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Original poster

To ask how long it will take to die if we do get nuked

383 replies

MagicalRealist · 29/08/2017 14:15

Just this really. How quick? I know the warning, if there is one, will only be a few minutes so nowhere near enough time to get to school and be with DC. But when the bombs hit, is it just a flash of light and then oblivion? Or a longer scarier process? Obviously I hope none of this will actually happen.

OP posts:
BeyondLimitsAndWhatever · 30/08/2017 14:32

Watching the dead zone now :)

LurkingHusband · 30/08/2017 15:02

Another pretty good movie around the same time is Miracle Mile.

You must be the only other person in the UK who has seen that Grin.

I pigged out on Thomas Pynchon after that !

Whatthefoxgoingon · 30/08/2017 17:54

We must revel in our superior yet esoteric taste lurking Grin

Knottyash5 · 30/08/2017 18:14

I'm a lot more worried about Brexit than I am about the prospect of nuclear war.

cafeaulaitpourvous · 30/08/2017 18:32

The dead zone gave me a bit of a thing for Christopher Walker.....

Did you enjoy it beyondlimits..?

cafeaulaitpourvous · 30/08/2017 18:43

Walken....

xqwertyx · 30/08/2017 19:19

I'm presuming this is if the warhead landed directly on your forehead?

I wouldn't think it should take too long to die. If you was lucky enough to survive you'd likely have a pretty decent headache.

BeyondLimitsAndWhatever · 30/08/2017 19:24

I did - though like all 80's films, it hasn't aged very well. I saw they had made a series too, but it was cancelled before it was finished :(

Bumshkawahwah · 30/08/2017 19:25

Oh, god, Threads. You can watch it on YouTube, I think. It gave me nightmares for months.

KeiraKnightleyActsWithHerTeeth · 30/08/2017 20:32

I watched Threads as few months ago and have barely slept since. I wouldn't recommend it.

TracyBeakerSoYeah · 30/08/2017 20:34

Keira you do know by saying that, we'll all go off to watch it.
It's a bit like saying don't google dragon butter! 🤣

RuggerHug · 30/08/2017 20:57

bums it was taken off YouTube but is available on vimeo. There's a protect and survive style guide to watching threads on YouTube though. Which opens with 'WHY?What the bloody hell do you want to do that for'.

Bumshkawahwah · 30/08/2017 22:10

ruggerhug, if only I had seen that. God knows what I was thinking. I didn't watch it to the end, since, you know, it didn't seem like there would be much of a happy ending.

ShoesHaveSouls · 31/08/2017 01:26

If you're considering watching threads - and I strongly advise against it, esp if you have children - then watch this first:

It talks about and compares Threads and The Day After (which was the US one, and reportedly changed Ronald Reagan's nuclear arms policy because it was so shocking). It's an interesting analysis of both films.

Fudgit · 31/08/2017 01:31

Not read the whole thread but feeling scared and sad and in need of a hug. Jesus. Sad

Ereshkigal · 31/08/2017 01:33

Just. Don't. Do. It!

Ereshkigal · 31/08/2017 01:36

it didn't seem like there would be much of a happy ending.

No, but as far as I remember it carries on some time into the future... there isn't much left of civilisation. I watched it last about 5/6 years ago I think.

ShoesHaveSouls · 31/08/2017 01:56

*the video I linked to contains spoilers.

Threads carries onto the next generation, and there is no happy ending. Not even a glimmer of hope. Actually, there's no happy ending in The Day After either - barely a glimmer.

It's shocking stuff - but filmed in the past, where we in the Cold War. I remember (I was only a teenager) that although we weren't in real day to day fear of war, we were constantly living in the shadow of nuclear war. Full on nuclear war - an exchange of 300+ nuclear warheads between Russia/US/UK. We're not back there yet.

Ginfernal · 31/08/2017 02:04

North top of Scotland maybe not the best - across the water from the base at Lossiemouth and big nuclear plant at Dounreay!

nancy75 · 31/08/2017 02:22

In the unlikely event would we actually be given the 10 minute warning? How would they do it - I haven't noticed any big sirens near my house?
As for Trump, even if they gave him the code when he became president he's never going to remember it so we don't need to worry about him

Basecamp21 · 31/08/2017 05:44

I worked for many years as an emergency planner so had access to details on the plans to deal with a nuclear attack. And there are Too many variables to give an answer. It depends on where you are in relation to the epicentre - on how many bombs are dedonated- how big the bombs are - what shelter there is etc. Most people hugely over estimate the damage a single bomb will cause.

There are rumours of superbombs but it would actually take 7 ballistic nuclear weapons to destroy London alone.

There have been over 2000 nuclear bombs detonated in the world already - only 2 in wars - but shows they do not devastate vast areas.

Fictional depiction of nuclear attack are based on all out nuclear war between two massive super powers where 100's of bombs would potentially be dropped on UK. Something that for complicated reasons involving EMP's may never have been possible anyway.

I have always been a peace campaigner and believe in the abolition of all weapons but especially nuclear ones. I hate them.....but I hate ignorance based on media exaggerations and miss information and propaganda more.....as these actually cause the wars the weapons are used in.

BlueUggs · 31/08/2017 06:29

Al those of you saying you live in London so it would be instantaneous??! Why?? Who says they would hit London?!?? There are plenty of places they would want to take out strategically first that aren't London.

Ifailed · 31/08/2017 06:55

We cant really compare the outcome of possible nuclear war in the 1980s with today, most of the infrastructure that was in place then (bunkers for local admin centres, stockpiles of body bags, emergency medical/law procedures etc) have either been sold off, disbanded etc.

Threads predicated the UK population would drop to medieval levels, with medieval agriculture, health care etc. But that was with some semblance of order and planning post-attack, we have none of that now. Some of the most simplest tasks that a household in the 80s could be reasonably be expected to do are now long forgotten - how many have any hand tools nowadays (ie a brace instead of a power-drill?), how many people could kill, pluck and prepare a live chicken to eat?
We have no emergency food stockpiles, our police forces can barely maintain order in 'peacetime', our logistics are all set up for just-in-time deliveries. It would be utter chaos now, far better to go in the initial exchange, rather than slowly die in misery and pain afterwards.

lettuceWrap · 31/08/2017 07:51

Basecamp, I get what you are saying, and agree with most of it, but 2000+ bombs being detonated underground/on tiny islands/in remote deserts didn't cause huge devastation because there was (pretty much) nothing/nobody there to destroy.

Those bombs have raised the "background radiation" of the entire planet tho, and have therefore contributed to the DNA mutation rate/cancer risks that ALL of us

BeyondLimitsAndWhatever · 31/08/2017 09:34

By the way, has everyone seen the time-lapse video map of all the previous nuclear detonations?