Prepping for Nuclear attack

[ChedderGorgeous]

The ultimate preparation question. But is there any point? I would suggest no.

I disagree. I will be holeing up for a couple of weeks with my family. And then living the best I can. Why wouldn’t I?

Once you start down the prepping route it can be hard to stop, but there are some basics that will give you some options in the event that you haven't been vaporised.

1. store some drinking water
2. Geiger counter (£50)
3. Two way radios and spare batteries
4. lighters or matches
5. iodine
6. "Go bag" with essentials
7. Tinned food
8. Map of the UK
9. Roll of bin bags
10. Cash, in small denominations
11. The list is endless...

The problem with any disaster planning is, disasters are unpredictable, all you can do is think about what's most likely and what would regret not having.

I do 1-4, but will attempt to tick a few more off the list this year.

We live near an oil refinery which once popped up as no.13 on a list of UK targets. The refinery would probably take us out before the nuke did.

A couple of weeks?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_holocaust#:~:text=Such%20a%20scenario%20envisages%20large,most%20biological%20life%20on%20Earth.

I live in Slough so would prep for friendly bombs rather than H bombs

My advice would be don’t worry about anything you have no control over, it just isn’t worth it.

After detonation the risk from deadly radiation last 2 - 14 days depending on varios factors such as bomb size and weather conditions. Larger bombs are less dangerous in terms of fallout than smaller ones as the particles go higher into the atmosphere and therefore take longer to fallout. After the 14 days radiation levels will be higher but won't make you sick. Then there's the following nuclear winter, but most people are unaware that we're only just coming out of a nuclear winter follow the Krakatoa explosion and humanity survived it just fine.

The only prep I would do is make sure we had enough tablets to guarantee a successful and quick death for all of us.

Even if you survive the initial blast, and the radiation sickness doesn't get you - the black smoke would hit the jet stream, above the rainclouds so no way to wash it out, and cause a nuclear winter. Apparently, 99% of food would be impossible to grow and most would die of starvation. And stockpiling won't save you, because looting would become endemic. Very starving people will eat your food at best, and you at worst. So your death would be 1) medically horrific (radiation sickness, or burns) 2) violently horrific (murdered, and possibly eaten) or 3) slowly horrific (starvation - and watching your kids starve).

Even people like the Zuckerbergs, who allegedly have a bunker in New Zealand with a large farm above it, would be at the mercy of their armed guards. They'd better hope the guards like their employers. A lot. Because after a nuclear war, that goodwill would be all that protected them from being evicted up into the open, themselves. And are they planning on bringing a range of doctors with them, too? A fully equipped operating theatre, radiography centre, range of drugs? What about people who can fix the air, water, sewage and energy supplies necessary for that bunker to stay safe, clean, lit and fed? Are there hydroponics, or just dried and frozen and tinned food? Does anyone have the knowledge to start farming after 20 years or so, when you emerged back upstairs? Where do your kids's friends and eventual partners come from? You'd need to create a small town underground in that bunker for it to be remotely worth doing, just for a very simple form of life to be worth living, let alone have any sort of quality. Are they doing that? Can even billionaires afford that - and how do they ensure all these people, and even their own families, are close enough to the bunker to use it, if need be? I mean, I doubt we'll get a calendar warning: "3 days from now, Armageddon." A 30 minute warning won't be enough to jump in a plane from Cali to En Zed, will it - not for any of the team. Most likely scenario, as far as I can see, is that whoever is stationed in any such bunker would get to use it, and the people who funded and built it might well not, as they can't reach it in time. Unless they want to move over there and stay leashed to within a 30 min drive (or helicopter ride) of that bunker main door.

That's the billionaire dilemma. For the rest of us, it's pretty simple.

To come off best from a nuclear war, live in a place likely to get bombed directly, early on.

I read Children of the Dust when I was in Year 9. For that reason alone I’d rather be obliterated by the initial explosion 😄

As I'm only 10 miles from a major city I won't bother, also gchq as someone upthread mentioned, hadn't thought about that. In the unlikely event I'll go quickly. We have family in very remote locations, small holding etc and a motorcycle capable of off road in the unlikely scenario of the baddies only targeting London ... but I'm still thinking it would be game over due to the port and GCHQ

I’m not saying either posts are wrong but these don’t seem to match up

Apparently, 99% of food would be impossible to grow and most would die of starvation

From @BringBackCoffeeCreams

Then there's the following nuclear winter, but most people are unaware that we're only just coming out of a nuclear winter follow the Krakatoa explosion and humanity survived it just fine.

My dad's advice was "run towards the light".
The only prep I would want is enough pills to quietly go to sleep.

I’d not want to survive. I’d have lost friends, family, my job and no doubt my cats would have pissed off out in the garden for a long walk when the siren went so they’d be gone too.

Surviving seems the worse option in the event of a serious nuclear attack.

No.

In the event of a nuclear attack, three cases of canned beans, 72 loo rolls and a couple of packets of aspirin etc are not going to be of any real use.

Then there's the following nuclear winter, but most people are unaware that we're only just coming out of a nuclear winter follow the Krakatoa explosion and humanity survived it just fine

Eh? How can a volcanic eruption cause a nuclear winter?

Do you mean a volcanic winter?

Bottle of spirits and some packs of paracetamol might do the job, though.

What a jolly thread for a Sunday afternoon!

If you want to be pedantic then yes.

I was in the military, and we trained regularly for this eventuality. TBH, if you are in the wrong location you may as well accept your fate. As for your chances elsewhere, it would depend on how widespread the use of nuclear weapons was, as to whether there would be anything worth surviving for. It it were global I don't fancy your chances in NW Europe.

Obviously no one knows exactly what a nuclear winter would be like, but wouldn't the effects be much more catastrophic than a volcanic winter?

Hopefully none of us will find out.

Nope. Choice of die fast or die slow. I'll take the fast, thanks.

Ooh, I knew nothing about that! How fascinating. That's my new rabbit hole to explore - thank you for flagging it up.

This might be worth a read?

www.researchgate.net/profile/Nathalie-Schaller/publication/255700466_Climate_effects_of_the_1883_Krakatoa_eruption_Historical_and_present_perspectives/links/0f31752f4ab5f1da2c000000/Climate-effects-of-the-1883-Krakatoa-eruption-Historical-and-present-perspectives.pdf

But this part isn’t happening now @BringBackCoffeeCreams ?

Apparently, 99% of food would be impossible to grow and most would die of starvation

Some members of my family live near the Rolls-Royce factory in Derby which manufactures & maintains the nuclear reactors which power the UK’s submarine fleet. They would take a direct hit in the first minutes of a nuclear war, a situation of which everyone in Derby with any connection to Royce’s is very well aware.