Quote:
Originally Posted by Oberon
By the way, that '100 megaton' weapon? Actually more likely to be a 10 megaton device:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kanyon
Still bad, but not 'likely to wipe out most of the eastern seaboard with one weapon' kind of bad.
Also, it's uncertain just how large a wave such a device could create, if the 10mt device detonated in the middle of San Francisco harbour, for example, it could probably send in a wave that was maybe ten meters high, which would wreck waterfront areas and that would be about it. If they detonated it off shore then most of the energy would slam straight into the continental shelf and a small wave might just destroy a kids sandcastle on the shore.
For the sort of city destroying device that is probably wanted you would need that 100mt to go off in the middle of the harbour and you'd probably need an entire submarine to put that bomb in, they barely managed to fit the Tsar Bomba into a Tu-95.
The Japanese tsunami reached 40 meters and the energy from the earthquake and tsunami was the equivalent of 9,320 gigatonnes or 800 million Hiroshima explosions.
In short, I don't think this is quite the devastating weapon that Russia thinks that it is, certainly compared to a conventional nuclear air or ground burst, and against inland cities it's completely useless. |
I played war games a child on a picnic table covered with sand and dirt and little plastic figures and of course tanks. One time I was playing a friend and unknown to my observations had planted bottle caps in the dirt on the picnic table and after making an advance he blew my whole army up, becasue I didn't even know it was there.
Seattle has a port, San Francisco has a port as Los Angeles, Long Beach and San Diego on the west coast. New York to Philly to Norfolk to Georgia to Florida to the Gulf Coast all have ports.
How hard would it be to hide a submarine drone in a freighter ship to launch in any of these ports with a SS capsule and device that could bury it in the ports bottom to surface on command by a mother ship for the purpose of exploding a device of mass destruction?
I started with children playing a backyard game, but those children grow up and give thought to such plans to present to the shadow people for a budget. I think it's worth someone's time to check out with seal team any irregularities in every port although it may never turn up anything it would still make a good training action ...
Fear in the Greek language means respect it will be too late after such a catastrophe to have any fear left.