Headline writtenf ro stupid gullible sheep: "Declassified report: Two nuclear bombs nearly wiped out North Carolina"

REALLY....the entire state, huh? No need to read the rest of the article, given the childish bias in the headline.

For the record, drama queens, there WAS NO ACCIDENT....there was almost an accident, but the systems in place worked to prevent them. Duhhhhhhhhhhhhh...

Out of a thousand articles you could have picked off of CNN to suggest bias, you chose this one...

Bo...are you truly stupid enough to not realize that a nuclear bomb...even TWO...won't wipe out ALL of North Carolina? Yes....it's a fucking biased bullshti article meant for morons liek you to eat with a spoon, by the headline alone. Just because you are stupid/ignorant doesn't mean you get a pass.

First, it was pure luck they didn't go off, especially the one's whose chute didn't open. Impact damage stopped it from going off, not some safeguards. Second, while not all of NC would have been wiped out. At 3.8 megatons, it would have irradiated a good chunk for a long time. It would have made Nagasaki and Hiroshima look like a walk in the park. Chernobyl would have been a kids' playground compared to the wasteland left behind buy just *one* of these going off.

Oh and a plane losing a wing and breaking in two is most *definitely* an accident. Did you even read the article, krellin? Or did you do the usually krelly bullshit of just reading the headline and assumed you knew what it was about.

krellin, this is what would have happened if one of those bombs had exploded. ''

http://bit.ly/1q85siZ

All of NC being destroyed? Obviously a little fantastic. But an accident? You bet your ass that two nuclear devices dropping from an airborne plane accident with three of the four safety features failing to function properly constitutes an accident.

As for two nuclear devices wiping out North Carolina, its certainly feasible given the correct detonation locations. The largest US H bomb ever tested was Castle Bravo at 50 megatons. If that were dropped over Charlotte, after the entire metro area was incinerated, the fallout cloud (depending on the wind direction) would cover an area extending from Raleigh through DC, Philadelphia, and New York City.

How did krellin get a +1 for the one of the most idiotic comments he's made around here?

In short, 50 megatons makes the east coast's prime vacation and business area unlivable. So the 3.8 megatons could have affected all the way up to Norfolk Naval Base and made that beautiful beach between NC and Norfolk a desert wasteland.

Not from me, bo. Great article, by the way. Sure the headline was exaggerated, but it had some interesting info in it. Thanks for posting it.

No clue. He's got one decent point--that NC as a whole state would hardly have been obliterated--but it looks like he didn't even read the article before bashing it. There was very clearly an accident, and though the safety features worked as intended for one, it seems like for the second bomb it was as much chance as safety designs that it failed to go off.

Draug, it's funny too, I originally read the article on RT and figured "well krellin will bash me if I post from here so I'd better find it from a better source..."

Warden, 38 megatons would have destroyed a hell of a lot of North Carolina, and the explosion(s) would have been at ground level, not in the air. The radiation spread could have covered a massive area, and the uninhabitable space would have been a lot larger than Chernobyl.

This is from the same site 2WL posted, with a little more data added: http://nuclearsecrecy.com/nukemap/?&kt=4000&lat=40.7354242&lng=-73.9910498&airburst=0&hob_ft=0&fallout=1&ff=55&fallout_angle=47&zm=7

Estimated fatalities near 150,000. Also, keep in mind that this site only takes into account one explosion. The plane dropped two bombs.

These weren't 38 megatons, bo, They were 3.8 MT. So not nearly as bad as you think.

"The MK39 bombs weighed 10,000 pounds and their explosive yield was 3.8 megatons."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W39 tells all about both the W39 warhead and Mark 39 bomb.

You can see the exact radius on the above address if you type "Greensboro, NC" in the first box for the city. Estimated fatalities if the same blast occurred in the center of NYC (where the site defaults) exceed 2.5 million.

Woops, yeah, missed a decimal.

It's Goldsboro, not Greensboro. But your link was the correct location. Fall out reaches DC and, if the wind is adjusted right, Delaware, NJ, and Maryland. Depending on the wind, the Chesapeake and Delaware Bay areas are radioactive wastelands.

Oh, I don't mean to say it would've been something minor, but krellin is right that it wouldn't have turned the East Coast into a crater. But because the explosion would've occurred at ground level, I'm pretty sure you're over-estimating the damage. Topography would significantly dampen the spread of the radiation and the blast. As far as I know, that's why these bombs are designed to explode in the air instead of on impact in the first place, for a larger yield of destruction. And swapping between Ground and Airbursts on the site you linked seems to agree with regard to casualty numbers: much more in an Air burst.

Actually, it appears that surface explosions have a much larger radiation spread, yet much lower casualties. Not sure I'm understanding that on the site. Nor why the air burst had so little in the way of wind-borne radiation.

Yeah, I clearly don't understand enough of the mechanics of the fallout projections. It appears that an air explosion will cause less in the way of fallout, but cause a larger amount of destruction, leading to higher immediate casualties, but possibly fewer overall? I noticed on another look that the site does not include fallout deaths in the fatalities and injuries calculations.

@Warden - go to the nuclear detonator site listed. Put in the parameters (including the ground explosion) and you will see what we are talking about. The fall out cloud travels well up the coast to Norfolk and beyond depending n the wind.

It ain't the initial explosion that's the concern, but the radiation cloud fallout.

Presumably, we could evacuate a large number of those in the cloud's path.

But the land and structures thereon would be a total write off.

And then we're not even talking cows.

http://www.carloslabs.com/projects/200712B/GroundZero.html

There is no 3.8 MT option, but even Ivy Mike (12 MT) would have put Raleigh well out of the blast radius.

Nukes do a significant amount of damage, but the planet is much MUCH bigger then people think and ultimately you can't destroy an entire state with a single bomb.

Even Rhode Island would survive having the Tsar Bomb (most powerful bomb ever created) dropped on them, albeit the radiation may kill most of the survivors, and those who do escape death with have 1st and 2nd degree burns from the blast.

@Fasces - it's not the explosion, but the radiation cloud that follows. Anything over about 1.5 MT produces one.

Is anyone else convinced they heard this story years ago?

You may have heard the initial stuff. As is pointed out, it was in a book rdferenced above and was in the news before *I* was born. This is about the details of why and just how close it actually came to being a disaster.

I really have nothing of substance to contribute, but just a small point of factual clarification about American nuclear bombage: Castle Bravo was 15 MT. Tsar Bomba was the big daddy, at about 50 or maybe 55 MT (what's a few million tons of TNT among friends?), but it was Soviet-made and -blown up.