all about nuclear weapons

According to "Atomic Audit," since 1940 the United States has spent at least $5,481,083,000,000 -- that's nearly $5.5 trillion -- in constant 1996 dollars on its nuclear weapons and weapons-related programs. The figure does not include an estimated $320 billion for future and some present costs for the storage and disposal of nuclear wastes and weapons.

The study's contributors offer a more concrete way to visualize the numbers given:

  1945 1955 1965 1975 1985 1995
UNITED STATES 6 3,057 31,265 26,675 22,941 14,766
SOVIET UNION 0 200 6,129 19,443 39,197 27,000
BRITAIN 0 10 310 350 300 300
FRANCE 0 0 32 188 360 485
CHINA 0 0 5 185 425 425
Source: National Resources Defense Council

Current estimates:

Russia
Arsenal and missile range: 22,500 warheads; 6,800 miles (11,000 km)

Weapons are deployed at about 90 sites in Russia. In a little-appreciated logistical feat, Soviet, and then Russian, members of the 12th Main Directorate have consolidated, over the past decade, a far-flung arsenal of tens of thousands of nuclear weapons at hundreds of locations in Eastern Europe and 14 republics to under a hundred sites in Russia today.

United States
Arsenal and missile range: 12,000 warheads; 8,100 miles (13,000km)

Nuclear weapons are located in 14 states. New Mexico, Georgia, Washington, Nevada, and North Dakota are the top five and account for about 70 percent of the total. The other nine are Wyoming, Missouri, Montana, Louisiana, Texas, Nebraska, California, Virginia, and Colorado. The number of U.S. nuclear weapons in Europe has shrunk dramatically, from over 6,000 of many types in the early 1980s to some 150 B61 bombs at ten air bases in seven countries (Belgium, Germany, Greece, Italy, Netherlands, Turkey, and the United Kingdom) by the end of 1997. The United States is the only country with nuclear weapons deployed outside its borders.

The U.S. targeted approximately 40 nuclear weapons on the Ukrainian city of Kiev up until early 1991. The city is a 300 square miles in size, and in 1976 it was the third largest Soviet city, population 2,013,000. Such targeting, if evenly distributed, would have created the following levels of destruction over every square inch of Kiev: 100 Kt weapons = 6.7+ psi destruction; 250 Kt = 8+ psi destruction; and 500 Kt = 11+ psi destruction. Kiev would have been rubble if it were attacked with 40 weapons of any of these sizes. There would have been nothing left. The Russian, or for that matter any nuclear weapon nation's, target plan undoubtedly would promise a similar fate to at least some of its adversary's cities.

The kitchen window standard is this: A 1 psi blast wave is equivalent to the kitchen window being hit with 1,920 pounds of force when all doors and windows of the house are closed [1,920 = 30x64x1]. Similarly, a 3 psi blast is equivalent to the window being hit with 5,760 pounds of force. So you can see why not only windows break, but walls can come tumbling down with such overpressures.

October 1961: Soviet Mega-Bomb
The Soviet Union detonates a nuclear device, estimated at 58 megatons, the equivalent of more than 50 million tons of TNT, or more than all the explosives used during World War II. It is the largest nuclear weapon the world had ever seen at that time.

The size of weapons: The one megaton size weapon is no longer widely used. Most of the literature that focuses on one megaton weapons is dated and of limited use for assessing blast damage. It was principally in the late 1950 and 1960s when megaton weapons were in vogue in the U.S. and comprised the bulk of its strategic nuclear weapons. The trend has been to move away from weapons in the megaton range. This trend is not a consequence of nations becoming choir boys. It is because they can produce more effective destruction with weapons in the 100 Kt to 550 Kt range [greater destruction per unit of weight].

The overwhelming majority of nuclear weapons in all nuclear weapon nations are less than one megaton [China comes the closest to being an exception to this rule with roughly 73% of its weapons reportedly being 300 Kt or less, and the remaining 77 of its weapons perhaps being 3.3 megatons or greater].

For comparison, note that the Hiroshima bomb was 12.5 to 15 Kt in size. The Nagasaki bomb was approximately 21 Kt. The U.S. weapons now fall principally within the 100 Kt to 375 Kt range, the average being approximately 250 Kt. And the majority of Russia weapons are 550 Kt; the average size is roughly 400 Kt.