguish between low altitude nuclear EMP (NEMP) and high altitude nuclear EMP (HEMP).
Here is a good place to start reading about what we believe will be the effects. It's a starting place because it has a list of references a the bottom, and so you need to do a deep dive into the sources.
https://remm.hhs.gov/EMP.htm

 

[rolnor]

Thanx DrHenley. It seems to be no consensus so its not easy to prepp for this. I read in your link that the problem with blast in some cases will actually be greater than the problem with EMP and that EMP will mainly occur at grond zero. So even in part if your material they are supporting whats in the wikipedia. But its obvious that its good to protect electronics as much as possible because nobody knows for certain from what I can see. Main question is probably, do you prepp for a 10Kton ground burst or a 10Mton airburst? Or both?

 

[DrHenley]

Thanx DrHenley. It seems to be no consensus so its not easy to prepp for this. I read in your link that the problem with blast in some cases will actually be greater than the problem with EMP and that EMP will mainly occur at grond zero.

That's talking about a low altitude nuclear emp. A high altitude nuclear EMP, called a HEMP (250 miles up) can blanket most of the continental United States and parts of Canada and Mexico too - with one blast. But because the blast is in space (farther away from Earth than the International Space Station) there is no radiation or blast damage, just the EMP.

Main question is probably, do you prepp for a 10Kton ground burst or a 10Mton airburst? Or both?

Both. Get as far away as possible from potential targets. That's the only way to really prep for nuclear explosions in my opinion.

 

[rolnor]

Do you think also small devises such as mobile phones will be completely useless after a large HEMP over the entire US? If I have a metallic tube with a tight metal lid to keep my stuff, will this protect my phone or iPad?

 

[DrHenley]

What good is a mobile phone if there are no mobile networks?