When a nuclear weapon explodes at an altitude of 30 kilometers or less, the proportion of various lethal factors is 35% of light radiation, 50% of shock waves, 5% of early nuclear radiation and 10% of radioactive contamination, and nuclear magnetic electric pulse is the secondary effect of early nuclear radiation. Pen, fun, pavilion www. biquge。 info It can be seen that the shock wave makes the main lethal form of a nuclear explosion. The lethal effect of the shock wave is achieved by overpressure and dynamic pressure, for example, an overpressure of 0.07 kilograms per square centimeter can cause damage to a wooden house; An overpressure of 0.35 kg per square centimeter can destroy brick houses, concrete runways, etc.; The tank can withstand an overpressure of 28 kg per square centimeter; ICBMs have the strongest pressure bearing capacity in silos, some of which have reached 400 kilograms per square centimeter.

The lethal effect of the shock wave on a person is mainly indirect rather than direct pressure. The human body can withstand an overpressure of 2.1 kilograms per square centimeter, but the wind caused by an overpressure of 0.15 kilograms per square centimeter can easily blow a person several kilometers away.

As for the specific power of a nuclear explosion, two examples can be used.

1. The world's largest nuclear explosion ever recorded was the 5,800-ton nuclear bomb that the Soviet Union exploded on Novaya Zemlya on October 30, 1961, while the total gunpowder used by all the belligerents in World War II was less than 30 million tons.

2. The simulation test conducted by American scientists, the explosion of a 1 million ton hydrogen bomb in the center of Detroit, will leave a large crater with a diameter of 300 meters and a depth of 61 meters in the center of the city, and the diameter of the edge of the blast center formed by radioactive soil around the pit will reach 200 meters, and the area where the explosion center is 1000 meters outward, except for some huge bridge piers and the foundation of the building, everything will disappear, 2100 meters away, a few reinforced concrete solid buildings can be spared, and 2700 meters is the limit distance for important protective buildings to keep falling. The damage is estimated at the destruction of property within 180 square kilometres, 250,000 deaths and 500,000 injuries, and this is only within three hours of the explosion, and does not take into account the losses caused by the nuclear fire after the explosion, long-term nuclear radiation and contamination, etc., and according to some nuclear weapons experts, the casualties and losses caused by the nuclear fire are greater than the nuclear explosion.

It is worth noting that due to the excessive concentration of power, the ability of a huge yield nuclear bomb to hit soft targets is not as good as that of a nuclear warhead with a small yield but a large number, for example, in the unit of "equivalent megaton yield" (referred to as EMT, referring to the actual damage ability of a 1 million ton nuclear bomb explosion), a 1 million ton nuclear bomb is 1 EMT, and three 200,000 ton nuclear warheads each have a power of 1.02 EMT. Therefore, when attacking soft targets such as large cities, multiple small-yield warheads should be used to explode at the same time, and when attacking high-intensity military targets, high-yield nuclear warheads should be used.