Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/3/84; site talcott.UUCP
Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!cbosgd!ihnp4!zehntel!hplabs!hao!seismo!harvard!wjh12!talcott!gjk
From: gjk@talcott.UUCP (Greg J Kuperberg)
Newsgroups: net.politics
Subject: Re: Re: Re: Re:Expertise:Nuclear War Casualties
Message-ID: <148@talcott.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 30-Nov-84 13:20:38 EST
Article-I.D.: talcott.148
Posted: Fri Nov 30 13:20:38 1984
Date-Received: Tue, 4-Dec-84 05:11:07 EST
References: <328@whuxl.UUCP> <5000116@uokvax.UUCP> <372@whuxl.UUCP>
Organization: Harvard
Lines: 19

> There would be quite a difference between two atomic bombs and 50,000
> bombs don't you think, Kurt?  Also the bombs dropped on Hiroshima
> and Nagasaki were miniscule in comparison to those we have now.
...
> tim sevener whuxl!orb

That's a pretty liberal estimate (in more than one sense).  First, most of
our bombs are merely three to ten times as large as the Hiroshima bombs
(ex:  Pershing II's are 150 kilotons).  Second, in any nuclear scenario,
at most a quarter of our nuclear stockpile would be used (because the more
missiles we send, the more get destroyed in the silos, and also because
missiles in general have a high failure rate).  Thus only half the world
will get destroyed instead of all of it.  That's still nothing to cheer
about, though...
---
			Greg Kuperberg
		     harvard!talcott!gjk

"Eureka!" -Archimedes