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Macron’s campaign gets knocked off course by the Corsican riots – politicalbetting.com

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  • OmniumOmnium Posts: 10,759

    One of the scary things is that it’s still not entirely clear what Putin’s political aims were/are.

    Was it just to normalise Donbas annexation?
    Seize the Ukrainian seaboard?
    Annex all of Ukraine?
    Return to pre-1989 borders?

    Or is it that - unbeknownst to us - he was about to be toppled and needs a long long war and besieged economy to accrue the kind of authortitarian powers necessary to stay in control?

    Nobody knows.

    We all know it was jumping up and down on a Kremlin trampoline with a stripper, and yelling 'I win'. The stripper pulled out. Now it's Putin the war criminal working in his escape route.
  • eekeek Posts: 28,370
    rcs1000 said:

    TimS said:

    Thinking through the morbid maths here.

    I understand Russia has around 6,000 warheads but the internet tells me they have around 1,500 "strategic" warheads i.e. ones that could be launched via ICBMs, heavy bombers or other means of getting them to distant targets like Britain and the USA. So 1,500: let's assume not all those get fired even in a true WW3 event - some get shot out of the sky by THAAD systems, some fail to detonate, some never make it out of their silos. Perhaps 1,000.

    Let's say there population of target countries in this long range is about 600 million - populations of the USA, Canada, Europe West of Germany or South of the Alps. So proportionally Britain would get a little over 10% of those. Maybe in reality we get more because we're a nuclear armed enemy - 20% say, with fewer falling on Italy, Iberia etc. That's 200 warheads for the UK. Enough to wipe out our means of functioning as a country and irradiate the whole landmass, yet not anywhere near enough to cause physical damage to more than our cities, suburbs and military bases. Most of the country would look the same s before the exchange. Cotswold villages would still glow in the afternoon sunshine with roses growing up the walls. Small market towns would still have their fully intact high streets and squares. It's a strange prospect.

    I would be staggered if two thirds of Russian warheads made it to their destinations. I think a third would be optimistic.
    It's obvious looking at many of the issues the Russian Army has had in Ukraine that maintenance and lack thereof is a big issue - and it's highly implausible that other parts of the Russian armed services have not got very similar issues.
  • bigglesbiggles Posts: 6,052

    boulay said:

    TimS said:

    Thinking through the morbid maths here.

    I understand Russia has around 6,000 warheads but the internet tells me they have around 1,500 "strategic" warheads i.e. ones that could be launched via ICBMs, heavy bombers or other means of getting them to distant targets like Britain and the USA. So 1,500: let's assume not all those get fired even in a true WW3 event - some get shot out of the sky by THAAD systems, some fail to detonate, some never make it out of their silos. Perhaps 1,000.

    Let's say there population of target countries in this long range is about 600 million - populations of the USA, Canada, Europe West of Germany or South of the Alps. So proportionally Britain would get a little over 10% of those. Maybe in reality we get more because we're a nuclear armed enemy - 20% say, with fewer falling on Italy, Iberia etc. That's 200 warheads for the UK. Enough to wipe out our means of functioning as a country and irradiate the whole landmass, yet not anywhere near enough to cause physical damage to more than our cities, suburbs and military bases. Most of the country would look the same s before the exchange. Cotswold villages would still glow in the afternoon sunshine with roses growing up the walls. Small market towns would still have their fully intact high streets and squares. It's a strange prospect.

    I think Cotswold villages would be glowing with or without the afternoon sunshine.
    Yes, but they wold be nearly all intact. Russian nukes are larger than their Western equivalents - probably accuracy issues. But blast and thermal effects don't scale linearly.

    Lets say we nuke Oxford with a 450Kt weapon. The circle is the damage radius.

    image
    Crime would go down massively as Blackbird Lees gets tonked.

    Safest place is Cambridge. No way they zap their spies....
    Fake news. I remember how to survive this. I just have to sit under my stairs with a mattress covering the gap.
  • ozymandiasozymandias Posts: 1,503

    Jonathan said:

    Good grief. PB is bleak today. Do people really think the balloon is going up? What are the odds?

    The forecast is bright, Very bright. Peak temperatures may exceed 10,000 centigrade. Sudden gusts of wind up to Mach 1 may be expected. Despite a heavy overcast, very high UV factor. Wear Sunblock Factor 1,000,000.
    Yet Mrs Browns Boys will still be broadcasting on the BBC. In a "Nuclear Special". I'll take the bomb in that scenario.
  • TimTTimT Posts: 6,468
    IshmaelZ said:

    Leon said:

    The peculiar divagations of Russia’s Special Flight Squadron RSD75



    https://www.flightradar24.com/RSD075/2b2adda5

    No one can work out what it is doing

    Thread here:

    https://twitter.com/oalexanderdk/status/1504483793716985859?s=21

    ultra top secret bunker somewhere on the black dotted line. It is flying the loop so no one knows where on the line it landed.

    AFL1730 is on the exact same track which is odd as it is meant to be commercial moscow-kamchatsky but is 100s of mile off track to the North.

    Very liberating knowing absolutely bugger all about the subject you are expatiating on.
    To be sure. You start with very few preconceptions, which only serve to limit the fervid imagination
  • IshmaelZIshmaelZ Posts: 21,830

    boulay said:

    TimS said:

    Thinking through the morbid maths here.

    I understand Russia has around 6,000 warheads but the internet tells me they have around 1,500 "strategic" warheads i.e. ones that could be launched via ICBMs, heavy bombers or other means of getting them to distant targets like Britain and the USA. So 1,500: let's assume not all those get fired even in a true WW3 event - some get shot out of the sky by THAAD systems, some fail to detonate, some never make it out of their silos. Perhaps 1,000.

    Let's say there population of target countries in this long range is about 600 million - populations of the USA, Canada, Europe West of Germany or South of the Alps. So proportionally Britain would get a little over 10% of those. Maybe in reality we get more because we're a nuclear armed enemy - 20% say, with fewer falling on Italy, Iberia etc. That's 200 warheads for the UK. Enough to wipe out our means of functioning as a country and irradiate the whole landmass, yet not anywhere near enough to cause physical damage to more than our cities, suburbs and military bases. Most of the country would look the same s before the exchange. Cotswold villages would still glow in the afternoon sunshine with roses growing up the walls. Small market towns would still have their fully intact high streets and squares. It's a strange prospect.

    I think Cotswold villages would be glowing with or without the afternoon sunshine.
    Yes, but they wold be nearly all intact. Russian nukes are larger than their Western equivalents - probably accuracy issues. But blast and thermal effects don't scale linearly.

    Lets say we nuke Oxford with a 450Kt weapon. The circle is the damage radius.

    image
    Crime would go down massively as Blackbird Lees gets tonked.

    Safest place is Cambridge. No way they zap their spies....
    Why would the target and indifferent polytechnic in a swamp, anyway?
    Baedeker raid. Best University Town In The World Called Cambridge, 1209-1636. The fen folk have long memories, as is common in pre literate societies.
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 42,134
    JohnO said:

    Leon said:

    kamski said:

    Leon said:

    This is interesting. Maybe

    Someone on Twitter (hello @Anabobazina) has pointed out the route taken by the private jets out of Moscow. They didn’t take the quickest route to Dubai, they got out of Russian airspace as fast as they could, and THEN headed for Dubai

    I’m not an aviation boffin. But we surely have some on here. Is there a perfectly normal explanation for this? Or is it indicative of fear in the passengers?




    That's the standard route at the moment.

    Compare:

    https://www.flightradar24.com/ETD64/2b2b8980

    It avoids the Caucuses and Ukraine.
    I think we should start worrying when the Western billionaires start heading for their boltholes in South America or New Zealand or wherever they plan to survive armageddon - anyone watching their movements?
    I’ve actually SEEN one of these boltholes. A fantastic house in the far southwest corner of the Australian coast, in Western Oz

    I was told it was owned by a famous billionaire in America. Specifically bought to avoid apocalypse

    A good choice. It’s near the margaret river. So lots of nice food and wine. Also far far far away from everywhere and everything else, including fall-out

    Even if someone nuked Perth you’d probably be fine. It’s about 200 miles north
    On The Beach? - Oh, beaten to it!
    Oh shoot! So annoying when that happens.
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 50,255
    biggles said:

    boulay said:

    TimS said:

    Thinking through the morbid maths here.

    I understand Russia has around 6,000 warheads but the internet tells me they have around 1,500 "strategic" warheads i.e. ones that could be launched via ICBMs, heavy bombers or other means of getting them to distant targets like Britain and the USA. So 1,500: let's assume not all those get fired even in a true WW3 event - some get shot out of the sky by THAAD systems, some fail to detonate, some never make it out of their silos. Perhaps 1,000.

    Let's say there population of target countries in this long range is about 600 million - populations of the USA, Canada, Europe West of Germany or South of the Alps. So proportionally Britain would get a little over 10% of those. Maybe in reality we get more because we're a nuclear armed enemy - 20% say, with fewer falling on Italy, Iberia etc. That's 200 warheads for the UK. Enough to wipe out our means of functioning as a country and irradiate the whole landmass, yet not anywhere near enough to cause physical damage to more than our cities, suburbs and military bases. Most of the country would look the same s before the exchange. Cotswold villages would still glow in the afternoon sunshine with roses growing up the walls. Small market towns would still have their fully intact high streets and squares. It's a strange prospect.

    I think Cotswold villages would be glowing with or without the afternoon sunshine.
    Yes, but they wold be nearly all intact. Russian nukes are larger than their Western equivalents - probably accuracy issues. But blast and thermal effects don't scale linearly.

    Lets say we nuke Oxford with a 450Kt weapon. The circle is the damage radius.

    image
    Crime would go down massively as Blackbird Lees gets tonked.

    Safest place is Cambridge. No way they zap their spies....
    Fake news. I remember how to survive this. I just have to sit under my stairs with a mattress covering the gap.
    If you are out of the immediate blast zone, and had some kind of fallout protection - sealed the house up, with a filter, say... after a 3-4 weeks you would be ok to go outside, probably.
  • OmniumOmnium Posts: 10,759
    IshmaelZ said:

    boulay said:

    TimS said:

    Thinking through the morbid maths here.

    I understand Russia has around 6,000 warheads but the internet tells me they have around 1,500 "strategic" warheads i.e. ones that could be launched via ICBMs, heavy bombers or other means of getting them to distant targets like Britain and the USA. So 1,500: let's assume not all those get fired even in a true WW3 event - some get shot out of the sky by THAAD systems, some fail to detonate, some never make it out of their silos. Perhaps 1,000.

    Let's say there population of target countries in this long range is about 600 million - populations of the USA, Canada, Europe West of Germany or South of the Alps. So proportionally Britain would get a little over 10% of those. Maybe in reality we get more because we're a nuclear armed enemy - 20% say, with fewer falling on Italy, Iberia etc. That's 200 warheads for the UK. Enough to wipe out our means of functioning as a country and irradiate the whole landmass, yet not anywhere near enough to cause physical damage to more than our cities, suburbs and military bases. Most of the country would look the same s before the exchange. Cotswold villages would still glow in the afternoon sunshine with roses growing up the walls. Small market towns would still have their fully intact high streets and squares. It's a strange prospect.

    I think Cotswold villages would be glowing with or without the afternoon sunshine.
    Yes, but they wold be nearly all intact. Russian nukes are larger than their Western equivalents - probably accuracy issues. But blast and thermal effects don't scale linearly.

    Lets say we nuke Oxford with a 450Kt weapon. The circle is the damage radius.

    image
    Crime would go down massively as Blackbird Lees gets tonked.

    Safest place is Cambridge. No way they zap their spies....
    Why would the target and indifferent polytechnic in a swamp, anyway?
    Baedeker raid. Best University Town In The World Called Cambridge, 1209-1636. The fen folk have long memories, as is common in pre literate societies.
    1209??

    1284 is surely the accepted date (Peterhouse).
  • CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 42,835

    boulay said:

    TimS said:

    Thinking through the morbid maths here.

    I understand Russia has around 6,000 warheads but the internet tells me they have around 1,500 "strategic" warheads i.e. ones that could be launched via ICBMs, heavy bombers or other means of getting them to distant targets like Britain and the USA. So 1,500: let's assume not all those get fired even in a true WW3 event - some get shot out of the sky by THAAD systems, some fail to detonate, some never make it out of their silos. Perhaps 1,000.

    Let's say there population of target countries in this long range is about 600 million - populations of the USA, Canada, Europe West of Germany or South of the Alps. So proportionally Britain would get a little over 10% of those. Maybe in reality we get more because we're a nuclear armed enemy - 20% say, with fewer falling on Italy, Iberia etc. That's 200 warheads for the UK. Enough to wipe out our means of functioning as a country and irradiate the whole landmass, yet not anywhere near enough to cause physical damage to more than our cities, suburbs and military bases. Most of the country would look the same s before the exchange. Cotswold villages would still glow in the afternoon sunshine with roses growing up the walls. Small market towns would still have their fully intact high streets and squares. It's a strange prospect.

    I think Cotswold villages would be glowing with or without the afternoon sunshine.
    Yes, but they wold be nearly all intact. Russian nukes are larger than their Western equivalents - probably accuracy issues. But blast and thermal effects don't scale linearly.

    Lets say we nuke Oxford with a 450Kt weapon. The circle is the damage radius.

    image
    Crime would go down massively as Blackbird Lees gets tonked.

    Safest place is Cambridge. No way they zap their spies....
    At least the skinheads get arrested. Eliminating the Bullingdon Club would do a lot more for rowdyism figures.
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 42,134

    COVID Summary

    Cases UP - R is falling a bit. However, the fall is all in the youngest groups (0-14), other groups R is still rising
    In hospital - UP.
    Admissions - UP. R seems fairly stable here.
    MV Beds - Flat(ish)
    Deaths - the decrease is continuing to level off. Nearly flat now at a bit below 100/day.

    image

    How come you haven't raised the alert level given I've now got it?
  • LeonLeon Posts: 55,277
    Jonathan said:

    Good grief. PB is bleak today. Do people really think the balloon is going up? What are the odds?

    The NYT has an article on this today. It helpfully says the chances of nuclear war are “not zero, and they might be increasing”
  • rottenboroughrottenborough Posts: 62,716

    Open threat by Russia’s ambassador to Bosnia and Herzegovina. He says joining NATO is an internal matter for BiH but “the other thing is our reaction. The example of Ukraine shows what we expect. If there’s a threat we will react.”

    https://twitter.com/tobyvogel/status/1504469354531885072

    It is only a matter of a short time before the Balkans explodes again I am sorry to say.
    What makes you so sure?

    Having said that, if Putin wants to add fronts against the West, perhaps the Balkans is one hotspot.

    I’d have thought the Middle East a more likely candidate, tbh.
    Putin has been meddling with separatists and associated nationalists in the region for years. I'm sure if he thought the timing was right he could organize it all kicking off with say Repulika Srpska.


  • ozymandiasozymandias Posts: 1,503

    TimS said:

    Thinking through the morbid maths here.

    I understand Russia has around 6,000 warheads but the internet tells me they have around 1,500 "strategic" warheads i.e. ones that could be launched via ICBMs, heavy bombers or other means of getting them to distant targets like Britain and the USA. So 1,500: let's assume not all those get fired even in a true WW3 event - some get shot out of the sky by THAAD systems, some fail to detonate, some never make it out of their silos. Perhaps 1,000.

    Let's say there population of target countries in this long range is about 600 million - populations of the USA, Canada, Europe West of Germany or South of the Alps. So proportionally Britain would get a little over 10% of those. Maybe in reality we get more because we're a nuclear armed enemy - 20% say, with fewer falling on Italy, Iberia etc. That's 200 warheads for the UK. Enough to wipe out our means of functioning as a country and irradiate the whole landmass, yet not anywhere near enough to cause physical damage to more than our cities, suburbs and military bases. Most of the country would look the same s before the exchange. Cotswold villages would still glow in the afternoon sunshine with roses growing up the walls. Small market towns would still have their fully intact high streets and squares. It's a strange prospect.

    Would those Cotswold villages also glow at night?

    Seriously though, wouldn't everyone die from radiation poisoning soon after?

    Edit: Apols, I see this has been covered down thread (upthread?). I will take a read - module 101 on Nuclear Fallout at PB Uni.
    On survival of nukes.

    - If out of doors, it depends on how close you are to the burst/size of burst. If you're actually in the fireball, goodbye. Vaporised. However, warheads sized 1 megatonne and under that are airburst have little if any of the fireball actually touch the ground.
    - You've got the area of total/near-total destruction (20psi damage and up). Again, not the wide. Not really needed, though.
    - The range out to around 5psi will knock down most residential buildings, and that's quite a long way out. Say, 4-5 miles from the burst. If you're closer to this, you haven't got much chance. Best chance is probably to be out of doors and in a ditch.
    - The thermal pulse will give third-degree burns to those out to about 7-8 miles from the burst. However, you really just need to get out of line of sight. Being behind almost anything solid will save you. Unfortunately, if you're in the within-5psi range, whatever you're hiding behind will likely fall down, which could make things worse for you. Again, get in that ditch if you can.

    At this point, if you are in a ditch, you need to wait for both shockwaves - the outwards one and the inwards one that chases the near-vacuum produced by the outwards one. I was once told "Wait for the bus that flew over you in one direction to fly back over you the other way."

    - Beyond this distance, things become more (immediately) survivable. The blast diminishes with distance - out at maybe 12-15 miles from the blast (all these guesstimates are based on the 800kt-1mt size), the blast will fall below 1psi. Enough to shatter windows, but most houses will survive. Then again, losing your windows could screw you for the next phase.

    Next phase: Assuming you have survived the immediate effects, you have about 15 minutes to get to shelter. Because that white dust will start to fall. Get under cover NOW.

    That white dust is all gamma emitters (can't remember if they give off alpha and beta, but both of those are very easily blocked by almost anything solid). And you do NOT want to ingest or inhale a gamma emitter.

    If in a house, you'd better have blocked off your windows post-shattering. Dust drifting in is very bad.

    Stay as far away from the roof and walls as you can (so the reach of the gamma radiation is reduced). Good news: about half the radioactivity is gone in the first hour or so. About 80% within the day. But it takes a couple of weeks to drop to 99% gone. It will, though, be safe sometime after that.

    Now you've just got to survive in a post-apocalyptic world. Good luck!
    What's the range of the initial gamma-ray burst? Read somewhere you have to be behind a couple of feet of concrete to avoid that? Even if you avoid fall-out won't that fry your DNA?
  • Andy_JSAndy_JS Posts: 32,557

    One of the scary things is that it’s still not entirely clear what Putin’s political aims were/are.

    Was it just to normalise Donbas annexation?
    Seize the Ukrainian seaboard?
    Annex all of Ukraine?
    Return to pre-1989 borders?

    Or is it that - unbeknownst to us - he was about to be toppled and needs a long long war and besieged economy to accrue the kind of authortitarian powers necessary to stay in control?

    Nobody knows, but it seems important in terms of figuring out whether he, indeed, likely he to resort to nuclear weaponry.

    His aim is probably to get as much as he can, depending on how much resistance there is.
  • BenpointerBenpointer Posts: 34,663

    TimS said:

    Thinking through the morbid maths here.

    I understand Russia has around 6,000 warheads but the internet tells me they have around 1,500 "strategic" warheads i.e. ones that could be launched via ICBMs, heavy bombers or other means of getting them to distant targets like Britain and the USA. So 1,500: let's assume not all those get fired even in a true WW3 event - some get shot out of the sky by THAAD systems, some fail to detonate, some never make it out of their silos. Perhaps 1,000.

    Let's say there population of target countries in this long range is about 600 million - populations of the USA, Canada, Europe West of Germany or South of the Alps. So proportionally Britain would get a little over 10% of those. Maybe in reality we get more because we're a nuclear armed enemy - 20% say, with fewer falling on Italy, Iberia etc. That's 200 warheads for the UK. Enough to wipe out our means of functioning as a country and irradiate the whole landmass, yet not anywhere near enough to cause physical damage to more than our cities, suburbs and military bases. Most of the country would look the same s before the exchange. Cotswold villages would still glow in the afternoon sunshine with roses growing up the walls. Small market towns would still have their fully intact high streets and squares. It's a strange prospect.

    Would those Cotswold villages also glow at night?

    Seriously though, wouldn't everyone die from radiation poisoning soon after?

    Edit: Apols, I see this has been covered down thread (upthread?). I will take a read - module 101 on Nuclear Fallout at PB Uni.
    On survival of nukes.

    - If out of doors, it depends on how close you are to the burst/size of burst. If you're actually in the fireball, goodbye. Vaporised. However, warheads sized 1 megatonne and under that are airburst have little if any of the fireball actually touch the ground.
    - You've got the area of total/near-total destruction (20psi damage and up). Again, not the wide. Not really needed, though.
    - The range out to around 5psi will knock down most residential buildings, and that's quite a long way out. Say, 4-5 miles from the burst. If you're closer to this, you haven't got much chance. Best chance is probably to be out of doors and in a ditch.
    - The thermal pulse will give third-degree burns to those out to about 7-8 miles from the burst. However, you really just need to get out of line of sight. Being behind almost anything solid will save you. Unfortunately, if you're in the within-5psi range, whatever you're hiding behind will likely fall down, which could make things worse for you. Again, get in that ditch if you can.

    At this point, if you are in a ditch, you need to wait for both shockwaves - the outwards one and the inwards one that chases the near-vacuum produced by the outwards one. I was once told "Wait for the bus that flew over you in one direction to fly back over you the other way."

    - Beyond this distance, things become more (immediately) survivable. The blast diminishes with distance - out at maybe 12-15 miles from the blast (all these guesstimates are based on the 800kt-1mt size), the blast will fall below 1psi. Enough to shatter windows, but most houses will survive. Then again, losing your windows could screw you for the next phase.

    Next phase: Assuming you have survived the immediate effects, you have about 15 minutes to get to shelter. Because that white dust will start to fall. Get under cover NOW.

    That white dust is all gamma emitters (can't remember if they give off alpha and beta, but both of those are very easily blocked by almost anything solid). And you do NOT want to ingest or inhale a gamma emitter.

    If in a house, you'd better have blocked off your windows post-shattering. Dust drifting in is very bad.

    Stay as far away from the roof and walls as you can (so the reach of the gamma radiation is reduced). Good news: about half the radioactivity is gone in the first hour or so. About 80% within the day. But it takes a couple of weeks to drop to 99% gone. It will, though, be safe sometime after that.

    Now you've just got to survive in a post-apocalyptic world. Good luck!
    Thank you (I think). Psi = pounds per square inch pressure wave?

    Medically, I have no chance whatsoever to survive a post-apocalyptic world. It would be nice though to end it all in a way of our own choosing (after sampling some of our wine stores and rounding off with a bottle of 1963 port which we have stashed).
  • IshmaelZIshmaelZ Posts: 21,830
    Omnium said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    boulay said:

    TimS said:

    Thinking through the morbid maths here.

    I understand Russia has around 6,000 warheads but the internet tells me they have around 1,500 "strategic" warheads i.e. ones that could be launched via ICBMs, heavy bombers or other means of getting them to distant targets like Britain and the USA. So 1,500: let's assume not all those get fired even in a true WW3 event - some get shot out of the sky by THAAD systems, some fail to detonate, some never make it out of their silos. Perhaps 1,000.

    Let's say there population of target countries in this long range is about 600 million - populations of the USA, Canada, Europe West of Germany or South of the Alps. So proportionally Britain would get a little over 10% of those. Maybe in reality we get more because we're a nuclear armed enemy - 20% say, with fewer falling on Italy, Iberia etc. That's 200 warheads for the UK. Enough to wipe out our means of functioning as a country and irradiate the whole landmass, yet not anywhere near enough to cause physical damage to more than our cities, suburbs and military bases. Most of the country would look the same s before the exchange. Cotswold villages would still glow in the afternoon sunshine with roses growing up the walls. Small market towns would still have their fully intact high streets and squares. It's a strange prospect.

    I think Cotswold villages would be glowing with or without the afternoon sunshine.
    Yes, but they wold be nearly all intact. Russian nukes are larger than their Western equivalents - probably accuracy issues. But blast and thermal effects don't scale linearly.

    Lets say we nuke Oxford with a 450Kt weapon. The circle is the damage radius.

    image
    Crime would go down massively as Blackbird Lees gets tonked.

    Safest place is Cambridge. No way they zap their spies....
    Why would the target and indifferent polytechnic in a swamp, anyway?
    Baedeker raid. Best University Town In The World Called Cambridge, 1209-1636. The fen folk have long memories, as is common in pre literate societies.
    1209??

    1284 is surely the accepted date (Peterhouse).
    "By 1200, Cambridge was a thriving commercial community which was also a county town and had at least one school of some distinction. Then, in 1209, scholars taking refuge from hostile townsmen in Oxford migrated to Cambridge and settled there. At first they lived in lodgings in the town, but in time houses were hired as hostels with a Master in charge of the students. By 1226 the scholars were numerous enough to have set up an organisation, represented by an official called a Chancellor, and seem to have arranged regular courses of study, taught by their own members."

    https://www.cam.ac.uk/about-the-university/history/early-records

    Obv autocorrect in 2nd sentence, hostile townsmen should read proper scholars.
  • Andy_JSAndy_JS Posts: 32,557
    rcs1000 said:

    rcs1000 said:

    RobD said:

    Andy_JS said:

    Idiots. Time to get rid of mask altogether and forever.
    There appears to be an abundance of international evidence that masking is near or completely useless against omicron (e.g. Hong Kong, NZ). It's not clear why anyone would persisting with an intrusive, antisocial measure for no obvious health benefit.
    Has there been a scientific study demonstrating this?
    I can't see how @Anabobazina can come to that conclusion. If one has a respiratory tract infection, and one wears a mask, then (a) the pace/speed at which viral matter comes out the mouth is slowed dramatically, and (b) a significant portion is simply goìng to get trapped by the mask.

    Now, it's entirely possible that - because Omicron is so infectious - that R0 only coms down to (say) 2 with compulsory masking. It's also fine to say that, given high levels of natural immunity and vaccinations, then the benefits of compulsory masking are outweighed by its costs.

    But it is clearly rubbish to claim - without evidence - that it does nothing to reduce transmission rates.

    And in countries with limited natural immunity (*cough* China) it it probably essential to minimise viral load recieved by the immune naïve, and slow the spread of the disease.
    I said "there appears to be" and "near or completely useless". I am simply reading off from the numbers abroad. I haven't come to any confirmed conclusion. I am simply asking why anyone would persist with the masks in the absence of much evidence of their effectiveness against omicron. They do, after all, have massive downsides of their own.
    Yeah, but an R of 3 and an R of 2.5 both show ridiculously steep curves, that it would be very hard to tell apart by simple eyeballing. And yet the former case will result in a 80% of cases happening in a four week period and infections reaching 80% of the population, while in the latter, it's five and a half weeks and 62%.

    We are lucky as a nation that (a) lots of us have had Covid, and (b) everyone has been vaccinated (often triple vaccinated) with decent Western vaccines. And we should probably have removed mask mandates earlier

    But in China, yeah, they should probably keep them. It'll be utterly shit even with them... but it won't be quite as shit as it would otherwise be.
    I assume everyone, or nearly everyone, in Hong Kong is still wearing masks. Why, then, are they having a terrible Covid problem atm?
  • rottenboroughrottenborough Posts: 62,716
    rcs1000 said:

    TimS said:

    Thinking through the morbid maths here.

    I understand Russia has around 6,000 warheads but the internet tells me they have around 1,500 "strategic" warheads i.e. ones that could be launched via ICBMs, heavy bombers or other means of getting them to distant targets like Britain and the USA. So 1,500: let's assume not all those get fired even in a true WW3 event - some get shot out of the sky by THAAD systems, some fail to detonate, some never make it out of their silos. Perhaps 1,000.

    Let's say there population of target countries in this long range is about 600 million - populations of the USA, Canada, Europe West of Germany or South of the Alps. So proportionally Britain would get a little over 10% of those. Maybe in reality we get more because we're a nuclear armed enemy - 20% say, with fewer falling on Italy, Iberia etc. That's 200 warheads for the UK. Enough to wipe out our means of functioning as a country and irradiate the whole landmass, yet not anywhere near enough to cause physical damage to more than our cities, suburbs and military bases. Most of the country would look the same s before the exchange. Cotswold villages would still glow in the afternoon sunshine with roses growing up the walls. Small market towns would still have their fully intact high streets and squares. It's a strange prospect.

    I would be staggered if two thirds of Russian warheads made it to their destinations. I think a third would be optimistic.
    How would the roses grow if everything is irradiated?

  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 50,255
    kinabalu said:

    COVID Summary

    Cases UP - R is falling a bit. However, the fall is all in the youngest groups (0-14), other groups R is still rising
    In hospital - UP.
    Admissions - UP. R seems fairly stable here.
    MV Beds - Flat(ish)
    Deaths - the decrease is continuing to level off. Nearly flat now at a bit below 100/day.

    image

    How come you haven't raised the alert level given I've now got it?
    Well....

    image
  • tlg86tlg86 Posts: 26,175

    TimS said:

    Thinking through the morbid maths here.

    I understand Russia has around 6,000 warheads but the internet tells me they have around 1,500 "strategic" warheads i.e. ones that could be launched via ICBMs, heavy bombers or other means of getting them to distant targets like Britain and the USA. So 1,500: let's assume not all those get fired even in a true WW3 event - some get shot out of the sky by THAAD systems, some fail to detonate, some never make it out of their silos. Perhaps 1,000.

    Let's say there population of target countries in this long range is about 600 million - populations of the USA, Canada, Europe West of Germany or South of the Alps. So proportionally Britain would get a little over 10% of those. Maybe in reality we get more because we're a nuclear armed enemy - 20% say, with fewer falling on Italy, Iberia etc. That's 200 warheads for the UK. Enough to wipe out our means of functioning as a country and irradiate the whole landmass, yet not anywhere near enough to cause physical damage to more than our cities, suburbs and military bases. Most of the country would look the same s before the exchange. Cotswold villages would still glow in the afternoon sunshine with roses growing up the walls. Small market towns would still have their fully intact high streets and squares. It's a strange prospect.

    Would those Cotswold villages also glow at night?

    Seriously though, wouldn't everyone die from radiation poisoning soon after?

    Edit: Apols, I see this has been covered down thread (upthread?). I will take a read - module 101 on Nuclear Fallout at PB Uni.
    On survival of nukes.

    - If out of doors, it depends on how close you are to the burst/size of burst. If you're actually in the fireball, goodbye. Vaporised. However, warheads sized 1 megatonne and under that are airburst have little if any of the fireball actually touch the ground.
    - You've got the area of total/near-total destruction (20psi damage and up). Again, not the wide. Not really needed, though.
    - The range out to around 5psi will knock down most residential buildings, and that's quite a long way out. Say, 4-5 miles from the burst. If you're closer to this, you haven't got much chance. Best chance is probably to be out of doors and in a ditch.
    - The thermal pulse will give third-degree burns to those out to about 7-8 miles from the burst. However, you really just need to get out of line of sight. Being behind almost anything solid will save you. Unfortunately, if you're in the within-5psi range, whatever you're hiding behind will likely fall down, which could make things worse for you. Again, get in that ditch if you can.

    At this point, if you are in a ditch, you need to wait for both shockwaves - the outwards one and the inwards one that chases the near-vacuum produced by the outwards one. I was once told "Wait for the bus that flew over you in one direction to fly back over you the other way."

    - Beyond this distance, things become more (immediately) survivable. The blast diminishes with distance - out at maybe 12-15 miles from the blast (all these guesstimates are based on the 800kt-1mt size), the blast will fall below 1psi. Enough to shatter windows, but most houses will survive. Then again, losing your windows could screw you for the next phase.

    Next phase: Assuming you have survived the immediate effects, you have about 15 minutes to get to shelter. Because that white dust will start to fall. Get under cover NOW.

    That white dust is all gamma emitters (can't remember if they give off alpha and beta, but both of those are very easily blocked by almost anything solid). And you do NOT want to ingest or inhale a gamma emitter.

    If in a house, you'd better have blocked off your windows post-shattering. Dust drifting in is very bad.

    Stay as far away from the roof and walls as you can (so the reach of the gamma radiation is reduced). Good news: about half the radioactivity is gone in the first hour or so. About 80% within the day. But it takes a couple of weeks to drop to 99% gone. It will, though, be safe sometime after that.

    Now you've just got to survive in a post-apocalyptic world. Good luck!
    BiB - isn't it alpha emitters that you don't want to inhale as the body absorbs them. Gamma has the same effect outside and inside, doesn't it?
  • CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 42,835

    kinabalu said:

    COVID Summary

    Cases UP - R is falling a bit. However, the fall is all in the youngest groups (0-14), other groups R is still rising
    In hospital - UP.
    Admissions - UP. R seems fairly stable here.
    MV Beds - Flat(ish)
    Deaths - the decrease is continuing to level off. Nearly flat now at a bit below 100/day.

    image

    How come you haven't raised the alert level given I've now got it?
    Well....

    image
    Mm. Deighton.
  • BenpointerBenpointer Posts: 34,663
    Another few questions for Doomsday Thursday. Is THAAD a real thing? Could it have any impact on an all-out nuclear war? Is Britain covered at all?

    Asking for a friend myself principally.
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 50,255

    TimS said:

    Thinking through the morbid maths here.

    I understand Russia has around 6,000 warheads but the internet tells me they have around 1,500 "strategic" warheads i.e. ones that could be launched via ICBMs, heavy bombers or other means of getting them to distant targets like Britain and the USA. So 1,500: let's assume not all those get fired even in a true WW3 event - some get shot out of the sky by THAAD systems, some fail to detonate, some never make it out of their silos. Perhaps 1,000.

    Let's say there population of target countries in this long range is about 600 million - populations of the USA, Canada, Europe West of Germany or South of the Alps. So proportionally Britain would get a little over 10% of those. Maybe in reality we get more because we're a nuclear armed enemy - 20% say, with fewer falling on Italy, Iberia etc. That's 200 warheads for the UK. Enough to wipe out our means of functioning as a country and irradiate the whole landmass, yet not anywhere near enough to cause physical damage to more than our cities, suburbs and military bases. Most of the country would look the same s before the exchange. Cotswold villages would still glow in the afternoon sunshine with roses growing up the walls. Small market towns would still have their fully intact high streets and squares. It's a strange prospect.

    Would those Cotswold villages also glow at night?

    Seriously though, wouldn't everyone die from radiation poisoning soon after?

    Edit: Apols, I see this has been covered down thread (upthread?). I will take a read - module 101 on Nuclear Fallout at PB Uni.
    On survival of nukes.

    - If out of doors, it depends on how close you are to the burst/size of burst. If you're actually in the fireball, goodbye. Vaporised. However, warheads sized 1 megatonne and under that are airburst have little if any of the fireball actually touch the ground.
    - You've got the area of total/near-total destruction (20psi damage and up). Again, not the wide. Not really needed, though.
    - The range out to around 5psi will knock down most residential buildings, and that's quite a long way out. Say, 4-5 miles from the burst. If you're closer to this, you haven't got much chance. Best chance is probably to be out of doors and in a ditch.
    - The thermal pulse will give third-degree burns to those out to about 7-8 miles from the burst. However, you really just need to get out of line of sight. Being behind almost anything solid will save you. Unfortunately, if you're in the within-5psi range, whatever you're hiding behind will likely fall down, which could make things worse for you. Again, get in that ditch if you can.

    At this point, if you are in a ditch, you need to wait for both shockwaves - the outwards one and the inwards one that chases the near-vacuum produced by the outwards one. I was once told "Wait for the bus that flew over you in one direction to fly back over you the other way."

    - Beyond this distance, things become more (immediately) survivable. The blast diminishes with distance - out at maybe 12-15 miles from the blast (all these guesstimates are based on the 800kt-1mt size), the blast will fall below 1psi. Enough to shatter windows, but most houses will survive. Then again, losing your windows could screw you for the next phase.

    Next phase: Assuming you have survived the immediate effects, you have about 15 minutes to get to shelter. Because that white dust will start to fall. Get under cover NOW.

    That white dust is all gamma emitters (can't remember if they give off alpha and beta, but both of those are very easily blocked by almost anything solid). And you do NOT want to ingest or inhale a gamma emitter.

    If in a house, you'd better have blocked off your windows post-shattering. Dust drifting in is very bad.

    Stay as far away from the roof and walls as you can (so the reach of the gamma radiation is reduced). Good news: about half the radioactivity is gone in the first hour or so. About 80% within the day. But it takes a couple of weeks to drop to 99% gone. It will, though, be safe sometime after that.

    Now you've just got to survive in a post-apocalyptic world. Good luck!
    What's the range of the initial gamma-ray burst? Read somewhere you have to be behind a couple of feet of concrete to avoid that? Even if you avoid fall-out won't that fry your DNA?
    https://nuclearsecrecy.com/nukemap/ - you can try it out for yourself...
  • williamglennwilliamglenn Posts: 51,627
    Zelensky's speech to the German Bundestag was pretty brutal:

    In a blistering speech to lawmakers in Berlin, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Thursday accused politicians of failing to live up to their historical responsibility after the Holocaust — enshrined in the phrase “never again” — to secure peace in Europe.

    “We have always said that Nord Stream 2 is a weapon and a preparation for the big war and we received the response that it’s about the economy, the economy, the economy”

    After Zelenskyy’s speech finished, the German parliament moved straight to other topics, a move that prompted criticism among many MPs, including the Bundestag foreign policy doyen, Norbert Röttgen.

    “Today was the most undignified moment in the Bundestag that I have ever experienced!” he tweeted.


    https://www.politico.eu/article/volodymyr-zelenskyy-germany-parliament-speech-holocaust-ukraine-war/
  • Andy_CookeAndy_Cooke Posts: 5,001
    tlg86 said:

    TimS said:

    Thinking through the morbid maths here.

    I understand Russia has around 6,000 warheads but the internet tells me they have around 1,500 "strategic" warheads i.e. ones that could be launched via ICBMs, heavy bombers or other means of getting them to distant targets like Britain and the USA. So 1,500: let's assume not all those get fired even in a true WW3 event - some get shot out of the sky by THAAD systems, some fail to detonate, some never make it out of their silos. Perhaps 1,000.

    Let's say there population of target countries in this long range is about 600 million - populations of the USA, Canada, Europe West of Germany or South of the Alps. So proportionally Britain would get a little over 10% of those. Maybe in reality we get more because we're a nuclear armed enemy - 20% say, with fewer falling on Italy, Iberia etc. That's 200 warheads for the UK. Enough to wipe out our means of functioning as a country and irradiate the whole landmass, yet not anywhere near enough to cause physical damage to more than our cities, suburbs and military bases. Most of the country would look the same s before the exchange. Cotswold villages would still glow in the afternoon sunshine with roses growing up the walls. Small market towns would still have their fully intact high streets and squares. It's a strange prospect.

    Would those Cotswold villages also glow at night?

    Seriously though, wouldn't everyone die from radiation poisoning soon after?

    Edit: Apols, I see this has been covered down thread (upthread?). I will take a read - module 101 on Nuclear Fallout at PB Uni.
    On survival of nukes.

    - If out of doors, it depends on how close you are to the burst/size of burst. If you're actually in the fireball, goodbye. Vaporised. However, warheads sized 1 megatonne and under that are airburst have little if any of the fireball actually touch the ground.
    - You've got the area of total/near-total destruction (20psi damage and up). Again, not the wide. Not really needed, though.
    - The range out to around 5psi will knock down most residential buildings, and that's quite a long way out. Say, 4-5 miles from the burst. If you're closer to this, you haven't got much chance. Best chance is probably to be out of doors and in a ditch.
    - The thermal pulse will give third-degree burns to those out to about 7-8 miles from the burst. However, you really just need to get out of line of sight. Being behind almost anything solid will save you. Unfortunately, if you're in the within-5psi range, whatever you're hiding behind will likely fall down, which could make things worse for you. Again, get in that ditch if you can.

    At this point, if you are in a ditch, you need to wait for both shockwaves - the outwards one and the inwards one that chases the near-vacuum produced by the outwards one. I was once told "Wait for the bus that flew over you in one direction to fly back over you the other way."

    - Beyond this distance, things become more (immediately) survivable. The blast diminishes with distance - out at maybe 12-15 miles from the blast (all these guesstimates are based on the 800kt-1mt size), the blast will fall below 1psi. Enough to shatter windows, but most houses will survive. Then again, losing your windows could screw you for the next phase.

    Next phase: Assuming you have survived the immediate effects, you have about 15 minutes to get to shelter. Because that white dust will start to fall. Get under cover NOW.

    That white dust is all gamma emitters (can't remember if they give off alpha and beta, but both of those are very easily blocked by almost anything solid). And you do NOT want to ingest or inhale a gamma emitter.

    If in a house, you'd better have blocked off your windows post-shattering. Dust drifting in is very bad.

    Stay as far away from the roof and walls as you can (so the reach of the gamma radiation is reduced). Good news: about half the radioactivity is gone in the first hour or so. About 80% within the day. But it takes a couple of weeks to drop to 99% gone. It will, though, be safe sometime after that.

    Now you've just got to survive in a post-apocalyptic world. Good luck!
    BiB - isn't it alpha emitters that you don't want to inhale as the body absorbs them. Gamma has the same effect outside and inside, doesn't it?
    You can brush dust off if it's outside and then get away from it.

    Serious levels of puking and coughing would be needed to get rid of ingested dust to get a safe distance from it. Leon and those who took huge amounts of Class A drugs might be able to pull it off, but most of us won't.
  • CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 42,835

    Another few questions for Doomsday Thursday. Is THAAD a real thing? Could it have any impact on an all-out nuclear war? Is Britain covered at all?

    Asking for a friend myself principally.

    A state which can't even electrify a railway without putting diesels into the electric locomotives?
  • MoonRabbitMoonRabbit Posts: 13,503

    COVID Summary

    Cases UP - R is falling a bit. However, the fall is all in the youngest groups (0-14), other groups R is still rising
    In hospital - UP.
    Admissions - UP. R seems fairly stable here.
    MV Beds - Flat(ish)
    Deaths - the decrease is continuing to level off. Nearly flat now at a bit below 100/day.

    image

    So don’t fry for me Argentina
  • rottenboroughrottenborough Posts: 62,716
    Something far more cheering for us all, as evening comes on...

    Enfield Dispatch
    @EnfieldDispatch

    WATCH: The first Eurasian beaver to be released in London since the species went extinct in Britain 400 years ago. A male and female were this morning introduced to their new woodland enclosure at
    @FortyHallFarm
    in Enfield!

    https://twitter.com/EnfieldDispatch/status/1504440104680624142
  • TheWhiteRabbitTheWhiteRabbit Posts: 12,454
    Andy_JS said:

    One of the scary things is that it’s still not entirely clear what Putin’s political aims were/are.

    Was it just to normalise Donbas annexation?
    Seize the Ukrainian seaboard?
    Annex all of Ukraine?
    Return to pre-1989 borders?

    Or is it that - unbeknownst to us - he was about to be toppled and needs a long long war and besieged economy to accrue the kind of authortitarian powers necessary to stay in control?

    Nobody knows, but it seems important in terms of figuring out whether he, indeed, likely he to resort to nuclear weaponry.

    His aim is probably to get as much as he can, depending on how much resistance there is.
    The most convincing explanation I have seen is that the primary intention of the Donbas revolt was not so much for Russia to control those areas, but to produce a Ukraine that weak, in civil war, and subject to Russian interference, so that it could not meaningfully be brought within a Western sphere of influence.

    On that basis, things weren't working out. The invasion would therefore also have been aimed at removing the current political leadership, creating a vacuum, balkanising power within Ukraine, and removing Ukraine's military capability (therefore obliging Ukraine to come to Russia).

    Those aims have already failed, so Ukraine must instead be economically and militarily strangled, to make up for its current political strength.
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 50,255

    Another few questions for Doomsday Thursday. Is THAAD a real thing? Could it have any impact on an all-out nuclear war? Is Britain covered at all?

    Asking for a friend myself principally.

    Your best hope, in the UK, is an AEGIS cruiser in the vicinity, with lots of SM3 on board
  • bigglesbiggles Posts: 6,052

    TimS said:

    Thinking through the morbid maths here.

    I understand Russia has around 6,000 warheads but the internet tells me they have around 1,500 "strategic" warheads i.e. ones that could be launched via ICBMs, heavy bombers or other means of getting them to distant targets like Britain and the USA. So 1,500: let's assume not all those get fired even in a true WW3 event - some get shot out of the sky by THAAD systems, some fail to detonate, some never make it out of their silos. Perhaps 1,000.

    Let's say there population of target countries in this long range is about 600 million - populations of the USA, Canada, Europe West of Germany or South of the Alps. So proportionally Britain would get a little over 10% of those. Maybe in reality we get more because we're a nuclear armed enemy - 20% say, with fewer falling on Italy, Iberia etc. That's 200 warheads for the UK. Enough to wipe out our means of functioning as a country and irradiate the whole landmass, yet not anywhere near enough to cause physical damage to more than our cities, suburbs and military bases. Most of the country would look the same s before the exchange. Cotswold villages would still glow in the afternoon sunshine with roses growing up the walls. Small market towns would still have their fully intact high streets and squares. It's a strange prospect.

    Would those Cotswold villages also glow at night?

    Seriously though, wouldn't everyone die from radiation poisoning soon after?

    Edit: Apols, I see this has been covered down thread (upthread?). I will take a read - module 101 on Nuclear Fallout at PB Uni.
    On survival of nukes.

    - If out of doors, it depends on how close you are to the burst/size of burst. If you're actually in the fireball, goodbye. Vaporised. However, warheads sized 1 megatonne and under that are airburst have little if any of the fireball actually touch the ground.
    - You've got the area of total/near-total destruction (20psi damage and up). Again, not the wide. Not really needed, though.
    - The range out to around 5psi will knock down most residential buildings, and that's quite a long way out. Say, 4-5 miles from the burst. If you're closer to this, you haven't got much chance. Best chance is probably to be out of doors and in a ditch.
    - The thermal pulse will give third-degree burns to those out to about 7-8 miles from the burst. However, you really just need to get out of line of sight. Being behind almost anything solid will save you. Unfortunately, if you're in the within-5psi range, whatever you're hiding behind will likely fall down, which could make things worse for you. Again, get in that ditch if you can.

    At this point, if you are in a ditch, you need to wait for both shockwaves - the outwards one and the inwards one that chases the near-vacuum produced by the outwards one. I was once told "Wait for the bus that flew over you in one direction to fly back over you the other way."

    - Beyond this distance, things become more (immediately) survivable. The blast diminishes with distance - out at maybe 12-15 miles from the blast (all these guesstimates are based on the 800kt-1mt size), the blast will fall below 1psi. Enough to shatter windows, but most houses will survive. Then again, losing your windows could screw you for the next phase.

    Next phase: Assuming you have survived the immediate effects, you have about 15 minutes to get to shelter. Because that white dust will start to fall. Get under cover NOW.

    That white dust is all gamma emitters (can't remember if they give off alpha and beta, but both of those are very easily blocked by almost anything solid). And you do NOT want to ingest or inhale a gamma emitter.

    If in a house, you'd better have blocked off your windows post-shattering. Dust drifting in is very bad.

    Stay as far away from the roof and walls as you can (so the reach of the gamma radiation is reduced). Good news: about half the radioactivity is gone in the first hour or so. About 80% within the day. But it takes a couple of weeks to drop to 99% gone. It will, though, be safe sometime after that.

    Now you've just got to survive in a post-apocalyptic world. Good luck!
    It’s a bleak subject to discuss, but I’m left wondering about the filters in a modern car. If you’ve survived, and so has the car, but you’re vulnerable to fallout; you might be best off starting to drive somewhere more remote and up wind.
  • Andy_CookeAndy_Cooke Posts: 5,001

    TimS said:

    Thinking through the morbid maths here.

    I understand Russia has around 6,000 warheads but the internet tells me they have around 1,500 "strategic" warheads i.e. ones that could be launched via ICBMs, heavy bombers or other means of getting them to distant targets like Britain and the USA. So 1,500: let's assume not all those get fired even in a true WW3 event - some get shot out of the sky by THAAD systems, some fail to detonate, some never make it out of their silos. Perhaps 1,000.

    Let's say there population of target countries in this long range is about 600 million - populations of the USA, Canada, Europe West of Germany or South of the Alps. So proportionally Britain would get a little over 10% of those. Maybe in reality we get more because we're a nuclear armed enemy - 20% say, with fewer falling on Italy, Iberia etc. That's 200 warheads for the UK. Enough to wipe out our means of functioning as a country and irradiate the whole landmass, yet not anywhere near enough to cause physical damage to more than our cities, suburbs and military bases. Most of the country would look the same s before the exchange. Cotswold villages would still glow in the afternoon sunshine with roses growing up the walls. Small market towns would still have their fully intact high streets and squares. It's a strange prospect.

    Would those Cotswold villages also glow at night?

    Seriously though, wouldn't everyone die from radiation poisoning soon after?

    Edit: Apols, I see this has been covered down thread (upthread?). I will take a read - module 101 on Nuclear Fallout at PB Uni.
    On survival of nukes.

    - If out of doors, it depends on how close you are to the burst/size of burst. If you're actually in the fireball, goodbye. Vaporised. However, warheads sized 1 megatonne and under that are airburst have little if any of the fireball actually touch the ground.
    - You've got the area of total/near-total destruction (20psi damage and up). Again, not the wide. Not really needed, though.
    - The range out to around 5psi will knock down most residential buildings, and that's quite a long way out. Say, 4-5 miles from the burst. If you're closer to this, you haven't got much chance. Best chance is probably to be out of doors and in a ditch.
    - The thermal pulse will give third-degree burns to those out to about 7-8 miles from the burst. However, you really just need to get out of line of sight. Being behind almost anything solid will save you. Unfortunately, if you're in the within-5psi range, whatever you're hiding behind will likely fall down, which could make things worse for you. Again, get in that ditch if you can.

    At this point, if you are in a ditch, you need to wait for both shockwaves - the outwards one and the inwards one that chases the near-vacuum produced by the outwards one. I was once told "Wait for the bus that flew over you in one direction to fly back over you the other way."

    - Beyond this distance, things become more (immediately) survivable. The blast diminishes with distance - out at maybe 12-15 miles from the blast (all these guesstimates are based on the 800kt-1mt size), the blast will fall below 1psi. Enough to shatter windows, but most houses will survive. Then again, losing your windows could screw you for the next phase.

    Next phase: Assuming you have survived the immediate effects, you have about 15 minutes to get to shelter. Because that white dust will start to fall. Get under cover NOW.

    That white dust is all gamma emitters (can't remember if they give off alpha and beta, but both of those are very easily blocked by almost anything solid). And you do NOT want to ingest or inhale a gamma emitter.

    If in a house, you'd better have blocked off your windows post-shattering. Dust drifting in is very bad.

    Stay as far away from the roof and walls as you can (so the reach of the gamma radiation is reduced). Good news: about half the radioactivity is gone in the first hour or so. About 80% within the day. But it takes a couple of weeks to drop to 99% gone. It will, though, be safe sometime after that.

    Now you've just got to survive in a post-apocalyptic world. Good luck!
    What's the range of the initial gamma-ray burst? Read somewhere you have to be behind a couple of feet of concrete to avoid that? Even if you avoid fall-out won't that fry your DNA?
    The gamma burst would probably only be an issue with a groundburst. Airburst, and it might not even touch the ground (out to the real danger range, anyway).

    You'll be pretty close to the 20psi range (and near a groundburst), and not that far outside of the fireball range. Basically, if radiation is a problem, you're likely to have far worse problems in terms of blast and fireball. Surviving it to reproduce and pass on damaged DNA would be more optimism than I would consider.
  • IshmaelZIshmaelZ Posts: 21,830
    TimT said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    Leon said:

    The peculiar divagations of Russia’s Special Flight Squadron RSD75



    https://www.flightradar24.com/RSD075/2b2adda5

    No one can work out what it is doing

    Thread here:

    https://twitter.com/oalexanderdk/status/1504483793716985859?s=21

    ultra top secret bunker somewhere on the black dotted line. It is flying the loop so no one knows where on the line it landed.

    AFL1730 is on the exact same track which is odd as it is meant to be commercial moscow-kamchatsky but is 100s of mile off track to the North.

    Very liberating knowing absolutely bugger all about the subject you are expatiating on.
    To be sure. You start with very few preconceptions, which only serve to limit the fervid imagination
    Yes

    Cancel my last remark about AFL1730 btw, it is on the great circle route for Kamchatsky. I thought I had allowed for that by eyeball.
  • tlg86tlg86 Posts: 26,175
    edited March 2022
    biggles said:

    TimS said:

    Thinking through the morbid maths here.

    I understand Russia has around 6,000 warheads but the internet tells me they have around 1,500 "strategic" warheads i.e. ones that could be launched via ICBMs, heavy bombers or other means of getting them to distant targets like Britain and the USA. So 1,500: let's assume not all those get fired even in a true WW3 event - some get shot out of the sky by THAAD systems, some fail to detonate, some never make it out of their silos. Perhaps 1,000.

    Let's say there population of target countries in this long range is about 600 million - populations of the USA, Canada, Europe West of Germany or South of the Alps. So proportionally Britain would get a little over 10% of those. Maybe in reality we get more because we're a nuclear armed enemy - 20% say, with fewer falling on Italy, Iberia etc. That's 200 warheads for the UK. Enough to wipe out our means of functioning as a country and irradiate the whole landmass, yet not anywhere near enough to cause physical damage to more than our cities, suburbs and military bases. Most of the country would look the same s before the exchange. Cotswold villages would still glow in the afternoon sunshine with roses growing up the walls. Small market towns would still have their fully intact high streets and squares. It's a strange prospect.

    Would those Cotswold villages also glow at night?

    Seriously though, wouldn't everyone die from radiation poisoning soon after?

    Edit: Apols, I see this has been covered down thread (upthread?). I will take a read - module 101 on Nuclear Fallout at PB Uni.
    On survival of nukes.

    - If out of doors, it depends on how close you are to the burst/size of burst. If you're actually in the fireball, goodbye. Vaporised. However, warheads sized 1 megatonne and under that are airburst have little if any of the fireball actually touch the ground.
    - You've got the area of total/near-total destruction (20psi damage and up). Again, not the wide. Not really needed, though.
    - The range out to around 5psi will knock down most residential buildings, and that's quite a long way out. Say, 4-5 miles from the burst. If you're closer to this, you haven't got much chance. Best chance is probably to be out of doors and in a ditch.
    - The thermal pulse will give third-degree burns to those out to about 7-8 miles from the burst. However, you really just need to get out of line of sight. Being behind almost anything solid will save you. Unfortunately, if you're in the within-5psi range, whatever you're hiding behind will likely fall down, which could make things worse for you. Again, get in that ditch if you can.

    At this point, if you are in a ditch, you need to wait for both shockwaves - the outwards one and the inwards one that chases the near-vacuum produced by the outwards one. I was once told "Wait for the bus that flew over you in one direction to fly back over you the other way."

    - Beyond this distance, things become more (immediately) survivable. The blast diminishes with distance - out at maybe 12-15 miles from the blast (all these guesstimates are based on the 800kt-1mt size), the blast will fall below 1psi. Enough to shatter windows, but most houses will survive. Then again, losing your windows could screw you for the next phase.

    Next phase: Assuming you have survived the immediate effects, you have about 15 minutes to get to shelter. Because that white dust will start to fall. Get under cover NOW.

    That white dust is all gamma emitters (can't remember if they give off alpha and beta, but both of those are very easily blocked by almost anything solid). And you do NOT want to ingest or inhale a gamma emitter.

    If in a house, you'd better have blocked off your windows post-shattering. Dust drifting in is very bad.

    Stay as far away from the roof and walls as you can (so the reach of the gamma radiation is reduced). Good news: about half the radioactivity is gone in the first hour or so. About 80% within the day. But it takes a couple of weeks to drop to 99% gone. It will, though, be safe sometime after that.

    Now you've just got to survive in a post-apocalyptic world. Good luck!
    It’s a bleak subject to discuss, but I’m left wondering about the filters in a modern car. If you’ve survived, and so has the car, but you’re vulnerable to fallout; you might be best off starting to drive somewhere more remote and up wind.
    Your car won't work. My dad's 1930s Riley might...
  • Andy_CookeAndy_Cooke Posts: 5,001

    TimS said:

    Thinking through the morbid maths here.

    I understand Russia has around 6,000 warheads but the internet tells me they have around 1,500 "strategic" warheads i.e. ones that could be launched via ICBMs, heavy bombers or other means of getting them to distant targets like Britain and the USA. So 1,500: let's assume not all those get fired even in a true WW3 event - some get shot out of the sky by THAAD systems, some fail to detonate, some never make it out of their silos. Perhaps 1,000.

    Let's say there population of target countries in this long range is about 600 million - populations of the USA, Canada, Europe West of Germany or South of the Alps. So proportionally Britain would get a little over 10% of those. Maybe in reality we get more because we're a nuclear armed enemy - 20% say, with fewer falling on Italy, Iberia etc. That's 200 warheads for the UK. Enough to wipe out our means of functioning as a country and irradiate the whole landmass, yet not anywhere near enough to cause physical damage to more than our cities, suburbs and military bases. Most of the country would look the same s before the exchange. Cotswold villages would still glow in the afternoon sunshine with roses growing up the walls. Small market towns would still have their fully intact high streets and squares. It's a strange prospect.

    Would those Cotswold villages also glow at night?

    Seriously though, wouldn't everyone die from radiation poisoning soon after?

    Edit: Apols, I see this has been covered down thread (upthread?). I will take a read - module 101 on Nuclear Fallout at PB Uni.
    On survival of nukes.

    - If out of doors, it depends on how close you are to the burst/size of burst. If you're actually in the fireball, goodbye. Vaporised. However, warheads sized 1 megatonne and under that are airburst have little if any of the fireball actually touch the ground.
    - You've got the area of total/near-total destruction (20psi damage and up). Again, not the wide. Not really needed, though.
    - The range out to around 5psi will knock down most residential buildings, and that's quite a long way out. Say, 4-5 miles from the burst. If you're closer to this, you haven't got much chance. Best chance is probably to be out of doors and in a ditch.
    - The thermal pulse will give third-degree burns to those out to about 7-8 miles from the burst. However, you really just need to get out of line of sight. Being behind almost anything solid will save you. Unfortunately, if you're in the within-5psi range, whatever you're hiding behind will likely fall down, which could make things worse for you. Again, get in that ditch if you can.

    At this point, if you are in a ditch, you need to wait for both shockwaves - the outwards one and the inwards one that chases the near-vacuum produced by the outwards one. I was once told "Wait for the bus that flew over you in one direction to fly back over you the other way."

    - Beyond this distance, things become more (immediately) survivable. The blast diminishes with distance - out at maybe 12-15 miles from the blast (all these guesstimates are based on the 800kt-1mt size), the blast will fall below 1psi. Enough to shatter windows, but most houses will survive. Then again, losing your windows could screw you for the next phase.

    Next phase: Assuming you have survived the immediate effects, you have about 15 minutes to get to shelter. Because that white dust will start to fall. Get under cover NOW.

    That white dust is all gamma emitters (can't remember if they give off alpha and beta, but both of those are very easily blocked by almost anything solid). And you do NOT want to ingest or inhale a gamma emitter.

    If in a house, you'd better have blocked off your windows post-shattering. Dust drifting in is very bad.

    Stay as far away from the roof and walls as you can (so the reach of the gamma radiation is reduced). Good news: about half the radioactivity is gone in the first hour or so. About 80% within the day. But it takes a couple of weeks to drop to 99% gone. It will, though, be safe sometime after that.

    Now you've just got to survive in a post-apocalyptic world. Good luck!
    Thank you (I think). Psi = pounds per square inch pressure wave?

    Medically, I have no chance whatsoever to survive a post-apocalyptic world. It would be nice though to end it all in a way of our own choosing (after sampling some of our wine stores and rounding off with a bottle of 1963 port which we have stashed).
    Yep - pounds per square inch.

    NOAA in the US have a handy table for the sort of issues you'd get:

    https://response.restoration.noaa.gov/oil-and-chemical-spills/chemical-spills/resources/overpressure-levels-concern.html
  • MoonRabbitMoonRabbit Posts: 13,503
    JohnO said:

    Leon said:

    kamski said:

    Leon said:

    This is interesting. Maybe

    Someone on Twitter (hello @Anabobazina) has pointed out the route taken by the private jets out of Moscow. They didn’t take the quickest route to Dubai, they got out of Russian airspace as fast as they could, and THEN headed for Dubai

    I’m not an aviation boffin. But we surely have some on here. Is there a perfectly normal explanation for this? Or is it indicative of fear in the passengers?




    That's the standard route at the moment.

    Compare:

    https://www.flightradar24.com/ETD64/2b2b8980

    It avoids the Caucuses and Ukraine.
    I think we should start worrying when the Western billionaires start heading for their boltholes in South America or New Zealand or wherever they plan to survive armageddon - anyone watching their movements?
    I’ve actually SEEN one of these boltholes. A fantastic house in the far southwest corner of the Australian coast, in Western Oz

    I was told it was owned by a famous billionaire in America. Specifically bought to avoid apocalypse

    A good choice. It’s near the margaret river. So lots of nice food and wine. Also far far far away from everywhere and everything else, including fall-out

    Even if someone nuked Perth you’d probably be fine. It’s about 200 miles north
    On The Beach? - Oh, beaten to it!
    It indicates you have a life outside this chat room. So no bad thing. 🙂
  • GardenwalkerGardenwalker Posts: 21,298

    Something far more cheering for us all, as evening comes on...

    Enfield Dispatch
    @EnfieldDispatch

    WATCH: The first Eurasian beaver to be released in London since the species went extinct in Britain 400 years ago. A male and female were this morning introduced to their new woodland enclosure at
    @FortyHallFarm
    in Enfield!

    https://twitter.com/EnfieldDispatch/status/1504440104680624142

    Seems odd that we are re-wilding inside the M25. I guess it’s part of the government’s back to feudalism growth policy, along with tax rises, interest rate hikes, flat wages and brexit.
  • williamglennwilliamglenn Posts: 51,627
    Russia is moving a substanial amont of military equipment out of occupied South Ossetia.

    @chambersharold8
    Column of equipment being moved out of South Ossetia. Sighting reported around Alagir, North Osseta


    https://twitter.com/chambersharold8/status/1504485646026506241
  • Andy_CookeAndy_Cooke Posts: 5,001
    biggles said:

    TimS said:

    Thinking through the morbid maths here.

    I understand Russia has around 6,000 warheads but the internet tells me they have around 1,500 "strategic" warheads i.e. ones that could be launched via ICBMs, heavy bombers or other means of getting them to distant targets like Britain and the USA. So 1,500: let's assume not all those get fired even in a true WW3 event - some get shot out of the sky by THAAD systems, some fail to detonate, some never make it out of their silos. Perhaps 1,000.

    Let's say there population of target countries in this long range is about 600 million - populations of the USA, Canada, Europe West of Germany or South of the Alps. So proportionally Britain would get a little over 10% of those. Maybe in reality we get more because we're a nuclear armed enemy - 20% say, with fewer falling on Italy, Iberia etc. That's 200 warheads for the UK. Enough to wipe out our means of functioning as a country and irradiate the whole landmass, yet not anywhere near enough to cause physical damage to more than our cities, suburbs and military bases. Most of the country would look the same s before the exchange. Cotswold villages would still glow in the afternoon sunshine with roses growing up the walls. Small market towns would still have their fully intact high streets and squares. It's a strange prospect.

    Would those Cotswold villages also glow at night?

    Seriously though, wouldn't everyone die from radiation poisoning soon after?

    Edit: Apols, I see this has been covered down thread (upthread?). I will take a read - module 101 on Nuclear Fallout at PB Uni.
    On survival of nukes.

    - If out of doors, it depends on how close you are to the burst/size of burst. If you're actually in the fireball, goodbye. Vaporised. However, warheads sized 1 megatonne and under that are airburst have little if any of the fireball actually touch the ground.
    - You've got the area of total/near-total destruction (20psi damage and up). Again, not the wide. Not really needed, though.
    - The range out to around 5psi will knock down most residential buildings, and that's quite a long way out. Say, 4-5 miles from the burst. If you're closer to this, you haven't got much chance. Best chance is probably to be out of doors and in a ditch.
    - The thermal pulse will give third-degree burns to those out to about 7-8 miles from the burst. However, you really just need to get out of line of sight. Being behind almost anything solid will save you. Unfortunately, if you're in the within-5psi range, whatever you're hiding behind will likely fall down, which could make things worse for you. Again, get in that ditch if you can.

    At this point, if you are in a ditch, you need to wait for both shockwaves - the outwards one and the inwards one that chases the near-vacuum produced by the outwards one. I was once told "Wait for the bus that flew over you in one direction to fly back over you the other way."

    - Beyond this distance, things become more (immediately) survivable. The blast diminishes with distance - out at maybe 12-15 miles from the blast (all these guesstimates are based on the 800kt-1mt size), the blast will fall below 1psi. Enough to shatter windows, but most houses will survive. Then again, losing your windows could screw you for the next phase.

    Next phase: Assuming you have survived the immediate effects, you have about 15 minutes to get to shelter. Because that white dust will start to fall. Get under cover NOW.

    That white dust is all gamma emitters (can't remember if they give off alpha and beta, but both of those are very easily blocked by almost anything solid). And you do NOT want to ingest or inhale a gamma emitter.

    If in a house, you'd better have blocked off your windows post-shattering. Dust drifting in is very bad.

    Stay as far away from the roof and walls as you can (so the reach of the gamma radiation is reduced). Good news: about half the radioactivity is gone in the first hour or so. About 80% within the day. But it takes a couple of weeks to drop to 99% gone. It will, though, be safe sometime after that.

    Now you've just got to survive in a post-apocalyptic world. Good luck!
    It’s a bleak subject to discuss, but I’m left wondering about the filters in a modern car. If you’ve survived, and so has the car, but you’re vulnerable to fallout; you might be best off starting to drive somewhere more remote and up wind.
    That might be a good idea. Some Teslas apparently have incredibly good air filtration possible. As long as there's no EMP that took out the electrics (even non-electric cars are so reliant on computers and embedded chips that they ain't moving after an EMP).
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 50,255

    Something far more cheering for us all, as evening comes on...

    Enfield Dispatch
    @EnfieldDispatch

    WATCH: The first Eurasian beaver to be released in London since the species went extinct in Britain 400 years ago. A male and female were this morning introduced to their new woodland enclosure at
    @FortyHallFarm
    in Enfield!

    https://twitter.com/EnfieldDispatch/status/1504440104680624142

    Seems odd that we are re-wilding inside the M25. I guess it’s part of the government’s back to feudalism growth policy, along with tax rises, interest rate hikes, flat wages and brexit.
    There's tons of green areas and waterways inside the M25.
  • OmniumOmnium Posts: 10,759
    IshmaelZ said:

    Omnium said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    boulay said:

    TimS said:

    Thinking through the morbid maths here.

    I understand Russia has around 6,000 warheads but the internet tells me they have around 1,500 "strategic" warheads i.e. ones that could be launched via ICBMs, heavy bombers or other means of getting them to distant targets like Britain and the USA. So 1,500: let's assume not all those get fired even in a true WW3 event - some get shot out of the sky by THAAD systems, some fail to detonate, some never make it out of their silos. Perhaps 1,000.

    Let's say there population of target countries in this long range is about 600 million - populations of the USA, Canada, Europe West of Germany or South of the Alps. So proportionally Britain would get a little over 10% of those. Maybe in reality we get more because we're a nuclear armed enemy - 20% say, with fewer falling on Italy, Iberia etc. That's 200 warheads for the UK. Enough to wipe out our means of functioning as a country and irradiate the whole landmass, yet not anywhere near enough to cause physical damage to more than our cities, suburbs and military bases. Most of the country would look the same s before the exchange. Cotswold villages would still glow in the afternoon sunshine with roses growing up the walls. Small market towns would still have their fully intact high streets and squares. It's a strange prospect.

    I think Cotswold villages would be glowing with or without the afternoon sunshine.
    Yes, but they wold be nearly all intact. Russian nukes are larger than their Western equivalents - probably accuracy issues. But blast and thermal effects don't scale linearly.

    Lets say we nuke Oxford with a 450Kt weapon. The circle is the damage radius.

    image
    Crime would go down massively as Blackbird Lees gets tonked.

    Safest place is Cambridge. No way they zap their spies....
    Why would the target and indifferent polytechnic in a swamp, anyway?
    Baedeker raid. Best University Town In The World Called Cambridge, 1209-1636. The fen folk have long memories, as is common in pre literate societies.
    1209??

    1284 is surely the accepted date (Peterhouse).
    "By 1200, Cambridge was a thriving commercial community which was also a county town and had at least one school of some distinction. Then, in 1209, scholars taking refuge from hostile townsmen in Oxford migrated to Cambridge and settled there. At first they lived in lodgings in the town, but in time houses were hired as hostels with a Master in charge of the students. By 1226 the scholars were numerous enough to have set up an organisation, represented by an official called a Chancellor, and seem to have arranged regular courses of study, taught by their own members."

    https://www.cam.ac.uk/about-the-university/history/early-records

    Obv autocorrect in 2nd sentence, hostile townsmen should read proper scholars.
    Ah well I'll stick with 1284 as being the foundation stone laid down for both the Uni and the 'Sex club' JCR:)

    (I didn't know about the 1209 stuff, and am astonished that the town seems to have so little history prior to that. It can't be right in that there's all sorts of goings on much earlier nearby.)
  • JohnLilburneJohnLilburne Posts: 6,241

    Open threat by Russia’s ambassador to Bosnia and Herzegovina. He says joining NATO is an internal matter for BiH but “the other thing is our reaction. The example of Ukraine shows what we expect. If there’s a threat we will react.”

    https://twitter.com/tobyvogel/status/1504469354531885072

    It is only a matter of a short time before the Balkans explodes again I am sorry to say.
    What makes you so sure?

    Having said that, if Putin wants to add fronts against the West, perhaps the Balkans is one hotspot.

    I’d have thought the Middle East a more likely candidate, tbh.
    Putin has been meddling with separatists and associated nationalists in the region for years. I'm sure if he thought the timing was right he could organize it all kicking off with say Repulika Srpska.


    If he sent the Serbs into Kosovo then Albania might intervene. And they're a NATO member. Lots of bunkers, though.
  • TheuniondivvieTheuniondivvie Posts: 41,958

    Something far more cheering for us all, as evening comes on...

    Enfield Dispatch
    @EnfieldDispatch

    WATCH: The first Eurasian beaver to be released in London since the species went extinct in Britain 400 years ago. A male and female were this morning introduced to their new woodland enclosure at
    @FortyHallFarm
    in Enfield!

    https://twitter.com/EnfieldDispatch/status/1504440104680624142

    I believe PB has an Asian beaver expert, not sure about the Eurasian variety.
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 42,134
    Carnyx said:

    kinabalu said:

    COVID Summary

    Cases UP - R is falling a bit. However, the fall is all in the youngest groups (0-14), other groups R is still rising
    In hospital - UP.
    Admissions - UP. R seems fairly stable here.
    MV Beds - Flat(ish)
    Deaths - the decrease is continuing to level off. Nearly flat now at a bit below 100/day.

    image

    How come you haven't raised the alert level given I've now got it?
    Well....

    image
    Mm. Deighton.
    Well I get the message anyway. I'm grist to the mill and shouldn't expect to be one iota more than that. Heartless. Thought I'd earned the right to be a special data point.
  • williamglennwilliamglenn Posts: 51,627
    edited March 2022

    Open threat by Russia’s ambassador to Bosnia and Herzegovina. He says joining NATO is an internal matter for BiH but “the other thing is our reaction. The example of Ukraine shows what we expect. If there’s a threat we will react.”

    https://twitter.com/tobyvogel/status/1504469354531885072

    It is only a matter of a short time before the Balkans explodes again I am sorry to say.
    What makes you so sure?

    Having said that, if Putin wants to add fronts against the West, perhaps the Balkans is one hotspot.

    I’d have thought the Middle East a more likely candidate, tbh.
    Putin has been meddling with separatists and associated nationalists in the region for years. I'm sure if he thought the timing was right he could organize it all kicking off with say Repulika Srpska.


    If he sent the Serbs into Kosovo then Albania might intervene. And they're a NATO member. Lots of bunkers, though.
    There are quite a few Albanians called "Tonibler" in honour of our former PM.
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 50,255

    biggles said:

    TimS said:

    Thinking through the morbid maths here.

    I understand Russia has around 6,000 warheads but the internet tells me they have around 1,500 "strategic" warheads i.e. ones that could be launched via ICBMs, heavy bombers or other means of getting them to distant targets like Britain and the USA. So 1,500: let's assume not all those get fired even in a true WW3 event - some get shot out of the sky by THAAD systems, some fail to detonate, some never make it out of their silos. Perhaps 1,000.

    Let's say there population of target countries in this long range is about 600 million - populations of the USA, Canada, Europe West of Germany or South of the Alps. So proportionally Britain would get a little over 10% of those. Maybe in reality we get more because we're a nuclear armed enemy - 20% say, with fewer falling on Italy, Iberia etc. That's 200 warheads for the UK. Enough to wipe out our means of functioning as a country and irradiate the whole landmass, yet not anywhere near enough to cause physical damage to more than our cities, suburbs and military bases. Most of the country would look the same s before the exchange. Cotswold villages would still glow in the afternoon sunshine with roses growing up the walls. Small market towns would still have their fully intact high streets and squares. It's a strange prospect.

    Would those Cotswold villages also glow at night?

    Seriously though, wouldn't everyone die from radiation poisoning soon after?

    Edit: Apols, I see this has been covered down thread (upthread?). I will take a read - module 101 on Nuclear Fallout at PB Uni.
    On survival of nukes.

    - If out of doors, it depends on how close you are to the burst/size of burst. If you're actually in the fireball, goodbye. Vaporised. However, warheads sized 1 megatonne and under that are airburst have little if any of the fireball actually touch the ground.
    - You've got the area of total/near-total destruction (20psi damage and up). Again, not the wide. Not really needed, though.
    - The range out to around 5psi will knock down most residential buildings, and that's quite a long way out. Say, 4-5 miles from the burst. If you're closer to this, you haven't got much chance. Best chance is probably to be out of doors and in a ditch.
    - The thermal pulse will give third-degree burns to those out to about 7-8 miles from the burst. However, you really just need to get out of line of sight. Being behind almost anything solid will save you. Unfortunately, if you're in the within-5psi range, whatever you're hiding behind will likely fall down, which could make things worse for you. Again, get in that ditch if you can.

    At this point, if you are in a ditch, you need to wait for both shockwaves - the outwards one and the inwards one that chases the near-vacuum produced by the outwards one. I was once told "Wait for the bus that flew over you in one direction to fly back over you the other way."

    - Beyond this distance, things become more (immediately) survivable. The blast diminishes with distance - out at maybe 12-15 miles from the blast (all these guesstimates are based on the 800kt-1mt size), the blast will fall below 1psi. Enough to shatter windows, but most houses will survive. Then again, losing your windows could screw you for the next phase.

    Next phase: Assuming you have survived the immediate effects, you have about 15 minutes to get to shelter. Because that white dust will start to fall. Get under cover NOW.

    That white dust is all gamma emitters (can't remember if they give off alpha and beta, but both of those are very easily blocked by almost anything solid). And you do NOT want to ingest or inhale a gamma emitter.

    If in a house, you'd better have blocked off your windows post-shattering. Dust drifting in is very bad.

    Stay as far away from the roof and walls as you can (so the reach of the gamma radiation is reduced). Good news: about half the radioactivity is gone in the first hour or so. About 80% within the day. But it takes a couple of weeks to drop to 99% gone. It will, though, be safe sometime after that.

    Now you've just got to survive in a post-apocalyptic world. Good luck!
    It’s a bleak subject to discuss, but I’m left wondering about the filters in a modern car. If you’ve survived, and so has the car, but you’re vulnerable to fallout; you might be best off starting to drive somewhere more remote and up wind.
    That might be a good idea. Some Teslas apparently have incredibly good air filtration possible. As long as there's no EMP that took out the electrics (even non-electric cars are so reliant on computers and embedded chips that they ain't moving after an EMP).
    EMP is often exaggerated. To be a major problem would require some nuclear detonations very high in the atmosphere - practically in orbit. Even then most electronic would actually survive. Some specific things would blow - the grid for example.
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 42,134

    TimS said:

    Thinking through the morbid maths here.

    I understand Russia has around 6,000 warheads but the internet tells me they have around 1,500 "strategic" warheads i.e. ones that could be launched via ICBMs, heavy bombers or other means of getting them to distant targets like Britain and the USA. So 1,500: let's assume not all those get fired even in a true WW3 event - some get shot out of the sky by THAAD systems, some fail to detonate, some never make it out of their silos. Perhaps 1,000.

    Let's say there population of target countries in this long range is about 600 million - populations of the USA, Canada, Europe West of Germany or South of the Alps. So proportionally Britain would get a little over 10% of those. Maybe in reality we get more because we're a nuclear armed enemy - 20% say, with fewer falling on Italy, Iberia etc. That's 200 warheads for the UK. Enough to wipe out our means of functioning as a country and irradiate the whole landmass, yet not anywhere near enough to cause physical damage to more than our cities, suburbs and military bases. Most of the country would look the same s before the exchange. Cotswold villages would still glow in the afternoon sunshine with roses growing up the walls. Small market towns would still have their fully intact high streets and squares. It's a strange prospect.

    Would those Cotswold villages also glow at night?

    Seriously though, wouldn't everyone die from radiation poisoning soon after?

    Edit: Apols, I see this has been covered down thread (upthread?). I will take a read - module 101 on Nuclear Fallout at PB Uni.
    On survival of nukes.

    - If out of doors, it depends on how close you are to the burst/size of burst. If you're actually in the fireball, goodbye. Vaporised. However, warheads sized 1 megatonne and under that are airburst have little if any of the fireball actually touch the ground.
    - You've got the area of total/near-total destruction (20psi damage and up). Again, not the wide. Not really needed, though.
    - The range out to around 5psi will knock down most residential buildings, and that's quite a long way out. Say, 4-5 miles from the burst. If you're closer to this, you haven't got much chance. Best chance is probably to be out of doors and in a ditch.
    - The thermal pulse will give third-degree burns to those out to about 7-8 miles from the burst. However, you really just need to get out of line of sight. Being behind almost anything solid will save you. Unfortunately, if you're in the within-5psi range, whatever you're hiding behind will likely fall down, which could make things worse for you. Again, get in that ditch if you can.

    At this point, if you are in a ditch, you need to wait for both shockwaves - the outwards one and the inwards one that chases the near-vacuum produced by the outwards one. I was once told "Wait for the bus that flew over you in one direction to fly back over you the other way."

    - Beyond this distance, things become more (immediately) survivable. The blast diminishes with distance - out at maybe 12-15 miles from the blast (all these guesstimates are based on the 800kt-1mt size), the blast will fall below 1psi. Enough to shatter windows, but most houses will survive. Then again, losing your windows could screw you for the next phase.

    Next phase: Assuming you have survived the immediate effects, you have about 15 minutes to get to shelter. Because that white dust will start to fall. Get under cover NOW.

    That white dust is all gamma emitters (can't remember if they give off alpha and beta, but both of those are very easily blocked by almost anything solid). And you do NOT want to ingest or inhale a gamma emitter.

    If in a house, you'd better have blocked off your windows post-shattering. Dust drifting in is very bad.

    Stay as far away from the roof and walls as you can (so the reach of the gamma radiation is reduced). Good news: about half the radioactivity is gone in the first hour or so. About 80% within the day. But it takes a couple of weeks to drop to 99% gone. It will, though, be safe sometime after that.

    Now you've just got to survive in a post-apocalyptic world. Good luck!
    Thank you (I think). Psi = pounds per square inch pressure wave?

    Medically, I have no chance whatsoever to survive a post-apocalyptic world. It would be nice though to end it all in a way of our own choosing (after sampling some of our wine stores and rounding off with a bottle of 1963 port which we have stashed).
    Yes, that was a good read from Andy, wasn't it?
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 50,255
    kinabalu said:

    Carnyx said:

    kinabalu said:

    COVID Summary

    Cases UP - R is falling a bit. However, the fall is all in the youngest groups (0-14), other groups R is still rising
    In hospital - UP.
    Admissions - UP. R seems fairly stable here.
    MV Beds - Flat(ish)
    Deaths - the decrease is continuing to level off. Nearly flat now at a bit below 100/day.

    image

    How come you haven't raised the alert level given I've now got it?
    Well....

    image
    Mm. Deighton.
    Well I get the message anyway. I'm grist to the mill and shouldn't expect to be one iota more than that. Heartless. Thought I'd earned the right to be a special data point.
    I didn't increase the alert level when *I* got COVID. Science and all that.
  • GardenwalkerGardenwalker Posts: 21,298

    Open threat by Russia’s ambassador to Bosnia and Herzegovina. He says joining NATO is an internal matter for BiH but “the other thing is our reaction. The example of Ukraine shows what we expect. If there’s a threat we will react.”

    https://twitter.com/tobyvogel/status/1504469354531885072

    It is only a matter of a short time before the Balkans explodes again I am sorry to say.
    What makes you so sure?

    Having said that, if Putin wants to add fronts against the West, perhaps the Balkans is one hotspot.

    I’d have thought the Middle East a more likely candidate, tbh.
    Putin has been meddling with separatists and associated nationalists in the region for years. I'm sure if he thought the timing was right he could organize it all kicking off with say Repulika Srpska.


    If he sent the Serbs into Kosovo then Albania might intervene. And they're a NATO member. Lots of bunkers, though.
    There are quite a few Albanians are called "Tonibler" in honour of our former PM.
    Many of them now taxi driving, I believe.
  • rottenboroughrottenborough Posts: 62,716

    TimS said:

    Thinking through the morbid maths here.

    I understand Russia has around 6,000 warheads but the internet tells me they have around 1,500 "strategic" warheads i.e. ones that could be launched via ICBMs, heavy bombers or other means of getting them to distant targets like Britain and the USA. So 1,500: let's assume not all those get fired even in a true WW3 event - some get shot out of the sky by THAAD systems, some fail to detonate, some never make it out of their silos. Perhaps 1,000.

    Let's say there population of target countries in this long range is about 600 million - populations of the USA, Canada, Europe West of Germany or South of the Alps. So proportionally Britain would get a little over 10% of those. Maybe in reality we get more because we're a nuclear armed enemy - 20% say, with fewer falling on Italy, Iberia etc. That's 200 warheads for the UK. Enough to wipe out our means of functioning as a country and irradiate the whole landmass, yet not anywhere near enough to cause physical damage to more than our cities, suburbs and military bases. Most of the country would look the same s before the exchange. Cotswold villages would still glow in the afternoon sunshine with roses growing up the walls. Small market towns would still have their fully intact high streets and squares. It's a strange prospect.

    Would those Cotswold villages also glow at night?

    Seriously though, wouldn't everyone die from radiation poisoning soon after?

    Edit: Apols, I see this has been covered down thread (upthread?). I will take a read - module 101 on Nuclear Fallout at PB Uni.
    On survival of nukes.

    - If out of doors, it depends on how close you are to the burst/size of burst. If you're actually in the fireball, goodbye. Vaporised. However, warheads sized 1 megatonne and under that are airburst have little if any of the fireball actually touch the ground.
    - You've got the area of total/near-total destruction (20psi damage and up). Again, not the wide. Not really needed, though.
    - The range out to around 5psi will knock down most residential buildings, and that's quite a long way out. Say, 4-5 miles from the burst. If you're closer to this, you haven't got much chance. Best chance is probably to be out of doors and in a ditch.
    - The thermal pulse will give third-degree burns to those out to about 7-8 miles from the burst. However, you really just need to get out of line of sight. Being behind almost anything solid will save you. Unfortunately, if you're in the within-5psi range, whatever you're hiding behind will likely fall down, which could make things worse for you. Again, get in that ditch if you can.

    At this point, if you are in a ditch, you need to wait for both shockwaves - the outwards one and the inwards one that chases the near-vacuum produced by the outwards one. I was once told "Wait for the bus that flew over you in one direction to fly back over you the other way."

    - Beyond this distance, things become more (immediately) survivable. The blast diminishes with distance - out at maybe 12-15 miles from the blast (all these guesstimates are based on the 800kt-1mt size), the blast will fall below 1psi. Enough to shatter windows, but most houses will survive. Then again, losing your windows could screw you for the next phase.

    Next phase: Assuming you have survived the immediate effects, you have about 15 minutes to get to shelter. Because that white dust will start to fall. Get under cover NOW.

    That white dust is all gamma emitters (can't remember if they give off alpha and beta, but both of those are very easily blocked by almost anything solid). And you do NOT want to ingest or inhale a gamma emitter.

    If in a house, you'd better have blocked off your windows post-shattering. Dust drifting in is very bad.

    Stay as far away from the roof and walls as you can (so the reach of the gamma radiation is reduced). Good news: about half the radioactivity is gone in the first hour or so. About 80% within the day. But it takes a couple of weeks to drop to 99% gone. It will, though, be safe sometime after that.

    Now you've just got to survive in a post-apocalyptic world. Good luck!
    Thank you (I think). Psi = pounds per square inch pressure wave?

    Medically, I have no chance whatsoever to survive a post-apocalyptic world. It would be nice though to end it all in a way of our own choosing (after sampling some of our wine stores and rounding off with a bottle of 1963 port which we have stashed).
    Yep - pounds per square inch.

    NOAA in the US have a handy table for the sort of issues you'd get:

    https://response.restoration.noaa.gov/oil-and-chemical-spills/chemical-spills/resources/overpressure-levels-concern.html
    Can we please start distributing the cyanide tablets? I don't want to be around for any of this, once the first one is dropped.
  • TheuniondivvieTheuniondivvie Posts: 41,958
    biggles said:

    TimS said:

    Thinking through the morbid maths here.

    I understand Russia has around 6,000 warheads but the internet tells me they have around 1,500 "strategic" warheads i.e. ones that could be launched via ICBMs, heavy bombers or other means of getting them to distant targets like Britain and the USA. So 1,500: let's assume not all those get fired even in a true WW3 event - some get shot out of the sky by THAAD systems, some fail to detonate, some never make it out of their silos. Perhaps 1,000.

    Let's say there population of target countries in this long range is about 600 million - populations of the USA, Canada, Europe West of Germany or South of the Alps. So proportionally Britain would get a little over 10% of those. Maybe in reality we get more because we're a nuclear armed enemy - 20% say, with fewer falling on Italy, Iberia etc. That's 200 warheads for the UK. Enough to wipe out our means of functioning as a country and irradiate the whole landmass, yet not anywhere near enough to cause physical damage to more than our cities, suburbs and military bases. Most of the country would look the same s before the exchange. Cotswold villages would still glow in the afternoon sunshine with roses growing up the walls. Small market towns would still have their fully intact high streets and squares. It's a strange prospect.

    Would those Cotswold villages also glow at night?

    Seriously though, wouldn't everyone die from radiation poisoning soon after?

    Edit: Apols, I see this has been covered down thread (upthread?). I will take a read - module 101 on Nuclear Fallout at PB Uni.
    On survival of nukes.

    - If out of doors, it depends on how close you are to the burst/size of burst. If you're actually in the fireball, goodbye. Vaporised. However, warheads sized 1 megatonne and under that are airburst have little if any of the fireball actually touch the ground.
    - You've got the area of total/near-total destruction (20psi damage and up). Again, not the wide. Not really needed, though.
    - The range out to around 5psi will knock down most residential buildings, and that's quite a long way out. Say, 4-5 miles from the burst. If you're closer to this, you haven't got much chance. Best chance is probably to be out of doors and in a ditch.
    - The thermal pulse will give third-degree burns to those out to about 7-8 miles from the burst. However, you really just need to get out of line of sight. Being behind almost anything solid will save you. Unfortunately, if you're in the within-5psi range, whatever you're hiding behind will likely fall down, which could make things worse for you. Again, get in that ditch if you can.

    At this point, if you are in a ditch, you need to wait for both shockwaves - the outwards one and the inwards one that chases the near-vacuum produced by the outwards one. I was once told "Wait for the bus that flew over you in one direction to fly back over you the other way."

    - Beyond this distance, things become more (immediately) survivable. The blast diminishes with distance - out at maybe 12-15 miles from the blast (all these guesstimates are based on the 800kt-1mt size), the blast will fall below 1psi. Enough to shatter windows, but most houses will survive. Then again, losing your windows could screw you for the next phase.

    Next phase: Assuming you have survived the immediate effects, you have about 15 minutes to get to shelter. Because that white dust will start to fall. Get under cover NOW.

    That white dust is all gamma emitters (can't remember if they give off alpha and beta, but both of those are very easily blocked by almost anything solid). And you do NOT want to ingest or inhale a gamma emitter.

    If in a house, you'd better have blocked off your windows post-shattering. Dust drifting in is very bad.

    Stay as far away from the roof and walls as you can (so the reach of the gamma radiation is reduced). Good news: about half the radioactivity is gone in the first hour or so. About 80% within the day. But it takes a couple of weeks to drop to 99% gone. It will, though, be safe sometime after that.

    Now you've just got to survive in a post-apocalyptic world. Good luck!
    It’s a bleak subject to discuss, but I’m left wondering about the filters in a modern car. If you’ve survived, and so has the car, but you’re vulnerable to fallout; you might be best off starting to drive somewhere more remote and up wind.
    Dredging up all my 1980s fear facts, is EMP still a thing? From memory it was suggested that it could knock out everything including cars, but we may have..er..progressed since then.
  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 57,153
    Andy_JS said:

    rcs1000 said:

    rcs1000 said:

    RobD said:

    Andy_JS said:

    Idiots. Time to get rid of mask altogether and forever.
    There appears to be an abundance of international evidence that masking is near or completely useless against omicron (e.g. Hong Kong, NZ). It's not clear why anyone would persisting with an intrusive, antisocial measure for no obvious health benefit.
    Has there been a scientific study demonstrating this?
    I can't see how @Anabobazina can come to that conclusion. If one has a respiratory tract infection, and one wears a mask, then (a) the pace/speed at which viral matter comes out the mouth is slowed dramatically, and (b) a significant portion is simply goìng to get trapped by the mask.

    Now, it's entirely possible that - because Omicron is so infectious - that R0 only coms down to (say) 2 with compulsory masking. It's also fine to say that, given high levels of natural immunity and vaccinations, then the benefits of compulsory masking are outweighed by its costs.

    But it is clearly rubbish to claim - without evidence - that it does nothing to reduce transmission rates.

    And in countries with limited natural immunity (*cough* China) it it probably essential to minimise viral load recieved by the immune naïve, and slow the spread of the disease.
    I said "there appears to be" and "near or completely useless". I am simply reading off from the numbers abroad. I haven't come to any confirmed conclusion. I am simply asking why anyone would persist with the masks in the absence of much evidence of their effectiveness against omicron. They do, after all, have massive downsides of their own.
    Yeah, but an R of 3 and an R of 2.5 both show ridiculously steep curves, that it would be very hard to tell apart by simple eyeballing. And yet the former case will result in a 80% of cases happening in a four week period and infections reaching 80% of the population, while in the latter, it's five and a half weeks and 62%.

    We are lucky as a nation that (a) lots of us have had Covid, and (b) everyone has been vaccinated (often triple vaccinated) with decent Western vaccines. And we should probably have removed mask mandates earlier

    But in China, yeah, they should probably keep them. It'll be utterly shit even with them... but it won't be quite as shit as it would otherwise be.
    I assume everyone, or nearly everyone, in Hong Kong is still wearing masks. Why, then, are they having a terrible Covid problem atm?
    Because R of 2.5 still gives you a terrible Covid problem - it's just slightly better than it would be with an R of 3.
  • mwadamsmwadams Posts: 3,593
    Omnium said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    Omnium said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    boulay said:

    TimS said:

    Thinking through the morbid maths here.

    I understand Russia has around 6,000 warheads but the internet tells me they have around 1,500 "strategic" warheads i.e. ones that could be launched via ICBMs, heavy bombers or other means of getting them to distant targets like Britain and the USA. So 1,500: let's assume not all those get fired even in a true WW3 event - some get shot out of the sky by THAAD systems, some fail to detonate, some never make it out of their silos. Perhaps 1,000.

    Let's say there population of target countries in this long range is about 600 million - populations of the USA, Canada, Europe West of Germany or South of the Alps. So proportionally Britain would get a little over 10% of those. Maybe in reality we get more because we're a nuclear armed enemy - 20% say, with fewer falling on Italy, Iberia etc. That's 200 warheads for the UK. Enough to wipe out our means of functioning as a country and irradiate the whole landmass, yet not anywhere near enough to cause physical damage to more than our cities, suburbs and military bases. Most of the country would look the same s before the exchange. Cotswold villages would still glow in the afternoon sunshine with roses growing up the walls. Small market towns would still have their fully intact high streets and squares. It's a strange prospect.

    I think Cotswold villages would be glowing with or without the afternoon sunshine.
    Yes, but they wold be nearly all intact. Russian nukes are larger than their Western equivalents - probably accuracy issues. But blast and thermal effects don't scale linearly.

    Lets say we nuke Oxford with a 450Kt weapon. The circle is the damage radius.

    image
    Crime would go down massively as Blackbird Lees gets tonked.

    Safest place is Cambridge. No way they zap their spies....
    Why would the target and indifferent polytechnic in a swamp, anyway?
    Baedeker raid. Best University Town In The World Called Cambridge, 1209-1636. The fen folk have long memories, as is common in pre literate societies.
    1209??

    1284 is surely the accepted date (Peterhouse).
    "By 1200, Cambridge was a thriving commercial community which was also a county town and had at least one school of some distinction. Then, in 1209, scholars taking refuge from hostile townsmen in Oxford migrated to Cambridge and settled there. At first they lived in lodgings in the town, but in time houses were hired as hostels with a Master in charge of the students. By 1226 the scholars were numerous enough to have set up an organisation, represented by an official called a Chancellor, and seem to have arranged regular courses of study, taught by their own members."

    https://www.cam.ac.uk/about-the-university/history/early-records

    Obv autocorrect in 2nd sentence, hostile townsmen should read proper scholars.
    Ah well I'll stick with 1284 as being the foundation stone laid down for both the Uni and the 'Sex club' JCR:)

    (I didn't know about the 1209 stuff, and am astonished that the town seems to have so little history prior to that. It can't be right in that there's all sorts of goings on much earlier nearby.)
    As always, go to the Victoria County History when you want more detail, but in a concise form!

    https://www.british-history.ac.uk/vch/cambs/vol3/pp2-15
  • boulay said:

    TimS said:

    Thinking through the morbid maths here.

    I understand Russia has around 6,000 warheads but the internet tells me they have around 1,500 "strategic" warheads i.e. ones that could be launched via ICBMs, heavy bombers or other means of getting them to distant targets like Britain and the USA. So 1,500: let's assume not all those get fired even in a true WW3 event - some get shot out of the sky by THAAD systems, some fail to detonate, some never make it out of their silos. Perhaps 1,000.

    Let's say there population of target countries in this long range is about 600 million - populations of the USA, Canada, Europe West of Germany or South of the Alps. So proportionally Britain would get a little over 10% of those. Maybe in reality we get more because we're a nuclear armed enemy - 20% say, with fewer falling on Italy, Iberia etc. That's 200 warheads for the UK. Enough to wipe out our means of functioning as a country and irradiate the whole landmass, yet not anywhere near enough to cause physical damage to more than our cities, suburbs and military bases. Most of the country would look the same s before the exchange. Cotswold villages would still glow in the afternoon sunshine with roses growing up the walls. Small market towns would still have their fully intact high streets and squares. It's a strange prospect.

    I think Cotswold villages would be glowing with or without the afternoon sunshine.
    Yes, but they wold be nearly all intact. Russian nukes are larger than their Western equivalents - probably accuracy issues. But blast and thermal effects don't scale linearly.

    Lets say we nuke Oxford with a 450Kt weapon. The circle is the damage radius.

    image
    Crime would go down massively as Blackbird Lees gets tonked.

    Safest place is Cambridge. No way they zap their spies....
    Salisbury would be safe too given it is such a tourist attraction for Russians.
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 50,255

    biggles said:

    TimS said:

    Thinking through the morbid maths here.

    I understand Russia has around 6,000 warheads but the internet tells me they have around 1,500 "strategic" warheads i.e. ones that could be launched via ICBMs, heavy bombers or other means of getting them to distant targets like Britain and the USA. So 1,500: let's assume not all those get fired even in a true WW3 event - some get shot out of the sky by THAAD systems, some fail to detonate, some never make it out of their silos. Perhaps 1,000.

    Let's say there population of target countries in this long range is about 600 million - populations of the USA, Canada, Europe West of Germany or South of the Alps. So proportionally Britain would get a little over 10% of those. Maybe in reality we get more because we're a nuclear armed enemy - 20% say, with fewer falling on Italy, Iberia etc. That's 200 warheads for the UK. Enough to wipe out our means of functioning as a country and irradiate the whole landmass, yet not anywhere near enough to cause physical damage to more than our cities, suburbs and military bases. Most of the country would look the same s before the exchange. Cotswold villages would still glow in the afternoon sunshine with roses growing up the walls. Small market towns would still have their fully intact high streets and squares. It's a strange prospect.

    Would those Cotswold villages also glow at night?

    Seriously though, wouldn't everyone die from radiation poisoning soon after?

    Edit: Apols, I see this has been covered down thread (upthread?). I will take a read - module 101 on Nuclear Fallout at PB Uni.
    On survival of nukes.

    - If out of doors, it depends on how close you are to the burst/size of burst. If you're actually in the fireball, goodbye. Vaporised. However, warheads sized 1 megatonne and under that are airburst have little if any of the fireball actually touch the ground.
    - You've got the area of total/near-total destruction (20psi damage and up). Again, not the wide. Not really needed, though.
    - The range out to around 5psi will knock down most residential buildings, and that's quite a long way out. Say, 4-5 miles from the burst. If you're closer to this, you haven't got much chance. Best chance is probably to be out of doors and in a ditch.
    - The thermal pulse will give third-degree burns to those out to about 7-8 miles from the burst. However, you really just need to get out of line of sight. Being behind almost anything solid will save you. Unfortunately, if you're in the within-5psi range, whatever you're hiding behind will likely fall down, which could make things worse for you. Again, get in that ditch if you can.

    At this point, if you are in a ditch, you need to wait for both shockwaves - the outwards one and the inwards one that chases the near-vacuum produced by the outwards one. I was once told "Wait for the bus that flew over you in one direction to fly back over you the other way."

    - Beyond this distance, things become more (immediately) survivable. The blast diminishes with distance - out at maybe 12-15 miles from the blast (all these guesstimates are based on the 800kt-1mt size), the blast will fall below 1psi. Enough to shatter windows, but most houses will survive. Then again, losing your windows could screw you for the next phase.

    Next phase: Assuming you have survived the immediate effects, you have about 15 minutes to get to shelter. Because that white dust will start to fall. Get under cover NOW.

    That white dust is all gamma emitters (can't remember if they give off alpha and beta, but both of those are very easily blocked by almost anything solid). And you do NOT want to ingest or inhale a gamma emitter.

    If in a house, you'd better have blocked off your windows post-shattering. Dust drifting in is very bad.

    Stay as far away from the roof and walls as you can (so the reach of the gamma radiation is reduced). Good news: about half the radioactivity is gone in the first hour or so. About 80% within the day. But it takes a couple of weeks to drop to 99% gone. It will, though, be safe sometime after that.

    Now you've just got to survive in a post-apocalyptic world. Good luck!
    It’s a bleak subject to discuss, but I’m left wondering about the filters in a modern car. If you’ve survived, and so has the car, but you’re vulnerable to fallout; you might be best off starting to drive somewhere more remote and up wind.
    Dredging up all my 1980s fear facts, is EMP still a thing? From memory it was suggested that it could knock out everything including cars, but we may have..er..progressed since then.
    Yes it is. Though to create a serious EMP, takes a deliberate explosion, in space.
  • IshmaelZIshmaelZ Posts: 21,830

    biggles said:

    TimS said:

    Thinking through the morbid maths here.

    I understand Russia has around 6,000 warheads but the internet tells me they have around 1,500 "strategic" warheads i.e. ones that could be launched via ICBMs, heavy bombers or other means of getting them to distant targets like Britain and the USA. So 1,500: let's assume not all those get fired even in a true WW3 event - some get shot out of the sky by THAAD systems, some fail to detonate, some never make it out of their silos. Perhaps 1,000.

    Let's say there population of target countries in this long range is about 600 million - populations of the USA, Canada, Europe West of Germany or South of the Alps. So proportionally Britain would get a little over 10% of those. Maybe in reality we get more because we're a nuclear armed enemy - 20% say, with fewer falling on Italy, Iberia etc. That's 200 warheads for the UK. Enough to wipe out our means of functioning as a country and irradiate the whole landmass, yet not anywhere near enough to cause physical damage to more than our cities, suburbs and military bases. Most of the country would look the same s before the exchange. Cotswold villages would still glow in the afternoon sunshine with roses growing up the walls. Small market towns would still have their fully intact high streets and squares. It's a strange prospect.

    Would those Cotswold villages also glow at night?

    Seriously though, wouldn't everyone die from radiation poisoning soon after?

    Edit: Apols, I see this has been covered down thread (upthread?). I will take a read - module 101 on Nuclear Fallout at PB Uni.
    On survival of nukes.

    - If out of doors, it depends on how close you are to the burst/size of burst. If you're actually in the fireball, goodbye. Vaporised. However, warheads sized 1 megatonne and under that are airburst have little if any of the fireball actually touch the ground.
    - You've got the area of total/near-total destruction (20psi damage and up). Again, not the wide. Not really needed, though.
    - The range out to around 5psi will knock down most residential buildings, and that's quite a long way out. Say, 4-5 miles from the burst. If you're closer to this, you haven't got much chance. Best chance is probably to be out of doors and in a ditch.
    - The thermal pulse will give third-degree burns to those out to about 7-8 miles from the burst. However, you really just need to get out of line of sight. Being behind almost anything solid will save you. Unfortunately, if you're in the within-5psi range, whatever you're hiding behind will likely fall down, which could make things worse for you. Again, get in that ditch if you can.

    At this point, if you are in a ditch, you need to wait for both shockwaves - the outwards one and the inwards one that chases the near-vacuum produced by the outwards one. I was once told "Wait for the bus that flew over you in one direction to fly back over you the other way."

    - Beyond this distance, things become more (immediately) survivable. The blast diminishes with distance - out at maybe 12-15 miles from the blast (all these guesstimates are based on the 800kt-1mt size), the blast will fall below 1psi. Enough to shatter windows, but most houses will survive. Then again, losing your windows could screw you for the next phase.

    Next phase: Assuming you have survived the immediate effects, you have about 15 minutes to get to shelter. Because that white dust will start to fall. Get under cover NOW.

    That white dust is all gamma emitters (can't remember if they give off alpha and beta, but both of those are very easily blocked by almost anything solid). And you do NOT want to ingest or inhale a gamma emitter.

    If in a house, you'd better have blocked off your windows post-shattering. Dust drifting in is very bad.

    Stay as far away from the roof and walls as you can (so the reach of the gamma radiation is reduced). Good news: about half the radioactivity is gone in the first hour or so. About 80% within the day. But it takes a couple of weeks to drop to 99% gone. It will, though, be safe sometime after that.

    Now you've just got to survive in a post-apocalyptic world. Good luck!
    It’s a bleak subject to discuss, but I’m left wondering about the filters in a modern car. If you’ve survived, and so has the car, but you’re vulnerable to fallout; you might be best off starting to drive somewhere more remote and up wind.
    Dredging up all my 1980s fear facts, is EMP still a thing? From memory it was suggested that it could knock out everything including cars, but we may have..er..progressed since then.
    WHAT CAN BE DONE TO PROTECT ELECTRONICS

    There are two basic ways to protect or harden items against EMP effects. The first
    method is metallic shielding. Shields are made of a continuous piece of metal such as
    steel or copper. A metal enclosure generally does not fully shield the interior because of
    the small holes that are likely to exist. Therefore, this type of shielding often contains
    additional elements to create the barrier. Commonly, only a fraction of a millimeter of a
    metal is needed to supply adequate protection. This shield must completely surround
    the item to be hardened.

    The second method, tailored hardening, is a more cost-effective way of hardening. In
    this method, only the most vulnerable elements and circuits are redesigned to be more
    rugged. The more rugged elements will be able to withstand much higher currents. This
    method has shown unpredictable failures in testing, though it is thought it may be useful
    to make existing systems less vulnerable.

    https://doh.wa.gov/sites/default/files/legacy/Documents/Pubs//320-090_elecpuls_fs.pdf

    Basically, a tinfoil hat for your car, 2 thicknesses just in case, and you're golden.
  • rcs1000 said:

    Andy_JS said:

    rcs1000 said:

    rcs1000 said:

    RobD said:

    Andy_JS said:

    Idiots. Time to get rid of mask altogether and forever.
    There appears to be an abundance of international evidence that masking is near or completely useless against omicron (e.g. Hong Kong, NZ). It's not clear why anyone would persisting with an intrusive, antisocial measure for no obvious health benefit.
    Has there been a scientific study demonstrating this?
    I can't see how @Anabobazina can come to that conclusion. If one has a respiratory tract infection, and one wears a mask, then (a) the pace/speed at which viral matter comes out the mouth is slowed dramatically, and (b) a significant portion is simply goìng to get trapped by the mask.

    Now, it's entirely possible that - because Omicron is so infectious - that R0 only coms down to (say) 2 with compulsory masking. It's also fine to say that, given high levels of natural immunity and vaccinations, then the benefits of compulsory masking are outweighed by its costs.

    But it is clearly rubbish to claim - without evidence - that it does nothing to reduce transmission rates.

    And in countries with limited natural immunity (*cough* China) it it probably essential to minimise viral load recieved by the immune naïve, and slow the spread of the disease.
    I said "there appears to be" and "near or completely useless". I am simply reading off from the numbers abroad. I haven't come to any confirmed conclusion. I am simply asking why anyone would persist with the masks in the absence of much evidence of their effectiveness against omicron. They do, after all, have massive downsides of their own.
    Yeah, but an R of 3 and an R of 2.5 both show ridiculously steep curves, that it would be very hard to tell apart by simple eyeballing. And yet the former case will result in a 80% of cases happening in a four week period and infections reaching 80% of the population, while in the latter, it's five and a half weeks and 62%.

    We are lucky as a nation that (a) lots of us have had Covid, and (b) everyone has been vaccinated (often triple vaccinated) with decent Western vaccines. And we should probably have removed mask mandates earlier

    But in China, yeah, they should probably keep them. It'll be utterly shit even with them... but it won't be quite as shit as it would otherwise be.
    I assume everyone, or nearly everyone, in Hong Kong is still wearing masks. Why, then, are they having a terrible Covid problem atm?
    Because R of 2.5 still gives you a terrible Covid problem - it's just slightly better than it would be with an R of 3.
    There's one thing and only one thing that doesn't give you a terrible Covid problem.

    8 letter word, starts with a 'v'.
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 122,921
    edited March 2022
    TimS said:

    Thinking through the morbid maths here.

    I understand Russia has around 6,000 warheads but the internet tells me they have around 1,500 "strategic" warheads i.e. ones that could be launched via ICBMs, heavy bombers or other means of getting them to distant targets like Britain and the USA. So 1,500: let's assume not all those get fired even in a true WW3 event - some get shot out of the sky by THAAD systems, some fail to detonate, some never make it out of their silos. Perhaps 1,000.

    Let's say there population of target countries in this long range is about 600 million - populations of the USA, Canada, Europe West of Germany or South of the Alps. So proportionally Britain would get a little over 10% of those. Maybe in reality we get more because we're a nuclear armed enemy - 20% say, with fewer falling on Italy, Iberia etc. That's 200 warheads for the UK. Enough to wipe out our means of functioning as a country and irradiate the whole landmass, yet not anywhere near enough to cause physical damage to more than our cities, suburbs and military bases. Most of the country would look the same s before the exchange. Cotswold villages would still glow in the afternoon sunshine with roses growing up the walls. Small market towns would still have their fully intact high streets and squares. It's a strange prospect.

    Given our active nuclear missiles will be on submarines at sea not on land then it does not matter how many nukes the Russians hit us with the response would still be the same. The same largely applies to the French and the US missiles furthest reach is on its submarines too
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 50,255
    HYUFD said:

    TimS said:

    Thinking through the morbid maths here.

    I understand Russia has around 6,000 warheads but the internet tells me they have around 1,500 "strategic" warheads i.e. ones that could be launched via ICBMs, heavy bombers or other means of getting them to distant targets like Britain and the USA. So 1,500: let's assume not all those get fired even in a true WW3 event - some get shot out of the sky by THAAD systems, some fail to detonate, some never make it out of their silos. Perhaps 1,000.

    Let's say there population of target countries in this long range is about 600 million - populations of the USA, Canada, Europe West of Germany or South of the Alps. So proportionally Britain would get a little over 10% of those. Maybe in reality we get more because we're a nuclear armed enemy - 20% say, with fewer falling on Italy, Iberia etc. That's 200 warheads for the UK. Enough to wipe out our means of functioning as a country and irradiate the whole landmass, yet not anywhere near enough to cause physical damage to more than our cities, suburbs and military bases. Most of the country would look the same s before the exchange. Cotswold villages would still glow in the afternoon sunshine with roses growing up the walls. Small market towns would still have their fully intact high streets and squares. It's a strange prospect.

    Given most of our nuclear missiles will be on submarines at sea then it does not matter how many nukes the Russians hit us with the response would still be the same

    There are only four things certain since Social Progress began.
    That the Dog returns to his Vomit and the Sow returns to her Mire,
    And the burnt Fool's bandaged finger goes wabbling back to the Fire;
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 71,070
    .

    Russia is moving a substanial amont of military equipment out of occupied South Ossetia.

    @chambersharold8
    Column of equipment being moved out of South Ossetia. Sighting reported around Alagir, North Osseta


    https://twitter.com/chambersharold8/status/1504485646026506241

    Where to ?
    Not on transporters, those tanks are going nowhere anytime soon.
  • rottenboroughrottenborough Posts: 62,716

    TimS said:

    Thinking through the morbid maths here.

    I understand Russia has around 6,000 warheads but the internet tells me they have around 1,500 "strategic" warheads i.e. ones that could be launched via ICBMs, heavy bombers or other means of getting them to distant targets like Britain and the USA. So 1,500: let's assume not all those get fired even in a true WW3 event - some get shot out of the sky by THAAD systems, some fail to detonate, some never make it out of their silos. Perhaps 1,000.

    Let's say there population of target countries in this long range is about 600 million - populations of the USA, Canada, Europe West of Germany or South of the Alps. So proportionally Britain would get a little over 10% of those. Maybe in reality we get more because we're a nuclear armed enemy - 20% say, with fewer falling on Italy, Iberia etc. That's 200 warheads for the UK. Enough to wipe out our means of functioning as a country and irradiate the whole landmass, yet not anywhere near enough to cause physical damage to more than our cities, suburbs and military bases. Most of the country would look the same s before the exchange. Cotswold villages would still glow in the afternoon sunshine with roses growing up the walls. Small market towns would still have their fully intact high streets and squares. It's a strange prospect.

    Would those Cotswold villages also glow at night?

    Seriously though, wouldn't everyone die from radiation poisoning soon after?

    Edit: Apols, I see this has been covered down thread (upthread?). I will take a read - module 101 on Nuclear Fallout at PB Uni.
    On survival of nukes.

    - If out of doors, it depends on how close you are to the burst/size of burst. If you're actually in the fireball, goodbye. Vaporised. However, warheads sized 1 megatonne and under that are airburst have little if any of the fireball actually touch the ground.
    - You've got the area of total/near-total destruction (20psi damage and up). Again, not the wide. Not really needed, though.
    - The range out to around 5psi will knock down most residential buildings, and that's quite a long way out. Say, 4-5 miles from the burst. If you're closer to this, you haven't got much chance. Best chance is probably to be out of doors and in a ditch.
    - The thermal pulse will give third-degree burns to those out to about 7-8 miles from the burst. However, you really just need to get out of line of sight. Being behind almost anything solid will save you. Unfortunately, if you're in the within-5psi range, whatever you're hiding behind will likely fall down, which could make things worse for you. Again, get in that ditch if you can.

    At this point, if you are in a ditch, you need to wait for both shockwaves - the outwards one and the inwards one that chases the near-vacuum produced by the outwards one. I was once told "Wait for the bus that flew over you in one direction to fly back over you the other way."

    - Beyond this distance, things become more (immediately) survivable. The blast diminishes with distance - out at maybe 12-15 miles from the blast (all these guesstimates are based on the 800kt-1mt size), the blast will fall below 1psi. Enough to shatter windows, but most houses will survive. Then again, losing your windows could screw you for the next phase.

    Next phase: Assuming you have survived the immediate effects, you have about 15 minutes to get to shelter. Because that white dust will start to fall. Get under cover NOW.

    That white dust is all gamma emitters (can't remember if they give off alpha and beta, but both of those are very easily blocked by almost anything solid). And you do NOT want to ingest or inhale a gamma emitter.

    If in a house, you'd better have blocked off your windows post-shattering. Dust drifting in is very bad.

    Stay as far away from the roof and walls as you can (so the reach of the gamma radiation is reduced). Good news: about half the radioactivity is gone in the first hour or so. About 80% within the day. But it takes a couple of weeks to drop to 99% gone. It will, though, be safe sometime after that.

    Now you've just got to survive in a post-apocalyptic world. Good luck!
    What's the range of the initial gamma-ray burst? Read somewhere you have to be behind a couple of feet of concrete to avoid that? Even if you avoid fall-out won't that fry your DNA?
    https://nuclearsecrecy.com/nukemap/ - you can try it out for yourself...
    Christ, that is a bleak tool.

    Just done my bit of the midlands.
  • kyf_100kyf_100 Posts: 4,941

    Open threat by Russia’s ambassador to Bosnia and Herzegovina. He says joining NATO is an internal matter for BiH but “the other thing is our reaction. The example of Ukraine shows what we expect. If there’s a threat we will react.”

    https://twitter.com/tobyvogel/status/1504469354531885072

    It is only a matter of a short time before the Balkans explodes again I am sorry to say.
    What makes you so sure?

    Having said that, if Putin wants to add fronts against the West, perhaps the Balkans is one hotspot.

    I’d have thought the Middle East a more likely candidate, tbh.
    Putin has been meddling with separatists and associated nationalists in the region for years. I'm sure if he thought the timing was right he could organize it all kicking off with say Repulika Srpska.


    If he sent the Serbs into Kosovo then Albania might intervene. And they're a NATO member. Lots of bunkers, though.
    There are quite a few Albanians called "Tonibler" in honour of our former PM.
    I have just come to the realisation that "Tony Blair" sounds an awful lot like "Toe nibbler" with an Italian accent.
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 50,255
    Nigelb said:

    .

    Russia is moving a substanial amont of military equipment out of occupied South Ossetia.

    @chambersharold8
    Column of equipment being moved out of South Ossetia. Sighting reported around Alagir, North Osseta


    https://twitter.com/chambersharold8/status/1504485646026506241

    Where to ?
    Not on transporters, those tanks are going nowhere anytime soon.
    In the Former Soviet Union - where is the nearest train line?
  • HYUFD said:

    TimS said:

    Thinking through the morbid maths here.

    I understand Russia has around 6,000 warheads but the internet tells me they have around 1,500 "strategic" warheads i.e. ones that could be launched via ICBMs, heavy bombers or other means of getting them to distant targets like Britain and the USA. So 1,500: let's assume not all those get fired even in a true WW3 event - some get shot out of the sky by THAAD systems, some fail to detonate, some never make it out of their silos. Perhaps 1,000.

    Let's say there population of target countries in this long range is about 600 million - populations of the USA, Canada, Europe West of Germany or South of the Alps. So proportionally Britain would get a little over 10% of those. Maybe in reality we get more because we're a nuclear armed enemy - 20% say, with fewer falling on Italy, Iberia etc. That's 200 warheads for the UK. Enough to wipe out our means of functioning as a country and irradiate the whole landmass, yet not anywhere near enough to cause physical damage to more than our cities, suburbs and military bases. Most of the country would look the same s before the exchange. Cotswold villages would still glow in the afternoon sunshine with roses growing up the walls. Small market towns would still have their fully intact high streets and squares. It's a strange prospect.

    Given our active nuclear missiles will be on submarines at sea not on land then it does not matter how many nukes the Russians hit us with the response would still be the same. The same largely applies to the French and the US missiles furthest reach is on its submarines too
    Miss!

    He's pointing his nukes at people again..
  • Fysics_TeacherFysics_Teacher Posts: 6,285
    dixiedean said:

    Another sign of the apocalypse.
    A Thursday without a Council by-election.
    Life not worth living anyways.

    Too many syllables: a proper haiku is 5:7:5
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 71,070

    biggles said:

    TimS said:

    Thinking through the morbid maths here.

    I understand Russia has around 6,000 warheads but the internet tells me they have around 1,500 "strategic" warheads i.e. ones that could be launched via ICBMs, heavy bombers or other means of getting them to distant targets like Britain and the USA. So 1,500: let's assume not all those get fired even in a true WW3 event - some get shot out of the sky by THAAD systems, some fail to detonate, some never make it out of their silos. Perhaps 1,000.

    Let's say there population of target countries in this long range is about 600 million - populations of the USA, Canada, Europe West of Germany or South of the Alps. So proportionally Britain would get a little over 10% of those. Maybe in reality we get more because we're a nuclear armed enemy - 20% say, with fewer falling on Italy, Iberia etc. That's 200 warheads for the UK. Enough to wipe out our means of functioning as a country and irradiate the whole landmass, yet not anywhere near enough to cause physical damage to more than our cities, suburbs and military bases. Most of the country would look the same s before the exchange. Cotswold villages would still glow in the afternoon sunshine with roses growing up the walls. Small market towns would still have their fully intact high streets and squares. It's a strange prospect.

    Would those Cotswold villages also glow at night?

    Seriously though, wouldn't everyone die from radiation poisoning soon after?

    Edit: Apols, I see this has been covered down thread (upthread?). I will take a read - module 101 on Nuclear Fallout at PB Uni.
    On survival of nukes.

    - If out of doors, it depends on how close you are to the burst/size of burst. If you're actually in the fireball, goodbye. Vaporised. However, warheads sized 1 megatonne and under that are airburst have little if any of the fireball actually touch the ground.
    - You've got the area of total/near-total destruction (20psi damage and up). Again, not the wide. Not really needed, though.
    - The range out to around 5psi will knock down most residential buildings, and that's quite a long way out. Say, 4-5 miles from the burst. If you're closer to this, you haven't got much chance. Best chance is probably to be out of doors and in a ditch.
    - The thermal pulse will give third-degree burns to those out to about 7-8 miles from the burst. However, you really just need to get out of line of sight. Being behind almost anything solid will save you. Unfortunately, if you're in the within-5psi range, whatever you're hiding behind will likely fall down, which could make things worse for you. Again, get in that ditch if you can.

    At this point, if you are in a ditch, you need to wait for both shockwaves - the outwards one and the inwards one that chases the near-vacuum produced by the outwards one. I was once told "Wait for the bus that flew over you in one direction to fly back over you the other way."

    - Beyond this distance, things become more (immediately) survivable. The blast diminishes with distance - out at maybe 12-15 miles from the blast (all these guesstimates are based on the 800kt-1mt size), the blast will fall below 1psi. Enough to shatter windows, but most houses will survive. Then again, losing your windows could screw you for the next phase.

    Next phase: Assuming you have survived the immediate effects, you have about 15 minutes to get to shelter. Because that white dust will start to fall. Get under cover NOW.

    That white dust is all gamma emitters (can't remember if they give off alpha and beta, but both of those are very easily blocked by almost anything solid). And you do NOT want to ingest or inhale a gamma emitter.

    If in a house, you'd better have blocked off your windows post-shattering. Dust drifting in is very bad.

    Stay as far away from the roof and walls as you can (so the reach of the gamma radiation is reduced). Good news: about half the radioactivity is gone in the first hour or so. About 80% within the day. But it takes a couple of weeks to drop to 99% gone. It will, though, be safe sometime after that.

    Now you've just got to survive in a post-apocalyptic world. Good luck!
    It’s a bleak subject to discuss, but I’m left wondering about the filters in a modern car. If you’ve survived, and so has the car, but you’re vulnerable to fallout; you might be best off starting to drive somewhere more remote and up wind.
    That might be a good idea. Some Teslas apparently have incredibly good air filtration possible. As long as there's no EMP that took out the electrics (even non-electric cars are so reliant on computers and embedded chips that they ain't moving after an EMP).
    EMP is often exaggerated. To be a major problem would require some nuclear detonations very high in the atmosphere - practically in orbit. Even then most electronic would actually survive. Some specific things would blow - the grid for example.
    People are working on that.
    https://techxplore.com/news/2022-03-record-breaking-ultrafast-devices-power-grid.html
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 50,255

    Nigelb said:

    .

    Russia is moving a substanial amont of military equipment out of occupied South Ossetia.

    @chambersharold8
    Column of equipment being moved out of South Ossetia. Sighting reported around Alagir, North Osseta


    https://twitter.com/chambersharold8/status/1504485646026506241

    Where to ?
    Not on transporters, those tanks are going nowhere anytime soon.
    In the Former Soviet Union - where is the nearest train line?
    Googled around - there is a railway station in Belsan. The lines go in the right direction......
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 71,070
    The occupiers damaged the high-voltage power line of the Zaporizhzhya NPP. Of the four high-voltage lines, only one is currently active. Damage cannot be repaired due to hostilities.

    Zaporizhzhya NPP has 6 reactors and 6 pools that need to be cooled

    https://twitter.com/Hromadske/status/1504487472784449538
  • TimS said:

    Thinking through the morbid maths here.

    I understand Russia has around 6,000 warheads but the internet tells me they have around 1,500 "strategic" warheads i.e. ones that could be launched via ICBMs, heavy bombers or other means of getting them to distant targets like Britain and the USA. So 1,500: let's assume not all those get fired even in a true WW3 event - some get shot out of the sky by THAAD systems, some fail to detonate, some never make it out of their silos. Perhaps 1,000.

    Let's say there population of target countries in this long range is about 600 million - populations of the USA, Canada, Europe West of Germany or South of the Alps. So proportionally Britain would get a little over 10% of those. Maybe in reality we get more because we're a nuclear armed enemy - 20% say, with fewer falling on Italy, Iberia etc. That's 200 warheads for the UK. Enough to wipe out our means of functioning as a country and irradiate the whole landmass, yet not anywhere near enough to cause physical damage to more than our cities, suburbs and military bases. Most of the country would look the same s before the exchange. Cotswold villages would still glow in the afternoon sunshine with roses growing up the walls. Small market towns would still have their fully intact high streets and squares. It's a strange prospect.

    Would those Cotswold villages also glow at night?

    Seriously though, wouldn't everyone die from radiation poisoning soon after?

    Edit: Apols, I see this has been covered down thread (upthread?). I will take a read - module 101 on Nuclear Fallout at PB Uni.
    On survival of nukes.

    - If out of doors, it depends on how close you are to the burst/size of burst. If you're actually in the fireball, goodbye. Vaporised. However, warheads sized 1 megatonne and under that are airburst have little if any of the fireball actually touch the ground.
    - You've got the area of total/near-total destruction (20psi damage and up). Again, not the wide. Not really needed, though.
    - The range out to around 5psi will knock down most residential buildings, and that's quite a long way out. Say, 4-5 miles from the burst. If you're closer to this, you haven't got much chance. Best chance is probably to be out of doors and in a ditch.
    - The thermal pulse will give third-degree burns to those out to about 7-8 miles from the burst. However, you really just need to get out of line of sight. Being behind almost anything solid will save you. Unfortunately, if you're in the within-5psi range, whatever you're hiding behind will likely fall down, which could make things worse for you. Again, get in that ditch if you can.

    At this point, if you are in a ditch, you need to wait for both shockwaves - the outwards one and the inwards one that chases the near-vacuum produced by the outwards one. I was once told "Wait for the bus that flew over you in one direction to fly back over you the other way."

    - Beyond this distance, things become more (immediately) survivable. The blast diminishes with distance - out at maybe 12-15 miles from the blast (all these guesstimates are based on the 800kt-1mt size), the blast will fall below 1psi. Enough to shatter windows, but most houses will survive. Then again, losing your windows could screw you for the next phase.

    Next phase: Assuming you have survived the immediate effects, you have about 15 minutes to get to shelter. Because that white dust will start to fall. Get under cover NOW.

    That white dust is all gamma emitters (can't remember if they give off alpha and beta, but both of those are very easily blocked by almost anything solid). And you do NOT want to ingest or inhale a gamma emitter.

    If in a house, you'd better have blocked off your windows post-shattering. Dust drifting in is very bad.

    Stay as far away from the roof and walls as you can (so the reach of the gamma radiation is reduced). Good news: about half the radioactivity is gone in the first hour or so. About 80% within the day. But it takes a couple of weeks to drop to 99% gone. It will, though, be safe sometime after that.

    Now you've just got to survive in a post-apocalyptic world. Good luck!
    What's the range of the initial gamma-ray burst? Read somewhere you have to be behind a couple of feet of concrete to avoid that? Even if you avoid fall-out won't that fry your DNA?
    https://nuclearsecrecy.com/nukemap/ - you can try it out for yourself...
    So that looks like even if both Liverpool and Manchester got nuked with Russia's largest existing warhead then towns in-between like Warrington would be spared any of the blast damage?

    I wouldn't have guessed that.
  • ApplicantApplicant Posts: 3,379
    edited March 2022

    dixiedean said:

    Another sign of the apocalypse.
    A Thursday without a Council by-election.
    Life not worth living anyways.

    Too many syllables: a proper haiku is 5:7:5
    Can get there with a bit of pruning, though:

    Apocalypse now:
    By-elections? None today
    Life not worth living
  • SelebianSelebian Posts: 8,727

    rcs1000 said:

    Andy_JS said:

    rcs1000 said:

    rcs1000 said:

    RobD said:

    Andy_JS said:

    Idiots. Time to get rid of mask altogether and forever.
    There appears to be an abundance of international evidence that masking is near or completely useless against omicron (e.g. Hong Kong, NZ). It's not clear why anyone would persisting with an intrusive, antisocial measure for no obvious health benefit.
    Has there been a scientific study demonstrating this?
    I can't see how @Anabobazina can come to that conclusion. If one has a respiratory tract infection, and one wears a mask, then (a) the pace/speed at which viral matter comes out the mouth is slowed dramatically, and (b) a significant portion is simply goìng to get trapped by the mask.

    Now, it's entirely possible that - because Omicron is so infectious - that R0 only coms down to (say) 2 with compulsory masking. It's also fine to say that, given high levels of natural immunity and vaccinations, then the benefits of compulsory masking are outweighed by its costs.

    But it is clearly rubbish to claim - without evidence - that it does nothing to reduce transmission rates.

    And in countries with limited natural immunity (*cough* China) it it probably essential to minimise viral load recieved by the immune naïve, and slow the spread of the disease.
    I said "there appears to be" and "near or completely useless". I am simply reading off from the numbers abroad. I haven't come to any confirmed conclusion. I am simply asking why anyone would persist with the masks in the absence of much evidence of their effectiveness against omicron. They do, after all, have massive downsides of their own.
    Yeah, but an R of 3 and an R of 2.5 both show ridiculously steep curves, that it would be very hard to tell apart by simple eyeballing. And yet the former case will result in a 80% of cases happening in a four week period and infections reaching 80% of the population, while in the latter, it's five and a half weeks and 62%.

    We are lucky as a nation that (a) lots of us have had Covid, and (b) everyone has been vaccinated (often triple vaccinated) with decent Western vaccines. And we should probably have removed mask mandates earlier

    But in China, yeah, they should probably keep them. It'll be utterly shit even with them... but it won't be quite as shit as it would otherwise be.
    I assume everyone, or nearly everyone, in Hong Kong is still wearing masks. Why, then, are they having a terrible Covid problem atm?
    Because R of 2.5 still gives you a terrible Covid problem - it's just slightly better than it would be with an R of 3.
    There's one thing and only one thing that doesn't give you a terrible Covid problem.

    8 letter word, starts with a 'v'.
    'Vladimir'?

    (Gives you different terrible problems, though)
  • TheuniondivvieTheuniondivvie Posts: 41,958
    edited March 2022
    Lol.

    ‘My suspicions were aroused when the impostor asked whether Ukrainian or Russian chicks were hottest.’

    https://twitter.com/bwallacemp/status/1504486042048425988?s=21
  • dixiedeandixiedean Posts: 29,401
    edited March 2022
    Apocalypse now.
    Peter Bone and Sir John Hayes
    Cheer on RMT.

    That better?
  • philiphphiliph Posts: 4,704

    rcs1000 said:

    TimS said:

    Thinking through the morbid maths here.

    I understand Russia has around 6,000 warheads but the internet tells me they have around 1,500 "strategic" warheads i.e. ones that could be launched via ICBMs, heavy bombers or other means of getting them to distant targets like Britain and the USA. So 1,500: let's assume not all those get fired even in a true WW3 event - some get shot out of the sky by THAAD systems, some fail to detonate, some never make it out of their silos. Perhaps 1,000.

    Let's say there population of target countries in this long range is about 600 million - populations of the USA, Canada, Europe West of Germany or South of the Alps. So proportionally Britain would get a little over 10% of those. Maybe in reality we get more because we're a nuclear armed enemy - 20% say, with fewer falling on Italy, Iberia etc. That's 200 warheads for the UK. Enough to wipe out our means of functioning as a country and irradiate the whole landmass, yet not anywhere near enough to cause physical damage to more than our cities, suburbs and military bases. Most of the country would look the same s before the exchange. Cotswold villages would still glow in the afternoon sunshine with roses growing up the walls. Small market towns would still have their fully intact high streets and squares. It's a strange prospect.

    I would be staggered if two thirds of Russian warheads made it to their destinations. I think a third would be optimistic.
    How would the roses grow if everything is irradiated?

    In commercial rose production in Poland there was an increased incidence of genetic variability visible through change of flower colour post Chernobyl.
    While this flower colour change happens naturally in rare instances and is more common in certain cultivars it was visible with greater frequency the year after Chernobyl.

  • FossFoss Posts: 1,019
    .

    biggles said:

    TimS said:

    Thinking through the morbid maths here.

    I understand Russia has around 6,000 warheads but the internet tells me they have around 1,500 "strategic" warheads i.e. ones that could be launched via ICBMs, heavy bombers or other means of getting them to distant targets like Britain and the USA. So 1,500: let's assume not all those get fired even in a true WW3 event - some get shot out of the sky by THAAD systems, some fail to detonate, some never make it out of their silos. Perhaps 1,000.

    Let's say there population of target countries in this long range is about 600 million - populations of the USA, Canada, Europe West of Germany or South of the Alps. So proportionally Britain would get a little over 10% of those. Maybe in reality we get more because we're a nuclear armed enemy - 20% say, with fewer falling on Italy, Iberia etc. That's 200 warheads for the UK. Enough to wipe out our means of functioning as a country and irradiate the whole landmass, yet not anywhere near enough to cause physical damage to more than our cities, suburbs and military bases. Most of the country would look the same s before the exchange. Cotswold villages would still glow in the afternoon sunshine with roses growing up the walls. Small market towns would still have their fully intact high streets and squares. It's a strange prospect.

    Would those Cotswold villages also glow at night?

    Seriously though, wouldn't everyone die from radiation poisoning soon after?

    Edit: Apols, I see this has been covered down thread (upthread?). I will take a read - module 101 on Nuclear Fallout at PB Uni.
    On survival of nukes.

    - If out of doors, it depends on how close you are to the burst/size of burst. If you're actually in the fireball, goodbye. Vaporised. However, warheads sized 1 megatonne and under that are airburst have little if any of the fireball actually touch the ground.
    - You've got the area of total/near-total destruction (20psi damage and up). Again, not the wide. Not really needed, though.
    - The range out to around 5psi will knock down most residential buildings, and that's quite a long way out. Say, 4-5 miles from the burst. If you're closer to this, you haven't got much chance. Best chance is probably to be out of doors and in a ditch.
    - The thermal pulse will give third-degree burns to those out to about 7-8 miles from the burst. However, you really just need to get out of line of sight. Being behind almost anything solid will save you. Unfortunately, if you're in the within-5psi range, whatever you're hiding behind will likely fall down, which could make things worse for you. Again, get in that ditch if you can.

    At this point, if you are in a ditch, you need to wait for both shockwaves - the outwards one and the inwards one that chases the near-vacuum produced by the outwards one. I was once told "Wait for the bus that flew over you in one direction to fly back over you the other way."

    - Beyond this distance, things become more (immediately) survivable. The blast diminishes with distance - out at maybe 12-15 miles from the blast (all these guesstimates are based on the 800kt-1mt size), the blast will fall below 1psi. Enough to shatter windows, but most houses will survive. Then again, losing your windows could screw you for the next phase.

    Next phase: Assuming you have survived the immediate effects, you have about 15 minutes to get to shelter. Because that white dust will start to fall. Get under cover NOW.

    That white dust is all gamma emitters (can't remember if they give off alpha and beta, but both of those are very easily blocked by almost anything solid). And you do NOT want to ingest or inhale a gamma emitter.

    If in a house, you'd better have blocked off your windows post-shattering. Dust drifting in is very bad.

    Stay as far away from the roof and walls as you can (so the reach of the gamma radiation is reduced). Good news: about half the radioactivity is gone in the first hour or so. About 80% within the day. But it takes a couple of weeks to drop to 99% gone. It will, though, be safe sometime after that.

    Now you've just got to survive in a post-apocalyptic world. Good luck!
    It’s a bleak subject to discuss, but I’m left wondering about the filters in a modern car. If you’ve survived, and so has the car, but you’re vulnerable to fallout; you might be best off starting to drive somewhere more remote and up wind.
    Dredging up all my 1980s fear facts, is EMP still a thing? From memory it was suggested that it could knock out everything including cars, but we may have..er..progressed since then.
    Yes it is. Though to create a serious EMP, takes a deliberate explosion, in space.
    That was, however, how the attack started in Threads.
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 122,921

    HYUFD said:

    TimS said:

    Thinking through the morbid maths here.

    I understand Russia has around 6,000 warheads but the internet tells me they have around 1,500 "strategic" warheads i.e. ones that could be launched via ICBMs, heavy bombers or other means of getting them to distant targets like Britain and the USA. So 1,500: let's assume not all those get fired even in a true WW3 event - some get shot out of the sky by THAAD systems, some fail to detonate, some never make it out of their silos. Perhaps 1,000.

    Let's say there population of target countries in this long range is about 600 million - populations of the USA, Canada, Europe West of Germany or South of the Alps. So proportionally Britain would get a little over 10% of those. Maybe in reality we get more because we're a nuclear armed enemy - 20% say, with fewer falling on Italy, Iberia etc. That's 200 warheads for the UK. Enough to wipe out our means of functioning as a country and irradiate the whole landmass, yet not anywhere near enough to cause physical damage to more than our cities, suburbs and military bases. Most of the country would look the same s before the exchange. Cotswold villages would still glow in the afternoon sunshine with roses growing up the walls. Small market towns would still have their fully intact high streets and squares. It's a strange prospect.

    Given our active nuclear missiles will be on submarines at sea not on land then it does not matter how many nukes the Russians hit us with the response would still be the same. The same largely applies to the French and the US missiles furthest reach is on its submarines too
    Miss!

    He's pointing his nukes at people again..
    Well at least if I was PM Putin wouldn't mess with me
  • OnlyLivingBoyOnlyLivingBoy Posts: 15,779
    Completing my first overseas trip since early 2020, a short work trip to Frankfurt. Feeling really fucking depressed getting my passport stamped like a pariah, watching Irish tourists sailing through the EU channel.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 55,277

    Completing my first overseas trip since early 2020, a short work trip to Frankfurt. Feeling really fucking depressed getting my passport stamped like a pariah, watching Irish tourists sailing through the EU channel.

    You quickly get used to it
  • carnforthcarnforth Posts: 4,587

    Completing my first overseas trip since early 2020, a short work trip to Frankfurt. Feeling really fucking depressed getting my passport stamped like a pariah, watching Irish tourists sailing through the EU channel.

    Did they make you stand in a queue with dirty brown people? Diddums.
  • JACK_WJACK_W Posts: 682

    Russia is moving a substanial amont of military equipment out of occupied South Ossetia.

    @chambersharold8
    Column of equipment being moved out of South Ossetia. Sighting reported around Alagir, North Osseta


    https://twitter.com/chambersharold8/status/1504485646026506241

    Ukrainian farmers say Hi .. :sunglasses:
  • carnforthcarnforth Posts: 4,587

    carnforth said:

    Completing my first overseas trip since early 2020, a short work trip to Frankfurt. Feeling really fucking depressed getting my passport stamped like a pariah, watching Irish tourists sailing through the EU channel.

    Did they make you stand in a queue with dirty brown people? Diddums.
    Fuck off, my kids are "dirty brown people" you pathetic Leaver shit bag.
    I was mocking you, not invoking the words myself. But then, of course, you know that.
  • Richard_TyndallRichard_Tyndall Posts: 32,523
    edited March 2022
    tlg86 said:

    biggles said:

    TimS said:

    Thinking through the morbid maths here.

    I understand Russia has around 6,000 warheads but the internet tells me they have around 1,500 "strategic" warheads i.e. ones that could be launched via ICBMs, heavy bombers or other means of getting them to distant targets like Britain and the USA. So 1,500: let's assume not all those get fired even in a true WW3 event - some get shot out of the sky by THAAD systems, some fail to detonate, some never make it out of their silos. Perhaps 1,000.

    Let's say there population of target countries in this long range is about 600 million - populations of the USA, Canada, Europe West of Germany or South of the Alps. So proportionally Britain would get a little over 10% of those. Maybe in reality we get more because we're a nuclear armed enemy - 20% say, with fewer falling on Italy, Iberia etc. That's 200 warheads for the UK. Enough to wipe out our means of functioning as a country and irradiate the whole landmass, yet not anywhere near enough to cause physical damage to more than our cities, suburbs and military bases. Most of the country would look the same s before the exchange. Cotswold villages would still glow in the afternoon sunshine with roses growing up the walls. Small market towns would still have their fully intact high streets and squares. It's a strange prospect.

    Would those Cotswold villages also glow at night?

    Seriously though, wouldn't everyone die from radiation poisoning soon after?

    Edit: Apols, I see this has been covered down thread (upthread?). I will take a read - module 101 on Nuclear Fallout at PB Uni.
    On survival of nukes.

    - If out of doors, it depends on how close you are to the burst/size of burst. If you're actually in the fireball, goodbye. Vaporised. However, warheads sized 1 megatonne and under that are airburst have little if any of the fireball actually touch the ground.
    - You've got the area of total/near-total destruction (20psi damage and up). Again, not the wide. Not really needed, though.
    - The range out to around 5psi will knock down most residential buildings, and that's quite a long way out. Say, 4-5 miles from the burst. If you're closer to this, you haven't got much chance. Best chance is probably to be out of doors and in a ditch.
    - The thermal pulse will give third-degree burns to those out to about 7-8 miles from the burst. However, you really just need to get out of line of sight. Being behind almost anything solid will save you. Unfortunately, if you're in the within-5psi range, whatever you're hiding behind will likely fall down, which could make things worse for you. Again, get in that ditch if you can.

    At this point, if you are in a ditch, you need to wait for both shockwaves - the outwards one and the inwards one that chases the near-vacuum produced by the outwards one. I was once told "Wait for the bus that flew over you in one direction to fly back over you the other way."

    - Beyond this distance, things become more (immediately) survivable. The blast diminishes with distance - out at maybe 12-15 miles from the blast (all these guesstimates are based on the 800kt-1mt size), the blast will fall below 1psi. Enough to shatter windows, but most houses will survive. Then again, losing your windows could screw you for the next phase.

    Next phase: Assuming you have survived the immediate effects, you have about 15 minutes to get to shelter. Because that white dust will start to fall. Get under cover NOW.

    That white dust is all gamma emitters (can't remember if they give off alpha and beta, but both of those are very easily blocked by almost anything solid). And you do NOT want to ingest or inhale a gamma emitter.

    If in a house, you'd better have blocked off your windows post-shattering. Dust drifting in is very bad.

    Stay as far away from the roof and walls as you can (so the reach of the gamma radiation is reduced). Good news: about half the radioactivity is gone in the first hour or so. About 80% within the day. But it takes a couple of weeks to drop to 99% gone. It will, though, be safe sometime after that.

    Now you've just got to survive in a post-apocalyptic world. Good luck!
    It’s a bleak subject to discuss, but I’m left wondering about the filters in a modern car. If you’ve survived, and so has the car, but you’re vulnerable to fallout; you might be best off starting to drive somewhere more remote and up wind.
    Your car won't work. My dad's 1930s Riley might...
    My Dad had a 1935 Riley Falcon that he renovated. Wonderful car with an ash frame.

    Inherited by my Brother-in-Law who loves all things mechanical. (For me a car is just a comfy seat to get you from A to B as easily as possible. Preferably with a good sound system).
  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 57,153

    rcs1000 said:

    Andy_JS said:

    rcs1000 said:

    rcs1000 said:

    RobD said:

    Andy_JS said:

    Idiots. Time to get rid of mask altogether and forever.
    There appears to be an abundance of international evidence that masking is near or completely useless against omicron (e.g. Hong Kong, NZ). It's not clear why anyone would persisting with an intrusive, antisocial measure for no obvious health benefit.
    Has there been a scientific study demonstrating this?
    I can't see how @Anabobazina can come to that conclusion. If one has a respiratory tract infection, and one wears a mask, then (a) the pace/speed at which viral matter comes out the mouth is slowed dramatically, and (b) a significant portion is simply goìng to get trapped by the mask.

    Now, it's entirely possible that - because Omicron is so infectious - that R0 only coms down to (say) 2 with compulsory masking. It's also fine to say that, given high levels of natural immunity and vaccinations, then the benefits of compulsory masking are outweighed by its costs.

    But it is clearly rubbish to claim - without evidence - that it does nothing to reduce transmission rates.

    And in countries with limited natural immunity (*cough* China) it it probably essential to minimise viral load recieved by the immune naïve, and slow the spread of the disease.
    I said "there appears to be" and "near or completely useless". I am simply reading off from the numbers abroad. I haven't come to any confirmed conclusion. I am simply asking why anyone would persist with the masks in the absence of much evidence of their effectiveness against omicron. They do, after all, have massive downsides of their own.
    Yeah, but an R of 3 and an R of 2.5 both show ridiculously steep curves, that it would be very hard to tell apart by simple eyeballing. And yet the former case will result in a 80% of cases happening in a four week period and infections reaching 80% of the population, while in the latter, it's five and a half weeks and 62%.

    We are lucky as a nation that (a) lots of us have had Covid, and (b) everyone has been vaccinated (often triple vaccinated) with decent Western vaccines. And we should probably have removed mask mandates earlier

    But in China, yeah, they should probably keep them. It'll be utterly shit even with them... but it won't be quite as shit as it would otherwise be.
    I assume everyone, or nearly everyone, in Hong Kong is still wearing masks. Why, then, are they having a terrible Covid problem atm?
    Because R of 2.5 still gives you a terrible Covid problem - it's just slightly better than it would be with an R of 3.
    There's one thing and only one thing that doesn't give you a terrible Covid problem.

    8 letter word, starts with a 'v'.
    you forget the seven letter word that come before the eight letter one - begins with a "w"
  • IshmaelZIshmaelZ Posts: 21,830
    carnforth said:

    carnforth said:

    Completing my first overseas trip since early 2020, a short work trip to Frankfurt. Feeling really fucking depressed getting my passport stamped like a pariah, watching Irish tourists sailing through the EU channel.

    Did they make you stand in a queue with dirty brown people? Diddums.
    Fuck off, my kids are "dirty brown people" you pathetic Leaver shit bag.
    I was mocking you, not invoking the words myself. But then, of course, you know that.
    Catastrophic fail. Just catastrophic.

    But then, of course, you know that.
  • JohnLilburneJohnLilburne Posts: 6,241
    JACK_W said:

    Russia is moving a substanial amont of military equipment out of occupied South Ossetia.

    @chambersharold8
    Column of equipment being moved out of South Ossetia. Sighting reported around Alagir, North Osseta


    https://twitter.com/chambersharold8/status/1504485646026506241

    Ukrainian farmers say Hi .. :sunglasses:
    Georgian Army says gamarjoba
  • FlatlanderFlatlander Posts: 4,665
    edited March 2022
    JACK_W said:

    Russia is moving a substanial amont of military equipment out of occupied South Ossetia.

    @chambersharold8
    Column of equipment being moved out of South Ossetia. Sighting reported around Alagir, North Osseta


    https://twitter.com/chambersharold8/status/1504485646026506241

    Ukrainian farmers say Hi .. :sunglasses:
    You think they'll make it that far before breaking down? Optimistic.
  • Northern_AlNorthern_Al Posts: 8,377
    edited March 2022
    On the nuclear threat, I don't think any of our more mature readers has mentioned nuclear-free zones. Back in the 1980s, many of us metropolitan lefties and luvvies lived in London Labour boroughs or cities that designated themselves as nuclear-free zones. Very sensible. I think these should be re-introduced to protect those of us who live in such places - I'm sure they'd work against Putin.

    So if you lived in Camden, Islington or Hackney, you'd be safe. Unlike Bexley, Barnet or Bromley, where you'd be buggered. Sheffield safe. Harrogate irradiated. Happy days.
  • ApplicantApplicant Posts: 3,379

    Completing my first overseas trip since early 2020, a short work trip to Frankfurt. Feeling really fucking depressed getting my passport stamped like a pariah, watching Irish tourists sailing through the EU channel.

    "like a pariah"? Well, it's good to see that the ridiculous over-reacting has stopped.
  • OnlyLivingBoyOnlyLivingBoy Posts: 15,779
    carnforth said:

    carnforth said:

    Completing my first overseas trip since early 2020, a short work trip to Frankfurt. Feeling really fucking depressed getting my passport stamped like a pariah, watching Irish tourists sailing through the EU channel.

    Did they make you stand in a queue with dirty brown people? Diddums.
    Fuck off, my kids are "dirty brown people" you pathetic Leaver shit bag.
    I was mocking you, not invoking the words myself. But then, of course, you know that.
    I guessed that, although if you are a Leaver then who knows. I was objecting to your attribution of these views to me, a thoroughly nasty slur. So respectfully, go fuck yourself.
  • JohnLilburneJohnLilburne Posts: 6,241

    Completing my first overseas trip since early 2020, a short work trip to Frankfurt. Feeling really fucking depressed getting my passport stamped like a pariah, watching Irish tourists sailing through the EU channel.

    Meanwhile non-EU Albania doesn't seem to feel the need to do any of that shit, they don't seem to have bothered to stamp my passport. Unlike the Spanish who stamped it in at Malaga and out at La Linea. It really says more about our former EU partners than it says about us.
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 42,134
    kyf_100 said:

    Open threat by Russia’s ambassador to Bosnia and Herzegovina. He says joining NATO is an internal matter for BiH but “the other thing is our reaction. The example of Ukraine shows what we expect. If there’s a threat we will react.”

    https://twitter.com/tobyvogel/status/1504469354531885072

    It is only a matter of a short time before the Balkans explodes again I am sorry to say.
    What makes you so sure?

    Having said that, if Putin wants to add fronts against the West, perhaps the Balkans is one hotspot.

    I’d have thought the Middle East a more likely candidate, tbh.
    Putin has been meddling with separatists and associated nationalists in the region for years. I'm sure if he thought the timing was right he could organize it all kicking off with say Repulika Srpska.


    If he sent the Serbs into Kosovo then Albania might intervene. And they're a NATO member. Lots of bunkers, though.
    There are quite a few Albanians called "Tonibler" in honour of our former PM.
    I have just come to the realisation that "Tony Blair" sounds an awful lot like "Toe nibbler" with an Italian accent.
    Who must exist in decent numbers when you think about it - toe nibblers with Italian accents.
  • bigglesbiggles Posts: 6,052

    On the nuclear threat, I don't think any of our more mature readers has mentioned nuclear-free zones. Back in the 1980s, many of us metropolitan lefties and luvvies lived in London Labour boroughs or cities that designated themselves as nuclear-free zones. Very sensible. I think these should be re-introduced to protect those of us who live in such places - I'm sure they'd work against Putin.

    So if you lived in Camden, Islington or Hackney, you'd be safe. Unlike Bexley, Barnet or Bromley, where you'd be buggered. Sheffield safe. Harrogate irradiated. Happy days.

    I’m going the other way. I’m off to Greenham Common to protest for the immediate reintroduction of some cruise missiles.
  • On the nuclear threat, I don't think any of our more mature readers has mentioned nuclear-free zones. Back in the 1980s, many of us metropolitan lefties and luvvies lived in London Labour boroughs or cities that designated themselves as nuclear-free zones. Very sensible. I think these should be re-introduced to protect those of us who live in such places - I'm sure they'd work against Putin.

    So if you lived in Camden, Islington or Hackney, you'd be safe. Unlike Bexley, Barnet or Bromley, where you'd be buggered. Sheffield safe. Harrogate irradiated. Happy days.

    The Nuclear Free Zone Movement in the United Kingdom was very strong in early 1980s; up to two hundred local authorities including county councils, district councils and city councils such as the Greater London Council (GLC) (before its abolition) declared themselves to be 'nuclear free'. The first 'nuclear-free zone' in the UK was Manchester City Council in 1980 – this still exists to this day. Wales became 'nuclear free' on 23 February 1982 after Clwyd County Council declared itself 'nuclear free' and the Nuclear Free Wales Declaration was made. This policy was legally underpinned by Section 137 of the Local Government Act, which allowed local authorities to spend a small amount on whatever members considered was in the interest of their area or a part of their area.

    UK nuclear-free local authorities refused to take part in civil defence exercises relating to nuclear war, which they thought were futile. The non-cooperation of the nuclear-free zone authorities was the main reason for the cancellation of the national 'Hard Rock' civil defence exercise in July 1982. In England and Wales 24 of the 54 county councils refused to participate and seven more co-operated only in a half-hearted way.[27] This has been seen as a victory for the British Peace movement against the policies of Margaret Thatcher. Generally, nuclear-free zones were predominantly Labour Party controlled councils but Liberal Party and even a few Conservative Party councillors were often active in this respect too.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear-free_zone#United_Kingdom
  • IanB2IanB2 Posts: 49,860

    boulay said:

    TimS said:

    Thinking through the morbid maths here.

    I understand Russia has around 6,000 warheads but the internet tells me they have around 1,500 "strategic" warheads i.e. ones that could be launched via ICBMs, heavy bombers or other means of getting them to distant targets like Britain and the USA. So 1,500: let's assume not all those get fired even in a true WW3 event - some get shot out of the sky by THAAD systems, some fail to detonate, some never make it out of their silos. Perhaps 1,000.

    Let's say there population of target countries in this long range is about 600 million - populations of the USA, Canada, Europe West of Germany or South of the Alps. So proportionally Britain would get a little over 10% of those. Maybe in reality we get more because we're a nuclear armed enemy - 20% say, with fewer falling on Italy, Iberia etc. That's 200 warheads for the UK. Enough to wipe out our means of functioning as a country and irradiate the whole landmass, yet not anywhere near enough to cause physical damage to more than our cities, suburbs and military bases. Most of the country would look the same s before the exchange. Cotswold villages would still glow in the afternoon sunshine with roses growing up the walls. Small market towns would still have their fully intact high streets and squares. It's a strange prospect.

    I think Cotswold villages would be glowing with or without the afternoon sunshine.
    Yes, but they wold be nearly all intact. Russian nukes are larger than their Western equivalents - probably accuracy issues. But blast and thermal effects don't scale linearly.

    Lets say we nuke Oxford with a 450Kt weapon. The circle is the damage radius.

    image
    Crime would go down massively as Blackbird Lees gets tonked.

    Safest place is Cambridge. No way they zap their spies....
    Why would the target and indifferent polytechnic in a swamp, anyway?
    Because it churns out useful stuff like highly talented scientists and engineers and mathematicians and geographers.

    The PPEs that Oxford produces are doing so much damage to the country already that dropping a bomb on it would be counter-productive.
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 50,255
    biggles said:

    On the nuclear threat, I don't think any of our more mature readers has mentioned nuclear-free zones. Back in the 1980s, many of us metropolitan lefties and luvvies lived in London Labour boroughs or cities that designated themselves as nuclear-free zones. Very sensible. I think these should be re-introduced to protect those of us who live in such places - I'm sure they'd work against Putin.

    So if you lived in Camden, Islington or Hackney, you'd be safe. Unlike Bexley, Barnet or Bromley, where you'd be buggered. Sheffield safe. Harrogate irradiated. Happy days.

    I’m going the other way. I’m off to Greenham Common to protest for the immediate reintroduction of some cruise missiles.
    The Worlds End in Camden, I think, still has the nuclear free zone sign up.

    I never asked if they would bar you if you tried to bring a nuclear weapon into the pub, though.


    I felt like a punk who’d gone out for a switchblade and come back with a tactical nuke.
    “Shit,” I said, “screwed again. What good’s a tactical nuke in a streetfight?”
    — William Gibson, Burning Chrome
This discussion has been closed.