I’ve always wondered why only nuclear bombs detonate before hitting the ground and not the actual moment of impact. Does it affect the amount of damage? or does it reduce nuclear waste and radiation?
In: Physics
Well, technically you detonate a nuke anywhere you want, it’s not like someone can force you otherwise, *you have a fucking nuke* after all.
But where you detonate them does affect the results a good deal so it depends on what you’re trying to accomplish. If you’re taking out a bunker you’d want your nuke to burrow into the ground for example, if you’re trying to disable communications or vehicles you’d detonate it high up in the atmosphere for an EMP effect.
But the issue with a ground based nuke is partially fall out but also because the ground just reflects the nuke up and away from your target. That’s a tremendous waste of a nuke. So a ground attack would be more something like a dirty bomb or terrorist attack, deliberately inflicting terror and fall out without really trying to strategically eliminate a target.
Detonating a nuke in the air reduces fallout because it doesn’t throw up as much dust and debris (which rains back down somewhere and is what “falls out” during fallout”) but also because it’s sends the energy *down* to the ground. When that energy hits the ground it’s like slapping a fly against a wall, all that energy *crushes* the target *into* the ground.
You also get a wider radius on your effect and do more damage to a larger target.
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