Title. I was browsing r/shockwaveporn a bit ago and saw that many if the explosives are airbursts. If I’m not mistaken, the nukes dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were airburst too. Why?
In: Physics
[Schematic diagram of blast propagation](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/e2/Mach_effect_sequence.svg/250px-Mach_effect_sequence.svg.png) ~wiki
The gist is when the blast occurs above the ground the shockwave that bounces off the ground merges with the shockwave from the direct blast to create a stronger shockwave front that travels along the ground where all your targets are.
Detonating too close to the ground results in a lot of the energy instead being reflected straight up or getting absorbed into the ground.
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