Real Survival when the baloon goes up

[Zundfolge]

I guess I have a hard time seeing why anyone would want to survive a full on TEOTWAWKI situation.

If society collapses and we end up living in some sort of uncivilized, broken down, Mad Max like world I fail to see the point of it.

I have a place to be in the next life that is going to make this place at its best look like shit so I really don't see the point in trying to stick around here after it all goes to hell.

And for you atheists ... if there is no existence beyond this life, then I really don't see any purpose for y'all fighting so hard to survive either ... seems to me the only folk with any real good reason to make sure they survive are you reincarnation folk who would be stuck coming back here again anyway if you died in the mess (wow that would suck).

[Irving]

This may shock some of you, but I don't know anything about nuclear bombs. Are they designed to be detonated at high altitude or dropped onto the ground like in Japan?

I assume that now that everyone knows about EMP effects, that any nuke from a country would try to be detonated in the air, while maybe some rogue terrorist would do it at ground level in some city or something.

[buckshotbarlow]

Here's some stuff that I used in my under grade nuclear course:
http://meyerweb.com/eric/tools/gmap/hydesim.html

if u saw the movie skyline that just came out, that's a "block buster nuke" deployed by the UAV...Designed to take out somewhere around 4/5 city blocks, yield weight around 1kt. However, hollywood thinks that a really small tactical nuke does the damage of an icbm mirv (475kt), which is considered a "city buster". Remember that the nuclear material is HEAVY!!! and airborne delivery is limited. The movie with will smith as a fighter pilot (4th of july???) had a nuke in the B2 that was delivered to the alien space ship.
Taken from wikipedia:
The B61 is a variable yield, kiloton-range weapon called "Full Fuzing Option"(FUFO) or "Dial-a-yield" by many service personnel. Tactical versions (Mods 3, 4, and 10) can be set to 0.3, 1.5, 5, 10, 60, 80, or 170 kiloton explosive yield (depending on version).
The strategic version (B61 Mod 7) has four yield options, with a maximum of 340 kilotons. Sources conflict on the yield of the earth-penetrating Mod 11; the physics package or bomb core components of the Mod 11 are apparently unchanged from the earlier strategic Mod 7; however, the declassified 2001 Nuclear Posture Review [4] states that the B-61-11 has only a single yield; some sources indicate 10 kt, others suggest the 340 kiloton maximum yield as the Mod-7.


For reference the ww2 nukes were about 20kt. There's a lot that goes on in the pico seconds of a nuclear reaction. Air density, amount of structures on the ground all have impacts on what happens on the ground. Airbursts above around 1k feet are mainly for the emp/ground destruction, 60k feet is full emp effect, but no ground destruction. Fall out, well, wear lead underwear and have lead lungs.

[Cujo0920]

Rawl's PATRIOTS was awful. Read the one-star reviews before you waste your money.

[jerrymrc]

Rawl's PATRIOTS was awful. Read the one-star reviews before you waste your money.

I did not think it was bad. As a read "lights out" and "one second after" were better but all in all once it gets going.... I also think that many items in the book are a generational issue as well.

One of my younger solders read it but he had lots of questions about items described that were not known to him.

[Irving]

Like compasses and tobacco pipes?

[RobertB]

It's not bad. I give him about a D for realistic, entertaining writing and sort of hero-worshipping his own decisions, but an A for trying to make a fictional story serve as a limited sort of textbook. It was an interesting way to do it, though it's not comprehensive at that, but points you in the right direction on those subjects. C overall.

[ShooterJM]

So, other then patriots I've only read Alas, Babylon and some other one set in england. I think it was called no blade of grass or something like that.


I'm gathering that One Second After and Lights Out are good reads.

Does anyone have any other suggestions?