In the event of nuclear war, what would you do?

[Thaluikhain]

the good or batshit bad idea they have with modern nukes is that they minimise the potential for nuclear winter, more radiation, less thermal emissions, more accurate and lower altitude detonations.

however the very high altitude detonations delivering EMP blasts would instantly turn pretty much the entire planet back to the 19th century but with 21st century weaponry and military thats shielded from it.

Ok, despite wombat_of_war being banned, a couple of points. Lower altitude initiations aren't a result of improved technology, how low you initiate the device depends on what you want to do with it. Set the thing off near the ground, and it'll tend to dig a big hole. Useful if you want a big hole (say, there's a bunker underground), but the damage is less widespread. Also, all that stuff you've dug out comes back down as fallout, there'd be less of it if it was set off higher up.

EMP isn't nearly as powerful as it's made out to be. Shielding against it isn't very complicated, and power surges from other sources are common...protect the machine from, say, lightning hitting the power lines nearby, and that will help against EMPs.

But, yeah, limiting the power of devices risks weakening the nuclear taboo, which is a worry.

 

[Evil Smurf]

I live in Australia, so nobody is going to attack us. Yes I know the Japanese attacked us in WW2 but that was different.

I'd try to move somewhere far off like Australia, while cursing the rest of the world for their bottomless stupidity.

We have a facist **** as a PM, as long as you are white, male and rich you'll be cool though.

 

[Thaluikhain]

I live in Australia, so nobody is going to attack us. Yes I know the Japanese attacked us in WW2 but that was different.

During the Cold War, the Soviets did plan to send missiles to Australia, though not many.

 

[Zykon TheLich_v1legacy]

Ok, despite wombat_of_war being banned, a couple of points. Lower altitude initiations aren't a result of improved technology, how low you initiate the device depends on what you want to do with it.

He's kind of right. Increased accuracy means you can use smaller yield warheads. Smaller yield nukes have a lower "optimum burst height". The main reason as far as possible effects on nuclear winter though, IIRC, is that smaller nukes don't chuck their plume of ash so high, so it doesn't get into the stratosphere (or whichever sphere is relevant, I forget that)) and stay up there, it just comes down quicker and results in more intense fallout instead. Hooray!

 

[Evil Smurf]

I live in Australia, so nobody is going to attack us. Yes I know the Japanese attacked us in WW2 but that was different.

During the Cold War, the Soviets did plan to send missiles to Australia, though not many.

I'm planning to move closer to Melbourne CBD for uni D:

 

[Thaluikhain]

He's kind of right. Increased accuracy means you can use smaller yield warheads. Smaller yield nukes have a lower "optimum burst height".

Ah, yes, I'd overlooked that.

I live in Australia, so nobody is going to attack us. Yes I know the Japanese attacked us in WW2 but that was different.

During the Cold War, the Soviets did plan to send missiles to Australia, though not many.

I'm planning to move closer to Melbourne CBD for uni D:

I think Melbourne would be ok, they'd probably just hit Canberra to disrupt the government and keep Australia worried about domestic issues rather than making trouble for anyone else.

 

[mistahzig1]

Since I live in the subburbs of the capital city of a member of Nato, my guess is that I would fry into dust.

 

[shootthebandit]

id head towards the impact zone. I want that fucker to land as close to me as possible and instantly vapourise me. All you guys trying to escape will suffer a slow painful death

Captcha: like a boss. You are correct mr captcha id take that missile to the face like a boss

 

[QuicklyAcross]

Well there are a couple of options i can think of

1.Die
2.Run away and not die

Flight of fight, its usually a flight for me.
Something as large scale as a multinational nuclear war, yeah i think as a civilian youre pretty much screwed, regardless of what the laws of war actually say

 

[The Gnome King]

[HEADING=3]TLR: What would you do if the bombs went off?[/HEADING]​

[hr]

Honestly? Hope I die quickly and painlessly, because in a world where nuclear bombs start going off I don't really want to be around anymore. I like my creature comforts and civilization and all. You know. Antibiotics. Modern medicine. The things that allowed our lifespan to pass 30 as the average age of death.

A nuclear war would plunge us back into the Dark Ages, and I'd rather just not go there.

 

[Heathcliff84]

[HEADING=3]TLR: What would you do if the bombs went off?[/HEADING]​

[hr]

Honestly? Hope I die quickly and painlessly, because in a world where nuclear bombs start going off I don't really want to be around anymore. I like my creature comforts and civilization and all. You know. Antibiotics. Modern medicine. The things that allowed our lifespan to pass 30 as the average age of death.

A nuclear war would plunge us back into the Dark Ages, and I'd rather just not go there.

Pah! Modern Medicine... If the supply of toiletpaper breaks down... well THEN I would consider your way out.

 

[x EvilErmine x]

I don't think you understand the profound effects of such a scenario. This could cause food crops to fail en masse. Cause mass death to plant life, and by extension, animal life. This is not something you shrug off.

I don't think you understand the uncertainty of such claims. There isn't even certainty that anything will change, much less a mass extinction. It could just as well be that the reduced sunlight just causes plants to grow a little slower, somewhat reducing yields of fields and making food cost a little more.

Are you trolling?

For starters we have the fact that there are places on this planet now where food is already in dearly short supply. If dust in the atmosphere reduces food production globally then it will not be a case of prices going up,rather whole new wars will be fought for the reaming resources, millions if not billions of people will starve.

Fresh water will be even more of a problem than it is now, and it's pretty dire as it is. Radio active dust has to settle some time and seeing as the vast majority of fresh water comes from reservoirs and underground lakes (which are fed by above ground streams/rivers) then dirty water becomes a real problem.

Radioactive isotopes of Nitrogen and Iodine in the air will cause the little food that can grow to become toxic. Iodine is take up by the thyroid gland in humans[footnote]You know when you see people in films taking anti-radiation meds? Well that stuff is Iodide, it works by saturating the thyroid with Iodide so it wont absorb the irradiated isotope[/footnote] and concentrated by insertion in to proteins. Nitrogen too. Alpha and Beta radiation aka ionizing radiation is very very bad for DNA/your heath if it gets inside you.

OT

Well if I knew it was coming and I couldn't escape then try to get within the bast zone and stand by a wall while striking a pose so that when I get blown into my shadow it'd give the people of the future a little laugh to brighten up their grim depressing post apocalyptic lives.

If I was far enough away to survive the worst of it then go on a huge party rampage full of hookers blow and every drug I could get my hands on hopefully dyeing of exhaustion before the radiation eventually gets me.

 

[The Gnome King]

[HEADING=3]TLR: What would you do if the bombs went off?[/HEADING]​

[hr]

Honestly? Hope I die quickly and painlessly, because in a world where nuclear bombs start going off I don't really want to be around anymore. I like my creature comforts and civilization and all. You know. Antibiotics. Modern medicine. The things that allowed our lifespan to pass 30 as the average age of death.

A nuclear war would plunge us back into the Dark Ages, and I'd rather just not go there.

Pah! Modern Medicine... If the supply of toiletpaper breaks down... well THEN I would consider your way out.

Modern medicine has it's proponents. Every single type 1 diabetic dependant on insulin, for example. They'd be kind of dead without the 20th century advances we made in medicine.

Along with every person who gets an infected cut. Antibiotics are a nice thing. Overused, perhaps, but very nice when you have an actual bacterial infection. Just ask the citizens of the dark ages what their life expectancy was like without them.

I'm sure they had... homeopathic medicine. Or herbs. Or bleeding by leeches. All about equally effective in my scientific opinion.

And toilet paper? Give me a nice Euro(or Japan)-style bidet, any day. F'ing barbaric Americans and their dirty butts.

 

[Bertylicious]

Man, fuck survival; I hate camping. I guess if I was unlucky enough then I'd consider the words of the time traveller John Titor and try to get some mates to agree a location that was inaccesable in 5 days to an extreemly determined but unprepared person on foot and rendevous there with some supplies.

 

[Thaluikhain]

Fresh water will be even more of a problem than it is now, and it's pretty dire as it is. Radio active dust has to settle some time and seeing as the vast majority of fresh water comes from reservoirs and underground lakes (which are fed by above ground streams/rivers) then dirty water becomes a real problem.

Radioactive isotopes of Nitrogen and Iodine in the air will cause the little food that can grow to become toxic. Iodine is take up by the thyroid gland in humans[footnote]You know when you see people in films taking anti-radiation meds? Well that stuff is Iodide, it works by saturating the thyroid with Iodide so it wont absorb the irradiated isotope[/footnote] and concentrated by insertion in to proteins. Nitrogen too. Alpha and Beta radiation aka ionizing radiation is very very bad for DNA/your heath if it gets inside you.

Yes and no.

No, because radioactive dust won't be that much of a problem long term.

Yes, because the infrastructure needed to use that won't be working, you won't be able to collect, transport and distribute it. Doesn't matter if there is clean water in the reservoirs if the plumbing doesn't work. Likewise, your transport system is messed up and you won't be able to refrigerate things.

 

[Karelwolfpup]

Considering I live right across from the BAE shipyards in Glasgow, I'd be vaporised, end of story. If I somehow wasn't in Glasgow the radiation would get me at some point, that or some crazed survivor scavenging for food. Sadly, considering the clustered nature of potential strategic targets for nukes in Britain I'd be boned pretty much anywhere on these sunny islands.

 

[Eeeee0000]

I'm most likely to be at the university, and apparantly they have underground bomb shelters from the cold war. Chances of a bomb landing here are extremely low, being a not-that-big city in the Netherlands, but still, I could go there. Would have to find one of the older professors first, who knows where these things are and how you get there. I think there's not much room in those shelters anymore, they're laboratoria now, so no idea how we would solve that... but at least they also have underground access to the hospital.

 

[roonder]

1. We'd all get turned into mutant cockroaches
2. There are no good videos of nuclear war because good video wasn't invented when it last happened.
3. Judging on what I've seen and heard from my several years overseas, I don't think America has any real Allies anymore....they pretty much all hate us.
4. If by attacked, you mean nuclear war, they wouldn't say anything because one nuclear bomb would wipe that tiny island right off the map.