This article will focus on an issue that has received very little attention - recommendations for civil defense in the event of a nuclear strike and their effectiveness. I will start right from the main thesis: everything that is stated in manuals and manuals on civil defense in the event of a nuclear war is useless and in a real situation of a nuclear strike will not work.
Consideration of the available literature on civil defense, in the part related to nuclear war, shows that the recommendations are at the level of the famous and, probably, to many well-known work edited by V. I. Queen "Everyone should know and be able to do this."
This brochure was produced in the 1980s in several editions and in large editions. Such instructions, short and lengthy, were generally divided into two parts. The first part was devoted to explaining what weapons of mass destruction are, how they work, that is, it set out the necessary theory. The second part was devoted to what to do in the situation when it happened. Now we are most interested in the second part, that is, practical recommendations.
The subject of analysis is practical recommendations in the event of a nuclear explosion. I will have to emphasize this once again, since it has been empirically found that some readers read the article inattentively, and then write indignant comments.
So what does the famous admonition recommend to do? In fact, there are two recommendations. The first is to take refuge in a shelter. The brochure Everyone Should Know and Be able to do so says that the main means of civil defense in the event of a nuclear war are collective shelters (p. 9), and then goes on a rather detailed analysis of what kind of shelters are and how to build the simplest of them. The second recommendation is that if you were not allowed into the shelter or it turned out to be too far away, then you need to lie on the ground face down, using some kind of shelter like holes, ditches, stumps, that is, everything that will not be knocked down or turned out shockwave, close your eyes. After the explosion has occurred, it is recommended to put on protective equipment (gas mask or mask) and leave the affected area (p. 17).
Modern instructions (I took, for example, A. N. Palchikov's manual "Civil Defense and Emergencies" published in Saratov in 2014 for masters and bachelors of technical universities) also suggest taking refuge in a shelter and using protective equipment - a gas mask or a mask. In Palchikov's manual, quite a lot of attention is paid to notification and voice messages transmitted by radio, television or sound reinforcement, but among the variants of these voice messages there is no warning of a nuclear strike. About the accident at the nuclear power plant - there is. If the population hides in shelters 10-15 minutes after receiving the notification, then …
In general, all this is idle fiction for the simple reason that the population simply will not have these 10-15 minutes after the notification.
The fact is that the flight time of an ICBM is from 10 minutes for a missile with a range of 1600 km to 37 minutes for a missile with a range of 12,800 km. Data is given for optimal flight path. Deviations and maneuvers can slightly increase the flight time, but not much. Apparently, 45 minutes for the longest-range intercontinental ballistic missile is the limit of the flight time.
The launch of a rocket can be detected by satellite tracking systems in the active area by the torch of operating engines. These data can be obtained as early as 2-3 minutes after launch, but they do not give any information about the flight path and, accordingly, about the affected area. Accurate data on the trajectory of missiles and warheads are received by the radars of the missile attack warning system, which, as the Strategic Missile Forces kindly informs us, have a detection range of about 6,000 km. That is, roughly, the warhead will be detected about 18 minutes before the target is hit. The trajectory will be calculated in a few seconds, the affected area will be determined, but then the factor comes into play that it takes time to transmit a message about a missile attack. In the Strategic Missile Forces system, this time is short, a matter of seconds, but this is how their communication system is designed for this. But after all, we need to bring a warning about a missile attack and a nuclear explosion to the population of the affected area!
And here a surprise awaits us. The information on emergency warning systems, which is published by the Ministry of Emergency Situations of Russia and its regional divisions, states that the maximum period for alerting the population in the Unified State System for Prevention and Response of Emergency Situations (RSChS) is 30 minutes after putting it on high alert and 20 minutes after the announcement of the state of emergency. This time, as can be judged from the words of Vadim Garshin, Head of the Prospective Development Department of the Civil Protection Department of the Ministry of Emergency Situations of Russia, passes from the ministry receiving information about an emergency situation to the transmission of a message via communication channels (for example, via SMS messages from mobile operators). This is the real practice of the current warning system. In addition, another five minutes are given for turning on the sirens and transmitting the voice message.
This warning system, which works well for typical emergencies such as hurricanes, fires, floods, is completely unsuitable for a nuclear attack. If we take a nuclear explosion as 0, then the sequence of events will be something like this:
- detection of warheads by missile defense radars;
- determination of trajectories and areas of damage;
- notification of the RSChS (for simplicity, we will assume that the transmission of a message from the Strategic Missile Forces to the RSChS is automatic, but it takes time for the system to activate and transmit the message);
- receiving information from the RSChS, starting the preparation of a notification to the population (the information received needs to be recognized, which also takes time).
For simplicity, we will assume that the population is alerted in the event of a nuclear attack automatically, without a preliminary decision on the introduction of an emergency regime in the affected area, which is required by regulatory documents.
- nuclear explosion;
- completion of the preparation of the message in the RSChS and its transmission through the communication channels;
- turning on sirens and voice messages;
- termination of the siren signal and the transmission of voice messages.
In short, you have already fried in the nuclear sun. It is quite obvious that the RSChS will not be able to transmit a signal to alert the population in the event of a nuclear attack, since it works too slowly and does not have time to bring the necessary information to the population for the remaining flight time of the warhead after it is detected by missile defense radars. The communication systems in the area that needs to be notified will be destroyed even before the RSChS completes the preparation of the message.
There are no claims to the Russian Emergencies Ministry. The existing warning system was not created for such extreme cases as a nuclear attack. For all other emergencies, it works well enough.
The problem of alerting the population about a nuclear attack could be solved if the Strategic Missile Forces had the opportunity to activate sirens, transmit voice messages, and so on directly, immediately after calculating the trajectories and determining the areas of destruction of the detected ballistic missiles. Then, taking into account the time to transmit the message, the population would have approximately 12 minutes to hide.
The next moment. Even if you have time to run to the shelter, what awaits you there? That's right - the lock on the door. According to current practice, only a few shelters are maintained in a mode of constant readiness to receive people, and such shelters, as a rule, have a departmental affiliation. Soviet shelters, once intended to shelter the population, are either closed, or have long been repurposed and sold, or have become completely unusable.
In general, the recommendation to hide in shelters, which is contained in the manuals on civil defense, comes from the 1950s, when strategic bombers were the main carrier of nuclear weapons. For example, a B-52 "strategist" with a cruising speed of 820 km / h, if found over the Northern Urals, will take two hours to reach Moscow and drop a nuclear bomb. In two hours, a full-fledged notification of the population can be carried out, the population will gather, reach the shelters, settle in them and wait for a nuclear explosion. It is not a fact that he will be - the enemy "strategist" may be dumped along the way.
If you have only 10 minutes at your disposal, then running to the shelter is pointless, even if it was open and ready to receive. You need to realize the situation and suppress the first attack of fear and panic (not everyone can do this instantly), take the most necessary things, documents, go outside and get to the shelter. It must be borne in mind that you will not be alone, and a dense crowd will rush to the shelter, which slows down the movement. If you are on the upper floors of a residential building or business building, it will take a long time to go down the stairs, which are also packed with people. In a real situation, getting to the shelter in 10 minutes is completely unrealistic. Those who do not believe can arrange such a teaching for themselves and measure the time that it took from some arbitrary moment (conditional notification) to the moment they reached the door of the shelter.
This is the paradox of civil defense in modern conditions - to rush to the shelter means to dramatically increase your chances of dying, if not from a nuclear explosion, then from a crush in a crowd of those who are fleeing.
For the conditions of atomic bombing from aircraft, the recommendation to lie down and take cover before a nuclear explosion is also suitable. First, because the people left in the open, heard sirens and messages, they know that there will be an explosion soon. Secondly, the roar of the "strategist" is clearly audible, and can be heard far away. This makes it possible to determine the approximate direction of the explosion and find cover. In good weather, the bomber is even clearly visible, as well as the falling bomb. For example, the Japanese corporal Yasuo Kuwahara, an eyewitness to the explosion in Hiroshima, saw in front of him both the plane and the bomb he dropped.
The warhead is almost invisible and almost inaudible. If this is the warhead of the longest-range ballistic missile, then it approaches the target at a speed of the order of 7.5 km / s and at an angle of 25 degrees to it, that is, almost horizontally. A flying warhead will most of all resemble a meteorite or meteor - a bright yellow-red line in the sky. Without warning (which, as we found above, will be a few minutes after the explosion), the warhead is very difficult, almost impossible to distinguish from a meteorite.
People are more likely to stand and stare at her, thinking they are watching a meteorite fall. Only this time the outcome of the spectacle will be somewhat different - suddenly and soundlessly, a dazzling white, all-absorbing light will flash out.
Therefore, the recommendations in the case of a nuclear strike, which are in the manuals on civil defense, are completely unsuitable for modern conditions and useless. Once they made sense, but already in the 1970s, these recommendations were hopelessly outdated and even harmful. The circumstances of a nuclear attack using ballistic missiles are such that it will be sudden anyway and leave no time for cover. We need a completely different method of civil defense in the event of a nuclear war.
