How would you plan to survive a full scale nuclear war?
I beleive a major, gobal nuclear exchange is survivable by a remnant of the population, say for example 144,000. How would you plan to be in that number? Is it even worth planning for?
10 comments
Step 1 is to be inside a building, anything to keep from getting your flesh burned off by the heat flash. Even if the wall doesn't survive the overpressure/blast wave, it gave you a bit of time to get to the next steps.
Next, get away from any openings where the blast will shove the walls, or glass towards you. Don't go look out the window, get low, and behind something heavy and unlikely to roll over, or in a ditch.
Once the big loud pressure wave is past, get away from the fallout. If you're downwind, just get under cover, and try to seal out the crap falling from the sky. If you can, get as much water as possible before the fallout contaminates it, into bottles, or at least under some form of cover.
If you make it past the first month, and the famine before people figure out how to grow enough food to keep everyone alive, well done!
If you have kids, now is a good time to squirrel away some potassium iodide for them to take in the first month after the big boom. It might be slightly toxic, but it'll keep their thyroid from uptaking iodine 131. They'll be glad 10 years later, should they make it.
Now is also the time to read up, and make sure all the things I just typed out off the top of my head actually work and make sense. Read survivors accounts from Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Read the 1950s/60s civil defense literature. Extrapolate for the modern age, and more fragile infrastructure.
Personally, I'm too old for that shit, I'm only going to do my best to keep the kid alive.
Next, get away from any openings where the blast will shove the walls, or glass towards you. Don't go look out the window, get low, and behind something heavy and unlikely to roll over, or in a ditch.
Once the big loud pressure wave is past, get away from the fallout. If you're downwind, just get under cover, and try to seal out the crap falling from the sky. If you can, get as much water as possible before the fallout contaminates it, into bottles, or at least under some form of cover.
If you make it past the first month, and the famine before people figure out how to grow enough food to keep everyone alive, well done!
If you have kids, now is a good time to squirrel away some potassium iodide for them to take in the first month after the big boom. It might be slightly toxic, but it'll keep their thyroid from uptaking iodine 131. They'll be glad 10 years later, should they make it.
Now is also the time to read up, and make sure all the things I just typed out off the top of my head actually work and make sense. Read survivors accounts from Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Read the 1950s/60s civil defense literature. Extrapolate for the modern age, and more fragile infrastructure.
Personally, I'm too old for that shit, I'm only going to do my best to keep the kid alive.
The best chance of survival is to keep working towards this doesn't happens ever.
A unknown number of people already gave their lives for this, left their careers broken, like in Cuba with Kennedy and russian military saying no the chance of just go bomb everything to hell,
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuban_Missile_Crisis#Averted_n...
like the russian guy who didn't wanted to start WWIII in 1983.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanislav_Petrov
We need to keep doing that. To keep failing to comply with the powers that be on charge in the moment, who would want to just blow up everything and call it a day.
Don't let them do it, live another day by talking the situation out of the "just nuke them" option.
“The Intelligence Services of East and West have given Europe over fifty years of peace - the longest the Continent has ever known. They did so by keeping their leaders from being surprised.”
― Markus Wolf
A unknown number of people already gave their lives for this, left their careers broken, like in Cuba with Kennedy and russian military saying no the chance of just go bomb everything to hell,
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuban_Missile_Crisis#Averted_n...
like the russian guy who didn't wanted to start WWIII in 1983.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanislav_Petrov
We need to keep doing that. To keep failing to comply with the powers that be on charge in the moment, who would want to just blow up everything and call it a day.
Don't let them do it, live another day by talking the situation out of the "just nuke them" option.
“The Intelligence Services of East and West have given Europe over fifty years of peace - the longest the Continent has ever known. They did so by keeping their leaders from being surprised.”
― Markus Wolf
a remnant of the population, say for example 144,000
Easy. Just be one of the twelve tribes of Israel. :)
In truth, you're better off not surviving a full scale nuclear war. But if you really want to survive, you need to be one of the people who don't require modern technology as a way of life, like being a nomad in the middle of a desert, or a herder with a flock on the African plains.
Easy. Just be one of the twelve tribes of Israel. :)
In truth, you're better off not surviving a full scale nuclear war. But if you really want to survive, you need to be one of the people who don't require modern technology as a way of life, like being a nomad in the middle of a desert, or a herder with a flock on the African plains.
Dont really want to survive for the post apocalyptic world...but that said....my city is relatively small in the UK. So make it to the train tracks and out of the city with cans and as much water as we can carry and then head for the hills and see how long we last.
Watch every episode of Doomsday Preppers.
"How would you plan to survive a full scale nuclear war?"
I wouldn't. If I were rich, then maybe I would do some preparing.
You can look at prepper forums for info on what preparatioms to look at and how to survive.
I wouldn't. If I were rich, then maybe I would do some preparing.
You can look at prepper forums for info on what preparatioms to look at and how to survive.
Honestly I think rural people and especially the remaining primitive or hunter gatherer tribes are best positioned to survive. Rich preppers are simply targets for roving gangs in the post apocalyptic world. Meanwhile the people on North Sentinel Island might not have much change to their lives. Who do you think is going to win in a fight between starving navy seals and some yuppie boomer preppers?
Part of prepping would be location selection. Nothing says they have to stay in an urban area. In fact, I believe most of the northern hemisphere would be unsurvivable in a "full scale" nuclear war. Places like south America and Africa might fair better, but that is highly dependent on distribution of the radioactive fallout.
I'm not sure about your highly stereotyped example. It seems pretty unlikely that there would be many navy seals left after a full scale nuclear attack (their installations would be on the target lists and remaining ones would be deployed), not that there are that many to start with. But yeah, people who are not accustomed to a more primitive way of life will be at a disadvantage. The other thing to point out is that many of the people trained for great violence also have strict moral codes, making it more likely that they would help organize their communities rather than going around pillaging (although there will be some minority of any group participating in that).
I'm not sure about your highly stereotyped example. It seems pretty unlikely that there would be many navy seals left after a full scale nuclear attack (their installations would be on the target lists and remaining ones would be deployed), not that there are that many to start with. But yeah, people who are not accustomed to a more primitive way of life will be at a disadvantage. The other thing to point out is that many of the people trained for great violence also have strict moral codes, making it more likely that they would help organize their communities rather than going around pillaging (although there will be some minority of any group participating in that).
I think the lethality of fallout outside of cobalt bombs which I believe are not in use is greatly exaggerated. Just look at how many people witnessed h-bomb tests.
It depends. Single tests or incidents are not very widespread. But if we are talking many hundreds or thousands of high yield detonations, then the cumulative effect could be more serious. Even if things are not immediately deadly, the longterm effects can take their toll. The NM downwinders are one example, and even just single non-weapon incidents like Chernobyl have fairly large and longterm effects. It would be interesting to see how many nuclear detonations it would take to raise background radiation in 10sv steps by county.
I live about thirty minutes outside of a midwest semi major city, so my survival might be a little better than say New York City, but a global nuclear exchange is going to be massively bad no matter where you are.