Looking for old nuclear blast manifest
Posted by dsmman18@reddit | preppers | View on Reddit | 40 comments
A couple of decades ago I was purusing the Internet and found a very rudimentary website that was like 70 pages long. It was basically every detail of surviving a nuclear blast. It included underground shelters, the thickness of wall necessary if made of earth, all sorts of interesting info. I think the guy had buried a school bus to make into a shelter even? My memory is terrible but if any of this rings a bell and someone knows if this document/website still exists I would love to revisit it.
Sweet-Leadership-290@reddit
Is this it? I found this to be theost helpful of any I've ever read. It even shows how to build a radiation meter out of everyday items!
https://www.nukepills.com/wp-content/uploads/woocommerce_uploads/nuclear_war_survival_skills.pdf
Leopold_Porkstacker@reddit
That’s from 1987, I love all the references to the Soviet threat and the 10 year timeline for the Star Wars defense.
deport_racists_next@reddit
Yeah, it was fun living thru all that.
Leopold_Porkstacker@reddit
Bloom County and The Far Side made it tolerable.
bananapeel@reddit
In addition to this, you might consider reading a related book: "Life After Doomsday" by Dr. Bruce D. Clayton. It's on archive.org.
deport_racists_next@reddit
He got back the news a few years back.
Turns out burying big metal objects without rust proofing....
Look, be real...
Mom built a bomb shelter when she was pregnant with me in 62.
It was never used.
I grew up with duck and cover.
Never happened.
Prepping back then was challenging but LOTS of info on this topic and loads of specultive and science fiction exploring possibilities.
i learned enough by the time I was an adult I realized the only prep i wanted is to run to ground zero when I see the bombs dropping.
Ironically, our retirement home was built back when I was born and it has a bomb shelter we use as an exercise room.
Rick-burp-Sanchez@reddit
This is the answer I was looking for. Been asking myself "at what point is it worth it to keep going/trying?" Rewatched Threads about a year ago... but that's why I want to get my hands on a full stock of laudanum before the bombs drop.
deport_racists_next@reddit
Prep for Tuesday can apply to nuclear events also.
Until the end of the last century, our concepts of a nuclear event were very dystopian world ending climate destroying absolute nightmares.
It wasn't until fairly recently that concerns about dirty bombs and suitcase nukes with highly limited range of destruction and affect became a thing to think about seriously.
Fallout being the biggest problem post event either way, we have learned long ago that most of the dangers from fallout drop off dramatically within 2 weeks.
So realistically, prep for two weeks or a month of shelter in place is really an extention of prep for Tuesday and covid taught us how to shelter in place for an extended time.
The defense from fallout is pretty simple also. Actually, the same as covid essentially. Ask any healthcare worker what they went thru before going home to family after work.
There is a reason all those schools and public buildings built in the middle of the last century are all brick fortresses. Look closely and most still have a faded yellow sign designating those buildings as fallout shelters.
Our recently purchased final home was built about that time also and is all brick and cinder block and as mentioned has a bomb shelter.
I still don't want to survive an all of nuclear war, but sheltering in place for a few weeks to wait for the fallout from a single bomb event to pass is not the same thing.
Again, prep for Tuesday(s), not doomsday.
dubious_capybara@reddit
Nuclear war is survivable by most people, and you'll regret this lazy perspective when your survival instinct kicks in.
deport_racists_next@reddit
Child, you did not read what I wrote with any comprehension skills at all.
I've lived a good life.
Even when i was young I had no stomach for surviving to live in a nuclear Armageddon that our planets leaders had geared up for us.
Large-Asparagus2063@reddit
unc how old are you ?
Girderland@reddit
He told you his Ma was pregnant with him in '62. That means he's 63 or 64 today.
Rick-burp-Sanchez@reddit
What makes you say that? Most people couldn't (wouldn't have the means) take care of themselves for two weeks without power/trucks bringing in food. Obviously there is variation in what defines "nuclear war" but, I'm curious what scenario you're envisioning when you say this.
(Not trying to start a fight, trying to educate myself)
xaqaria@reddit
Dude sounds like he's in his 80's. I'm sure he's ready to go.
HalcyonKnights@reddit
Dont underestimate the strength of a properly blessed Torii gate...
dittybopper_05H@reddit
Except they closed Torii Station on Okinawa and moved the mission to Field Station Kunia in 1980. They demolished the Elephant Cage in 2007. In 2012, what was now called RSOC Kunia was closed and the mission was shifted over to NSA Hawaii on the other side of Wahiawa, over by Whitmore Village.
HalcyonKnights@reddit
Um, what are you talking about? A Torii gate is one of the red shrine arc things, and there's a famous picture (my link seems broken) of one that survived the Nagasaki strike.
dittybopper_05H@reddit
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Torii_Station
Not mentioned in the Wikipedia article is the signals intelligence part of Torii station, which is what I referenced, and which closed in 1980. Nice big red Torii (what is the plural of that?) at the gate, and an AN/FRD-10 circularly disposed antenna array, colloquially known as an "elephant cage" because of its size.
We had a big plaque in the Kunia tunnel in memory of that station when I worked there. It's probably been moved to NSA Hawaii by now.
HalcyonKnights@reddit
Oh, ok that's cool I guess. There are a lot of Norii gates out there that have zero to do with that station though
dittybopper_05H@reddit
I know. But when I think "torii", that's what comes to mind.
Now, you want to hear about Ramasun station?
shikkonin@reddit
You're the only person alive where that is the case.
dittybopper_05H@reddit
I doubt it.
Torii Station was open from at least 1958 through 1980. Presuming the same approximate manning as Kunia when I was there, that's probably at least 400 to 500 people at any one time. Figure a 4 year rotation rate, and you're adding 100 people every year (with some minor overlap). I'm ignoring people who went there TDY (temporary duty assignment).
So that's at least 22 years, or 2,200 people, plus the original 400 for a total of approximately 2,600 people.
Plus people like me: I joined up 5 years after FS Okinawa closed, yet I still know about it.
Then there would be all the people at Fort Meade, MD who took in the intelligence generated from Torii Station and processed it.
Honestly I'm comfortable in saying there are well over ten thousand people still alive that know about it, as a 'back of the napkin' number.
shikkonin@reddit
No shit Sherlock. But that's not relevant to what we are discussing here, is it.
Everybody knows Torii gates, since they are everywhere in Japan. Most people also know the image of the surviving Torii gate after the atomic bomb attack. This is what people associate with Torii, not some military base.
HalcyonKnights@reddit
Nah, but do understand, I have something similar with "Dresden". A city in Germany but also a great series of urban fantasy novels.
Swmp1024@reddit
Nuclear War Survival Skills. Bright green cover?
dittybopper_05H@reddit
Mine is red.
AlphaDisconnect@reddit
There has been exactly 2 examples. It happened in Japan. Wood and paper. We dont really know what would happen.
dittybopper_05H@reddit
Actually we have a good idea.
Hiroshima turned into a firestorm, but the Nagasaki didn't despite being hit with a bomb with almost twice the yield.
There is an interesting reason why Hiroshima turned into a firestorm but Nagasaki didn't, and it has implications for modern nuclear war.
First, firestorms require several different things to happen:
An available fuel load of at least 40 kg/m2.
Calm weather, with winds below 13 km/hr.
Thousands of roughly simultaneous ignition sources.
An area of at least 1.3 square kilometers.
Hiroshima and Nagasaki were both predominantly of wooden construction, and Hiroshima especially had a "built up" area downtown that was largely 2 story wooden structures with narrow streets. Here is a picture of a Hiroshima street prior to the bombing:
You can see the streets are pretty narrow, and the buildings are 2 stories, and made mostly of wood.
But the thing that caused Hiroshima to experience a firestorm is breakfast.
Let me explain.
The bomb detonated at 8:15 AM local time. Back then, most Japanese cooked on a charcoal brazier made usually of diatomaceous earth called a "shichirin". The charcoal from cooking breakfast would have still been lit at the bottom of those shichirin, you can't just turn it off like a stove.
So you've got a very large number of buildings constructed of wood, often with internal walls made of paper and thin strips of wood. These collapse in on the shichirin, causing them to break and/or spill their still lit coals on to flammable material.
The firestorm itself didn't break out until about 15 minutes after the blast, and the majority of surviving witnesses agreed that it was broken shichirin that caused most of the fires according to the US Strategic Bombing Survey conducted after the war. .
The Nagasaki bomb detonated at 11:00 AM local time. This is long after the breakfast fires had burnt out, but before any lunch or dinner fires were started. There was no firestorm.
Now, fast forward to modern times, and a typical 500 kiloton strategic warhead detonated over a modern city is unlikely to cause a firestorm, simply because there isn't enough of a fuel load to sustain it. Modern cities have buildings made of concrete, steel, and glass (and in lower income areas brick), with relatively wide streets. Modern US cities have a fuel load of between 14 and 21 kg/m2, at most about half that necessary for a firestorm to occur.
That's independent of the yield of the bomb: Even the Tsar Bomba couldn't cause a firestorm if the fuel load won't support it.
Also, there is something that people don't intuitively understand about explosions, nuclear or conventional: Doubling the yield does not double the destruction. It's not a linear relationship. Damage goes up with the inverse cube of yield. So for example a 10 kiloton device detonated at optimum airburst height will cause damage over 53.4 square kilometers, whereas a 100 kiloton device, despite 10 times the yield, will only cause damage over 160 square kilometers, just 3 times the area.
Federal_Refrigerator@reddit
We do, actually. A mixture of scientific understanding of types of radiation from a nuclear blast as well as experiences both with those as well as nuclear blast tests. There’s a reason we know how to build a nuclear shelter.
AlphaDisconnect@reddit
Yeah. Bury it under a mountain. Or goodness knows how many feet down an elevator shaft. Again into the earth.
This isn't rocket surgery. Or brain science.
Federal_Refrigerator@reddit
It’s nuclear science, that’s correct. Not “brain science”(whatever you’re talking about there) or “rocket surgery”(again maybe you think you’re funny but I think you aren’t tbh) but it’s nuclear science and it isn’t as simple as just bury it, it’s about the material between, how to appropriately filter air intakes and outputs and a bunch of other stuff. “Just bury it” is such a reductionist take that you may as well tell homeless people to “just buy a home”
AlphaDisconnect@reddit
Someone has clearly never played Kerbal space program. Has not needed to perform emergency rocket surgery. Dosent know his apoapsis from his periapsis.
It is when your ears pop feet underground.
Federal_Refrigerator@reddit
It’s so funny when you say assumptions like that. I love KSP. Anyways though you seem like you’re a troll or something so bye bye but do have a magnificent day
PhiloLibrarian@reddit
Rocket surgery 😂
Federal_Refrigerator@reddit
Oh hey, u/AlphaDisconnect this person did find it funny though even though I didn’t so at least you do have that going for you!
JRHLowdown3@reddit
The school buses makes me think of Bruce Beach in Canada... Probably has been on the net since the 90's also.
Distinguishedflyer@reddit
I bought a 1950s school desk on eBay and I'm just gonna duck and cover.
lxccvr@reddit
!RemindMe 3 days
labboy70@reddit
“In Time of Emergency”
Motorcyclegrrl@reddit
Hey, he wrote some books. Beach has authored two related books: Society After Doomsday and TRIAD Individual Networking: Preparedness For Disastrous Times.