How Many Would Be Killed In An All Out Accidental Nuclear Exchange?

CalBear

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You would see a significant increase in radiation related deaths. The number would depend on what altitude the weapons detonate. If they are impact fused that would be far worse than any air burst (fallout from water bursts can be REALLY nasty).

Low number? 10 million early deaths.
 
You would see a significant increase in radiation related deaths. The number would depend on what altitude the weapons detonate. If they are impact fused that would be far worse than any air burst (fallout from water bursts can be REALLY nasty).

Low number? 10 million early deaths.

That seems way too high to my way of thinking.

How many deaths due to radiation are you really going to have from 1,000 nuclear warheads detonating literally thousands of miles away from any sizable population centers?
 
I don't see a way for both superpowers to have a mutual accidental launch. In fact the only way anything close to this can happen is some sort if accidental triggering of Russian/Soviet Deadhand System. Even that is unlikely as to my understanding there is a man in the loop still with Deadhand.

ERCS requires a valid launch authorisation from at least 2 seperate launch crews in seperate locations. As this happens in a time of peace with no increase in tensions then the launch officers are definately going to call in and ask for verbal confirmation. At the very least they are going to want to know where to retarget their missiles.

I call ASB.
 
I don't see a way for both superpowers to have a mutual accidental launch. In fact the only way anything close to this can happen is some sort if accidental triggering of Russian/Soviet Deadhand System. Even that is unlikely as to my understanding there is a man in the loop still with Deadhand.

ERCS requires a valid launch authorisation from at least 2 seperate launch crews in seperate locations. As this happens in a time of peace with no increase in tensions then the launch officers are definately going to call in and ask for verbal confirmation. At the very least they are going to want to know where to retarget their missiles.

I call ASB.

What is ASB?
 
Worldwide, 780 atmospheric nuclear tests have been carried out, with estimated early fatalities in the US of 11,000 to 17,000 due to cancer and fallout effects. This is the same order of magnitude of exchange (more weapons, but probably smaller on average, and fewer/no surface bursts) so we can assume the same number of US casualties.

Allow for the rest of the world, and we can call it 250,000 to 400,000. This is probably correct to an order of magnitude - we're talking hundreds of thousands, not tens of thousands or millions. Pretty nasty, sure, but spread out over several decades.

For comparison, a single warhead over any city of significant size would kill that many from direct weapon effects. Malaria kills that many every year.
 
What is ASB?

Simutainous mutual launch at nontargets. Like I said, maybe a meteor or somthing triggers Deadhand and the man/men in the loop wigs out and concede to launch without retargeting. But there is no way the US retaliates by pointlessly nukeing the pacific, in fact I doubt they launch at all
 
in regards to tsunamis, didn't the U.S. test nuclear devices as large as 25 megatons in the Pacific Ocean? Did they produce any substantial localized tsunamis?
Not even underwater explosions came close. Barely a blip outside the immediate area. Actually, googling 'tsunami bomb', the US did some research on what would be necessary to set of a tsunami. It requires a lot more precision than just causing a giant splash at one point. That just produces normal waves. For a tsunami you need an organized displacement of large volumes of water - at the very least the impacts would have to be timed in a very precise way in order to properly build up on each other.

A 1968 research report sponsored by the US Office of Naval Research addressed this hypothesis of coastal damage due to large explosion-generated waves, and found theoretical and experimental evidence showing it to be relatively inefficient in wave-making potential, with most wave energy dissipated by breaking on the continental shelf before reaching the shore.[4]
 
Not even underwater explosions came close. Barely a blip outside the immediate area. Actually, googling 'tsunami bomb', the US did some research on what would be necessary to set of a tsunami. It requires a lot more precision than just causing a giant splash at one point. That just produces normal waves. For a tsunami you need an organized displacement of large volumes of water - at the very least the impacts would have to be timed in a very precise way in order to properly build up on each other.

That sounds like the novel "Icefire" where a rogue faction of the Chinese use a bunch of nuclear warheads to severe the Ross Ice Shelf in Antarctica then use an airburst of an 80 megaton warhead at high level to use the shockwave to "slap" the free floating Ice Shelf and cause a massive wave to travel across the entire Pacific Ocean.
 
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