Would smaller airports that typically aren't used by militaries likely be targeted in a full nuclear war, or only larger ones, whether military, commercial, or dual-purpose in nature?

I know a retired Ohio Class sub commander (one of Rickover's guys, active c. 1970 - 2000, with the usual hazing-like interview story! Rickover actually locked him in a closet...). He mentioned sleeping 10 feet from a TN weapon. How much classified information regarding TN weapons would someone like that know? Design features...or I guess it would be more along the lines of, being one of the 'three fingers on the button' regarding launch protocols (I read at a submarine reddit), and not the design stuff talked about here? I'm a complete science nube, but mentioned the interesting Nuckoll's article on Ripple to him in an email, but he didn't respond. He's active in disarmamant 'clubs' now, so he may just have no interest in it. Though I imagine his security clearance at one time was very high? Being compartmentalized, I guess that doesn't mean he knew weapons design details....

I could swear I read an article about Biden administration secretly warning Russia of the consequences, if they used a nuke in Ukraine. Googling now, I can't find anything on it. Or maybe I'm mistaking that for the warning Russia was given about not disrupting Biden's trip to Kiev. I don't think so though.

So, armchair (or actual) nuclear planners...what might Russia be told of consequences of using a tactical nuke, and what might NATO actually do in response to that happening, or what they might do to prevent it? (Not much going on at reddit/nuclear war, so thought I would ask here.)

Kids claimed almost 460 tests at this place, got to stand in a frozen lake crater, did 0 contamination control methods, no real government oversight and talked to a 75 year old plant worker that felt, in his own words... great.

Recommend turning the sound off, because they otherwise ruin the trip with their opinions.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s0kzpMSRFrk

Woops
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BVlpD8r7glo

What would happen if Rhodesians used nukes ?

If a missile is said to carry 10 MIRVs, does that mean all 10 of those re-entry vehicles are carrying nuclear warheads? Or are some of them going to be decoys designed to draw away BMD interceptors? When they talk about a missile with 10 MIRVs are they actually saying its got 10 nukes onboard or possibly that only 5 of those are actual nukes and the other 5 are decoys?

I was just researching, and i came across something very interesting, i was looking at the smallest nuclear warhead, the W54 Davy Crockett, which has around 0,020 kilo tons of yield, and i looked at the largest conventional bomb, the MOAB with around 0,011 kilo tons of yield, according to this, the W54 warhead is stronger, yet its so very small, its only 31 inches (79 cm) long, while the other MOAB is 30ft 1,75 inches (9,18 meter) long which is the height of a building, yet its weaker than the W54 which has the lengths of a average tv screen?

Several times I've heard it stated that it's the latter, though I thought it was the former. H bomb was first, yes?

I'm wondering if there have been any tests against terminal phase warheads - i.e. something flying a pretty realistic simulation of a MIRV flight path, but obviously inert - either recently or in the past. I know that pretty much all mature systems today, with the exception of the A-35/135 - which given its service date and the Test Ban treaties could never have been actually tested - focus pretty squarely on Boost or mid course intercept, with terminal capabilities being a pretty vague theoretical. But it is still technically there, and obviously things from the past like Nike Zeus/Sprint took this as primary?

Has the US or Russia, or anyone else, actually proven that you could in principle intercept a terminal strategic warhead? Were all the developments / proposed projects to do so nuclear, or were there any that were conventional / hit to kill?

(I say strategic because I'm assuming that THAAD/Arrow/Iron Dome etc have all been tested on short-range terminal targets, although I could be wrong).

Edit: Looks like I found the answer here

[59] On 5 October 1973 during the first intercept test of a production Sprint test data showed that the interceptor actually hit the target.

I know this is used in a scenario in Annie Jacobsen's book and was wondering if that was realistic. Let's say North Korea nuked the US and the US retaliated. Would Russia or China or some other country have the technology to be able to definitely tell if the US nukes were headed for them vs. North Korea in the few minutes they need to make a decision?

What about if a country in Asia or America hypothetically wanted to nuke the Middle East or Ukraine, for example. Obviously, the nukes would have to cross above a bunch of other countries or come nearby them before they would land at their destination. What would stop other countries from potentially retaliating in a MAD scenario even though the nukes weren't intended for them?

In the book, Nuclear War: A Scenario, a name as creative as said scenario, the author alleges that Reaper drones should be deployed to patrol the airspace near NK because this would allow them to intercept North Korean ICBMs. She also makes it sound as if the US is actively developing this this capable.

As far as I'm aware AMRAAMs wouldn't work with Reaper, for a number of reasons, so I suppose the question is has anyone here heard of such a proposal before or at least one similar to it? I'm pretty sure I know the answer but I suppose I want to know for my own sanity.

The more I think about that book the more I think it was borderline insulting.

Just what it says. Hypothetically the sitting president of the United States is tragically killed in a terrorist attack by a rogue nation, Iran for arguments sake. Thousands of civilians are killed and wounded. Would a nuclear strike in retaliation be warranted in this situation? I responded yes and I was called insane and that the only reasonable response would be a full blown invasion and that nuclear weapons are “only” used to destroy major population centers. I know you guys are much more educated on nuclear weapons and nuclear use doctrine I just wanted to hear your thoughts on the matter. Thanks!

Reading about the W47 and the 100 ton yield in a one-point test, I wonder if anyone has ever had an accident where a one-point detonation happened. It seems like a lot of effort was made to design weapons ensure that one-point detonation would not result in significant yield, so I wonder if such an accident ever occurred.

EDIT: I am mostly trying to figure out of the ad-hoc safety actions taken for the W47 were overkill (pardon the re-appropriation of the term), or a warranted and sensible safety precaution, although it rendered the weapon extremely unreliable. I probably should have explained that more clearly up front.

There have actually been a series of books on hydrodynamics written by Wen Ho Lee

I'm surprised they haven't come up before

COMPUTER SIMULATION OF SHAPED CHARGE PROBLEMS

Containing chapters on:

"Shaped Charge Problems" (fissile flyers) "One Dimensional Radiation Hydrodynamics" "Thermonuclear Burn of Deuterium-Tritium Sphere" (but in reality LiD)

Computational Methods for Two-Phase Flow and Particle Transport With CD-ROM

Including the complete source to some hydrocode

Containing chapters on:

""Nuclear Fission" "Radiation Hydrodynamics" (ICF) "Photon Transport" "Charged Particle Transport" "Neutron Transport"

Computational Solid Mechanics for Oil Well Perforator Design

To much to list...

I also found a good text - PDF on computational hydrodynamics.

Question I have....would weather affect a launch of an icbm or a slbm or even the accuracy of the mirvs reentering the atmosphere? Sorry if a stupid question, waiting for this rocket launch in the southwest and it keeps getting scrubbed because of weather, I'm thinking of the nasty weather the great plains can have.

Inside Kings Bay, surrounding the special weapons area, looks to be a bunch of regularly placed signs right outside the fences. What do you think it says?

site: https://www.nrc.gov/docs/ML1708/ML17083C093.pdf

I was looking up a barcode number online and one of the results was this link. It seemed pretty interesting and navigating to the domains further up reveals an access denied error (even for the base domain) Not sure if this is anything special but maybe someone here could explain

(btw is this doesn't really fit subreddit rules I can delete post, just seemed like the place to post)

Pretty much the title. Something like Cheyenne Mountain or one of the other deep underground bunkers getting struck by warheads that would most likely target them from Russia/China/US.