If the nuclear warhead that the US government launched at the city destroyer ship in Independence Day that was about to destroy Houston had been successful and blown that SOB to smithereens, would the US have gone ahead and made that the de facto strategy for the rest of the war?

According to Wikipedia, there were 36 of those ships in the atmosphere, plus the big Maama Jamma up in space. How much of the Earth would be livable if 36 nuclear warheads were detonated over very livable locations around the world?

And as a bonus question: Why wouldn't they use the nukes again when they got the shields down?

The only rule of this thread is that you can't make the 28 year old joke about the Windows virus infilitrating the alien network. WE ALL HEARD THAT JOKE IN 1996.

Modern, thermonuclear (fusion) bombs have very little residual radiation. There is the blast destruction, yes. But that is all.

Cinco Ranch Aggie said:

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Hiroshima and Nagasaki are doing fine, and have been for many years.

All of those areas would have rebounded after some time. In the mean time, survivors would have developed settlements in any number of wide open spaces that exist in this country and around the world, away from the devastated population centers. The aliens weren't interested in West Texas, for instance, because there wasn't anything there of interest to destroy.

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correct answer. Nuclear weapons while extremely destructive don't have the same nuclear fallout like Chernobyl….which compared to a nuclear bomb which is over in a matter of seconds/minutes…..Chernobyl put out 1000s times more radiation over a way longer period of time.

So we'd be ok….minus the 36 bomb locations…..course the size of those ships crashing into those cities/locations would probably be just as big of a problem…..what was their width in the movie? Coulda swore they said 15 miles wide…..

An atomic bomb from 1999 had severe devastation over only 2-3 miles from the blast zone with the damage still extending past that but diminishing from that point on…..

Dang ships going down would be a big issue but….I think we're thinking way too hard about this enjoyably dumb movie…..

Blast height is the biggest factor. The higher the blast, the less opportunity for fallout.

Back when the biggest threat to the US mainland was fleets of nuclear armed bombers, we developed and tested the Genie air to air nuclear missile to destroy fleets of these bombers at high altitude.

Definitely Not A Cop said:

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Houston being a radioactive wasteland would be an improvement to its current state of affairs. The water might actually taste better.

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Can nuclear explosions disperse humidity? Nuking Houston might be pretty smart.

https://nuclearsecrecy.com/nukemap/

You can try out different nuclear bombs and locations to map their fallout and destruction radius.

The 300kt nuclear bomb attached to the United States Minuteman III ICBM, if detonated in the air, would not affect the Houston suburbs if detonated directly over downtown. If detonated on the surface radioactive fallout would be much more intense. The effects would depend on wind speed and direction.

AtticusMatlock said:

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https://nuclearsecrecy.com/nukemap/

You can try out different nuclear bombs and locations to map their fallout and destruction radius.

The 300kt nuclear bomb attached to the United States Minuteman III ICBM, if detonated in the air, would not affect the Houston suburbs if detonated directly over downtown. If detonated on the surface radioactive fallout would be much more intense. The effects would depend on wind speed and direction.

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So the rope swing and lazy river at Dragonfly Park will still be operational. I'm good.