this post was submitted on 29 Feb 2024
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Another day, another threat of nuclear retaliation against the West by Putin.

Realistically, if Russia were to launch missiles against European capitals, how long a warning would the inhabitants get? What about North America (USA, Canada)?

Does NATO have the capability of in-flight interception? Or other defense mechanisms?

How deep underground is safe to protect against a modern nuclear blast?

Stay safe y'all.

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[–] Gradually_Adjusting@lemmy.world 52 points 8 months ago (2 children)

There's no interdiction capability that can be relied on.

No matter where you find yourself on that hot day, many cold ones will follow. The food supply will dwindle to a small fraction of what the survivors will require. Being underground will not fix that.

There's no hiding from humanity's nuclear suicide attempt. Do what you think best to prevent it.

[–] Notyou@sopuli.xyz 13 points 8 months ago (1 children)

I read (watched a video) about the fallout from enough bombs exploding and the results would be a MASSIVE amount of carbon going up in the sky. Well past anything that the "normal sky system" would be able to effect. I don't know the right words for the part of our sky.

Basically there would be up to 10 years of winter before that carbon leaves and we start getting back to some normal seasonal cycle. The grow/harvest time during the meantime will not be nearly enough for all of us.

I plan on ending it before all that, if a nuclear fallout does occur. I'd be better able to get some booze/drugs and go on a bender. Good luck to the survivors.

[–] Gradually_Adjusting@lemmy.world 8 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Kurzgesact I take it. I read that video too

[–] Notyou@sopuli.xyz 2 points 8 months ago

Yup. That's the one.

[–] ivanafterall@kbin.social 3 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Do what you think best to prevent it.

I've been doing that for decades now, but literally nobody ever thanks me. I'm getting kind of fed up with it, if I'm honest.

[–] Coreidan@lemmy.world 31 points 8 months ago (3 children)

No one is launching nukes. Stop letting the news terrorize you.

[–] givesomefucks@lemmy.world 1 points 8 months ago (2 children)

What?

Did you forget about all the stuff with Putin likely being terminal and that's why he took the risk to invade Ukraine?

If that psycho is really dying, and his last wish is to bring Ukraine back to Russia to rebuild an empire...

Eventually he'll win or he'll use nukes.

He doesn't give a fuck about anything except his legacy. If it can't be for unifying Russia, it'll be for going out for n a blaze of "glory".

You're forgetting a lot of nuclear armed countries are being run by insane people.

[–] Coreidan@lemmy.world 8 points 8 months ago (1 children)

And yet he still won’t use them

[–] awwwyissss@lemm.ee 5 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

You're right, and additionally he can't just decide to use them unilaterally. Launching those nukes would take a bunch of egotistical, self-centered sociopaths all deciding to commit suicide together.

[–] iAmTheTot@kbin.social 5 points 8 months ago (2 children)

Eventually he’ll win or he’ll use nukes.

Thankfully, not even Putin can launch missiles on his own. For one, I wouldn't expect him to even know how.

There have been nuclear scares before, and the goodness of man has often prevented them. Famously, during the cold war, Russian computers erroneously detected a US missile launch, and despite being ordered to retaliate, Stanislav Petrov correctly deduced it was an error and did not launch.

[–] awwwyissss@lemm.ee 2 points 8 months ago

Happened in the US too. A NORAD computer basically said "they launched the nukes" but it was actually the moon.

[–] Semi-Hemi-Demigod@kbin.social 1 points 8 months ago

Great, now we're relying on the professionalism of the Russian army for survival

[–] YorddleZiggs@lemmy.dbzer0.com 0 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (2 children)
[–] PhlubbaDubba@lemm.ee 11 points 8 months ago (1 children)

The difference is that unlike Ukraine, the West is entirely capable of making enough Russians hurt in retaliation that even if Putin survives the exchange he's looking at going the way of the Romanovs once the survivors outside the bunkers get to him.

[–] Semi-Hemi-Demigod@kbin.social 5 points 8 months ago (1 children)

A nuclear exchange on that scale would kill 300 million people instantly and another 5 BILLION over the next decade.

Nobody wins.

[–] PhlubbaDubba@lemm.ee 2 points 8 months ago

Yeah, so when nobody wins, neither does Putin is my point

[–] Valmond@lemmy.mindoki.com 4 points 8 months ago

That's a stupid take, russia lied 2 years ago but now we should believe them?

Nuclear war! nuclear war! nuclear war! we heard it since 1980 or even before.

You can't use it, and nobody is "invading" russia. Maybe we should and remove those deadly weapons from this child-putin.

[–] retrieval4558@mander.xyz -1 points 8 months ago (3 children)

Do some reading about near misses during the cold war and see if you keep that same certainty.

[–] Coreidan@lemmy.world 9 points 8 months ago

And yet it still never happened. The Cold War has only harden my resolve on nukes never being launched.

It gets old listening to the sky is falling rhetoric.

[–] Tja@programming.dev 4 points 8 months ago

It only gives me more certainty.

[–] starman2112@sh.itjust.works 1 points 8 months ago

With how many near misses we've had, it seems more likely to near miss than to hit

[–] Ziggurat@sh.itjust.works 27 points 8 months ago (1 children)

A (modern) ballistic missile is basically a rocket carrying a few nuclear warhead to space and then falling from space back to earth, and very high speed while splitting the warhead on the way down to hit several targets (while some of these warhead may-be dummy). And this let alone all the fancy hypersonic ballistic missile which are steered by "bouncing atop the upper atmosphere* making them less predictible while travelling even faster.
So basically, we won't know the exact target before the last moments of the flight, letting may-be a few minutes to the inhabitant to hide.

Regarding "anti missile defence" I assume that the people who knows the details won't post about-it on lemmy. What you need to remember is that even if you catch 80% of the missile falling (let's be optimistic), it will still do a lot of damage.
To take French arsenal, according to Wikipedia, a Triomphant class submarine can carry 16 M51 ballistic missile, each of them carrying 6 warhead. A submarine emptying it's whole load on a hostile country would shoot like 100 warheads. Assuming that air-defence can intercept 80% of them, it's 20 nuke exploding. I can't think about any country which would resist to getting 20 cities wiped out of the map.

So yes, if nukes start to fly, we're fucked up.

[–] Fiivemacs@lemmy.ca 20 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Regarding "anti missile defence" I assume that the people who knows the details won't post about-it on lemmy.

Of course not, they use discord.

[–] Ziggurat@sh.itjust.works 17 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Of course not, they use discord.

Right, I forgot about the war thunder players :)

[–] GameWarrior@lemmy.world 3 points 8 months ago

Nah most of that happens on the official forums.

[–] Dagwood222@lemm.ee 18 points 8 months ago (1 children)

I think of it this way.

The people who would actually launch the missiles would be the same people who told Putin that the Ukraine invasion would be a walk over.

I think the chances are much higher that the Army would kill Putin long before they would risk losing their nice apartments in Paris and London.

[–] anton@lemmy.blahaj.zone 9 points 8 months ago (1 children)

The people who would actually launch the missiles would be the same people who told Putin that the Ukraine invasion would be a walk over.

They where told it wasn't going to happen, just some postering before going back to normal. They said 'yes, we could theoretically walk over Ukraine' believing they wouldn't have to follow up on that.
They know dam well there is no theoretically winning a nuclear exchange, meaning they won't tell their superiors they can do it and no superiors that would believe them if they did.

[–] Dagwood222@lemm.ee 5 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Sounds like we basically agree. I think they were happily stealing money to pay for their dachas and harems, any you're giving them the benefit of the doubt.

Either way, no one is going to blow up Europe to make an old man happy.

[–] anton@lemmy.blahaj.zone 3 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Yes, I just wanted to expand on some details.

[–] Dagwood222@lemm.ee 3 points 8 months ago

Have a nice weekend

[–] Maiznieks@lemmy.world 10 points 8 months ago

That kremlin retard says a lot of things. Don't validate him.

[–] novamdomum@kbin.social 6 points 8 months ago

Step 1 - Putin doesn't like a thing.
Step 2 - Putin says that if you do the thing you'll get nuked.
Step 3 - Putin's little cyber puppets flood social media with posts "concerned" about the risks of him launching the mighty nukes. Oh noes!
Step 4 - Putin hopes you believe him.
Step 5 - Nobody believes him.

...some times passes...

aaand we're back to Step 1...

[–] PinkOwls@feddit.de 6 points 8 months ago

How deep underground is safe to protect against a modern nuclear blast?

It depends if you live in St. Petersburg or in some bunker in the Urals. If you're in St. Petersburg, then it doesn't matter; but you should be pretty safe in the Urals.

[–] edgemaster72@lemmy.world 4 points 8 months ago (1 children)

I don't really know anything on the subject, but imo time is your enemy there, not distance. You won't get far enough away, so as you mention you're looking at going underground (assuming you already have that set up). But how long can you last down there? Probably not long enough.

[–] GhostFence@lemmy.world 4 points 8 months ago

I live right next to a Vault Tec vault, man. Vault 87! I'm set!

[–] HubertManne@kbin.social 2 points 8 months ago

Unlikely to happen but global warming and general environmental pollution is going on now. reduce, reuse, recycle

[–] StrawberryPigtails@lemmy.sdf.org 1 points 8 months ago

First, Russia is unlikely to nuke anyone, assuming of course that their nukes actually work. The consequences for a nation that did decide to let off the big firecrackers…. Well, no one has a large enough army or enough nuclear weapons to fight the rest of the world. Or rather, what would remain of it, and the Geneva Conventions would become more the Geneva Suggestions.

As for warning time, that depends on the deployment method. Tactical weapons, you wouldn’t have much, if any, warning. Strategic weapons, anywhere from 5 minutes to a few hours, depending. Tactical weapons tend to have ranges somewhere in the 100 km range, and have, generally a much smaller blast radius.

Interceptors have been developed, (s400, Patriot and others) but how well they would work against a nuclear warhead is untested as far as I know. I think it would depend on how the warhead was fused and triggered.

As for your last question, no clue. My understanding that current warheads range in size from something that can take out a city block to weapons that can take out New York City and everything in between. The only thing the average person can really do is treat it like you would a tornado. Head to your nearest shelter and stay away from windows.

Dr. Tyson says that modern nukes don’t usually have much radiation fallout anymore but still, be upwind if you can and take a shower after the attack but don’t use conditioner.

If the thought of possible nuclear war scares you, you might want to consider learning more about it. There are two channels on YouTube I would recommend as a starting off point, Perun and Kyle Hill. Perun does military economic analysis and Kyle Hill is a science educator with an emphasis of nuclear technology. Both have done presentations on nuclear weapons and their use.

[–] KingThrillgore@lemmy.ml 1 points 8 months ago

Before hypersonic weapons, it was accepted the US gets at least 5-30 mins with the first hits from submarine launched missiles, the EU less than 1-4 mins.

Now? Does it matter?