Tasteless Depictions of Nuclear War

[thepyrethatburns]

Speaking as someone who was born at the tail end of "duck under your desk" films, my perspective on the various points brought up is:

1) One of the reasons that a lot of my generation is cynical over the measures that have to be taken to protect us from terrorism is that we lived through an age where the prevailing wisdom was that the U.S.S.R. and the U.S.A. would inevitably come to blows. Even as children, we had this hanging over our heads for years. We learned to deal with it and, frankly, did it better than Americans do today.

I say this to illustrate what is a probable reason why the depictions don't bug me. Unlike people who were born in 1994, we've been there and done that. To me, it's no more effective than walking through a Russian airport and mowing down all the people there. Nukes are only going to be used in two circumstances and only one is viable anymore.

2) The two circumstances that nukes will be used against us is either
a) an isolated incident where someone, somehow, manages to get the technical knowhow, the bomb, and the ability to get it into a major city.
b) A full exchange.

B) is so remote a probability that it approaches zero. If it does happen, humanity dies. People like to say "you'll kill the odd billion" and leave it at that. That idea only lasts until you consider the aftereffects. One of the images that sticks out in my head from the Japanese bombings is watching a woman bathe her child. The child was supposedly a teenage girl but you wouldn't know it from how badly the child's body was twisted from the effects of the radiation.

So, even if you're one of the lucky few who survives starvation, nuclear winter, the collapse of all civilization as we know it, and all the other fun effects that a full exchange would bring about (Seriously, how many of you have any skills that would sustain your life in a pre-industrial society much less one dealing with the effects of a full nuclear exchange? I'd say damn few of you could feed, clothe, and build shelter for yourselves without modern society.), you're still effectively sterile. Any children you do manage to bring into the world will almost certainly need the type of modern medical care that you won't have access to anymore.

As the amount of viable breeding stock among humanity dies out, numbers will start to work against humanity. If two isolated tribes 50 miles away from each other has one male in one camp that can breed and three females that can breed in the other camp, they might as well have no breeders.

I suspect that this is why the zombie apocalypse took over from the nuclear apocalypse. One is survivable. One is not.

So we come to a) and that's impossible to predict because there are so many variables. Not to offend the residents of Hawaii but, if a bomb went off there, it would be a tragedy but we wouldn't miss too much of a beat. However, if it went off in our midwest and knocked out sufficient farmlands, America might truly know widespread hunger and that would probably break our society.

3) The notion that non-military targets would not be struck directly is laughable. Washington D.C. is a high priority target due to it's civilian/military leadership. New York City is a high priority target due to it's importance to our economic infrastructure. San Francisco is considered a high priority target due to it's technological importance. I'm sure somebody with more knowledge on the subject than I have can rattle off more targets that would be considered civilian. A nuclear war is not going to be limited by rules of engagement, the Geneva Convention, or any of the other artificial boundaries that we put up to make war more palatable. People just convince themselves that civilian targets wouldn't be hit as a means of reassuring themselves.

 

[Thaluikhain]

B) is so remote a probability that it approaches zero. If it does happen, humanity dies. People like to say "you'll kill the odd billion" and leave it at that. That idea only lasts until you consider the aftereffects. One of the images that sticks out in my head from the Japanese bombings is watching a woman bathe her child. The child was supposedly a teenage girl but you wouldn't know it from how badly the child's body was twisted from the effects of the radiation.

So, even if you're one of the lucky few who survives starvation, nuclear winter, the collapse of all civilization as we know it, and all the other fun effects that a full exchange would bring about (Seriously, how many of you have any skills that would sustain your life in a pre-industrial society much less one dealing with the effects of a full nuclear exchange? I'd say damn few of you could feed, clothe, and build shelter for yourselves without modern society.), you're still effectively sterile. Any children you do manage to bring into the world will almost certainly need the type of modern medical care that you won't have access to anymore.

As the amount of viable breeding stock among humanity dies out, numbers will start to work against humanity. If two isolated tribes 50 miles away from each other has one male in one camp that can breed and three females that can breed in the other camp, they might as well have no breeders.

Not true, or at least not true for everyone. Large number of people would survive, the Kalahari bushmen aren't going to be targeted, for example. Some children will be affected, but not all (I think more would be affected by simple malnutrition and dirty water).

Now, as you say, the collapse of civilisation is far more important, but (eventually) a new one would re-emerge. However, "just" setting the clock back to the industrial revolution...that's unbelievably horrible.

3) The notion that non-military targets would not be struck directly is laughable. Washington D.C. is a high priority target due to it's civilian/military leadership. New York City is a high priority target due to it's importance to our economic infrastructure. San Francisco is considered a high priority target due to it's technological importance. I'm sure somebody with more knowledge on the subject than I have can rattle off more targets that would be considered civilian. A nuclear war is not going to be limited by rules of engagement, the Geneva Convention, or any of the other artificial boundaries that we put up to make war more palatable. People just convince themselves that civilian targets wouldn't be hit as a means of reassuring themselves.

Washington and New York aren't priority targets, places inside them are. Slight distinction. No point wasting devices destroying a city when you can just destroy the parts you want to get rid of (and anything too close). Terrible destruction, but not total.

 

[TornadoADV]

Watching you youngins go on about nuclear weapons amuses me. You truly have no understanding of what a full on nuclear war would of looked like before all the reductions, much less what would of happened before nuclear detente (Before SALT) when both sides had warheads numbering in the 10,000s and ICBMs and Bombers carried Megaton loads. To put that in perspective, a B41 had a payload of 25 Megatons, that's 1200 Fatmans or 1600 Little Boys in a single bomb and every B-52 in SAC carried two from the late 50s to the mid 70s. There's 744 B-52s, so just those bombers alone would carry the firepower equal to 1,785,600 Fatmans or 2,380,800 Little Boys. Then you throw in the SLBMs from the Navy, the tactical warheads that all service branches had and then the ICBM fields. The Earth could of been utterly obliterated from just one Nuclear super power, much less both.

 

[Thaluikhain]

Watching you youngins go on about nuclear weapons amuses me. You truly have no understanding of what a full on nuclear war would of looked like before all the reductions, much less what would of happened before nuclear detente (Before SALT) when both sides had warheads numbering in the 10,000s and ICBMs and Bombers carried Megaton loads. To put that in perspective, a B41 had a payload of 25 Megatons, that's 1200 Fatmans or 1600 Little Boys in a single bomb and every B-52 in SAC carried two from the late 50s to the mid 70s. There's 744 B-52s, so just those bombers along would carry the firepower equal to 1,785,600 Fatmans or 2,380,800 Little Boys. Then you throw in the SLBMs from the Navy, the tactical warheads that all service branches had and then the ICBM fields. The Earth could of been utterly obliterated from just one Nuclear super power, much less both.

Even that wasn't enough to obliterate the world, or even destroy the species. Make a hell of a mess, though.

OT: Well considering the fact that AK47's have killed more people than all the nukes dropped in the history of man kind, I figure nukes are pretty ok to use lightly. They are fairly outside the norm and chances are we wont see them used in warfare again unless some terrorist group gets their hands on one.

I am not a whiner like some people complaining about 'teh violence in gamez' but I would whimper about all the AK47s than all the nukes if I were you, considering more people will be killed every single day with those simple weapons opposed to the big booms caused by a couple of exotic bombs.

AK47s don't escalate the same way, though.

Personally, I find it annoying in RTS, where nuclear missiles destroy a building if they hit it directly, but only damage the one next to it, and someone 4 times their own length away survives. That's nuke a nuke, that's mid-size artillery.

 

[Therumancer]

Time for round two in Soviet Heavy's mental breakdown over violence in the media. First, a burnout on shooters and combat focused games. Now, a rant on Nuclear devastation and its abuse in media.

I watched Terminator 2 yesterday. You can tell where this is going, probably, but for the three people who haven't seen it, there is a particular scene that stands out for me.

It's terrifying to watch, and to me, is one of the best depictions of how unbelievably, fundamentally different nuclear war is from conventional fighting. It isn't to conquer, it is to destroy. It's not a 'wow' scene, it isn't exciting. It's horrifying, and unbearably tragic.

I was born after the Cold War ended. I never grew up with siren drills, or the threat of nuclear annihilation. But I understand and empathize with those who did. Even if the above is just a work of fiction, it is the manifestation of the fear that my parents would have grown up with. More importantly, it was done so tastefully. Which is more that can be said for other depictions of nuclear wars that I have seen.

Settings like Mass Effect, or Warhammer 40000, will use Nukes as a unit of measurement to try and sell you on how great and awesome the power of their weaponry is. And it is meant to be shown as cool. "Whoa, that ship's gun fires shots three times more powerful than the Little Boy? Wicked!" That's what we're being told, not "Dear god, this is a weapon of mass destruction greater than the most infamous weapon in modern history, and we are making a joke out of it."

Or games like Call of Duty, where a nuke goes off, and it tries to be tasteful. You get to crawl around a wind swept city while your body collapses from radiation! It is played for shock value, and while I admit, I got a reaction from it the first time I played, as the series went on, I soured towards it. It wasn't there to be a meaningful message of the effects of a Nuke strike, it was just there to look edgy. Just like civilian massacres in MW2, or the gas bombing in MW3. It lost its impact and its credibility.

If you are going to depict a nuclear strike in your game, film, song, or book, you better fucking follow through on it. It isn't just a matter of "big explosion, gets attention", you need to show just what it does to people. It isn't just in the act itself, but the emotion and the tone surrounding it. Firing off such a device while saying "cool, mushroom cloud!" is cheapening the horror.

I am not going to tell anyone what to think. I am just disgusted with the oversaturation of violent, meaningless entertainment right now. Maybe I'm just being cynical, but I think I need time away from media to think for a bit.

Well, the thing is that people in the western world have become too moral and civilized and forgotten what a real war is like. To us a half hearted police action where we try and "win the peace" and protect "innocent people" and ultimately accomplish nothing of note is a "war". In a real war it's about destruction and pretty much forcing your enemy to change or die, or perhaps just flat out to kill them if you've given up on any kind of change. The objective of a real war is to pretty much kill the normal people/civilians as horribly as possible, the government/military protecting them is the obstacle you face to get to that point as the ordinary people are pretty much the heart and soul of a civilization and if you don't kill, or terrify them enough to force change, you accomplish nothing. If a people/culture more or less continues it will just build up another military and government and things will go back the way they were with time. We can see this to an extent with Iraq and Afghanistan where for all of our ambitions of bringing freedom to women, and progressive culture to the region, by not targeting the people/culture itself we accomplished nothing as the first thing they did was declare themselves Islamic states in their new constitution which meant religiously based laws that didn't bring about equality for women or any kind of really progressive developments, and as they learned to not fear us we've seen upswings in terrorist activity like attacks on our embassies over that "Innocence Of Muslims" trailer.

On a lot of levels what your seeing at the beginning of "Terminator" is a pretty accurate vision of what war would involve, if someone or something was going to beat humanity, that's pretty much what it would take. Heck, short of that you can't even beat a country. If someone had just invaded the USA conventionally and refused to target women, children, and non-combatants, we'd all just fall back into the mountains and such and rip whomever it was apart. As it is we might do that anyway (read some analysises of what a land war against the US with conventional weapons would be like, the term "Fortress Of America" exists for a reason), but to have any real chance you'd need to hit us like that, and keep us in constant fear for the survival of our families and loved ones. It's not any different anywhere else, where we'd conversely have to do the same things to them that they would have to do to really break us.

On a lot of levels I actually find the whole "nuclear weapon" thing kind of civilized and clean to be honest. Sure it's terrifying to see a wall of fire envelope someone, the burned silhouettes of people on walls, and things like that, but it's SUPPOSED to be terrifying, and at the end of the day it's actually fairly quick and impersonal. When wars have really been fought armies have generally had to work very hard to achieve the same effect, the Vikings for example were infamous for brainstorming up their whole "blood eagle" method of execution where they would rip open someone's chest and leave the rib cage facing outwards like wings. It was horrible, painful, and left a messy display while it would take a while to die. The Vikings go into a village and start doing that to people, and they are going to do anything to prevent it from happening to their kids. Likewise the point of impalement was a slow, painful form of execution and display of victims intended to demoralize and break the spirits of people.

See, you've just see depictions of nukes in movies, and your already scared, that's kind of the point (albeit we're more scared of them than our enemies which is not a good thing). Generally speaking the point is that you drop a couple of those on a nation like we did to Japan, take out a couple of cities, and your pretty much going to get everyone to surrender, actually saving lives and speeding up the slow process of moving in and engaging in mass slaughter and torture to break the spirit of a people if your fighting a real war. People just don't get that in countries like the USA anymore because despite our critics who call us corrupt, militant, etc... we're actually way too moral for our own good in the final equasion and truthfully it's actually more effective to prey on our morality and try and shame us by our own overly high standards than oppose us directly... but that's another discussion entirely.

At any rate, when your dealing with people making referances to nuclear weapons in many cases it's simply a quick way of conveying power. In science fiction for example talking about how many more times powerful a starship battle cannon is than a nuclear weapon is to put things into perspective as far as how far technology has come, and what the power output on all sides are. In general you'll notice that in most cases you also have shields and hull armor capable of taking multiple hits from these weapons as well. What's more in many cases this is done to explain why races that want to conquer planets and capture resources are forced to deploy armies with tanks and small armies to the surface of planets to fight. The old "well, we'll bombard them from orbit" thing might actually wind up cracking the planetary crust and destroying what they want to take. It kind of acts as plot device to explain why an empire with overwhelming space superiority might still have some problems digging out a few plucky rebel armies holding out on the ground.

When it comes to Warhammer 40k in particular, you might want to actually read that setting some time. To be honest being nuked is really kind gentle for how utterly messed up that universe is. The basic premise is that supernatural beings that live in the pseudo-dimension people cross into for space travel have been unleashed into the real world and are pretty much trying to corrupt everyone and turn our dimension into a chaotic hell dimension. They attack not only the body, but the mind, and cause grotesque mutations, and can pretty much strike and corrupt anywhere at any time. This is a major threat, combined with your usual customers of evil aliens that come in flavors from xenomorphic devouring hordes, to cults of mind-wiping space socialists, out of control fungus based super solidiers, organic-killing robots, and others, which pretty much means that humanity is so pressed on so many sides it can't deal with any one problem entirely (which it otherwise could, even chaos) and faces an endless stalemate of sorts. In general they don't casually nuke planets, however it's deemed that sometimes wiping out an entire planetary population is unavoidable to hold off damage to other parts of the imperium, the method used is actually far more extreme than nukes... and to be entirely fair wiping out the planet they are on is probably a mercy to the people being corrupted and changed on a planet lost to chaos, or being harvest and eaten alive by tyranids or whatever.

At the same time though it should be noted that some of the fiction in Warhammer 40k is presented in the form of archives someone from a more peaceful and enlightened future is looking back on due to the loss of records. The horror of what happened during this period being part of the point, with the idea being that you as the person reading the record are similar to the person who would be looking back on it... etc... a bit of odd meta writing which isn't always present.

 

[rcs619]

I will say that I generally agree with your point. The depiction of weapons of mass destruction, much like any sort of warfare for that matter, is generally shallow at best, and insulting at worst. Don't get me wrong, I think cheesy, popcorn action-flicks have their place, and so do cheesy popcorn action-games. But I would like to actually see more media really explore just what war is. How ugly it is, how ultimately pointless it tends to be, and how it generally exists to serve narrow political, social and/or economic goals of a (usually) relatively small, but powerful group.

War is a terrible, horrible thing, and while I think it is important to talk about the heroism, human drama and sacrifices that can happen during war, I think it is doubly important to show how horrible it is too. How wasteful it is, and so on.

Settings like Mass Effect, or Warhammer 40000, will use Nukes as a unit of measurement to try and sell you on how great and awesome the power of their weaponry is. And it is meant to be shown as cool. "Whoa, that ship's gun fires shots three times more powerful than the Little Boy? Wicked!" That's what we're being told, not "Dear god, this is a weapon of mass destruction greater than the most infamous weapon in modern history, and we are making a joke out of it."

To be fair, kilotons and megatons *are* actual units of measurement. And when you're dealing with futuristic weapons, like railguns, lasers, grasers and so on, using those sorts of measurements are much easier than breaking out insane amounts of joules, or newtons. It's like how some sci-fi writers prefer to describe ship acceperation in terms of gravities, than spouting off long strings of meters-per-second data.

I will agree that it is moderately cringe-worthy when they specifically compare it to actual, modern nuclear weapons though. I get why they do it (because a lot of people only casually familiar with nuclear weapons or sci-fi combat aren't going to have a very good frame of reference for just how powerful even a 5 megaton impact is), but I always found it a bit distracting. Seems odd that they'd be bringing up an ancient weapon that was used hundreds or even thousands of years in the past.

 

[Thaluikhain]

To be fair, kilotons and megatons *are* actual units of measurement. And when you're dealing with futuristic weapons, like railguns, lasers, grasers and so on, using those sorts of measurements are much easier than breaking out insane amounts of joules, or newtons. It's like how some sci-fi writers prefer to describe ship acceperation in terms of gravities, than spouting off long strings of meters-per-second data.

I will agree that it is moderately cringe-worthy when they specifically compare it to actual, modern nuclear weapons though. I get why they do it (because a lot of people only casually familiar with nuclear weapons or sci-fi combat aren't going to have a very good frame of reference for just how powerful even a 5 megaton impact is), but I always found it a bit distracting. Seems odd that they'd be bringing up an ancient weapon that was used hundreds or even thousands of years in the past.

Well, a megaton is equivalent to a million tonnes of (nominally) TNT, a specific explosive they won't use either. One candela is one candle, horsepower relates to horse...

 

[thepyrethatburns]

B) is so remote a probability that it approaches zero. If it does happen, humanity dies. People like to say "you'll kill the odd billion" and leave it at that. That idea only lasts until you consider the aftereffects. One of the images that sticks out in my head from the Japanese bombings is watching a woman bathe her child. The child was supposedly a teenage girl but you wouldn't know it from how badly the child's body was twisted from the effects of the radiation.

So, even if you're one of the lucky few who survives starvation, nuclear winter, the collapse of all civilization as we know it, and all the other fun effects that a full exchange would bring about (Seriously, how many of you have any skills that would sustain your life in a pre-industrial society much less one dealing with the effects of a full nuclear exchange? I'd say damn few of you could feed, clothe, and build shelter for yourselves without modern society.), you're still effectively sterile. Any children you do manage to bring into the world will almost certainly need the type of modern medical care that you won't have access to anymore.

As the amount of viable breeding stock among humanity dies out, numbers will start to work against humanity. If two isolated tribes 50 miles away from each other has one male in one camp that can breed and three females that can breed in the other camp, they might as well have no breeders.

Not true, or at least not true for everyone. Large number of people would survive, the Kalahari bushmen aren't going to be targeted, for example. Some children will be affected, but not all (I think more would be affected by simple malnutrition and dirty water).

Now, as you say, the collapse of civilisation is far more important, but (eventually) a new one would re-emerge. However, "just" setting the clock back to the industrial revolution...that's unbelievably horrible.

Fair point although, using the Kalahari bushmen example:

1) I have absolutely no idea if there are viable military targets in Southern Africa. On the face of it, I'd say no but I am reluctant to quote my ignorance of the region as fact.

2) That would seem to depend on how much radiation is dumped into the atmosphere and where global weather patterns shift it. Once again, I am ignorant of such things. Some experts say that Fukushima is going to have no discernable effects. Others say that, in the long run, the cancer rate as far as the West Coast will skyrocket.

3) It would also depend on how total the nuclear winter effect is. All we really have are theories on what would happen. A severe enough nuclear winter will still kill the Bushmen even if their regions aren't directly affected.

You're correct in that they wouldn't be wiped out immediately but, as with many things, the long term viability of the bushmen is subject to factors that we don't really have anything more than theories on.

Excellent point though.

3) The notion that non-military targets would not be struck directly is laughable. Washington D.C. is a high priority target due to it's civilian/military leadership. New York City is a high priority target due to it's importance to our economic infrastructure. San Francisco is considered a high priority target due to it's technological importance. I'm sure somebody with more knowledge on the subject than I have can rattle off more targets that would be considered civilian. A nuclear war is not going to be limited by rules of engagement, the Geneva Convention, or any of the other artificial boundaries that we put up to make war more palatable. People just convince themselves that civilian targets wouldn't be hit as a means of reassuring themselves.

Washington and New York aren't priority targets, places inside them are. Slight distinction. No point wasting devices destroying a city when you can just destroy the parts you want to get rid of (and anything too close). Terrible destruction, but not total.

I would have to disagree there. While we have smaller tactical warheads such as the Little John which only has a 10 kiloton yield, DC would most likely be hit by a sub-mounted or ICBM weapon. The smallest one that is currently in service has a yield of 100 Kilotons. Fat Man had a yield of 21 Kilotons. Even San Francisco isn't so much bigger than Nagasaki that it's going to be able to absorb roughly 5 times the blast and still have anything standing.

Plus, if I'm going to fire a nuke at any of those targets, I'm going to make sure that the nuke has enough kick to do the job so it is unlikely that I would use the minimum force necessary. Remember, despite what we think, everyone who is in command of such things knows that firing a nuke is pretty much endgame. Therefore, my instinct would be to go big because we're all dead anyway.

While you are correct that places inside the cities are the target, the fact remains that the city surrounding the targets are going to be collateral damage.

 

[Thaluikhain]

Fair point although, using the Kalahari bushmen example:

1) I have absolutely no idea if there are viable military targets in Southern Africa. On the face of it, I'd say no but I am reluctant to quote my ignorance of the region as fact.

2) That would seem to depend on how much radiation is dumped into the atmosphere and where global weather patterns shift it. Once again, I am ignorant of such things. Some experts say that Fukushima is going to have no discernable effects. Others say that, in the long run, the cancer rate as far as the West Coast will skyrocket.

3) It would also depend on how total the nuclear winter effect is. All we really have are theories on what would happen. A severe enough nuclear winter will still kill the Bushmen even if their regions aren't directly affected.

You're correct in that they wouldn't be wiped out immediately but, as with many things, the long term viability of the bushmen is subject to factors that we don't really have anything more than theories on.

Excellent point though.

Under Soviet doctrine ("Sharing the pain"), there would have been targets there. Everyone is suddenly much more powerful (relatively) once the major powers aren't anymore, hitting capitals of minor nations stops them attacking you afterwards. Even allies would get this treatment. Germany was an ally just before they invaded, for example.

I'm led to believe that long term environmental effects have been over-stated, though there's plenty of other ordinary ways to die.

The Soviets also had submarines that would lurk underwater for a year after the first exchange, then surface, launch spy satellites to determine who had rebuilt, and then fire missiles at them.

Fair point although, using the Kalahari bushmen example:

1) I have absolutely no idea if there are viable military targets in Southern Africa. On the face of it, I'd say no but I am reluctant to quote my ignorance of the region as fact.

2) That would seem to depend on how much radiation is dumped into the atmosphere and where global weather patterns shift it. Once again, I am ignorant of such things. Some experts say that Fukushima is going to have no discernable effects. Others say that, in the long run, the cancer rate as far as the West Coast will skyrocket.

3) It would also depend on how total the nuclear winter effect is. All we really have are theories on what would happen. A severe enough nuclear winter will still kill the Bushmen even if their regions aren't directly affected.

You're correct in that they wouldn't be wiped out immediately but, as with many things, the long term viability of the bushmen is subject to factors that we don't really have anything more than theories on.

Excellent point though.

I would have to disagree there. While we have smaller tactical warheads such as the Little John which only has a 10 kiloton yield, DC would most likely be hit by a sub-mounted or ICBM weapon. The smallest one that is currently in service has a yield of 100 Kilotons. Fat Man had a yield of 21 Kilotons. Even San Francisco isn't so much bigger than Nagasaki that it's going to be able to absorb roughly 5 times the blast and still have anything standing.

Plus, if I'm going to fire a nuke at any of those targets, I'm going to make sure that the nuke has enough kick to do the job so it is unlikely that I would use the minimum force necessary. Remember, despite what we think, everyone who is in command of such things knows that firing a nuke is pretty much endgame. Therefore, my instinct would be to go big because we're all dead anyway.

While you are correct that places inside the cities are the target, the fact remains that the city surrounding the targets are going to be collateral damage.

I'm led to believe that a one megaton device wouldn't destroy London, the construction of Japanese cities in the 40s made them much more vulnerable to nuclear attack (not all of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were destroyed as well). Also, 5 times the yield gets you less than 5 times the destruction, multiple smaller weapons are better than one big one.

You'd want to use the minimum force neccesary because you would have plenty of other targets, more than you have missiles for (given that not all will reach the targets, but you won't know which beforehand). Certainly, you'd be going all out, but all out on an entire nation. If you're using a variable yield device, you're likely to want to use the maximum yield, though.

I agree that about collateral, but that only parts of cities would be collateral.

 

[5mj7R7yf4Dwr3gdZyyu9PeGNwYjlNrjzuh3iTXQG]

To be fair, kilotons and megatons *are* actual units of measurement. And when you're dealing with futuristic weapons, like railguns, lasers, grasers and so on, using those sorts of measurements are much easier than breaking out insane amounts of joules...

I dunno...as a sci-fi writer, I think Joules can be pretty durned sexy [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orders_of_magnitude_%28energy%29].
A MOAB (big fuel-air bomb)= 50 GJ (gigajoules)
Fat Man = 88 TJ (terajoules)
1 megaton = 4.2 PJ (petajoules)
The Tsar Bomba = 210 PJ or 0.21 XJ (exajoules)
Enough energy to blast the Earth apart (for mining) = 200,000,000 YJ (yottajoules) or 6 days of the sun's total energy output.
Death Star Superlaser = 24 sun-days

238U

 

[5mj7R7yf4Dwr3gdZyyu9PeGNwYjlNrjzuh3iTXQG]

...While we have smaller tactical warheads such as the Little John which only has a 10 kiloton yield, DC would most likely be hit by a sub-mounted or ICBM weapon. The smallest one that is currently in service has a yield of 100 Kilotons. Fat Man had a yield of 21 Kilotons. Even San Francisco isn't so much bigger than Nagasaki that it's going to be able to absorb roughly 5 times the blast and still have anything standing...

I'm led to believe that a one megaton device wouldn't destroy London, the construction of Japanese cities in the 40s made them much more vulnerable to nuclear attack (not all of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were destroyed as well). Also, 5 times the yield gets you less than 5 times the destruction, multiple smaller weapons are better than one big one.

The US had decided by the 80s that the ideal size for a strategic nuke (for air-bursting over cities or for hitting hard military targets) was 2.2 megatons, which was the most efficient bang-for-the-buck, based on the General Electric warhead, about nine of which would go into a single MIRV. A single one of those would handily ignite and irradiate all of a sizeable metropolis such as Moscow or Leningrad. People might survive in the bunkers, but the US was happy to hit redundantly to make sure a place was thoroughly demolished.

Many of our weapons (nukes or otherwise) are designed on the idea that if you need x firepower to destroy a thing, you arm a dedicated weapon with 10x.

Soviet nukes were around 10 megatons, and since their ICBMs weren't accurate, the compensated with a whole lot of redundancy to make sure that something was probably going to hit every city.

My understanding is that it was ultimately revealed after the fall, that should an all out nuclear exchange have occurred between the United States and the USSR, that the Russians' final orders were to limit their retaliation (or not retaliate at all once the US was fully committed) for sake of the human race.

While I've never been able to confirm it, I want to believe it: It's noble as fuck, and gives me real hope for our species. At any rate it is consistent with the degree of restraint that our nuclear powers have shown (so far). I'm pretty sure that no-one really wants to murder people by the millions.

238U

 

[God's Clown]

The thing with Nuclear bombs and bombs in general is they have the same effect on human's as fire does. We are instinctively drawn to it. We are terrified of the effects fire has on the body, just as we fear what nuclear warheads are capable of, but the explosion itself, the bright flash of light, the loud booming noise, the mushroom cloud, we find it fascinating. We as a race tend to want to avoid seeing the consequences when they are horrifying, so we play it down or out right ignore them.

 

[BlackStar42]

Well, in the US they did, the UK played it down. Knowing we were the first target, and there was no point panicking the public when there was no defence against it, the UK decided that public blissful ignorance was more humane. Threfore there were no drills in schools, no national drills or even any indication that we were a target. (I am talking more cuban missile crisis here than later)

Really? That sounds very unwise. Lots of simple precautions have a reasonable chance of saving some lives.

If the USSR had ever launched, we had just four minutes before the missiles would've hit us. Not a lot you can do to prepare in four minutes, apart from running around screaming or making your peace with the deity/ies of your choice.

 

[Thaluikhain]

Well, in the US they did, the UK played it down. Knowing we were the first target, and there was no point panicking the public when there was no defence against it, the UK decided that public blissful ignorance was more humane. Threfore there were no drills in schools, no national drills or even any indication that we were a target. (I am talking more cuban missile crisis here than later)

Really? That sounds very unwise. Lots of simple precautions have a reasonable chance of saving some lives.

If the USSR had ever launched, we had just four minutes before the missiles would've hit us. Not a lot you can do to prepare in four minutes, apart from running around screaming or making your peace with the deity/ies of your choice.

You can duck and cover, that takes seconds and could make a big difference to your chances.

 

[Undomesticated Equine]

What is the point of this thread OP?
Nukes are bad? Well discovery of a century good job figuring that one out.
The fact that nukes are scary is precisely why there are used as a measure of power. Scaring people is an easy way to get attention, just look at the news.

 

[Henrik Knudsen]

Duck and cover, die of radiation sickness a couple of hours or days later in an agonizing painful death where your skin slowly falls off among other nasty stuff.
Duck and cover is just a bedtime sooth saying to comfort scared people, saying it will be alright and that the monsters under the bed is not that scary.

 

[Legion]

What is the point of this thread OP?
Nukes are bad? Well discovery of a century good job figuring that one out.
The fact that nukes are scary is precisely why there are used as a measure of power. Scaring people is an easy way to get attention, just look at the news.

The point is that Nukes are not used in games to depict the horror of them, but in the same way that explosions are used in action films. So that the audience goes "Woah, cool!". The OP is saying that it is tasteless to show Nuclear weapons as something to be impressed by.

While I get their point, and I agree that it'd be better if more games did show it in a better manner, I don't agree that it's any more of a problem than the way weapons in general are seen in games. The kind of game where a Nuclear weapon is seen as "cool" is the same kind of game where stabbing somebody with a knife or shooting them in the head is as well. Action games don't tend to take fighting and death seriously to begin with, and I don't see why nukes should be any different.