Damage waves in a nuclear explosion

[Nikel]

Tested a nuclear explosion.

Tu-95M Bear A with the infamous Tsar bomba vs the Carrier Enterprise.

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After the detonation 3 graphics appear over the Carrier, that is destroyed, and one over the bomber. The lightning also causes damage to the bomber and represents an instant electro-magnetic wave or pulse (EMP) according to the log.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_e ... etic_pulse

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2 engines are damaged and one destroyed, why only 0%?

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The 2 circles expand menacing the bomber that tries to escape.

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[Nikel]

First the blue circle.

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And then the white opaque circle reach and surpass the bomber but cause no further damage.

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The blue circle vanishes.

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While the white slowly loses opacity and becomes transparent. Eventually disappears.

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The questions are. Which waves represent the blue and the white circles?

And why they do not cause more damage?


The 3 effects caused by an atomic explosion are: blast, thermal and radiation. Blue is thermal and white radiation?

https://www.atomicarchive.com/science/e ... index.html

[Dimitris]

The expanding blue circle is the underwater blast. Apparently the detonation height-of-burst was low enough that the fireball touched the surface and thus created an underwater wave.

The expanding white sphere is the through-air blast. The reason it apparently overtakes the bomber but doesn't damage it is because you need to think in 3D. It's a sphere, remember? You can be over it, yet not inside it.

[Nikel]

Thanks for answering, very interesting!


I will test with a submarine nearby to see the effects of this underwater blast.

Set the bomber to high altitude to escape the effects, so to see the white sphere effect happens, better at a lower altitude.

[Nikel]

A Soviet Foxtrot submarine is destroyed by the underwater blast, -40m.

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A second Enterprise, more distant, is not affected by the EMP, but the underwater blast also impacts the surface ship. The air facilities seem to be more vulnerable to this kind of damage in 2 tests.

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And the white sphere destroys it with a huge blast

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The bomber at med or min altitude is never exposed to the white sphere, I suppose it is possible to calculate how could it be affected, but I do not know how.

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[Quark73]

2 engines are damaged and one destroyed, why only 0%?

Damn that's accurate, IIRC they lost three engines due to explosion / EMP. They recovered two by windmilling.

fun fact:
Once I watched a documentation, they said the drag chute was so big that the USSRs production of nylon pants droppen by one quarter that year.

[HalfLifeExpert]

Regarding damage being only 0%:

I could be wrong, but isn't the Damage percentage a calculation of overall structural damage to the unit in question, as opposed to damage to individual components?

If I read the report above correctly, the Bear lost engines to mainly the EMP and heat, but does this mean that the overall fuselage and control surfaces of the aircraft were functionally intact?

Think of it like this, if a surface ship takes a surface level hit that wrecks it's radar antenna, but is not big enough of a blast of damage the actual superstructure and hull, would that still count as "0%" damage?

[Nikel]

Damn that's accurate, IIRC they lost three engines due to explosion / EMP. They recovered two by windmilling.

You mean the Tu-95V that dropped the bomb?

There are some details in the wikipedia article.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tsar_Bomba


This modified aircraft is not included in the database. Besides the solved problems of loading and releasing the bomb, it had a "reflective paint" to minimize heat damage.

It is also said that:

When detonation occurred, the shock wave caught up with the Tu-95V at a distance of 115 km (71 mi) and the Tu-16 at 205 km (127 mi). The Tu-95V dropped 1 kilometre (0.62 mi) in the air because of the shock wave but was able to recover and land safely.

However the russian version of the wikipedia:

At the time of the explosion, the carrier aircraft was at a distance of about 39 km, and the laboratory aircraft was 53.5 km away. The shock wave caught up with the carrier aircraft at a distance of 115 km, the effect of the shock wave from the explosion was felt in the form of vibration and did not affect the flight mode of the aircraft [3] . After landing, several stains from the impact of the explosion flash were noticed on the fuselage [20] .

Anyway it is a very good aircraft, with one engine destroyed and 2 damaged it continued flying, just at lower speed


The white sphere of the Tsar bomba test.

[Nikel]

Regarding damage being only 0%:

I could be wrong, but isn't the Damage percentage a calculation of overall structural damage to the unit in question, as opposed to damage to individual components?

If I read the report above correctly, the Bear lost engines to mainly the EMP and heat, but does this mean that the overall fuselage and control surfaces of the aircraft were functionally intact?

Think of it like this, if a surface ship takes a surface level hit that wrecks it's radar antenna, but is not big enough of a blast of damage the actual superstructure and hull, would that still count as "0%" damage?

Could be that, I learn one thing or many of CMO every day

The second Entreprise had a damage of around 80% by the underwater blast.

The manual does not provide many details.


The damage to the Tu-95 was caused only by the EMP.

The heat should be the white sphere, but I am not able to replicate it.

[Quark73]

You mean the Tu-95V that dropped the bomb?

There are some details in the wikipedia article.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tsar_Bomba

However the russian version of the wikipedia:

Yes I do. Although it's Tu-95W in German, probably caused by different transliteration of the letter "В".

This funny, German wikipedia writes:

Although the Tu-95 was painted white to protect it from heat, the explosion caused damage to the aircraft, which was now 39 km away (50 km according to another source[8]). The electromagnetic shock wave caused three engines to fail. Two of them were able to be restarted during a rapid descent from 11,500 m to 5,000 m, while the third failed unit had become inoperable due to the heat of the explosion.[13] After landing, it was discovered that parts of the fuselage and wings were partially charred and protruding aluminium parts were deformed and melted[14].

Source [13] is sputniknews a Russian state affiliate portal, therefore I suggest to take it with a grain of salt.

[Nikel]

Yes, in German Kasparov is transliterated as Kasparow.

P Gatcomb has a video displaying the EMP effects including nuclear weapons that he manages through lua

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xzP8hBNXiu0


He says the EMP damages modern electronics more than old, but the 3 engines were damaged anyway in your source. The pilot was an ace, imagine the situation!


Another one on nuclear tactical weapons.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LO2zxtP5yFg

[Tcao]

it looks like the game put damage as airframe structural damage. Component is calculated separately.

A little bit of OT, I have seen a lot of air to air gun battle caused neglectable structural damage. A burst of100 round 20mm hit but only caused 3%-5% damage. Of course on the other hand a lot of single engine fighter falling down with 5% damage because they don't have function engine anymore.

[Nikel]

Continued with the test, this time adding the WC-135.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_WC ... nt_Phoenix


I did not find any in the cold war db.

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And found 2 in the db 3000

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I suppose the -w should be in the cwdb, and perhaps should be called -b according to the wikipedia article.


Anyway inserted the -w, and after the bomb detonation was hit by the EMP, displayed here with a modded graphic

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The damage to the Bear.

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[Nikel]

And the damage to the Constant Phoenix. Nothing in this case.

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The underwater blast damage to the second Enterprise, again hitting the structure around 80% and more selectively the air facilities.

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Once more the Bear was not exposed to the white ball of fire.

But the Constant Phoenix was, and so was destroyed.

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Never there was an indication that the CP was detecting any radiation, so the radiation caused by the bomb or the detection capabilities of the CP are not simulated?

[Nikel]

it looks like the game put damage as airframe structural damage. Component is calculated separately.

A little bit of OT, I have seen a lot of air to air gun battle caused neglectable structural damage. A burst of100 round 20mm hit but only caused 3%-5% damage. Of course on the other hand a lot of single engine fighter falling down with 5% damage because they don't have function engine anymore.

That is a good example, probably the damage should be tweaked:


The structure or airframe is a component like the rest.

All the components add % to the damage.

The % is much higher for the structure/airframe, and also for essential components like engines, etc.

And lower for sensors, comms and mounts.

[Nikel]

Perhaps there is a problem with this first version of the Enterprise I used, has no weapons.

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Indeed there was problem, from the Wikipedia article:

Because of the huge cost of her construction, Enterprise was launched and commissioned without the planned RIM-2 Terrier missile launchers.[26] Initially, the carrier had little defensive armament.[23][27][a]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Enterprise_(CVN-65)


The "a" quote is listing a few weapons and a contradiction between sources. But at least there was something to defend the ship.

Four 20 mm cannon were carried according to Friedman,[23] while two 3-inch saluting guns were carried according to Cracknell.[28]

[Mickeys91]

I would do some testing but am not home right now. How does the nuclear blasts do on land? example to mobile units, buildings, structures, cities, bunkers, underground structures ect ect?