Nuclear yields

[harryleith 12]

Hi Gang,

 

I have been fiddling with some of the nuclear weapons that came with the A-5A Vigilante and the B-28 Hustler in SF2(merged) and I'm not sure I am getting the yields right. By my calculations (fingers and toes), a 1Mt warhead should have a kilogram yield of 1e+009, but the weapon INI files list a kilogram yield of 1e+012.

 

One Megaton is a million tons (1,000,000 tons) and 1 ton has 1,000 kgs - thus 1,000,000,000kgs - 9 zeroes. I counted them twice, just to be sure! I have looked back on past discussions but can't find an answer.

 

Has anyone got any guidance about this? Using 1e+009 gives a squibby explosion that will destroy things at one end of an airfield but leave the other end unscathed. 1e+012 makes a better KABOOM and levelled two entire airfields - more like what I was expecting.

 

Like others have mentioned in previous forums, I had the experience of dropping a 1Mt Storetrain from an A-5 on a comm building and scored a hit within a hundred metres or so, but the building survived, as did all the tents etc. surrounding it.

 

Am I doing something obviously stoopid?

[+Dave 2,322]

Being a former nuke troop one you get past the 1MT point, the decimals become moot.

 

 

[Slartibartfast 153]

I see that you are trying the peace through superior firepower method... Also if at first you don´t succeed go back for a bigger Nuke...

[FastCargo 412]

Talk to Lexx_Luthor about nukes...he's played with them a bit.

 

I've also found that using strict numbers seems to be underpowered.

 

FC

[Lexx_Luthor 57]

FC ::

I've also found that using strict numbers seems to be underpowered.

 

this^

 

 

Experiment to Taste until Happy.

[harryleith 12]

Fair enough. I am happy to hold a wet finger up into the blast cloud until it feels right. I just wanted to make sure I wasn't a magnitude or two short of a big boom through poor arithmetic.

 

Thanks!

[Lexx_Luthor 57]

Look up some sites that discuss effects of nuclear weapons. Sources I used are listed here ~> http://bbs.thirdwire.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?t=3970

 

 

Atomicforum seems to be gone. Atomic Veterans is gone too apparently. Or they changed iNames. I need to edit that poast but it seems TK disabled editing.

 

The glasstone blog takes some time to load, as each page is very very long but rich in contrarian detail.

[+Paladrian 11]

You can do a little bit more than make it "feel" right. The radius of destruction of an explosion is multiplied by a factor which is the cubic root of the multiplication factor of the yield (approximately)

 

For example, the radius of destruction of a 1kT bomb is about 625m, thus the radius of destruction of a 1mT bomb (1000 times the former) is 6250m, 10 times larger (10 is the cubic root of 1000). With this approximation you can calibrate the correct yield for any nuclear weapon

 

If you get it right please let us know

[Lexx_Luthor 57]

I've forgotten ALOT of this stuff, so maybe we'd better move along, nothing to see here lol. ie...put my poast here on Ignore.

 

 

It may be 4th root. I'm guessing here so ...

 

You consider only the difference in volume. Also consider the work or energy expended by the blast pushing through air 10x the distance. Assuming that work expended goes up linearly with distance, we are dealt one more distance unit to divide the final blast damage ability by. Using this, 1MT over 1kt would give 5.6 times the distance, instead of 10 times.

 

Or the exponent could be between 3 and 4 or whatever (the complicated "real life" thing).

 

If I recall, another consideration is that high yield weapons have more flash to blast ratio. ie...less blast more flash than you would expect from scaling the yields linearly.

 

Another hassle is when you get large distances, difference in air density with altitude comes into play. I think at high enough altitudes (and high yields), blast damage can be ignored, leaving flash damage the most significant factor. Hence my favorite colour anti-flash white which they started using with the high yield weapons.

 

The point with high yield weapons is the area of damage to all objects in that area is still pretty good. When restricting consideration to a single object, high yields do look bad.

 

I've seen it noted somewhere that if you want to create destruction over as large an area as possible using minimum total yield, you have to use multiple small yields. Aiming and dropping them all correctly is not possible, at least not back in the Day Of LeMay using a single bomber. Also, from 1kt to 1MT+, yields scale up fantastically with increasing weapon mass. Both taken together explain (to me ) the popularity of using a single high yield weapon for wide area destruction instead of many smaller yield weapons.

[+Gepard 11,289]

In the game the nuclear weapons show not all effects real nukes have.

A real nuke has a shock wave, the electro magnetic pulse and the heat effect. Only the shok wave is modelled.

[Darrin 3]

In the game the nuclear weapons show not all effects real nukes have.

A real nuke has a shock wave, the electro magnetic pulse and the heat effect. Only the shok wave is modelled.

i noticed that on one partulir sortie i forgot my wingman had an sram cut him loose good wave though i think i was flying dead. out the window i saw all targets on fire where at that range im sure all to be seen was a crater.just a hunch