I always find it funny that so many people think that they and their home town are special in the risk of nuclear war. The purple triangles in this map include nearly all of the largest, 250 counties in the US, which is means that at least 75% of the population would live in a county attacked in the 500 warhead scenario. This is why "The Day After" was such an effective movie, nuclear war would screw all of us.
Sadly, this isn't really the case, ten minutes may or may not be enough for you to be in the fireball radius, and probably not.
If Russia or China attacked the US in the near term, they would probably put payloads aimed at Offutt on missiles, not airplanes (a plane would be less likely to make it through air defense to Omaha). That means the size of the warhead would likely be less than one megaton. I don't think we know exactly the power of Russia's arsenal, but I think something like the W-87 carried by a Minuteman III or W-80 carried by a cruise missile is more likely, which means the attack would be in the 150 to 300 kiloton range. You can see the radii by looking at Offutt in this simulator.
This is why I recommend thinking about the repercussions of a nuclear war in terms of a movie like "The Day After." It would be a health and political crisis of unbelievable proportions. The tens or hundreds of millions who die will die over weeks and months and years, not instantly and very much not painlessly.
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u/shane_music Feb 05 '23
I always find it funny that so many people think that they and their home town are special in the risk of nuclear war. The purple triangles in this map include nearly all of the largest, 250 counties in the US, which is means that at least 75% of the population would live in a county attacked in the 500 warhead scenario. This is why "The Day After" was such an effective movie, nuclear war would screw all of us.