Today’s map: Little Boy

[Brian Howell]

70 years ago today, the United States first employed a nuclear bomb as a weapon against an enemy. And, of course, a second one was deployed just days later. Japan records over 292,000 hibakusha, literally "explosion affected people" in Hiroshima—and another 165,500 hibakusha in Nagasaki.

And so, began the cold war and the (rapid) militarization of nuclear weapons. 

Today the world's nuclear weapons stockpile numbers more than 15,500 with the U.S. and Russia accounting for 93% of them. And the stockpile has shrunk by 2/3 since the 1980s. The U.S.’s 2,150 deployed (fully operational) nuclear weapons' combined explosive force exceeds a gigaton, collectively capable of laying waste an area four times the area of the United States including Hawai‘i and Alaska. (An additional 2,500 bombs are stockpiled and approximately 3,000 are awaiting disarmament.)

 

For a better feel of what all this means, check out http://nuclearsecrecy.com/nukemap/. It's an interactive map that allows you to detonate a variety of nuclear weapons over the geographic area of your choice. Try bombing San Francisco (or any other city that grabs your fancy) with a B-83. The B-83 is the currently deployed U.S. weapon with the highest megaton yield (1.2Mt).

http://www.telesurtv.net/english/news/United-States-Has-Enough-Operational-Nuclear-Weapons-to-Destroy-Itself-Four-Times-20140914-0033.html

http://www.ploughshares.org/world-nuclear-stockpile-report

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atomic_bombings_of_Hiroshima_and_Nagasaki#Hiroshima_during_World_War_II

[jack saunders]

By the time I got to Livermore in 1975, the game had changed.

Curtis Lemay and company were gone. 

Build up as a concept was gone.

It had become a much more nuanced strategy.

The only objective was to keep it a game nobody could possibly win.

This meant constant game theory tinkering with all those inventory numbers which Brian and the world found so obscenely bloated -- and which MIRV had thrown into a cocked hat.

From an unimpeachable source, I heard about a session where Soviet scientists visited the lab for a secret briefing.

The briefing was to end as soon as Teller's hand picked young turk could sense that they "got it."

It had to do with x-ray lasers.

At some point young Lowell Wood said, "OK, that will be all."

Security men marched on the black board and literally walked it out of the room and into a nearby vault.

"Thank you for your interest in our program."

 

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From: Brian Howell <bdho...@gmail.com>
To: Ipse Dixit <Ipse-...@googlegroups.com>
Sent: Thursday, August 6, 2015 9:06 PM
Subject: [Ipse Dixit] Today’s map: Little Boy

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[Brian Howell]

I detonated an air burst W-53 Titan II 9Mt warhead at 6,500’ centered on San Francisco. I also opted to account for fallout asked for casualty calculations. The W-53 was the highest yield weapon ever deployed by the United States. (That means it was in the silos, folks, waiting for someone to “press the button.” 

I killed 818,640 people directly and injured 1,183,820 more. With one bomb. 

Dropping the same single warhead on Los Angeles (sorry, Matt), resulted in 1,867,000 fatalities and 3,600,000 casualties.

Our current weapon of choice, the B-83 is less substantial, resulting in just 690,330 dead and 1,751,000 injured for L.A.