A Common Story: “There are enough nuclear weapons to destroy the world many times over.”

(the footnotes will take you to another answer of mine for references)

This is nothing more than poorly crafted fiction an urban legend at worst and just bad math at best. This common conclusion is not based in any factual data. It is based solely in hype, hysteria, propaganda and fear mongering.

If you take every weapon in existence today, approximately 6500 megatons between 15,000 warheads with an average yield of 433 KT, [11] and put a single bomb in its own 100 square mile grid… one bomb per grid (10 miles x 10 miles), you will contain >95% of the destructive force of each bomb on average within the grid it is in. [12] This means the total landmass to receive a destructive force from all the world's nuclear bombs is an area of 1.5 million square miles. Not quite half of the United States and 1/38 of the world's total land mass…. that's it!

In truth it would be far less. A higher concentration of detonations would take place over military targets and would be likely 10–30 times greater in concentration over those areas. [13] If they were used in war it is unlikely more than 40% would get used even in a total war situation. So the actual area of intense destruction in a nuclear war is somewhere between 150,000 and 300,000 square miles or 1/384 to 1/192 of the world’s land mass.

These numbers are easily verifiable, and they are right. So many have bought into the endless rhetoric of the world shattering destructiveness and the inevitable end of civilization scenarios that they can no longer be objective or analytical as they have put their beliefs in front of rational thinking. I find this true even with most scientists. I challenge anyone to just do the math …it is easy.

You win wars by taking out the opposing teams ability to make war, not their population centers. The arsenals of today are just enough to cover military objectives. There would be no wholesale war against civilians. That is just more fear mongering and Hollywood storytelling.

Urban Legend: Nuclear Weapons Vaporize Everything in the Fireball

Much of the actual structures that held the bombs during the above ground testing remained intact after the detonation. The blast heat is intense but brief. There is not enough thermal energy to vaporize large objects even near the hottest point with the greatest pressure of a detonation.

“Observations of the remains of towers and shielding material after detonation at several ground zeros indicate that large masses of material are not vaporized. Observations of the residue of the Smoky tower [44 kt bomb atop a 700 foot high steel tower] indicated that a very significant portion of that tower remained, including the upper 200 feet of steel. Another example similar to Shot Smoky was Shot Apple II [29 kt atop a 500 ft steel tower], Teapot Series. Even though the total yield of Shot Apple II was about [29 kt], the floor of the cab [housing the nuclear bomb itself, at the top of the tower] and the main tower support columns remained intact. The results of the Shot Fizeau [11 kt atop a 500 ft steel tower] tower melt studies (W. K. Dolen and A. D. Thornborough, Fitzeau Tower Melt Studies, Sandia report SC-4185, 1958, Secret) show that about 85 percent of tower material was accounted for after the detonation and that only the upper 50 feet of tower was vaporized. No melting occurred beyond 175 feet from the top of the tower although the fireball theoretically engulfed more than 400 feet of the tower.”

Dr Kermit H. Larson, et al., Distribution, Characteristics, and Biotic Availability of Fallout, Operation Plumbbob, weapon test report WT-1488, ADA077509, July 1966, page 59 [14]

Survival - Fallout is a short lived problem in most places.

Using the 7/10 rule of exponential radionuclide decay, after just 49 days the radiation will be 1/10,000 the level it was an hour after the bombs went off and after a year and a half the radiation will have dropped below 1/100,000 of that initial level. The majority of bombs would be airburst which create little to no fallout which significantly reduces these dangers. [28]Surface bursts are tactically undesirable. Instead there would be earth penetrating warheads. The reason we no longer stock multi megaton weapons is one that our delivery accuracy no longer needs a sledgehammer approach, we hit what we aim for within feet and yards. Secondly the development of ground penetrating warheads vastly reduced the energy required to take out hardened targets. Ground penetrators while messy are not as bad of a fallout generator as a surface burst is, as there is little neutron activation of secondary materials which is a major contributor to surface burst fallout.[29][30]