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First as farce, then as tragedy (lemmy.world)
submitted 7 months ago by to c/noncredibledefense@piefed.social
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I literally posted the same suggestion in this community three days ago as a joke!

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[–] 4 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (5 children)

NukeMap is giving me this, if you go with a surface detonation and 10 or so W-88 Trident D5s, about half a megaton each.

I... moved the entire concept south of where you had it, as where you have it is... more or less right in the middle of an extended metro area...

So yeah.

If the wind is blowing to the North East... yeah you've basically just irradiated Dubai, basically most of the UAE, and Northern Oman... like 10 to 15 million people, probably essentially immediately (to within a week) killed a couple tens of thousands, minimum.

So basically... imagine a haboob.

But... its extremely radioactive.

... This is actually an... unimaginably extremely worse scenario than what is depicted in Spec Ops: The Line, which is the only point of reference I can think of.

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  • [–] 2 points 7 months ago (4 children)

    Problem is, in order to build a proper canal, you'll need more and/or bigger explosions. Supposedly there are still a couple W53 warheads stashed away, they wouldn't exactly make short work of it, but significantly shorter work than that all that weak newfangled stuff.

    For a rough estimate, how many and how powerful explosions you might need, check out this brilliant idea from the 1950s

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  • [–] 5 points 7 months ago* (2 children)

    Double post, but uh, also kind of worth noting that roughly the border between UAE and Oman...

    ... is a mountain range.

    So you'd have to go through the passes, which of course already have highways and towns.

    ... and basically everything south of Abu Dhabi is a nature preserve.

    Also, not sure how out of date this is, but:

    Presumably, you would not want to nuke an already existing oil pipeline.

    ... which my NukeMap 'path'... does, basically.

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  • [–] 4 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (1 child)

    … is a mountain range.

    More nukes are surely going to solve that problem.

    Presumably, you would not want to nuke an already existing oil pipeline.

    Why not? Just fill the canal with oil instead of water and make it the new pipeline. This will also save money by not requiring ships to transport the oil. Or you can drive a ship filled with oil on the canal filled with oil, giving you twice the oil in one go. (certainly no insane troll logic here)

    Real life ideas involving nukes to make canals through the desert aren't that much less insane, and also give a rough estimate of the amount and size of nukes required.

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  • [–] 2 points 7 months ago*

    Yep, that's entirely correct.

    I was trying to do a more low end, 'what would the damages be to the human environment,.at minimum' kind of thing.

    And as best I can tell, yeah, it gets worse with bigger nukes, because more stuff gets vaporized and turns into fallout.

    So you end up with radioactive sandstorms for... a decade or two?

    Its insane, its like, intentionally trying to turn that penninsula into the fucking zone from Stalker.... maybe Fallout Dust, the New Vegas mod?

    Sorry for the video game analogies but I ... I have no other frame of reference.

    I cannot overstate how insanely bad of an idea this is.

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