US to use nuclear weapons against Iran?

[Stringer]

Mav,
I'm not upset at all.  Just curious as to why you refuse to add your stance to the dialogue.

Put forth your stance, and I'll continue the discussion on mine....damn simple.  Why refuse to do that?

I can answer, but I'll quote you here:

I'll have no problem answering the question you asked me once you answer the one I asked you first.

So, bring something to the table, then we can continue.

[Toad]

There's never going to be "absolute" proof of intention until the big bang.

[Stringer]

OK, Toad....fair enough.....what's your stance, and yes I am sincere in that request, just as I am with wanting to know Mav's stance.

[Toad]

You won't believe this, probably.

I say "fugeddaboudit".

This world is overdue to experience the horrors of a massive nuclear exchange.

There is NO proof that will be accepted WRT Iran's capabilities or intentions that will generate a true multinational coalition to smack them down. None. Ain't gonna happen.

So, they'll get their nukes. I suspect eventually the more radical elements of Islam will be supplied with them by Iran for some "good reason".

Then a major city or six in the US, perhaps Israel or maybe even "cartoon headquarters" in Denmark will get the big bang.

Which will start a global conflagration that will cure any surviving humans of any sort of tolerance.

Ragnarok. Armageddon. Whatever you wish to call it.

We actually learned nothing from WW2, I think. Which isn't suprising, I guess, as we learned nothing from WW1 either.

[Pongo]

Can Canada have nukes?

[Stringer]

Thanks Toad.  

On one hand, I can understand that position and agree with it.  I do agree that a true multi-national coalition won't be formed.  

I guess though, that I'm of the mind that we should try to contain or stop it.

Now, I'm not for the pre-emptive thing, unless, we have absolute proof of capability (or existence) and we have credible (this time it actually means credible, not that trumped up stuff for Iraq) idea of intentions.  That second part is damned difficult to assess, I know.  But we'd better figure out a way to get close to that if we choose to light a nuke off first.  

The proof of capability or existence should be achievable though.  

The nuke em now bravado, is just that...bravado, IMO.

[Toad]

Sure, why not.

When they start flying, everyone will want to play.

[Toad]

Originally posted by Stringer
I guess though, that I'm of the mind that we should try to contain or stop it.
 

There's simply no way.

Sanctions will be ignored, just like they were in Iraq.

Military force is out of the question; no coalition and the US "two major wars at the same time" has been shown to be the strawman I suspected it was 30 years ago.

You have any ideas on containment or stopping it? I surely don't.

[Stringer]

No, I don't Toad.  Not off the top of my head.

Do you think we've got some folks in DC that would have some thoughts on that?

[Toad]

I think there's folks in DC that are busily planning military options of all sorts, including secret deals with Israel.

For Contingencies, of course.

I doubt there's anyone in DC that really believes there is any sort of "diplomatic" solution that will work.

I doubt there's anyone in UN HQ that really believes there is any sort of "diplomatic" solution that will work.

I doubt there's anyone in the major Euro governments that really believes there is any sort of "diplomatic" solution that will work.

So, as usual, when the diplomats fail the military prepares.

As I said though, I doubt there's a US Prez with the hair to act unilaterally against them. I don't think Bush will do it and I don't think whoever runs and wins the next one will do it either.

The plans will exist though; for the day when their "intentions" are made irrevocably clear. On that day, "mercy" won't even have a definition.

[Nash]

For some reason, this reminds me of a classmate of mine back in grade 9 who just up and quit school one day. It was during the hysteria of Reagan and that movie 'The Day After' and all the shenanigans with Breshnev. His reason? "We're all gonna die anyway." (He wasn't screwin' around either... he never came back).

Believe it or not.... the thought of lobbin' nukes at other countries used to be a pretty big deal. I've even heard that they used to make kids crawl under their desks just to gear up for that eventuality. There was even some kafuffle off of the coast of Cuba once that whigged everyone out, if you can believe that.

But this isn't then. And I wish the panic-artists would just settle down.

Bush and Rumsfeld took questions from the press today, and their answers should put everyone at ease:

Q Sir, after you've studied today the military capabilities of the United States and looking ahead to future threats, one thing that has to factor in is the growing number of U.S. allies, Russia, Germany, Bahrain, now Canada, who say that if you go to war with Iran, you're going to go alone. Does the American military have the capability to prosecute this war alone?

THE PRESIDENT: Well, look, if you're asking -- are you asking about Iran? The subject didn't come up in this meeting. But, having said that, we take all threats seriously and we will continue to consult with our friends and allies. I know there is this kind of intense speculation that seems to be going on, a kind of a -- I don't know how you would describe it. It's kind of a churning --

SECRETARY RUMSFELD: Frenzy.

THE PRESIDENT: Frenzy is how the Secretary would describe it. But the subject didn't come up. We will obviously continue to consult with our friends and allies. Your question makes certain assumptions that may or may not be true. But we will continue to talk with our -- with the people concerned about peace and how to secure the peace, and those are needed consultations. Not only will we consult with friends and allies, we'll consult with members of Congress. Yes, Terry.

Q He has said that he is drawing up war plans to provide you with credible options. Now, should the American people conclude from that that you're reaching some critical point, that a decision is imminent?

THE PRESIDENT: ... one of the jobs that the Secretary of Defense has tasked to members of his general staff is to prepare for all contingencies, whether it be in the particular country that you seem to be riveted on, or any other country, for that matter. We face a -- the world is not stable. The world changes. There are -- this terrorist network is global in nature and they may strike anywhere. And, therefore, we've got to be prepared to use our military and all the other assets at our disposal in a way to keep the peace.

Well, okay, that might be a bit misleading. This actually took place in August 2002, and the country they were referring to was Iraq.

Oh! Snap! How country porch apple pie it would be to be able to believe something, anything these days!

Personally, I don't know about all this. One thing I'm pretty sure of, though, is that it's a bad idea for countries to have nukes, if their leaders show a tendency towards pre-emptive strikes.

[Captain Virgil Hilts]

What we learned from World War II is that never again will there be conventional warfare on that scale. The first combatant that sees they are losing beyond reversal will use nuclear weapons. And for SANE people, full scale nuclear warfare is too horrible to contemplate. So it just eliminated conventional world wars, as the countries CAPABLE of it had more sense than to start it because the end reult would be nuclear.

But that does NOT apply to rogue states because it is easy for an insane person to gain power, because extremist beliefs foster and in fact prefer leadership by that sort of person. Further, in the radical extremist view, a nuclear holocaust that rids the world of a large number of infidels, even at great cost to the extremists, is entirely acceptable, and even desireable. That does not mean, for example, that the general population of Iran is willing to do this. But rather that a small group that holds, or in the future gains, power, will be willing to do it.

Look at it like this. Just a day or two ago in Iraq, one or two radical Muslims of one faction or another was/were willing to die in order to kill 80-100 other Muslims. Is it such a stretch that 100-200 radical Muslims would be willing to die in order to kill 2-10 MILLION  infidels and destroy a city or region? I don't think so. And further, I do not think it is at all a stretch to think that a rogue state with the wrong leadership will supply them with materials and money. Look, Saddam Hussien said on international satellite television that he'd pay $25K U.S. to the family of any Muslim who would die as a homicide bomber. And he did.

If you think about it, the two bombs dropped on Japan 51 years ago were by today's standards VERY crude. All of the technology is readily available. The basic workings of the bombs is widely published. Computer programs to design conventional explosives packages on order to make a crude nuclear device exist, and can be had. If you have a group leading a country that is willing to supply the nuclear materials and some money, all you need is enough people willing to die to make it happen. The big problems to making the things are doing it safely, not just doing it. If you aren't worried about the people building the bomb, transporting the bomb, or transporting the materials to make the bomb, dying, then you eliminate a lot of the problems and roadblocks. So you take about 150 willing to die of the radiation effects and let them gather the materials and build the bomb, while the guys who know how to do it advise from a safe distance. When you get it built, you let those dying of radioactive poisoning go and homicide bomb a target with conventional explosives, thus silencing them and making them heroes twice. You take the rest and use them to transport and deliver the bomb. Then you STILL have the guys who supplied the know how around to do it again.  Far fetched? Not if you consider the willingness of radicals to die, and the evidently never ending supply of those radicals. And they kill their own. NEVER forget that, because it means they are willing to kill their own, even on a large scale, if they think the payoff in dead infidels is big enough.

When it happens, and it likely will if nothing changes, it will be too late for the thousands at best, more likely tens of thousands, and maybe millions or more, that die or are maimed.

Am I Hell bent on using nuclear weapons or invading? Not by any stretch. I have dear friends and family who would be going in harm's way. But neither am I foolish enough to be willing to sit and wait.

[Wolfala]

Years ago while a freshman in college years ago, I did a background study on the medical impact of a single nuclear detonation. Some of the data is out of date, particularly when it comes to the MX which was retired for the Minuteman III in recent years. The model which is referred to was a damage diorama. I'll place a link in its place.  http://www.fas.org/main/content.jsp?formAction=297&contentId=367
The report follows:

“A very large nuclear war would be a calamity of indescribable proportions and absolutely unpredictable consequences, with the uncertainties tending toward the worse…All-out nuclear war would mean the destruction of contemporary civilization, throw man back centuries, cause the deaths of hundreds of millions or billions of people, and, with a certain degree of probability, would cause man to be destroyed as a biological species…
                  Andrei Sakharov
                  Foreign Affairs, Summer 1983

Prologue:  

   Apocalyptic predictions require, to be taken seriously, higher standards of evidence then do assertions on other matters where the stakes are not as great.  Since the immediate effects of even a single thermonuclear weapon explosion are so devastating, it is natural to assume –even without considering detailed mechanisms—that the more or less simultaneous explosion of ten thousand such weapons all over the Northern Hemisphere might have unpredictable and catastrophic consequences.  

   A typical thermonuclear warhead of today has a yield of approximately 500 Kilotons (or .5 megatons, a megaton being the explosive equivalent of a million tons of Tri-Nitro-Toluene; AKA, TNT).  There are many weapons in the 9 to 20 megaton range in the strategic arsenals of the United States and former Soviet Union: the largest weapon ever having been detonated 58 Megatons.  

   Strategic thermonuclear weapons are designed to be delivered by ground-based or a submarine missile launching platform.  The other method of delivery is by air breathing bombers to attack the enemy homeland directly.  Many weapons with yields in the 10-20 Kiloton range (Roughly the size of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki detonations) are assigned to “tactical” or “theater” weapons systems.  Such systems are nuclear tipped Surface to Air Missiles (SAM’s – Nike Hercules) and Air to Air Missiles (AAM’s – AIM-23 Falcon) designed to be used against bomber formations, Antisubmarine Nuclear Torpedoes, Depth Charges (ASROC – Anti Submarine Rocket System) and artillery.  It has been said that strategic warheads are often larger then their tactical counterparts…this isn’t always the case.  IRBM (Intermediate Range Ballistic Missiles) such as the Perishing II and Russian SS-20 have sufficient range to blur the distinction between “Strategic” and “Tactical” weapons systems.  Both classes of warhead are fully capable of being delivered via either land based ICBM’s (Intercontinental Ballistic Missile), SLBM’s (Submarine Launched Ballistic Missile’s), and aircraft; as well as IRBM classes of missile.  Nevertheless, there are around 18,000 Strategic Thermonuclear weapons and the equivalent of fission triggers in the United States and former Soviet Republics, with an amassed yield of approximately 10,000 megatons.

   No one knows how many warheads would fall in a nuclear conflict.  It seems plausible that even a “small” nuclear war would become impossible to contain before it spread to other countries of the nuclear club.  

   The adversary’s airfields, missile silos, naval bases, submarines at sea, weapons manufacturing and storage depot’s, civilian and military command and control centers, early warning facilities are the most probable targets.  

   While it’s often stated that cities are not targeted, many of the above targets are located around major population centers.  Modern military war doctrine says that “war supporting” facilities are targeted.  This includes the enemy’s power grid – transportation hubs, raw materials production facilities, roads, canals, railways, oil refineries, and radio and television transmitters.
 
   With the introduction concluded, this project will focus on the immediate and delayed effects of a 1-Megaton thermonuclear detonation against a major population center.

Prelude to apocalypse:  

Any attempt to describe and measure the medical effects – the human death and injury-caused by even a single moderately large nuclear warhead over a United States City creates a paradox.  On one hand, the nature and magnitude of the impact are within reasonable limits of precision allowed by the physics of the explosion.  On the other hand, despite this apparent specificity, the consequences are unfathomable, for we are attempting to describe and understand an event that is without precedent in human experience.  

Let’s make this very clear: Hiroshima and Nagasaki will not serve as precedents.  The weapons used on those cities were much smaller then the nuclear weapons of today.  Describing the effects of a single megaton explosion requires us to try and imagine 80 Hiroshima explosions at the same instant in one place.  

Since modern MIRV (Multiple Independent Reentry Vehicle) warheads produce less energy or what’s referred to as “Overkill” near a single ground zero, the death and destruction produced by one MX missile, carrying a total of Six Megatons in Ten warheads  – would equal the effect of a single 20-megaton weapon, or 1,600 Hiroshima detonations.  

The Fireball:
   
   At the moment of detonation, all of the energy of the nuclear explosion is condensed in a small superheated sphere of nuclear debris – at temperatures and pressures not unlike the core of the sun.  It only takes less then 1/1000th of a second for this fireball to cool to 300,000 º Centigrade.  The energy of the explosion, which is largely in the form of X-rays, transforms first into a brilliant flash of light – and then a pulse of thermal radiation that sets fires for miles around the hypocenter.  In the case of an airburst over a city – the radioactive components of the bomb would rise with the formation of the fireball, high into the stratosphere.  This causes other problems with long living radioactive fallout – which will be dealt with later in this project.  

   In this case – the fireball from a one-megaton explosion grows to more then a mile in diameter in seconds, while forming a mushroom cloud over ten miles across punching through the atmosphere up to 70,000 feet MSL (Mean Sea Level).  I briefed you earlier on the term “megaton”, or the equivalent of one million tons of TNT.  For another numerical comparison, this would fill a freight train 300 miles long – evaporate approximately 10 million tons of water from ice into steam – or enough energy would be released by burning about thirty million gallons of gasoline.  

Prompt Nuclear Radiation:  

   Associated with the fireball as mentioned before are the production of gamma rays and neutrons during the first few millionths of a second post detonation.  Granted the atmosphere weakens the particles, this radiation is lethal out to approximately 1.7 miles.  (Well within the first red concentric circle)  Within this distance, people close to the hypocenter of the explosion would be rendered unconscious within minutes.  But for all intensive purposes – radiations at that close a range to ground zero would be of little consequence – for other by-products of the detonation are far more destructive.

Thermal Radiation:  

The thermal pulse is the first major medical effect of a thermonuclear detonation.  When the device explodes, a great wave of heat, traveling at the speed of light is emitted from the fireball.  This enormous pulse causes direct effects on humans in the form of flash burns to exposed skin.  It should be noted that flash burns accounted for nearly 1/3 of fatalities at Hiroshima.  The severity of the damage to the tissue is directly related to the amount of heat given to an area in a period of time.

First-degree flash burns occur at 3.2 cal/cm^2 and would be present out to a distance of 18 kilometers.  First-degree flash burns are not serious, no tissue destruction occurs. They are characterized by immediate pain, followed by reddening of the skin. Pain and sensitivity continues for some minutes or hours, after which the affected skin returns to normal without scaring of any type.  

Moving into 14 kilometers, we have Second degree burns occurring at 6 cal/cm^2.  Second degree burns cause damage to the underlying dermal tissue, killing some portion of it.  This is characterized by intense pain and redness, which is then followed by blistering.  Within a few hours, fluids would begin to collect between the epidermis and damaged tissue. Sufficient tissue remains intact however to regenerate and heal the burned area quickly, usually without scarring.  The biggest problem would be broken blisters and their unique ability to provide possible sites for infection.
Closer then 14 kilometers, we have Third degree burns searing at 10 cal/cm^2.  Third degree burns cause tissue death all the way through the skin, including the cells required for regenerating skin tissue. The only way a 3rd degree burn can heal is by skin re-growth from the edges, a slow process that usually results in scarring, unless skin grafts are used. Before healing 3rd degree burns present serious risk of infection, and can cause serious fluid loss. A third degree burn over 25% of the body (or more) will typically precipitate shock within minutes, which in of itself requires prompt medical attention.

[Wolfala]

It’s important to realize that even more serious burns are possible, which have been classified as fourth (or even fifth) degree burns. These burns destroy tissue below the skin: muscle, connective tissue etc. They can be caused by thermal radiation exposures substantially in excess of those in the table for 3rd degree burns. Many people close to the hypocenter of the Hiroshima bomb suffered these types of burns.  In the immediate vicinity of ground zero the thermal radiation exposure was 100 c/cm^2, some fifteen times the exposure required for 3rd degree burns.  This is sufficient to cause exposed flesh to flash into steam, flaying exposed body areas to the bone.  

The Shock Front:

   By far the most destructive impact of a nuclear detonation on humans and the population is the shock wave. The shock wave is produced at the surface of the fireball in the first fraction of a second after the warhead detonates.  The shock wave travels as a sudden increase in air pressure (static pressure) followed by high winds (dynamic pressure).  Its primary effects are the collapse of buildings, bridges, and other structures, and the crushing of occupants within, below, or near them.  

Within 1.5 miles of ground zero, static overpressures would exceed 20 PSI, which is sufficient to collapse and destroy even the strongest steel and reinforced concrete office buildings.  Within three kilometers, almost everyone would be killed, either directly by the blast or by collapsing or flying masonry.  
At 4 miles from ground zero, the overpressure would be 5 PSI, or over 180 tons of pressure on the wall of an average two-story home.  It should be noted that very high static overpressures on human bodies will produce internal hemorrhaging and fatal impairment of the cardiopulmonary system, but the overwhelming medical impacts are due to the collapse and destruction of buildings and other physical structures.

At 8 kilometers, it’s estimated that the impact effects of the blast would kill about fifty percent of the people.  Immediately following the blast wave would be hurricane force winds, first outwards from the explosion and then inward to replace the air that went out.  

 Crushing injuries of the skull, chest, abdomen and limbs; traumatic amputations; multiple compound fractures of bones; paralyzing lesions of the spinal cord; damage to internal organs, particularly the brain, liver, kidneys; rupture of the lungs and eardrums; multiple severe lacerations.   People at a distance, if they realized what had happened when they saw the flash, would have a few seconds to lie down, or even to dive into a ditch before the blast hit.
         
Secondary and tertiary blast effects:

   This is best described as flying objects and flying people, being primarily related to the extremely high dynamic pressures – or winds of velocities exceeding 600 mph near the hypocenter.  The range of secondary blast effects is in fact much greater then the primary effects – i.e. collapsed buildings.  As far as 13 miles from ground zero, people would be in grave danger of enormous amounts of flying debris consisting of bricks, pieces of masonry, steel, wood, and shards of glass.  At a range of almost 15 miles, these objects would have a high probability of severely injuring anyone hit.  The overwhelming medical effects would include fractures, penetrating wounds of the chest and abdomen, not to mention serious lacerations.  

   Another example would be the effects of wind on a human body.  As far as 8 miles from ground zero, the wind is sufficient to hurl a 180-pound man against a wall at several times the force of gravity.  

Incendiary impacts:

In a word, fires would be the greatest vehicle for human injury and death.  The thermal pulse is so intense that paper; dry trees, leaves and grass, debris and wood outside buildings would burst into flames as far as 10 miles away.  Within buildings, there would be spontaneous combustion of upholstery, bedding, which are all likely to create self-sustaining fires.  To these numerous conflagrations we’d add exploding boilers, overturned furnaces, stoves, broken gas mains, and downed power lines.  Fires will directly ignite or spread to gasoline stations, fuel storage depots, large natural gas storage tanks, and industrial chemical stockpiles.  
In any large city stricken with a thermonuclear detonation, a mass fire would cause a staggering increase in the number of burns and burns combined with other injuries.  With a one-megaton detonation, the circle within which the entire population is counted as fatalities is labeled at 4.3 miles from ground zero.

Mass fires, and especially firestorms, pose a significant threat to the human population.  Burst fuel tanks, gas mains, and collapsed buildings would provide more fuel, and it is likely that confluent fires would cause a "firestorm". This is when coalescent fires cause sufficient updraft to form their own wind, blowing inwards from all sides and thereby increasing the intensity of the fire.

The temperature even in basements and bomb shelters rises above lethal levels, and the fire uses all available oxygen. The wind blowing inwards is of gale force, so that even strong uninjured people would have difficulty walking or trying to run outwards away from the fire.  Control or containment of these fires---hundreds of them per acre---would be virtually impossible.  Water mains would be shattered and pressure non-existent.  Streets would be impassable.  Fire-fighting crews and equipment would be destroyed or disabled.  

Firestorms, pose a threat in addition to their searing temperatures:  the generation of large amounts of carbon dioxide and other toxic gas’s.  Blast or fallout shelters would provide little protection.  The survival of occupants within a shelter would depend critically on the temperature and humidity within the shelter.  Unless there is an independent oxygen supply and a venting system for each shelter, toxic gases would be deadly to the occupants.  Ordinary shelters would then become crematoria in which occupants would be burned to death and asphyxiated




Delayed Radiation – AKA “Fallout”:

   The radiation from a nuclear detonation can be classified into two separate categories:  Initial Burst and Residual – the latter being fallout.  Depending whether the weapon is detonated as an airburst or ground burst, fallout can be either Initial or Long term.  

   The initial burst is comprised of gamma rays and neutrons, a dose so intense as only to be lethal at a short range within 1.75 miles of the hypocenter.  However, this wouldn’t so much be of a factor since anyone within that ring of destruction would be dead or morbid from the subsequent thermal pulse and passage of the shock front.  Only over two miles is radiation exposure from the initial pulse down to a relatively insignificant level, at least compared to the other threats.

   If the device were exploded on the ground, early or local fallout would be as a result of soil and rock descending from the fireball’s ascension into the stratosphere.  In the case of the city model before you, there is relatively little local fallout – most of it would be global fallout.  Airbursts tend to deliver a smaller radiation dose over a longer period of time, to global populations.  The direction of fallout is a misnomer since wind patterns make fallout widely scattered and unpredictable – leaving certain areas hot and others untouched.  

Radiation Injury:

   Most medical estimates of risk are in that of LD/50 or the lethal dose for 50 % of the population exposed.  Short-term exposure is rated at 450 REMS with excellent medical care available.  That meaning that possible bone marrow transplants would be needed, in addition to whole blood transfusions. Lethal doses for the very young, elderly or those with serious blast and burn injury can be as low as 225 REMS.  
                 
 
Effect    If delivered over one week   If delivered over one month     
Threshold for radiation sickness   150   200     
Five percent may die   250   350     
Fifty percent may die   450   600   

(It doesn’t matter much whether a dose of radiation is received as intense radiation for several hours or at a slower rate over several weeks.  What matters is the total accumulated dose.)

[Wolfala]

Combined Injuries:

   I have in this project taken you through the traumas that a thermonuclear detonation inflicts on the city and its inhabitants.  In a real thermonuclear detonation, 25 to 50 % of the immediate blast survivors might have combined injuries.  For the victims of this serious trauma – burns, radiation injury, and other combined injuries to have any chance of survival – they would need complex medical care at the most sophisticated level.  Of course, it’s easier to comprehend an idea with something to look at – so please reference the display model in front of you.

http://www.fas.org/main/content.jsp?formAction=297&contentId=367

            First Concentric Circle
   Within the first circle, which has a radius of 1.5 miles, all buildings will be destroyed or seriously damaged.  Tunnels and subways will collapse, and all but the strongest bridges will come down.  Winds will be in excess of 600 miles per hour.  Almost the entire population within this cone – will be killed outright.  Blast, Heat, and Radiation will be at lethal strength.  

            Second Concentric Circle
   In the second circle, which has a radius of 2.9 miles from the hypocenter, blast alone will kill 50 percent of the population, and winds will be in excess of 300 miles per hour.  The thermal pulse alone would cause Third degree flash burns to exposed skin and spontaneous ignition of clothing.
As a general rule of thumb – within the first two circles, causality figures are estimated at 90 % killed, 10 % seriously injured.  
            
Third Concentric Circle
   The third circle goes out to a radius of 4.3 miles, and encompasses an area in which the blast overpressure would be 5 PSI – or over 180 tons of pressure on the wall of an average two story home.  Winds would reach 160 miles per hour – all un-reinforced brick and wood-frame houses will be destroyed, and stronger structures severely damaged.  Within this circle, the thermal pulse would be great enough to give Third degree flash burns and produce spontaneous ignition of clothing.  50 % of the population would be killed with 35 % severely injured, and only 15 % slightly injured or uninjured.
 
            Fourth Concentric Circle
   The fourth circle has a radius of 4.9 miles.  At this distance, blast injuries would be less then those with serious burn injuries.  25% to 50% of the survivors would have combined blast and burn injury.  

            Fifth Concentric Circle
   The fifth circle has a radius of 6.3 miles from the hypocenter.  Although static overpressures would be down to only 3 PSI with winds of 100 miles per hour, injury from secondary and tertiary blast effects would still be important causes of injury.  The thermal pulse would still be sufficient to cause Third degree burns.  

            Sixth Concentric Circle
   With a radius of 8.5 miles, secondary blast effects (flying missiles of brick, masonry, steel, glass, etc) would dominate – causing fractures, penetrating wounds and numerous lacerations.  The thermal impact would be sufficient for Second-degree burns.  

   Beyond 13 miles, 2 % of the population would be killed and 18 % seriously injured.  To a distance of 35 miles in all directions - if someone were caught looking at the initial flash and fireball – they would risk possible eye damage.  This range for blindness is extended by a factor of 2 if the detonation occurs at night.  It should be noted that atmospheric conditions; cloud cover, rain or fog significantly effect the range of the thermal pulse and flash damage to the eyes.  

Rescue Problems:

If the bomb exploded squarely over the center of a city, no rescue services within the area of major structural damage would be able to function.  All downtown hospitals would be destroyed, and there would be no electricity, water, or telephone communication in the area served by city utilities.  Impassable roads would hamper rescue services from the outside world and the central area of severe damage would be inaccessible.  
The number of injured in the peripheral area would be so great that emergency services of surrounding cities would be completely overloaded, as would be any surviving suburban hospitals and all the hospitals of neighboring cities.  Even to be seen by a doctor and given analgesics, the injured from one city would need to be distributed among all the hospitals of North America.  

The destroyed city would be radioactive.  Decisions to attempt rescue work would depend first on a survey of the area by a specialist team with appropriate protection, and then on a policy decision as to how much radiation the rescue teams should be permitted.  Willingness of the team members and their unions to accept the risk would be the final factor.

Medical Responses:

   Medical help of any sort would be virtually non-existent.  Medical care, in fact, serves most usefully as an illustration of the impossibility of coping with such a horrific impact.

Civil defense estimates suggest that the ratio of surviving uninjured physicians to the number of seriously injured attack victims being somewhere between 1:350 and 1:1500.  Looking back, even this calculation is optimistic.  
There are no emergency rooms, no operating rooms, and no diagnostic or therapeutic equipment within reach.  There are no blood banks left; drug stocks have been destroyed.  

The number of injured, if they could be distributed throughout the hospitals or North America would occupy something like a third of all beds available – no hospital can deal with such an influx of cases.  A whole year's supply of blood for transfusion would be needed immediately, and of course is not available in storage nor could it be collected from volunteers in a few days.  The injured that reached hospitals would have to be assayed for radioactivity, for the safety of the staff, which would cause a serious bottleneck and delay in most hospitals.  

There might be fifty times as many severe burn cases as there are beds available in all North America.  Let me remind you – this is if there was only a 1-megaton weapon targeting a single city.  

The true scope of the medical impact of a thermonuclear weapon only becomes clear if you turn to a major nationwide attack.  If you can imagine the impact of a single 1-Megaton warhead – just try to comprehend 6,000 Megatons aimed simultaneously at military targets, other basic industries and population concentrations of 50,000 or more.  

Survival:

In the post-shelter survival period, when fallout has reached an “acceptable” level that allows survivors to emerge for longer times, the problems will change.  Tens of thousands of still surviving injured must be nursed.  There will be millions of human and animal corpses to be buried or burned.  Food will be an overwhelming concern since most of the food stored in shelters would’ve been destroyed.  Other food supplies, grain in particular is stored where the population density is least concentrated, on farms.  Approximately 99% of the refinery industry would’ve been destroyed; there would be no means to transport the food since there would be no fuel.  

Locally food-rich regions may try to fight off any attempt to share their holdings.  But throughout this period, the epidemic potential will continue and worsen, probably made more intense by both malnutrition and rampant disease.  Since insects are far more resistant to radiation then humans, it is anticipated that cockroaches, mosquitoes, and flies—will multiply unchecked in an environment that is devoid of birds but has ample waste, untreated sewage and human and animal corpses.  Trillions of flies will breed in the dead bodies alone.  

Disease problems in the survival period may be heavily skewed toward infections.  Particularly hazardous epidemics of TB and plague may occur, but outbreaks of flu, amoebic dysentery, rabies, cholera, hepatitis, and bacterial dysentery are also very likely.  All of this is in addition to the usual incidence of coronary heart disease, stoke, diabetes, and occurrences or cancer.  
Antibiotic supplies would be rapidly depredated.  Since the pharmaceutical industry will be almost totally destroyed, there will be little chance of replacement.  Diagnostic labs will be non-existent.  Vaccines and other immunizing agents will be unavailable.  

For physicians and other health care workers, all these scenarios are apocalyptic in scale.  It will not only raise practical burdens but the ethical as well.  Within the shelter or outside…how are health workers to accomplish making life and death decisions on the basic of radiation exposure estimates that may be inaccurate by several orders of magnitude.  Shall the demands for euthanasia be fulfilled as opposed to living maybe 3 or 4 weeks?  Should antibiotics or narcotics be reserved for those whose prospect for survival is best?  

For those who survived this grotesque destruction of human beings, it would change the meaning of being human.  For this, as for the medical effects, there is no cure; there is only prevention.