<< "<EM> Low Yield Nuclear Bomb"
<EM>What the hell is that, Atom Bomb <STRONG>LITE?
</STRONG> >>
More lack of knowledge here...
Most of the foolish people here talking about "the end of the world" if nukes are used don't understand what a nuke really is, and what it isn't...
Nuclear devices range in power from sub kiloton range up into the tens of megatons...
A low yield nuclear device is usually one that is scaled to less power than the first bombs used on Japan (which were 20 kiloton devices), usually in the 0.5 to 5 kiloton range. These are tactical weapons meant to destroy bunkers, tanks in the field, fire bases, C&C bases, airfields/airports, etc... They don't "destroy the world", or "end life as we know it", they don't even do much damage to the area since their blast doesn't hit the stratosphere and thus their radiation doesn't travel very far...
The high yield devices such as the American Mark 48 device produce between 50 kilotons and 2 megatons... The Mark 48 device is a Fusion device that produces 330 kiloton average yield, about 15 times more powerful than the devices used on Japan. Those are city busting weapons... Those would be used for an average sized city... The problem with the is the blast reaches the stratosphere and thus spreads over a large area...
The largest devices range from 2 megatons to 100 megatons (the latter being a Russian only weapon). The largest device in the US stockpile is a 10 megaton device. Some of those are so powerful the blast reaches space... Russia tested a 53 megaton device back in the 60's by airdropping it into a target zone. They destroyed 14 satellites in the process and damaged the drop plane which had 6 minutes from the time of drop to the time of detonation to fly out of the drop zone... but it still wasn't quite enough time... This is why they never tested the 100 megaton version, totally pointless...
Jason