How would Ireland fair in the event of Nuclear War?

Lawyer.02 · 13-10-2016 11:02am #1

Sorry if this doesn't belong hear but i figured that considering Politics would be at fault...

With Everything going on in the world right now I cant help but wonder how safe the country i'm living in is.
So i'm just wondering if anyone could help me answer two questions i've been obsessing over for a bit now:

If the UK took a nuke, would the fall out reach Ireland? how much and what parts?
I've heard the wind blows in the wrong direction for it to reach us but i don't know how much stock to out in that?

What is the likelihood of Ireland taking a nuke of its own?

Thanks

Tabnabs · 13-10-2016 11:04am

Play away to your hearts content OP

http://nuclearsecrecy.com/nukemap/

Captain Chaos · 13-10-2016 11:05am

If the UK gets nuked then so do we. Look how the radiation leaking from Sellafield effects the east cost as it is. We're as good as instant death in a nuke war. May as well live in London.

Del2005 · 13-10-2016 11:07am

Lawyer.02 wrote: »

Sorry if this doesn't belong hear but i figured that considering Politics would be at fault...

With Everything going on in the world right now I cant help but wonder how safe the country i'm living in is.
So i'm just wondering if anyone could help me answer two questions i've been obsessing over for a bit now:

If the UK took a nuke, would the fall out reach Ireland? how much and what parts?
I've heard the wind blows in the wrong direction for it to reach us but i don't know how much stock to out in that?

What is the likelihood of Ireland taking a nuke of its own?

Thanks

If the UK takes a nuke then MAD would mean that there would be very little world left never mind what would be left of Ireland.

Jimbob1977 · 13-10-2016 11:16am

If you want to see how quickly a First World country would return to the Stone Age, check out 'The Day After'. It's on YouTube.

Not to be confused with 'The Day After Tomorrow'.

It was a TV movie that showed the impact of a Soviet nuclear bomb in Kansas City. Society breaks down completely and every survivor fends for themselves before dying of radiation sickness. It had a profound effect on the American psyche when it was broadcast.

One thing I never understood..... how were Hiroshima and Nagasaki rebuilt? Surely the soil and atmosphere are toxic.

A nuclear attack on Britain would affect Ireland badly if the prevailing wind was an easterly (blowing west). I'd expect it would be terrible no matter what. The chaos is almost as bad as the health impact.

Lawyer.02 · 13-10-2016 11:32am

Ive watched so many nuke movies i think i've scarred myself for life

The day after
On the beach
Testament
Threads
The war Game (1965 doco i highly recomend if you want a scare) for some reason got me the most

I was hoping maybe i was being over dramatic and thinking the worst would happen over here if the world went to bits... Obviously not.

Tabnabs · 13-10-2016 11:35am

You also have to consider an NEMP (Nuclear electromagnetic pulse) attack as it may be a preferable to a conventional warhead by an aggressor. Collateral damage is limited (by comparison) but your enemy is effectively neutralised.

Bill G · 13-10-2016 11:37am

Jimbob1977 wrote: »

One thing I never understood..... how were Hiroshima and Nagasaki rebuilt? Surely the soil and atmosphere are toxic.

Short answer, both Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs were air bursts, so fallout was spread upwards and dispersed by the wind, rather than concentrated on the ground:

http://zidbits.com/2013/11/is-nagasaki-and-hiroshima-still-radioactive/

o1s1n · 13-10-2016 11:37am

The UK wouldn't 'take a nuke' - it would take a whole barrage of nukes.

You'd have them falling on strategic sites all over the country. From military sites to industrial sites and cities/ports.

Due to our proximity to the UK, ties to the US and The West in general, you can be more than sure there are a few pointed at strategic locations here too.

Ireland is like a massive aircraft carrier sitting on the edge of Europe.

To put it in less eloquent terms - we're boned. Start building your fallout shelter now :pac:

Definitely give Threads a watch. It's much better than The Day After IMO.

Jawgap · 13-10-2016 11:40am

Lawyer.02 wrote: »

Sorry if this doesn't belong hear but i figured that considering Politics would be at fault...

With Everything going on in the world right now I cant help but wonder how safe the country i'm living in is.
So i'm just wondering if anyone could help me answer two questions i've been obsessing over for a bit now:

If the UK took a nuke, would the fall out reach Ireland? how much and what parts?
I've heard the wind blows in the wrong direction for it to reach us but i don't know how much stock to out in that?

What is the likelihood of Ireland taking a nuke of its own?

Thanks

How would it affect Ireland?

Badly.

Even in the best case scenario where we avoid fallout effects because of SW winds the economic collapse that would follow would derail us here completely.

As perhaps one of the few bits of 'clean' land we could expect an absolute tsunami of refugees, casualties etc creating a humanitarian disaster - indeed its conceivable our more powerful neighbour might use what remains of their conventional forces to annex this island to secure some kind of food supply.

Would Ireland be nuked? Unlikely - we've nothing of strategic importance to nuke (Shannon isn't strategic).

Even at the height of the Cold War there weren't more than 12 nukes aimed at the UK - they obviously thought it was a lot more but when the USSR dissolved researchers managed to get access to the targeting maps for the Strategic Rocket Forces and found the number was somewhat less than they'd imagined!

Stealthfins · 13-10-2016 11:42am

I think Ireland would be safe enough as long as the wind blows west.

Remember the cartoon " When the wind blows"

Nekarsulm · 13-10-2016 11:47am

If the UK alone was hit, it would take a while for fallout to get to us, givin the predominately westerly winds we recieve here.

After Chernobyl, radiation travelled around the world before reaching us. From a farming background I can tell you that birth anomalies in Lambs went up by a factor of four or five. Lambs were born deformed, one farmer i know personally had a lamb born with a double "skull cap" on its head. He called it John Paul!
Welsh hill lamb was banned from the market for a whole year, and I was at a meeting in the local dairy Co-Op where it was mentioned that while radiation levels in milk had peaked briefly after Chernobyl, it fell back to normal untill that years grass crop began to be fed the folowing winter.

Wanderer78 · 13-10-2016 11:49am

In all fairness, there really are some weirdos on this planet, why would you wanna nuke another country? Some dangerous people on this planet!

o1s1n · 13-10-2016 12:08pm

Jawgap wrote: »

How would it affect Ireland?

Badly.

Even in the best case scenario where we avoid fallout effects because of SW winds the economic collapse that would follow would derail us here completely.

As perhaps one of the few bits of 'clean' land we could expect an absolute tsunami of refugees, casualties etc creating a humanitarian disaster - indeed its conceivable our more powerful neighbour might use what remains of their conventional forces to annex this island to secure some kind of food supply.

Would Ireland be nuked? Unlikely - we've nothing of strategic importance to nuke (Shannon isn't strategic).

Even at the height of the Cold War there weren't more than 12 nukes aimed at the UK - they obviously thought it was a lot more but when the USSR dissolved researchers managed to get access to the targeting maps for the Strategic Rocket Forces and found the number was somewhat less than they'd imagined!

I doubt it was only 12 nukes, maybe 12 ICBMs?

One ICBM can carry multiple warheads. A US Peacekeeper for example can hold 10.

Edit; just to show you what one could do, the 10 warheads in a Peacekeeper can be up to 475Kt each. So here's one warhead detonation over Dublin.

http://nuclearsecrecy.com/nukemap/?&kt=475&lat=53.3498053&lng=-6.2603097&airburst=0&hob_ft=0&zm=10

So 1 ICBM could be ten of those. Which really is a bloody scary thought!

4068ac1elhodqr · 13-10-2016 12:14pm

Believe there is still a very, very small chance of SHTF. Even if someone stupid enough tried to implement a NFZ over Syr and and it went a bit pear shaped from this - which it almost certainly would.

A conventional small scale or localised conflict could run on for several months between the E&W. It would be ideal as a showcase of latest goods (for the $bn marketplace) and useful for specific research or training purposes. Anything else really would be a last resort, and not in anyone's interest^.

^ Apart from anyone hoping for a de-population, a global reset of sorts and maybe a new one-world bank, government and society.

If it did one day go bad, agree with the above - that wind direction would be an immediate factor, strong SW would be beneficial, well that is until clouds from the Western Atlantic arrive, which still gives perhaps a 3-5 day window. Things would however be different from then on, with years of ai-drone-wars and advanced directed energy weaponry perhaps to follow, until a new world council was established. A move to Mars could also be an option after 2030.

One concern is that the very latest big sticks are each 1,000 times more powerful than Hiroshima, add to that the fact that media outlets, particularly this newspaper are warming up their hands at such a prospect.

News yesterday wasn’t great: Mr.P told his diplomats of all ranks to “bring relatives home to the Motherland”. Likely a PR stunt.

On the plus side there have been multiple reports of ‘unidentified’ craft over the decades, disabling the ability of major launch facilities everywhere, make what you that, what you will...

What to do? Stock up on water (lots of water), protein powder, dry carbs, multivitamins and hope for the best. Also buy a spade.

_Brian · 13-10-2016 12:14pm

Thinking we're safe because of the westerly winds is innocent, we often get easterly winds which would quickly decimate the whole country.
Add to that that maybe Belfast could be targeted, possibly Shannon too to prevent transport of troops and arms from the US to Europe.

If nukes start flying about we're all on a short fuse, we might get a few months before we're poisoned but it would be a sure thing.

Zillah · 13-10-2016 12:19pm

Tabnabs wrote: »

Play away to your hearts content OP

http://nuclearsecrecy.com/nukemap/

Feck.

Padraig Mor · 13-10-2016 12:35pm

Jawgap wrote: »

Would Ireland be nuked? Unlikely - we've nothing of strategic importance to nuke (Shannon isn't strategic).

I'd always heard Cork Harbour was supposedly high on the nuke list as it's so big (2nd largest in the world) you can stick a whole fleet in it, on the edge of the Atlantic.

I live in Cork Harbour. :eek:

Jawgap · 13-10-2016 12:37pm

o1s1n wrote: »

I doubt it was only 12 nukes, maybe 12 ICBMs?

One ICBM can carry multiple warheads. A US Peacekeeper for example can hold 10.

Edit; just to show you what one could do, the 10 warheads in a Peacekeeper can be up to 475Kt each. So here's one warhead detonation over Dublin.

http://nuclearsecrecy.com/nukemap/?&kt=475&lat=53.3498053&lng=-6.2603097&airburst=0&hob_ft=0&zm=10

So 1 ICBM could be ten of those. Which really is a bloody scary thought!

No, 11 or 12 warheads - mostly fuzed for air burst (to blow down buildings - a ground burst just makes a big hole), and there was some consideration given to lobbing one into the high atmosphere over the North Sea......now, if that was too happen over the UK they'd blow the power grid and any unshielded electronics (meaning most electronics) here.

Also the Peacekeeper (formerly the MX) was rarely equipped with more than 3 MIRVs while on alert. The navies liked lots of MIRVs because of the limited space on subs, but the US Air Force preferred to have a more distributed pattern to make counter-force shots trickier.

The MIRV-heavy ICBMs weren't that de-stabilising because everyone knew where they were. Likewise the SLBMs while difficult to track for the Soviets didn't cause that much concern because the expectation was that they'd be launched from mid-ocean (despite what movies would suggest).

The real de-stabilising weapons were the mobile intermediaries - the Pershings, the SS-20s and the Tomahawks - in the early 80s things were really on a knife-edge, perhaps only exceeded by the period of the Cuban Missile Crisis because of the deployment of these weapons to the UK and Europe.

The reason we think so many were aimed at us is because NATO, especially the US, were guilty of 'mirroring' - they assumed the USSR saw things they way they saw things from a military perspective. And the US had their "SIOP" which at one stage ran to nearly 8,000 strikes (not targets, strikes because some targets were to be hit multiple times by different weapons systems)......and they assumed the Soviets had a similar plan - it turns out they didn't, not that it would have made much difference!

alastair · 13-10-2016 12:37pm

How would we fare?
We would win the nuclear war of course!

This is a great little country for winning the nuclear wars.

Fr Tod Umptious · 13-10-2016 12:41pm

Jimbob1977 wrote: »

If you want to see how quickly a First World country would return to the Stone Age, check out 'The Day After'. It's on YouTube.

Not to be confused with 'The Day After Tomorrow'.

It was a TV movie that showed the impact of a Soviet nuclear bomb in Kansas City. Society breaks down completely and every survivor fends for themselves before dying of radiation sickness. It had a profound effect on the American psyche when it was broadcast.

One thing I never understood..... how were Hiroshima and Nagasaki rebuilt? Surely the soil and atmosphere are toxic.

A nuclear attack on Britain would affect Ireland badly if the prevailing wind was an easterly (blowing west). I'd expect it would be terrible no matter what. The chaos is almost as bad as the health impact.

Remember watching that movie as a kid, around 1984 I think, and was scared you know what less about it.

It was a time of a lot of east west tension too.

Jawgap · 13-10-2016 12:44pm

_Brian wrote: »

Thinking we're safe because of the westerly winds is innocent, we often get easterly winds which would quickly decimate the whole country.
Add to that that maybe Belfast could be targeted, possibly Shannon too to prevent transport of troops and arms from the US to Europe.

If nukes start flying about we're all on a short fuse, we might get a few months before we're poisoned but it would be a sure thing.

No airport stopover is required in Ireland for troop / equipment transports - that's done to facilitate the soldiers/personnel.

During the Cold War NATO routinely ran the REFORGER (Return of Forces to Germany) exercise which involved moving by sea and air several divisions of infantry and armour from the continental US to Europe - aside from the odd mid-air emergency requiring an aircraft to divert, Shannon was used - the transports just flew direct to Germany.

BoJack Horseman · 13-10-2016 12:45pm

The altered weather post war would be the coffin nail.

If people remember a couple of years ago there was a crazy cold snap across North America & we seen news clips of people throwing water outdoors for it to instantly freeze.....
Well, we would have that for upwards of 2 years.

A full nuclear exchange across the northern hemisphere would create vast clouds of dust and debris.
The sun's effect would be blocked somewhat for a long period of time creating a devastating winter that the relatively brief summer would not be able to alleviate.

Zillah · 13-10-2016 12:48pm

Padraig Mor wrote: »

I'd always heard Cork Harbour was supposedly high on the nuke list as it's so big (2nd largest in the world) you can stick a whole fleet in it, on the edge of the Atlantic.

I live in Cork Harbour. :eek:

I was sceptical of this, and rightly so, apparently.
https://passiveimpressions.com/2014/12/15/cork-harbour-the-second-largest-in-the-world/

Perhaps it has other qualities...consistent depth, maybe...that make it useful but it is certainly no where near the second largest.

BoJack Horseman · 13-10-2016 12:56pm

Zillah wrote: »

Feck

What weapon did you select?

Modern Russian warheads are much smaller and are being phased in across both land and sea platforms.

Where Liverpool nuked, Ireland would get some fallout, but not a devastating dose.

wotswattage · 13-10-2016 1:17pm

Jawgap wrote: »

How would it affect Ireland?

Badly.

Even in the best case scenario where we avoid fallout effects because of SW winds the economic collapse that would follow would derail us here completely.

As perhaps one of the few bits of 'clean' land we could expect an absolute tsunami of refugees, casualties etc creating a humanitarian disaster - indeed its conceivable our more powerful neighbour might use what remains of their conventional forces to annex this island to secure some kind of food supply.

Would Ireland be nuked? Unlikely - we've nothing of strategic importance to nuke (Shannon isn't strategic).

Even at the height of the Cold War there weren't more than 12 nukes aimed at the UK - they obviously thought it was a lot more but when the USSR dissolved researchers managed to get access to the targeting maps for the Strategic Rocket Forces and found the number was somewhat less than they'd imagined!

At the height of the cold war the USSR had circa 40,000 warheads I find it hard to believe only a dozen were aimed at one of the major western powers.

Those films listed earlier 'Threads' and 'The War Game' make for sickening watching I felt awful after watching them...

I often wondered how a country like ours which would probably be less devastated after a war would fare. Would Ireland suddenly become a desirable place to invade??

Tabnabs · 13-10-2016 1:59pm

wotswattage wrote: »

At the height of the cold war the USSR had circa 40,000 warheads I find it hard to believe only a dozen were aimed at one of the major western powers.

Those films listed earlier 'Threads' and 'The War Game' make for sickening watching I felt awful after watching them...

I often wondered how a country like ours which would probably be less devastated after a war would fare. Would Ireland suddenly become a desirable place to invade??

Look familiar, comrade?

Who would have thought that Carlow and the surrounds would be of interest to the Soviets?!

They had the whole country mapped.

That said the Soviet map series was of such standard that the cost of producing an Irish equivalent would have been prohibitive. Indeed one is prompted to wonder whether the Soviet cartographic system, “… this vast organisation …” [5] had lost the run of itself in going to so much effort in producing them. After all, Western analyses of Soviet intentions at that time did not consider that Ireland was under threat or was even part of a Soviet geo-contingency. Indeed Ireland's application to join NATO was declined by both the US and British governments, affirmation if such were needed that Ireland was not considered to feature in Soviet geo-strategic thinking [6] . This latter point however, remains to be proven.

Jawgap · 13-10-2016 2:26pm

wotswattage wrote: »

At the height of the cold war the USSR had circa 40,000 warheads I find it hard to believe only a dozen were aimed at one of the major western powers.

Those films listed earlier 'Threads' and 'The War Game' make for sickening watching I felt awful after watching them...

I often wondered how a country like ours which would probably be less devastated after a war would fare. Would Ireland suddenly become a desirable place to invade??

Ìt's always good to be skeptical. The figure of 10 to 12 nukes came from

SOVIET MILITARY MAPPING OF IRELAND DURING THE COLD WAR: GALWAY AND THE WESTERN LITTORAL
DESMOND TRAVERS
Journal of the Galway Archaeological and Historical Society Vol. 60 (2008), pp. 178-193

Des Travers is a retired DF Colonel. His source for the figure is "Whitehall and the Cold War" by Peter Hennessy.

It might be worth noting that the Strath Report in 1955 (which continued to be used as the basis of their planning right up into the 1980s) thought six 10 megaton nukes would be sufficient to knock the UK out - their forces would likely have a got a retaliatory strike in before, but then that would have been it.

And the USSR never had that many warheads. The number of nuclear weapons in their stockpile reached about 40,000 in 1986, but that included warheads on IC/SL BMs, intermediate missiles and tactical weapons including nuclear torpedos, nuclear artillery and short-range rockets for battlefield use.

So strip out the tactical nukes, discount the ones you need to retain to maintain a second and third strike capability (that's most if not all of your SLBM force), then what your left with is a first/retaliatory strike capability - that gets divided between counter-force, command & control, governmental and infra-structure target sets across the US, Canada, and the WEU, and you quickly see why they 'only' had a dozen or so warheads for use against the UK.

Might also be worth noting that because the US deployed a significant number of ICBMs in hardened silos (where the Soviets tended to rely on above ground facilities) - it would have taken more than one Soviet warhead to neutralise one US missile mounted warhead - and that's only if the USSR could have mastered the necessary 'time-on-target' profile where a number of warheads arrive at the target at precisely the right time and detonate simultaneously to deliver enough power to penetrate the silo and destroy the missile.

Zillah · 13-10-2016 2:28pm

BoJack Horseman wrote: »

What weapon did you select?

Modern Russian warheads are much smaller and are being phased in across both land and sea platforms.

Where Liverpool nuked, Ireland would get some fallout, but not a devastating dose.

One of the big Cold War Era hydrogen bombs

Captain Chaos · 13-10-2016 2:34pm

Look at the power of the US B-83 bomb at 1.2Mt. A B-2 stealth bomber can carry 32 of those bad boys.

gctest50 · 13-10-2016 2:44pm

Captain Chaos wrote: »

Look at the power of the US B-83 bomb at 1.2Mt. A B-2 stealth bomber can carry 32 of those bad boys.

or the 40 mile high cloud of the Russian yoke on low yield ( 50Mt )

well decent for such a little thing :

How would Ireland fair in the event of Nuclear War?

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