Nuclear War: How Bad Would It Be?

[steve_bank]

The survivors will be those that can be self sufficient, like rural 3rd world populations.

Places like NYC will be a cemetery. When supplies run low people will turn on each other. It does not take much for the thin veneer of civility to break down.

Even those rural 3rd world populations will be in danger from the mobs from the cities.

I was meaning places like the Andes Mountains and Tibet.

As to the USA people will likely form into armed groups. Farmers might trade fuel for food, and so on.

How long can people go without food? Mobs will take all the canned and preserved foods. That lasts a while. I have heard it said supermarkets have enough supplies for maybe 2 weeks before empty shelves.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

The survivors will be those that can be self sufficient, like rural 3rd world populations.

Places like NYC will be a cemetery. When supplies run low people will turn on each other. It does not take much for the thin veneer of civility to break down.

Even those rural 3rd world populations will be in danger from the mobs from the cities.

I was meaning places like the Andes Mountains and Tibet.

As to the USA people will likely form into armed groups. Farmers might trade fuel for food, and so on.

How long can people go without food? Mobs will take all the canned and preserved foods. That lasts a while. I have heard it said supermarkets have enough supplies for maybe 2 weeks before empty shelves.

Two weeks? The pandemic has shown us it's a lot less.

And the problem with farmers trading fuel for food--it's easier to just take. There will be the takers and the dead--and thus pretty soon the takers are also dead.

 

[steve_bank]

What the pandemic has shown is that culturally we have lost the capacity to cope with adversity. People would turn on each other in cities.

 

[steve_bank]

All that nees to be done is destroy oil refineries and major electrcal power plants. It woud quicly cripple the country.

 

[bilby]

What the pandemic has shown is that culturally we have lost the capacity to cope with adversity. People would turn on each other in cities.

Yup. The USA would collapse in short order.

The rest of the world would probably be OK - The idea of cooperation in adversity hasn't been completely eroded in most places.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

All that nees to be done is destroy oil refineries and major electrcal power plants. It woud quicly cripple the country.

If I were the terrorist trying to bring down America I would leave those targets alone. Go for the soft targets--the main distribution stations. Destroy the high power transformers. You might even be able to do this remotely with explosively formed projectiles.

 

[Peez]

 

[steve_bank]

All that nees to be done is destroy oil refineries and major electrcal power plants. It woud quicly cripple the country.

If I were the terrorist trying to bring down America I would leave those targets alone. Go for the soft targets--the main distribution stations. Destroy the high power transformers. You might even be able to do this remotely with explosively formed projectiles.

Remember The Weathermen?

If Russia launchedd qi we would quickly detect it and launch a response. On a first strike the British and French nuke sites would be attacked.

Whoever launched first it would be the end of human civilization as it is.

A few mutaions from radiation and may be we get talking apes and Planet Of The Apes.

 

[Tigers!]

I suddenly like my chances of surviving nuclear war. That's one of the benefits of living at the anitpode of the North Atlantic. We'll suffer the economic costs of such a war but nobody's going to bother shooting any nukes at the Great Australian Crotch.

But now we know where you are.

 

[steve_bank]

Antipodes are important targets.