Public-domain source · no model output
Nuke Simulator — see what a nuclear bomb would do to any city
Five distances, three yields, two burst modes. Every number comes from The Effects of Nuclear Weapons (1977), and every number carries the figure and printed page it was read from — so you can check any of them against the book instead of taking this page's word for it.
New York · 100 kt
Air burst · ring centre 40.7143° N, 74.0060° W
- Fireball breakaway radius
- 0.21 km printed equation · no burst height input Eq. (2.127.1) · p. 70
- 5 psi overpressure peak of the 4 and 6 psi contours, interpolated
- 3.22 km burst height 4,723 ft Ch. 3 · Fig. 3.73c · p. 115
- 1 psi overpressure peak of the outermost contour
- 9.93 km burst height 7,311 ft Ch. 3 · Fig. 3.73c · p. 115
- Thermal · 2nd-degree 4.5 cal/cm² · light skin, unshaded
- 6.99 km burst height 1,262 ft · 200·W^0.4 (§7.42) Ch. 7 · Fig. 7.42 · p. 291
- Thermal · 3rd-degree 10 cal/cm² · light skin, unshaded
- 4.02 km burst height 1,262 ft · 200·W^0.4 (§7.42) Ch. 7 · Fig. 7.42 · p. 291
The panel above shows New York at 100 kt — the default state, rendered into the HTML. Switching city or yield here needs scripting, so with scripting off the nuclear bomb blast radius table is the way to every other combination: all three yields, both burst modes, in one page.
What each ring means
The fireball is the incandescent sphere at the moment the shock front separates from it. 5 psi is the overpressure associated with most residential buildings being destroyed; 1 psi is roughly where window glass breaks. The two thermal rings are the slant range to a given irradiance: 4.5 cal/cm² for second-degree burns on unshaded light skin, 10 cal/cm² for third-degree. Clothing, shelter, haze and skin tone all move the thermal figure, and this page makes no adjustment for any of them.
Height of burst is not chosen here. Each overpressure contour is read at its own peak — the point where it reaches furthest from ground zero — so every value carries the burst height the chart itself associates with that maximum. The panel shows that height next to each number, and the same five rings laid over a real city, north-up and at true scale, are on the nuclear bomb map.
Where the numbers come from
One table, every combination
All 24 values — five effects, three yields, air and contact burst — sit in one nuclear bomb blast radius table. Each cell gives the number, the burst height, the figure and the printed page, plus a tag saying whether it was read off a chart or scaled by the manual's own law. Readable with scripting off.
The audit trail
The audit trail — where these numbers come from — covers how each figure was read, the text of the scaling law, where the 1 Mt rows leave the chart's assumptions behind, and the one chart whose contour labels had to be identified from the manual's prose because the scan has no text layer.
Questions this page answers
How far from a 100 kt explosion does the blast do damage?
At 100 kt the 5 psi ring reaches 3.22 km and the 1 psi ring 9.93 km, both read from Fig. 3.73c of The Effects of Nuclear Weapons and scaled by the cube-root law printed in that manual (§3.61, p. 101). One psi is the level at which window glass breaks; five psi is the level associated with most residential buildings being destroyed.
Is this a simulation?
No. Every number on this page is transcribed from a 1977 U.S. government manual and carries the figure and printed page it came from. Nothing is modelled, fitted or interpolated beyond the scaling law the manual itself states.
Why does the same yield give different radii for air and contact bursts?
A contact burst puts the fireball against the ground, so part of the energy goes into the ground and the shock wave reflects differently. The manual plots both cases; this site reads each one from its own edge of the chart rather than adjusting one to look like the other.
Why are there no thermal radii for a contact burst?
Fig. 7.42, the chart the thermal values come from, is drawn for air bursts at a burst height of 200·W^0.4 ft. The manual handles surface-burst thermal radiation by a separate route (§7.41, p. 290). Rather than blend two procedures into one column, this page reports blast and fireball only for contact bursts.
What this page is not. It gives distances from ground zero and nothing else — no casualties, no building damage at a specific address, no fallout. It does not cover underwater, underground or high-altitude bursts, multiple warheads, or terrain shielding. The audit trail behind these figures lists what is left out and why.
Yields covered: 15 kt · 100 kt · 1,000 kt. Ring centre for the default state: New York (40.7143, -74.0060) — a GeoNames gazetteer point, not an administrative centroid.