Nuclear War! What would you do?

[padcontrol]

Cellar as good as anything as long as you have a good supply of clean water and seal it up well enough to block out the worst of any fallout/direct radiation. EMP would likely have a high impact on the power grid which depending on conditions may or may not be repaired quickly.

Yep, water pipes are coming direct from cellar connected to a plumbed fridge supplying filtered water, can disconnect if needed. Can get plenty of food down there to stock up. I guess going to need some sort of generator for electricity supply? As far as being a secondary victim, yes i can see that we would be targeted once the desperation kicks in.

 

[platinum87]

Sell potassium iodide, create branding to charge ridiculously higher prices than it should cost.

Hire hookers and pay them with potassium iodide not money.

 

[Rroff]

guess going to need some sort of generator for electricity supply?

Not a perfect solution but I've a small solar setup (with batteries) to provide some backup power - enough to run some lights and tablets, etc. unless it was particularly overcast all day.

More designed really to make things a bit easier if we have a repeat of the 2013/2014 floods which affected this area though stopped short of us.

 

[V F]

Deliberately seperate from the North Korea thread and intended to be more... err... 'fun' (less serious).

Suppose it comes to the worst and North Korea launches a nuke. You're there at work, drinking out of your OcUK mug, browsing the blue screen, then BAMN nuclear bomb has gone off somewhere in Asia or west coast US. Quick - to the internet! 30 new threads make you aware of the horror.

Would you drop your mug in slow motion and run for the hills, or diligently get on with that work admin you had been putting off for two weeks? I was thinking about this whilst slupin' on my morning brew. I can kind of see everyone waiting to see what everyone else does. If I was in London I'd probably feel a bit more frightened!

So... what would you do?

For something that has happened?

 

[padcontrol]

Not a perfect solution but I've a small solar setup (with batteries) to provide some backup power - enough to run some lights and tablets, etc. unless it was particularly overcast all day.

More designed really to make things a bit easier if we have a repeat of the 2013/2014 floods which affected this area though stopped short of us.

That sounds pretty good. I always thought of solar setups as expensive. Is this the case, or can they be setup relatively cheaply?

 

[NewGamer11]

Do people in this thread not get how nukes work? It doesn't matter if the war is on the other side of the globe if enough nukes are fired and clouds of ash and radiation are pumped into the atmosphere. That could lead to crop failures in other countries which we rely on for our food supplies. Similarly, if there was a large enough war that UK cities were being targeted it wouldn't matter if your city didn't get hit if you still end up getting the fallout over your area.

If it was a proper WW3 situation I'd head to the nearest city/military base likely to be hit and hope to be vaporised. I'd rather have that than a lingering death from starvation or radiation sickness.

 

[Rroff]

That sounds pretty good. I always thought of solar setups as expensive. Is this the case, or can they be setup relatively cheaply?

Depends on what you go for - I DIY'd my own setup just as a backup - its small scale compared to what you see on the roof of many houses but would make things a little more comfortable in a pinch.

Do people in this thread not get how nukes work? It doesn't matter if the war is on the other side of the globe if enough nukes are fired and clouds of ash and radiation are pumped into the atmosphere. That could lead to crop failures in other countries which we rely on for our food supplies. Similarly, if there was a large enough war that UK cities were being targeted it wouldn't matter if your city didn't get hit if you still end up getting the fallout over your area.

If it was a proper WW3 situation I'd head to the nearest city/military base likely to be hit and hope to be vaporised. I'd rather have that than a lingering death from starvation or radiation sickness.

The main (global) problem with a large scale nuclear exchange is the amount of material (ash) injected into the atmosphere especially from out of control fires in areas like cities that have been hit by nukes - with the types of nuclear weapons used today, many of which would be used in airburst configuration for maximum overpressure effect, radiation/fallout is relatively limited and localised compared to the big old dirty bombs of the past - i.e. most places would be hit with 1-3x 100-300kt devices rather than the 3 or so 3MT devices that would have been used at the height of the cold war.

Depending on the scale of the exchange it probably wouldn't be as bad the the nuclear winter scenarios portray as they generally bias towards more population centres being hit while in reality a lot of the targets would be military/infrastructure that tend to be more remote so less to burn - though if 100+ cities did burn off pretty good the potential outcome is very nasty:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A5DrkR5xzpo

That is a worst case scenario though and likely to be less severe though still pretty nasty.

 

[padcontrol]

Do people in this thread not get how nukes work? It doesn't matter if the war is on the other side of the globe if enough nukes are fired and clouds of ash and radiation are pumped into the atmosphere. That could lead to crop failures in other countries which we rely on for our food supplies. Similarly, if there was a large enough war that UK cities were being targeted it wouldn't matter if your city didn't get hit if you still end up getting the fallout over your area.

If it was a proper WW3 situation I'd head to the nearest city/military base likely to be hit and hope to be vaporised. I'd rather have that than a lingering death from starvation or radiation sickness.

Nahh disagree, just go to cornwall. Nothing happens there. /s As a pass time, go visit the eden project. (Or atleast whats left of it).

 

[NewGamer11]

Worst case scenario though - in a real nuclear exchange a lot of the nukes would be used against military targets which tend to be in more remote areas with less to cause significant spread of fires, etc. while most of the "nuclear winter" models envision the complete eradication of population centres which would cause far more significant problems in terms of ash, etc.

I hope you're correct. Thank the lord for our new, more efficient nukes and ways of setting them off. Was this an EU directive or summat?

 

[Rroff]

I hope you're correct. Thank the lord for our new, more efficient nukes and ways of setting them off. Was this an EU directive or summat?

It ain't gonna be pleasant don't get me wrong - a limited nuclear exchange would likely still have an impact moderately more severe than the "year without a summer" and a more serious one would need people to work together to overcome the disruption to the seasons, potentially significantly increased UV, etc. etc.

The kind of outcomes like in that video are twice as severe as the more likely worst case results of an all out nuclear exchange today.

EDIT: I believe its partly in response to the requirements of the nuclear non-proliferation treaty and partly because it reduces cost and potential issues in disposal, etc.

EDIT2: That and many of the big old bombs were gravity bombs designed to be flown to the target which is largely depreciated in favour of ICBMs these days.

 

[SPG]

Do people in this thread not get how nukes work? It doesn't matter if the war is on the other side of the globe if enough nukes are fired and clouds of ash and radiation are pumped into the atmosphere. That could lead to crop failures in other countries which we rely on for our food supplies. Similarly, if there was a large enough war that UK cities were being targeted it wouldn't matter if your city didn't get hit if you still end up getting the fallout over your area.

If it was a proper WW3 situation I'd head to the nearest city/military base likely to be hit and hope to be vaporised. I'd rather have that than a lingering death from starvation or radiation sickness.

This and only this.

Even if you think you are lucky and get a spot in a goverment shelter due to your work (lots of councils have them) it would not be worth the utter horror to live through after.

The planet would be broken for 1000 years or more.

Life would go on as always but i would not want to be part of that broken world.

 

[sniperone]

It doesn't work like that. Atomic bombs can wipe whole countries out. The damage will never be so local.

Most of today's nukes are small in the sub 100kt range ,big megaton range weapons are no longer needed as they can now put a missle through a window from the other side of the planet. Back in the 60' the accuracy was about 4 miles so you needed massive bombs to destroy the target even if you missed by miles . Completely destroying a small 3 square mile army base could be done with a small 25 KT weapon . And nukes don't wipe out hole country's ,that only happens in movies

 

[BriT]

Hide under a desk as shown in USA lol

 

[Rroff]

And nukes don't wipe out hole country's ,that only happens in movies

Russia had a good go at proving that statement wrong :s

Plus if they went to town on the UK the size of their arsenal could turn every inch of our country into glass something like 1000x over :|

Life would go on as always but i would not want to be part of that broken world.

Not that I want it to happen, but complete opposite here - I kind of find the challenges of surviving in that kind of scenario interesting (aslong as I'm not dying of radiation sickness as that would be a just unpleasant way to go).

 

[Housey]

Cover and duck as they have told me to do for 50 years so it's engrained in my head!!

 

[sniperone]

Yeah but Russia doesnt have that bomb anymore and it wouldn't have destroyed the entire country .

 

[Housey]

...sorry I mean duck and cover

 

[sniperone]

And the UK has a decent arsenal we could level most of Russia city's pretty easy

 

[Rroff]

Yeah but Russia doesnt have that bomb anymore and it wouldn't have destroyed the entire country .

Pretty crazy though - the mushroom cloud would dominate the sky over 100 miles away within a couple of minutes of detonating and if dropped on London pretty much most of the South East would be simply gone.

 

[sniperone]

Pretty crazy though - the mushroom cloud would dominate the sky over 100 miles away within a couple of minutes of detonating and if dropped on London pretty much most of the South East would be simply gone.

There was a city 60 miles from the tsar bomb and it has all its windows and doors blown in . People vastly exaggerate nukes and always compare them to the Hiroshima bomb ,yeah it was 6000 times more powerfull or something like that but the doesn't mean 6000 times more damage .