What do you guys think is the largest possible nuclear war that doesn't go global? By that, I mean a war in which two nations exchange a large amount of nuclear missiles, but no one else launches theirs. The war cannot involve the US or Soviet Union (or Russia, depending on when the war happens), as either of them launching missiles makes a global nuclear war unavoidable, in my opinion.
Largest possible limited nuclear war?
- Thread starter General Mosh
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A Largest possible limited nuclear war?
under superpowers only in begin 1950s were there stockpile is limited
After the study by Michael Mills about nuclear winter limited the nuclear exchange under 100 x 15 kt.
everything above, you get nuclear winter were the temperature drop around –7 °C for years, and after a decade the cooling is still –4 °C lower as normal
also you get Ozone layer depletion in atmosphere, by the soot of burning cities
see more on that problem in link to wikipedia.
under superpowers only in begin 1950s were there stockpile is limited
After the study by Michael Mills about nuclear winter limited the nuclear exchange under 100 x 15 kt.
everything above, you get nuclear winter were the temperature drop around –7 °C for years, and after a decade the cooling is still –4 °C lower as normal
also you get Ozone layer depletion in atmosphere, by the soot of burning cities
see more on that problem in link to wikipedia.
Delta Force
Banned
Isn't this something of an oxymoron? I mean in theory you could have a tactical nuclear conflict isolated to a specific region and the powers involved come to some kind of agreement before things escalate. Also, in the 1950s and 1960s they had nuclear versions of everything, and they wouldn't necessarily have been used only to fight other nuclear equipped forces. There were nuclear torpedoes, nuclear AAMs, nuclear SAMs, etc. It's possible that a conventional attack might be responded to with small nuclear weapons in a defensive role.
Dayton Kitchens
Banned
nuclear war is a myth with no basis in actual science.
Even Carl Sagan who heavily promoted the concept admitted that he did not have the evidence to support it.
The meteor that created Meteor Crater hit with an estimated impact of around 800 megatons IIRC (equivalent to about 2,400 average nuclear weapons) and it didn't cause substantial climate effects.
U.S./USSR in the early 50s. Number of weapons and limitations on delivery, especially on the Soviet side, would keep the escalation to a minimum.
Limited nuclear war is nearly an oxymoron. Escalation is a virtual certainty once a fairly low number of weapons are exchanged.
Limited nuclear war is nearly an oxymoron. Escalation is a virtual certainty once a fairly low number of weapons are exchanged.
on Carl Sagan, TRAPS group used today primitive computer simulation of Climate process in 1980s
While Michael Mills used state of art climate simulation in 2007.
Meteor Crater was 15 Megatons of TNT in desert of Arizona
Let take other extreme: Chicxulub, that was Asteroid of 15 km with of 100 teratons of TNT, which exterminate the dinosaur.
85% of mass, the Chicxulub ejected was distributed world wide!
while Meteor Crater remain a local occurrence, like Tunguska with 5 megatons of TNT.
but look on another major impact on climate: Vulcan's
in 1883 the Krakatoa exploded with 200 Megatons TNT.
it's ejected 18–21 cubic km sulfur aerosols and volcanic ash into stratosphere
result the year without Summer in 1884, global temperatures fell by as much as 1.2 °C
Lake Toba a supervolcano in Indonesia
it exploded around 70000 years ago, with 28 gigatons TNT.
ejected estimated 2800 cubic km of sulfur aerosols and volcanic ash into stratosphere.
Toba led to a volcanic winter with a worldwide decrease in temperature between 3 to 5 °C
according anthropologist Stanley Ambrose, it reduce the Homo sapiens population to 10000 survivors.
while cilmat experts making Toba responsible for begin of the Last glacial period.
so that proof the concept of Comet and volcanic winter
it's only needed large mass of ash brought into stratosphere.
But Nuclear Winter has component, missing in volcanic winter: fume and soot aerosols
in nuclear attack cities will be targets, all plastic, paint, oils will burn to fume and soot.
ww2 Hiroshima and Nagasaki had far lest of plastic, as today!
The question is: are enough mass of fume and soot capable of producing a Nuclear Winter ?
according Michael Mills study, Yes
Dayton Kitchens
Banned
How do you know that?
The OP talks about a "limited nuclear conflict". By definition "limited" means something short of "all out".
The likeliest "limit" in regards to this is limiting targets to strictly military forces.
Dayton Kitchens
Banned
From your own link
In addition, the authors of the 2007 study above state that "because of the use of the term 'nuclear autumn' by Thompson and Schneider [1986], even though the authors made clear that the climatic consequences would be large, in policy circles the theory of nuclear winter is considered by some to have been exaggerated and disproved [e.g., Martin, 1988]."[20][21
@Michael Van
Availability of plastics should not be an issue in modern cities, especially in the cities of the indian sub-continent, with our massive shanty towns and slums both within and just outside cities.
I would actually recommend reading this
http://www.psr.org/assets/pdfs/two-billion-at-risk.pdf
This is a very well researched report which indicates that an indo-pak limited nuclear war will lead to the death of around 2 billion people. Mostly from famine over a period of a decade, but also from instability, war, and the deaths from the direct nuclear exchange itself.
It most certainly is what I consider one of my worst nightmare scenarios.
Availability of plastics should not be an issue in modern cities, especially in the cities of the indian sub-continent, with our massive shanty towns and slums both within and just outside cities.
I would actually recommend reading this
http://www.psr.org/assets/pdfs/two-billion-at-risk.pdf
This is a very well researched report which indicates that an indo-pak limited nuclear war will lead to the death of around 2 billion people. Mostly from famine over a period of a decade, but also from instability, war, and the deaths from the direct nuclear exchange itself.
It most certainly is what I consider one of my worst nightmare scenarios.
Dayton Kitchens
Banned
^Personally I think even that is an exaggeration.
I think there is a very strong bias among scientists to make the use of nuclear weapons under any circumstances as unappealing and catastrophic as possible.
I think there is a very strong bias among scientists to make the use of nuclear weapons under any circumstances as unappealing and catastrophic as possible.
Delta Force
Banned
Not necessarily. There are two types of strategic targets, counterforce (military) and countervalue (civilian and other nonmilitary). Early American nuclear war plans placed a heavy emphasis on counterforce, as it was thought that it would lower civilian losses on both sides. Basically, we would tell the Soviets not to hit us back after the initial raids or we would escalate to countervalue targets.
Once ballistic missiles became a major component of strategic forces the distinction started to disappear. When everything has to be airborne in half an hour, you don't have the time for a phased strike plan. I suppose you could try to maintain it using air and naval strike forces, but functionally all the land based missiles are going to be launched immediately in a nuclear war, as it is a use it or lose it situation. Since you can't know where the missiles are going, there are probably quite a few countervalue targets that will be fired on.
Nuclear war planning before the ballistic missile era was quite elaborate because there was a lot of time to think things out. Nuclear war plans actually called for periods of calm between strikes so that the leaders could try to negotiate an end to the bombings. It started turning into the cold logic of statistics, graphs, and pure unemotional game theory when ballistic missiles turned it into a race to see who can launch the most weapons.
There is a brief window in the 1950s in which the superpowers can get into a nuclear war with each other and not use their full arsenals or even hit countervalue targets.
Dayton Kitchens
Banned
^You do know that neither the U.S. or Soviet Union ever had the policy of "launch on warning" or "launch under attack"?
It was always just a basic assumption that both sides would launch their nuclear weapons if any were detected in bound.
Personally, I don't think either would for various reasons.
Even worse are the idiots who claim that "if one flies they all fly". That even a 5 kiloton nuclear artillery shell fired somewhere would mean that everyone started launching thousands of large nuclear warheads.
It was always just a basic assumption that both sides would launch their nuclear weapons if any were detected in bound.
Personally, I don't think either would for various reasons.
Even worse are the idiots who claim that "if one flies they all fly". That even a 5 kiloton nuclear artillery shell fired somewhere would mean that everyone started launching thousands of large nuclear warheads.
That "by some" tells me that even for these guys the issue isn't settled. In fact, from what I've read nuclear winter denial is based more on politics than science. The idea that Sagan has been absolutely disproved is in the realm of urban myth.
oh i forgot to explane that
iT's depends were this happens and how the nation reacts
there concept of two types of strategic targets, counterforce: military installation and counter value: civilian and industry.
the French under De Gaulle had policy if Soviet drop one nuke on France, they nuke 10 city in USSR !
another problem is targeting Nation like Germany, Belgium or India and China have a high population density
were ever you got a military target to nuke, you will hit city also.
perfect example Is Belgium, if you try to nuke the NATO HQ in Brussels, you destroy the city also.
that was one of reasons, why De Gaulle kick out NATO out france, there HQ and and 3 other installation were in Paris
Dayton Kitchens
Banned
and let me guess.
This is based on public statements by the French?
Let me clue you in, public statements on "nuclear policy" have almost nothing to do with ACTUAL nuclear policy. Because public statements are designed to
1) Sow uncertainty
2) Make the consequences for an attacker to seem more ominous.
In other words to enhance deterrence by making any possible use of nuclear weapons seem more apocalyptic.
Reality is quite different.
BlondieBC
Banned
Soviets were launch on warning in 1983. Not sure on Soviets in any other given year.
Dayton Kitchens
Banned
Actually no.
The Soviet plans were ambiguous. Even to them for that matter. In the Able Archer Crisis is was ASSUMED that the Soviets MIGHT have launched a counter attack if they thought the five Minutemen were inbound.
But given that the Soviet colonel overrode the alarm we might never know.
But then again, the Soviet colonel DID inform his superiors about the possible five Minutemen incoming yet no one decided to launch even a retaliatory in kind counterstrike.
This indicates that even the paranoid Soviets were cautious about committing to a nuclear strike without confirmation of impacting (exploding) warheads. At least for such an apparently "low level" strike.
Note, even though just five Minutemen were mistakenly detected, given that they carried possibly 3 MIRVs each that could've meant as many as 15 170 kiloton nuclear warheads inbound against Soviet territory.
Yet, apparently retaliation was never even contemplated.
Dayton Kitchens
Banned
And by the way, for anyone who wants to bring up the Soviet (now Russian) auto/semi auto nuclear launch system "Dead Hand".
By all accounts Dead Hand (also called Perimeter) was a SECOND STRIKE nuclear launch system. That is, even on fully automatic mode (there is a debate about whether such mode as ever actually been built) Dead Hand had to have multiple nuclear detonations occurring on Soviet territory to activate.
Because to be activated the following conditions had to be met.
1) Severed communications with Moscow and key command bunkers.
2) Seismic readings indicating nuclear detonations.
3) Radioactive particles in the air indicating nuclear detonations.
To name just three...
By all accounts Dead Hand (also called Perimeter) was a SECOND STRIKE nuclear launch system. That is, even on fully automatic mode (there is a debate about whether such mode as ever actually been built) Dead Hand had to have multiple nuclear detonations occurring on Soviet territory to activate.
Because to be activated the following conditions had to be met.
1) Severed communications with Moscow and key command bunkers.
2) Seismic readings indicating nuclear detonations.
3) Radioactive particles in the air indicating nuclear detonations.
To name just three...
It's worth noting that the "nuclear winter" model never accounted for the presence of the oceans, which act as giant thermostats in planetary terms. The fact that this was omitted (along with assuming that the same fires that struck Hiroshima & Nagasaki would happen everywhere a nuke hit, despite the fact that those two cities were uniquely vulnerable to incendiary effects compared to most modern cities) when Sagan did his study on nuclear war tells me one of two things; either he forgot to include it, which is something I'd think would be hard to miss, or deliberately left it out. The latter's implication is that Sagan is an intellectually dishonest politicker that had an agenda to pursue. I've yet to see any solid proof of the theory's credibility.
EDIT: That being said, it is possible for SOME climactic repercussions to result from a nuclear exchange IF the fallout coalesced along the equator line. Even then, though, we're talking more of a "nuclear autumn", which would certainly be damaging to crops and result in famines but hardly any kind of extinction-level event.
EDIT: That being said, it is possible for SOME climactic repercussions to result from a nuclear exchange IF the fallout coalesced along the equator line. Even then, though, we're talking more of a "nuclear autumn", which would certainly be damaging to crops and result in famines but hardly any kind of extinction-level event.