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1980 Damascus, Ark. Detonation?

MAC161

Well-known member
Published by SLP
Location
WI, USA
Just finished watching the documentary Command & Control about the 1980 Titan II missile explosion in Damascus, Arkansas; hair-raising, to say the least, both in its depiction of the accident and its description of the many flaws (still) surrounding U.S. nukes. One part in particular, however, grabbed me as an AH writer: At the time of the accident, the Dem. state convention in Arkansas (attended by then-Gov. Bill Clinton and none other than VP Mondale) was taking place in Little Rock--well within the range of being outright destroyed or critically irradiated, if the nuke had gone off. In addition, the doc describes how the blast might have mimicked that of the Castle Bravo H-bomb test, which was three times more powerful than expected--and, based on the subsequent fallout plume (5,000 sq mi), would, if detonated in D.C., have killed most or all people between that city and NYC and affected the Eastern Seaboard as far north as Boston.

So, the question(s): If the Damascus accident had gone nuclear, what are the immediate and long-term effects? Mondale, Clinton, Sen. David Pryor (who was also at the convention, as he describes in his parts of the doc) are more than likely killed, so what does that (along with the blast itself, obviously) do to the 1980 elections? If a Castle Bravo-type fallout plume occurs (allowances made for it being a land detonation, rather than at sea, which greatly magnified the radioactivity), how much of the South and the country as a whole might be affected? What might this do to the Cold War in general, strategic arms talks, and the anti-nuclear movement?
 
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Just finished watching the documentary Command & Control about the 1980 Titan II missile explosion in Damascus, Arkansas; hair-raising, to say the least, both in its depiction of the accident and its description of the many flaws (still) surrounding U.S. nukes. One part in particular, however, grabbed me as an AH writer: At the time of the accident, the Dem. state convention in Arkansas (attended by then-Gov. Bill Clinton and none other than VP Mondale) was taking place in Little Rock--well within the range of being outright destroyed or critically irradiated, if the nuke had gone off. In addition, the doc describes how the blast might have mimicked that of the Castle Bravo H-bomb test, which was three times more powerful than expected--and, based on the subsequent fallout plume (5,000 sq mi), would, if detonated in D.C., have killed most or all people between that city and NYC and affected the Eastern Seaboard as far north as Boston.

So, the question(s): If the Damascus accident had gone nuclear, what are the immediate and long-term effects? Mondale, Clinton, Sen. David Pryor (who was also at the convention, as he describes in his parts of the doc) are more than likely killed, so what does that (along with the blast itself, obviously) do to the 1980 elections? If a Castle Bravo-type fallout plume occurs (allowances made for it being a land detonation, rather than at sea, which greatly magnified the radioactivity), how much of the South and the country as a whole might be affected? What might this do to the Cold War in general, strategic arms talks, and the anti-nuclear movement?
Was there any risk of it going nuclear?
 
Was there any risk of it going nuclear?

As they described in the doc, there was no power supply to the warhead, but this could easily have gone otherwise; also, the safety mechanism was fragile enough that the explosion could've jarred it into the "armed" position.

The main and most terrifying thing was that no one really knew what would happen once the missile exploded.
 
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Nukemap has Little Rock massively outside the range of the warhead, even if it detonates at 27 kilotons, not 9 so unless the wind is blowing the wrong way, then the city is unlikely to turn into something out of Fallout : New Arkansas. Even if the city gets covered in fallout, then most of the residents should be able to shelter for at least a few days before food etc becomes a problem and the radiation levels should have dropped somewhat by then.

EBS probably tells anyone in Arkansas and any states downwind to shelter for 14 days. Army and National Guard are probably used to evacuate and deliver food to anyone in the fallout zone.

Nukemap provides a death toll on modern population numbers of 2500 deaths.

You probably end up with a exclusion zone about 15 miles wide around the blast site, and any areas which got a very high dose of fallout.

Short term, the consequences might be worse than Chernobyl, and in the long term the surrounding area might recover faster.
 
Nukemap has Little Rock massively outside the range of the warhead, even if it detonates at 27 kilotons, not 9 so unless the wind is blowing the wrong way, then the city is unlikely to turn into something out of Fallout : New Arkansas. Even if the city gets covered in fallout, then most of the residents should be able to shelter for at least a few days before food etc becomes a problem and the radiation levels should have dropped somewhat by then.

As I understand it, the warhead was a B53, so the payload was 9 megatons. I don't know if it would reach that level in an accidental detonation (and it's perhaps even more unlikely to reach the full Castle Bravo scenario the doc uses for comparison), but wouldn't the blast and radiation effects still be more significant/widespread if in the megaton rather than kiloton range?
 
If the blast/fallout doesn't reach Little Rock, you can still have the perception it almost reached Little Rock and killed the Vice President of the United States. The political fallout (ho ho) would be quite massive from that. "These can go off in accidents in peacetime" would surely terrify most people in the nuclear-armed states too, and any states where the US and USSR might have put their nukes, and any country that might be trying to get nukes
 
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