What makes the straight smoke lines in front of nuclear explosions?

[Skwink]

Everytime I see an Atom Bomb go off, there are a whole bunch of straight white lines in front of the explosion cloud? What are they? I will demonstrate here in a video.


Link to video. Go to 1:47 for a good view

 

[Bugfatty300]

Nevermind

 

[PlutonianEmpire]

Measurement tests, or something like that.

One answer is on the very site watermarked in the video.

http://www.atomcentral.com/atomic-smoke-trails.aspx

In order to study the velocity of the shockwave front, rocket trails were located perpendicular to the line of site and the shockwave was photographed as it passed in front of these trails. The progress of the shockwave was then followed by observing the "hooks" in the rocket trails at the shock front. These hooks are due to the change in the index of refraction of the air at the shock front.

 

[Borachio]

Oh right. I never knew this. Thanks.

 

[Winner]

Everytime I see an Atom Bomb go off, there are a whole bunch of straight white lines in front of the explosion cloud? What are they? I will demonstrate here in a video.

Smoke candles/rockets. They're there for reference and measurements of the shockwave and other effects.

 

[kochman]

Pretty intense little clip...
Amazing the destruction that is caused, both immediate and long term.

 

[Farm Boy]

I had a course that spent a month on nuclear power balance at university. Studying the various step by step effects of nuclear weapons and their ranges in an attempt to understand the firepower available to nuclear powers and how much armament/delivery was needed to ensure the functional and technical necessities of maintaining a M.A.D. power balance. I don't think half the class slept for a week.

 

[bugwar]

I had a course that spent a month on nuclear power balance at university. Studying the various step by step effects of nuclear weapons and their ranges in an attempt to understand the firepower available to nuclear powers and how much armament/delivery was needed to ensure the functional and technical necessities of maintaining a M.A.D. power balance. I don't think half the class slept for a week.

Meh.
Biological agents make nukes look like love taps.
At least with a nuke you can aim it.

Viruses go after EVERYTHING. Then evolve to get better at killing.

 

[Farm Boy]

Meh.
Biological agents make nukes look like love taps.
At least with a nuke you can aim it.

Viruses go after EVERYTHING. Then evolve to get better at killing.

Yes, no doubt, those are terrifying as well. There's just something so tactile about melting/burning almost everyone in under an hour flat. Then automating your system to dead-fire another full salvo 3 months later to sweep up any survivors. Then having it do it again 3 months after that.

Viruses seem to be so uncontrollable that only the insane would contemplate using them(small comfort, really). There was for a number of years any number of otherwise rational actors who contemplated the odds of being able to "win" a nuclear exchange.

 

[Patroklos]

Biological weapons are not at all as destructive as TV/movies make them out to be. Once they are recognized be active most modern societies can shut them down.

The primary drawback to biological weapons is that they are useless for immediate military effect. They are generally only effective at all if you can keep their delivery secret, and any major effects will take weeks to months to have any effect on a scale large enough to impact the battlefield.

Nukes and even chemical weapons, on the other hand, have an immediate military impact....

 

[Andvare]

Biological weapons are not at all as destructive as TV/movies make them out to be. Once they are recognized be active most modern societies can shut them down.

The primary drawback to biological weapons is that they are useless for immediate military effect. They are generally only effective at all if you can keep their delivery secret, and any major effects will take weeks to months to have any effect on a scale large enough to impact the battlefield.

Nukes and even chemical weapons, on the other hand, have an immediate military impact....

There is no way of combating virus post infection, and the onset period could be down to days, hell even hours is possible, though quite rare. And vaccines are not always available. Obviously a carrier to carrier infection would take far longer.
Also our healthcare system is just not up to the task of a mass outbreak of any kind. When I say "our", I mean around the globe. No nation is equipped to handle biological warfare.

There are two main vectors for delivering both biological and chemical weapons. Gas and liquid. Many chemical "gas" attacks aren't actual gas attacks, but aerosols.
A liquid vector is far easier to deal with than a gas vector, but they are also far easier to direct.
There is a difference between the two concerning gas vector. While virus and spores are so small that they can be carried by the wind, and do so in nature*, they are not naturally suspended in gas, and are therefore easier to defend against.

It can still be used as a pre-war outbreak weapon, causing chaos, panic and infrastructure breakdowns, or an asset denial weapon, contaminating food or water sources. Now that last part is again something you can combat, but it takes resources, and it only requires a very small effort for that to be required for all.


All this makes it an ideal terror weapon though, except if there are certain parts of the world you do not want to infect.

Biological weapons are nasty, if of limited value in direct combat.


*Virus really needs a liquid vector, because a virus is a very fragile thing

 

[uppi]

Viruses go after EVERYTHING. Then evolve to get better at killing.

Viruses actually get less deadly with evolution. The longer the virus keeps its host alive, the more chances it has to spread. A virus with a high lethality rate is usually not yet adapted to humans. That is why viruses which have recently made the jump from another species are much deadlier than those that have been around for a long time.

 

[innonimatu]

All this makes it an ideal terror weapon though, except if there are certain parts of the world you do not want to infect.

Biological weapons are nasty, if of limited value in direct combat.

It's not even that good as a terror weapon, but it is good for economic sabotage. The biological warfare the US practiced upon Cuba for decades ended up being mostly economical, though they managed to murder plenty of cubans through it also. But hey, the US military had no problems with releasing biological weapons upon its own population either...

 

[kochman]

It's not even that good as a terror weapon, but it is good for economic sabotage. The biological warfare the US practiced upon Cuba for decades ended up being mostly economical, though they managed to murder plenty of cubans through it also. But hey, the US military had no problems with releasing biological weapons upon its own population either...

I'm going to need you to elaborate on what exactly you are talking about here...

 

[Leoreth]

Next time you're going to claim the US ruined East German harvests by bombing them with potato bugs.

 

[Glassfan]

The only large scale bio-war I'm familiar with was the Japanese "Unit 731" attacks on Chinese civilians in WW II, where weaponized anthrax and plague were employed on refugee crowds. However, while immediately deadly, the bioweapons burned themselves out fairly rapidly.

On the other hand, a moderate-to-large nuclear exchange would have not only immediate blast and radiation effects - but according to some experts - would result in "nuclear winter", a mass-extinction event. Real-world corroborating evidence comes from Desert Storm. The ignition of the Kuwaiti oil fields (effectively the same atmospheric mechanism as NW) by the fleeing Iraqi Army caused a localized drop in temperature of about 50 degrees F. over a few thousand square kilometers of desert, and upset the monsoon season on the Indian subcontinent hundreds of miles to the east. A widespread strategic nuclear exchange over several continental land masses would have significant long-term impact.

 

[Winner]

I had a course that spent a month on nuclear power balance at university. Studying the various step by step effects of nuclear weapons and their ranges in an attempt to understand the firepower available to nuclear powers and how much armament/delivery was needed to ensure the functional and technical necessities of maintaining a M.A.D. power balance. I don't think half the class slept for a week.

Really? I loved the courses dealing with nuclear deterrence, (dis)armament, proliferation, and all this stuff. But then, I am nuclear weapons "fan".

Biological weapons are not at all as destructive as TV/movies make them out to be. Once they are recognized be active most modern societies can shut them down.

The primary drawback to biological weapons is that they are useless for immediate military effect. They are generally only effective at all if you can keep their delivery secret, and any major effects will take weeks to months to have any effect on a scale large enough to impact the battlefield.

Nukes and even chemical weapons, on the other hand, have an immediate military impact....

Exactly.

However, supposing you are really insane and you invest into something really nasty (weaponised H5N1 with 80% mortality rate, but transmissible like normal seasonal influenza), biological weapons have the potential for massive strategic disruption of pretty much the whole world.

 

[Farm Boy]

Well, I rather enjoyed it too. Apparently analysis of how we design a system that intends to kill everyone is one of my stronger suits. I think that's one of two classes at university where I finished top in my class. Doesn't mean that the thoughts aren't nightmare worthy.