Beirut explosion

[Olefin]

For those who want to see what the effect would be of a battlefield nuke on a major city you only need to look at what just happened in Beirut. It wasnt a nuke but the explosion was calculated at 2.2 kilotons of TNT. Thats 1/7th the size of Hiroshima and actually larger than many battlefield nukes that both sides deployed during the Cold War.

Thus you can see what the effect would be of even the smaller nukes used during the Twilight War on cities in Europe.

[Olefin]

FYI Before and After Pic - made a word document and attached it - again gives a GM an idea of what kind of damage a battlefield nuke would do

[Raellus]

The Day After

This article includes a number of before-and-after satellite and aerial images of the damaged port, as well as photos and video clips of damage taken from on the ground.

https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/35402/satellite-imagery-offers-shocking-views-of-devastated-beirut-port

-

[rcaf_777]

The Halifax Explosion of 1917 was calculated at 2.9 Kilotons

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halifax_Explosion#cite_note-FOOTNOTERuffmanHowell1994276-3

[Legbreaker]

Yes, lets store 2,700 tonnes of ammonium nitrate with a few palettes of fireworks. Add in 6+ years of possible oil and diesel leaks to mix with the AN plus a propensity for Lebanese dock workers to smoke on the job and of course there's no way there could possibly be an accident....
Oh, and leaving all that next to 85% of the entire country's grain supply is never a bad idea.
It's OBVIOUSLY a Mossad attack.... :/

[/sarcasm]

[pmulcahy11b]

For those who want to see what the effect would be of a battlefield nuke on a major city you only need to look at what just happened in Beirut. It wasnt a nuke but the explosion was calculated at 2.2 kilotons of TNT. Thats 1/7th the size of Hiroshima and actually larger than many battlefield nukes that both sides deployed during the Cold War.

Thus you can see what the effect would be of even the smaller nukes used during the Twilight War on cities in Europe.

According to CNN yesterday, this has been revised upwards to 3 Kt.

[Legbreaker]

According to CNN yesterday, this has been revised upwards to 3 Kt.

According to CNN the sky is purple with pink stripes....
Also, there's absolutely no way 2.7 kt of AN will yield a 3kt explosion. Basic physics states that is a bald faced lie.

Ammonium Nitrate only has 0.32 the energy of TNT, the explosive nuclear yields are measured against. At BEST, it would have have yielded 0.864 kt. If the stars had aligned and everything have been absolutely perfect (enough fuel oil/diesel had soaked in to the AN, somehow mixed itself evenly, and it had exploded within 24 hours of doing so), then, and only then would it have managed a yield of no more than 1.998 kt. Okay, MAYBE 2kt if you include the fireworks that set it off...

MAYBE...

[Olefin]

have a feeling there might have been more stored there - they estimated the explosive yield based on the size of the crater and the local earthquake reading

Either way it was definitely the size of a battlefield nuke detonation - and a ground pounder to boot

[CDAT]

AN is a low explosive, this makes it very good at moving earth and stuff (why the military use it in there cratering charge) it is not very good at cutting stuff. So what does this mean, if they are just going off the hole it made AN will make a bigger hole per pound than TNT with less explosive power, where as C4 would make a smaller hole with more explosive power.

[Legbreaker]

I'd argue it's a high explosive given it's for a deflag rate of 2700 m/s, albeit at the lower end of the scale. Yes, it does have a bit of a pushing effect which is one of the reasons it's commonly used for mining and cratering, but it's also quite able to shatter rock as well. Add in diesel to turn it into ANFO and it's speed jumps to 4,200 m/s, which is definitely a high explosive.

The definition I was taught way back when I initially did the army explosives module for Assault Pioneers was low explosives deflag slower than the speed of sound with a pushing effect, while high explosives are quicker and tend to a shattering effect (there is a little wiggle room there though).

Using the hole dimensions etc to calculate the yield, especially when we already know exactly what the explosive was, is just plane lazy. In this case it also makes it sound a lot worse than it actually was (not that even doubling the yield would have been much worse for all practical purposes).

Location played a big part in the level of destruction. If the AN had been moved 6 years ago when the issue was first raised to a more remote area, and assuming it had still been set off in some manner, we'd probably only have seen a few goats as casualties and very little real destruction to anything that really mattered. Having it go off in the country's main port, right next to the grain silos and half surrounded by the city on the other hand....

[Targan]

I think it's highly likely that the explosion was the result of poor storage and abysmal OH&S. CNN is a credible news organisation, certainly not an outrright disinformation or propaganda organisation anyway. In the civilian explosives community in Australia ANFO is generally referred to as a low explosive, I never bothered to look up the exact definition so that's how I've referred to it too since obtaining my explosives permit 25+ years ago. It's easy enough to speed it up with simple additives, but generally if we needed a faster-reacting explosive we'd use something other than ANFO.

[Legbreaker]

CNN is a credible news organisation, certainly not an outrright disinformation or propaganda organisation anyway.

You're joking right
CNN have been caught out time and time again twisting the truth or just plain outright lying. Only have to search "CNN lies" to see the evidence.
That said, I don't believe ANY of the main stream, legacy media are all that trustworthy. Always use multiple, separate and independent sources.

This is just another example of them being unable to stick to simple facts. As I detailed, physics dictate it's impossible for it to have been 3kt and at best less than 1kt

[StainlessSteelCynic]

I don't know that much about explosives and the physics of explosions so I'll leave this for analysis by those that do, but the following video compilation doesn't strike me as being 3+kt blast. It just doesn't seem "big" enough, but hey, what do I know

https://www.youtube.com/watchv=Ht1uuqiwdgQ

[Targan]

You're joking right
CNN have been caught out time and time again twisting the truth or just plain outright lying. Only have to search "CNN lies" to see the evidence.
That said, I don't believe ANY of the main stream, legacy media are all that trustworthy. Always use multiple, separate and independent sources.

No I'm not joking. I've just made note of your standard biases creeping into your posts and when they don't quite reach the threshold of being outright political posts and therefore deletable, I just call them out instead.

[Legbreaker]

I admit I have a bias, just like everyone else on the planet. That still doesn't make CNN a reliable source given the wealth of evidence to the contrary.