"Geoffrey Sinclair" wrote in message ...
This will probably appear in the wrong place thanks to a buggy news server


Using nukes, it is possible to subject a city to multiple groundbursts
resulting in at least 100 PSI overpressure throughout a large area.
Bomb shelters that are conspicuous enough to be detected by
reconnaissance flights can be targeted for a direct hit.

I see, bomb shelters that are conspicuous, direct hit, I presume
you have noticed the accuracy of the nuclear weapons strikes,
the aiming points were missed.

Visual bombing gave reasonable accuracy. Good enough to get an A-bomb
close enough to hit any shelter that was noticed.




I presume you have noticed the
average accuracy of WWII bombers dropping from 30,000 feet.
I presume all the aircraft release together and achieve a perfect
bombing pattern, with no weapon caught in the blast of another
before it detonates.

The bombers could release together, or they could fly in one bomb
every few minutes. It would work either way.




Direct hits presumably mean ground bursts?

Yes. All the bombs in my example were ground bursts.




Why not parachute commandos in with machine guns and line
up the population and just shoot them? It seems as realistic.

Ground bursts were a perfectly realistic option using 1945 nuclear
technology.




Note deliberately targeting air raid shelters is more than any
air force did in WWII, also such structures would best be
attacked by armour piercing bombs.

A nearby groundburst from an A-bomb would be quite effective.




I expect that this will result in 99.9999% casualties amongst any part
of the populace within the 100 PSI zone that is not inside an
inconspicuous 100 PSI blast shelter.

It is becoming clear that your assumptions are nuclear weapons
incredibly bad, definitions altered to suit.

My assumptions are that nuclear weapons are incredibly effective.
They are perfectly capable of producing a 100 PSI shock.




You can explain how
come 7% of the people caught within 1,000 feet survived the
real attacks despite no warning but you have decided to announce
only 1 survivor in a million for your hypothetical attack?

None of the survivors experienced a 100+ PSI overpressure.

Everyone within the 100 PSI overpressure area in my example does
experience such a blast wave. In addition, many of them would be
directly exposed to fireball plasma, and to incredibly intense
radiation.

I included the one-in-a-million survivor just to be conservative in my
estimate.




Had WWII continued, our weapons output in early 1946 should have been
able to produce enough A-bombs every three months to achieve that
level of destruction over an area of 3.5 square miles.

The Tokyo fire storm raid destroyed nearly 16 square miles or nearly
25% of all buildings in the city.

Right so we have nuclear attacks delivering 60 to 100,000 kt being
compared to conventional attacks delivering around 5% the explosive
yield.

My example used about 1,000kt total explosive power.




Furthermore the aircrew delivering the nuclear attacks have
superb intelligence and well above average accuracy, no weather
problems, interceptions, mechanical failures and so on.

The bomb tonnage delivered by the 20th Air Force looks like this,
month, tonnage

Jun-44 547
Jul-44 209
Aug-44 252
Sep-44 521
Oct-44 1,669
Nov-44 2,205
Dec-44 3,661
Jan-45 3,410
Feb-45 4,020
Mar-45 15,283
Apr-45 17,492
May-45 24,285
Jun-45 32,542
Jul-45 43,091
Aug-45 21,873

Now add the arrival of the previously European based bomber units
to the 1946 attacks if we are going to talk 1946, including RAF units.
After all there was still 75% of Tokyo to go.

I saw nothing in any three month period that would equal 1,000kt worth
of explosive.




I expect that no conventional weapons attack, from any era you choose,
could achieve that level of casualties.

This is hardly surprising, since the nuclear attacks are simply
allowed to be so good and so much bigger than the attacks
they are being compared to. The result was in before the
experiment was run.

Nuclear weapons are allowed to be so much bigger because they ARE so
much bigger.

Had the war continued into 1946, our bomb output would have been
332.42 kilotons per month (although no single bomb would be over
50kt).




Since nuclear weapons have to potential to provide much more explosive
power than can be achieved by conventional weapons, and thus kill far
more people than can be achieved by conventional weapons, I think it
is fair to note this when comparing nukes to conventional weapons.

Try again, fair is comparing lethality versus the effort expended,
tonnage of explosives used for example, not by changing the
definitions.

It is fair to note that by providing much more tonnage of explosive
than could ever be provided by conventional weapons, nuclear weapons
can kill far more people.




Now stop comparing the lethality of conventional and nuclear attacks
from WWII which were nothing like the new "fair" standard. How
about we change the HE bombs into biowar weapons, then call
that "fair".

I acknowledge that bioweapons are equal to nukes in killing people.
They are considered WMDs for very good reason.

I suggest rather than changing the subject you start to analyse why
you need to bias the results in favour of nuclear weapons.

I have no need to bias anything. Nuclear weapons are far more deadly
than conventional weapons on their own, with no need of bias.




It is also possible to achieve, with conventional weapons, the sorts of
lethalities that were seen in the nuclear attacks.

How much conventional explosive do you think it would take to kill 50%
of the people in a 2km radius?