Effects of Nuclear Weapons
and Nuclear War

Descriptions of Weapon Bursts | Weapon Effect Videos

The Effects of Nuclear Weapons, 1977

This is the definitive, unclassified text on nuclear weapons effects.  A team effort is underway to scan and digitize as much of the book as time permits. 
NOTE: All the of the web pages for 'Effects of Nuclear Weapons", 1977,  have been updated with new links into Chapter IIb and IIc.

Title Page and Contents    [Adobe PDF, 178Kb]
Chapter I -- General Principles of Nuclear Explosions     [Adobe PDF, 1.0Mb]    [Zipped HTML, 400Kb]
Chapter II -- Descriptions of Nuclear Explosions
   Chapter IIa -- Atmospheric and Surface Explosions      [Zipped HTML, 897Kb]   
   Chapter IIb -- Underwater and Underground Explosions      [Zipped HTML, 430Kb]   
   Chapter IIc -- Scientific Aspects of Explosion Phenomena      [Zipped HTML, 730Kb]   

Glossary

The Effects of Nuclear Weapons, 1964

The following entries contain three small sections from the 1964 edition of "The Effects of Nuclear Weapons" which were deleted in the 1977 edition.

Chronological Development of Air Burst
from "Effects of Nuclear Weapons," 1964. These 5-pages contain diagrams and descriptions comparing the air burst of a 20 kiloton and 1 megation nuclear weapon. [also Adobe PDF, 419KB]

Chronological Development of Shallow Underwater Burst
from "Effects of Nuclear Weapons," 1964. These 5-pages contain diagrams and descriptions illustrating the shallow underwater burst of a 100 kiloton nuclear weapon. [also Adobe PDF, 467KB]

Chronological Development of Shallow Underground Burst
from "Effects of Nuclear Weapons," 1964. These 4-pages contain diagrams and descriptions illustrating the shallow underground burst of a 100 kiloton nuclear weapon. [also Adobe PDF, 280KB]

WORLDWIDE EFFECTS OF NUCLEAR WAR - - - SOME PERSPECTIVES
by the U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, 1975. [ASCII, 54KB]

Weapon Effect Videos

Note: These video clips were digitized from the best available copies of U.S. Government films. For additional information about these films, see the Historical Nuclear Test Photos and Films page at the DOE Nevada Test Site.

Frame House (160x120 Quicktime MOV, 960 KB)
This famous video clip is from a Civil Defense Effects test at the Nevada Test Site. It first shows the test house with the tower holding the nuclear device in the background. Then the effects of the detonation are shown. This video is silent.

Airplanes (160x120 Quicktime MOV, 1.3 MB)
A clip from a military effects test showing a jet and then a propeller-driven aircraft. This video is silent.
Forests (160x120 Quicktime MOV, 2.0 MB)
A stand of trees was transplanted to the Nevada Test Site for this Civil Effects test. This video is silent.

Copyright © 1995-2000 Gregory Walker (gwalker@jump.net), Creator of Trinity Atomic Web Site
These HTML pages are published under the Open Content License (OPL), which is the non-software equivalent of the (GNU) General Public License. Basically, the license allows anyone to modify and distribute the documents as long as they make it freely available. For more information, visit the OpenContent organization. Here is a plain text copy of the OPL.

Most of the documents, photos, maps and videos presented here are from U.S. Government documents and believed to be in the public domain, unless specifically noted.

Last updated: January 1, 2000.
http://www.envirolink.org/issues/nuketesting/nukeffct/index.html
http://www.fas.org/nuke/trinity/nukeffct/index.html