A Government programme intended to raise public awareness of threats to the UK and strengthen national resilience is already under way and will continue through 2027, according to a parliamentary answer.
The timetable was set out in response to a written question from Conservative MP Ben Obese-Jecty, who asked when the national conversation on defence and security promised in the Defence Investment Plan would be delivered. Armed Forces Minister Louise Sandher-Jones said the work is being led by the Cabinet Office through the Home Defence Programme.
She said: “The National Conversation is a programme of public engagement led by the Cabinet Office as part of the Home Defence Programme. Delivery is already underway and will continue through 2027.”
Defence will support the programme through public engagement and communications intended to explain the threats facing the UK, the role played by the Armed Forces in deterrence and resilience, and how individuals, communities and employers can contribute.
Sandher-Jones said: “Defence is supporting this work through planned public engagement activities and a coherent programme of communications. These have been designed to improve understanding of the threats facing the UK, explain the role of Defence in deterrence and national resilience, and encourage practical participation by individuals, communities and employers.”
The work also links into the National Risk Register, which was updated in July 2026, and the internal National Security Risk Assessment used by government to assess the likelihood and potential impact of risks affecting the UK and its interests. According to Sandher-Jones, the public-facing register is intended to show how the Government is preparing for those risks while improving public awareness and supporting a broader approach to national resilience.
Defence is also contributing to a separate Cabinet Office-led national resilience public awareness campaign announced in the Annual Statement on National Resilience on 14 July. The Government intends to judge the wider programme against levels of public preparedness, participation and resilience.
Sandher-Jones said: “Success will be measured by increased public preparedness, participation and resilience.”
Government communications on defence and security are expected to increase ahead of ALBISTON SHADOW, described in the answer as a major UK Home Defence exercise, and NATO’s Crisis Management Exercise in spring 2027.
“Already underway.” Anyone come across this yet? Anyone?
If the only way you get to hear of its existence is as a response to a written question, it’s not that much of a national conversation, is it? Let’s hope it picks up a bit. Delivering it through the Cabinet Office as part of a Home Office programme is already a bold choice. Who is explaining it to the Home Office?
If this ‘government’ of incompetent Marxists doesn’t wake up I would be looking for charges of treason to be levelled with them expelled from Parliament and an election called. They need to learn that their duty is to the UK and not their Left-wing allegiances.
Could somebody get Miliband to watch this and also in his new role, ask Zelensky if he thinks climate change is a bigger threat than Putin???
Probably not an easy task to raise public awareness of warlike threats to uk mainland. We are quite removed from the Cold War decades. The government should of course be trying to raise awareness and spending the money.
The people who most need to be made aware are all in the cabinet.
How true, and the rest of the clowns in Westminster, Edinburgh, Cardiff and Belfast. Perhaps if we cut the waste of tax payers money that funds some of the useless paper pushers and duplicated government bodies we may have some more money to fund our defence 🤔
If only. Thousands moving paper (probably emails these days) from place to place with ot a decision made.
Jury Prize
Ok I’m going to give you the view of the person who has spent a shed load of time planning and working in the catastrophe even management field..
First thing to realise..if the shit hits the fan in a big way there is nobody coming to rescue you.. this nation’s major incident and disaster resilience is essentially based around a county sized resilience forum managing something like a coach of people having a crash with say 5-10 major traumas and 20 walking wounded, with a major trunk road shut for day .. a plane crash would take an entire regions resilience forums to manage..
If a couple of million people lost all water or we had a national power loss or a cyber attack took down our food distribution your on your own till it’s back up, because the forums will fall apart, and all service as we know them will suffer collective collapse and many people will die.
You move to say a sudden kinetic strike by Russia taking out core government functions, power and water, hitting distribution and logistics.. your essentially on your own for many weeks
A nuclear exchange of any level may see you fending for yourself for the months range..( nobody is even starting to think about even Evacuation of a fall out plum area until week three ) a full exchange will see you fending for yourself for a year or more.
So at different levels
Basic preparation rules for the not wasting money but like to feel able to be fully self sufficient if it all goes to shit for a week or two
1) stockpile what you use.. don’t spend your hard earned money on something you keep in a box until it expires.. essentially look at the common foods you eat with a long shelf life and just buy a lot more of those and keep stock rotating.. so 40 Tins of tuna, beans ect instead of 4.. 10 bags of pasta and rice instead of 1.. the great thing about this is you can hold out till the offers come on and buy loads, saving a ton on your food bill, your also resilient to sudden food inflation… essentially you can buy to the max you use by the best before date and it will save you money as you bulk buy at the best prices you can get… buying a years supply of baked beans you will eat at 25% off is a better return than any isa.
2) water.. do the same stock rotation with bottled water.. buy the size of you use the most.. we have 10 crates of 16 .5 litres bottles.. we stick a crate in the car and that’s the kids drinks sorted.. I go through crate of 16 bottles every month or so taking the kids out.. so that’s stock rotated every 10 months and it save a fortune on drinks out.. as it about 10p a bottle. Look to have about 10-15 litters per person
4) have a portable cooking option.. the cheapest is a wood powered bucket stove ( metal bucket with a hole in the bottom of one side wall.. burn some wood and pop your pot in.. when the pot is boiling take it out and completely wrap in a thick layer of insulation the pot will now stay boiling hot for an hour and cook you dinner.)
5) have some power banks for phones and lights have one with solar panels
6) have a battery AM FM radio with solar and wind up
7) have a shed load of matches
8) tea lights are very very cheap and you can use them at Christmas as well
9) have an emergency set of rucksacks if you need to abandon your home or get removed have some basic sleeping bags and a small tent.
10) basic hand tools.. a survival knife, bow saw and hammer, rope, good string and some long nails.
11) have some paper currency in the house.. not to much as it’s not earning interest and if an issue looks like it’s lasting a long time cash my not start looking useful.. but for the 3 day to week long denial of service attack a few hundred in notes will be useful.
Longer term if you want to maximise your ability to care for your family in a long term crisis ( say a total shut down lasting months) .. but this can mean actually cash investment of a few thousand pounds.. depending on what you have already..
1) Water.. understand where you can get some water.. local spring or river.. buy yourself a water filtration set.. £20 will get you a filter set that will last for 3000-4000 litres.. that will keep a family of five going for a year.. this is cheap £40 for two years of water.
2) get some books on edible UK plants.. you can live off oaks, birch and some common weeds if you know how. A couple of good books is £20 quid
3) have some way to hunt small game.. air rifle is easy legal and you can buy and store 1000s of pellets for no money.. a good air rifle and a scope a bit more £500
4) silver coins.. old Uk coins pre1919 ( Stirling silver or pre 1946 50% silver) .. silver always goes up in price over time so it’s not a bad part of a balanced portfolio.. but silver coins are hyper inflation proof as well as financial system crash proof.. they are an investment asset that will retain value if the entire economy is swept away..don’t go mad but a few pounds in weigh. Depends on your investment decisions but a grand in silver is not silly if you have 10k in savings.
5) have some basic seed stock.. onions, broad beans… easy stuff to grow. A few quid.
6) if you can stick a wood burning stove in your house, you can do this in most houses no need for a fireplace).. this means your house is not unliveable in winter.. you have heat light and can cook. If you don’t have this already it’s the most expensive prep at a few grand.. but you get a lovely wood burning stove to enjoy all the time.. priceless..
7) wood fuel.. get 1 winters worth at about £300
8) garden tools.. spade, hoe, more saws, axe, wood splitting axe £200
9) storage containers for food and water £200
10) basic survival tools, knife, small hand saw, one handed axe, flint and steel fire lighter, sharpening stone
Very long term..
This is essentially mainly all skills based and will need an investment in time
1) learn all the edible plants and how to encourage them in your area.. the books you got are a good start or go on a foraging course
2) learn to fix the roof of your house.. electrical and plumbing skills are lesser to basic construction and shelter building
3) learn to maintain your tools and equipment
4) learn to hunt and trap, including rifle marksmanship for medium game, joint a club get a FAC for a .22 LR and have a gun cabinet with a FAC level air rifle ( better small game hunting and a LW semi auto .22LR for medium game ( in a longer term survival situation assume plenty of free sheep)
5) learn to preserve food
6) learn self defence
7) learn how to make and shoot a bow..
8)learn basic survival
But most importantly review all the realistic risks and consider the possible consequences and how you will mitigate them.. remember the risk manager is rational not emotional, the risk manager does not refuse to consider the risk because his mind tries to refuse to believe something so awful could happen.. was a risk manager I considered plane crashes, pandemics, wars, terror attacks and how to mitigate any number of mass casualty events.. and I can hand on heart tell you every single horror that could happen has happened to someone..
I will do a follow up on how to survive fallout and anywhere not with 3 miles of a 1 MT air burst ( if your within 3 miles sorry your fucked unless you have invested in and build a shelter that can survive a 20 PSI over pressure ).
Sterilizing fluid (as sold for cleaning baby bottles) is a cheap chlorine source ideal for sanitizing water in bulk. Or buy a big stack of supermarket value thin bleach, it’s basically pure chlorine watered down. 5ppm easily kills all bacteria, protozoa etc.
Not so good for UK filth as it only kills organisms, there is very little water in the UK I would trust without a good chemical filter.
Chlorine steritabs are apparently good enough for the army, but yes ideally you need a good filter too because of stuff like cryptosporidium.
I honestly would not use them.. they are a quick dirty light survival tool for a back pack.. if you’re not careful or unlucky you will be shitting water.
The key reasons you don’t want to use unfiltered water and why boiling does not work either..
1) UK water has very high nitrate levels cause algae blooms in even flowing water.. they cause a nasty dose of cyanotoxins, worse still if their is any algae in the water the chlorine tablets will cause them to burst and release a bigger doss of cyanotoxins
2) you mentioned Protozoa, both Cryptosporidium and Giardia lamblia.. look cute under a microscope turn your bowels to water..and laugh at chlorine.
3) Chemical and Industrial Pollution, a lot of UK waterways will chemically poison you, Agricultural Chemicals: Pesticides, herbicides, and fertilizers, Heavy Metals: Lead, mercury, arsenic, and cadmium from industrial sites or mining runoff, industrial per- and polyfluoroalkyl
4) Particulate Matter and Turbidity, mud, silt, sand, decaying organic matter, cannot be removed by chlorine and actually acts as a chlorine soke.. reducing the effects of chlorine tablets… as an infection control nurse once told me.. you can’t sterilise dirty with chlorine.
Excellent advice, hopefully it’s not needed.
Fun facts about survival of a fallout event
A fall out plum only occurs with a ground burst event. Not airburst you don’t need to worry about airbursts…( If the direct radiation was going to kill you the blast and overpressure will get you first) . unfortunately for the UK the Attack of choice to knock out a port is ground burst and in any nuclear exchange exchange 2 of the most likely UK targets will be Portsmouth and Plymouth creating two fallout plums from the south coast.. other ground burst targets are in Scotland although Northwood would be a ground burst target as well.. everything else would likely be airburst and outside the scope of a fallout shelter.. because any direct radiation would come along with a hi PSI overpressure that requires a blast shelter not a fallout shelter ( closer than 5Kms to a 1 MT airburst will require a blast shelter that can manage a 20 psi overpressure, within 2kms your at 40-100 PSI and even hardened underground bunkers would be failing… essentially if your within those distances and don’t have a blast shelter good night…
So those two fall out plumes
They will actually be very narrow.. maybe 20 miles at their widest..
They will probably have a very significant risk to life out to about 300 miles or more
They will travel at the speed of the wind ( upper atmosphere for smaller particles).. but as a rule of thumb you can say 2-4 hours to travel 100 miles.
Alpha, Beta and Gamma radiation emitters will fall from the sky.. the closer to the blast the larger the fallout.. contrary to myth fallout will not be light dust it will be heavier sand like particles.. because the very light dust will not fall
Now a nice easy way to think about the three types of radiation emitters in fallout.
Alpha emitters.. these will be part of any fall out plume, you can chill out about these.. think of them more like a biological hazard in that for harm you must ingest or breath them in.. remember that the fallout is going to be at it’s smallest sand grain sized particles.. so good hand washing and basic PPE and proper procedures for a decontamination shower essentially offer full protection.. if you have sealed your house to sand size particles your safe.. also even if you ingest a fair number of alpha emitters it’s more of a long term health issue not a bone melting 🫠 human puddle on the floor in days or weeks issue.
Plutonium-239 and Plutonium-240 have a
half-life of 24,100 years), meaning it emits radiation very slowly. Larger quantities are required to cause acute, immediate death from ARS, though microscopic amounts dramatically elevate long-term cancer risks. Unlike the famous than Polonium with 138 days half life.. that kills you deader than dead with ARS ( but polonium is not found in fallout… yey good news 👍)
Uranium Isotopes: Residual Uranium-235 and Uranium-238.. these are so weakly radioactive that you would die of heavy metal poisoning before you came close to ARS
So think of the alpha emitters in fallout as a public health issue.. a bacteria outbreak that’s going to last for a few thousand years.
Next is your beta emitters.. now think of these nasty lads like a chemical hazard.. beta emitter will cause radiation burns if in contact with skin as well as internal radiation damage if ingested.. they are more destructive than the alpha emitters because of this..
They come in two waves higher energy short term emitters, short term emitters with a half life of days and weeks Iodine-131 is the most well known as it infiltrates the thyroid gland if ingested and will cause failure or longer term cancer.. but any clothing will protect against beta burns and basic masks and hand hygiene will stop ingestion
Then you have the longer term isotopes that have a couple of decades half life and will enter the food chain as they have bio uptake..Strontium-90 is the most famous.. it enters the plant and animal food chain then builds up in people’s bones over years and destroys bone marrow production over time
So Beta has a mixture of short term physical risk that’s manageable with PPE and basic precautions and decontamination.. but then you have the food contamination and unless you can import clean food for 3 -6 decades your living with a lot of future bone and blood cancers.
Now for the cold hard killer that will turn you into a melted puddle of soggy organs..
It’s the gamma radiation in fall out that is the stone cold bitch that will melt the organs of you and your loved ones.. the thing is the Gamma emitters in fallout are very very high energy.. they will penetrate almost anything and only significant depth of mass will attenuate them.
To put it in perspective if your buttoned up in an MBT and you get less than 1 hour post blast fallout coating your tank ( say your 10 miles away) even with the most advanced radiation shields utilising DU mesh liners your only getting a protection factor of 50-100…that means your attenuation rate is 98-99% you are going to to die of ARS you will just die in weeks not hours or days
Fall out travels with the wind.. so as a rule of thumb 15-20 mins to start falling within 10-miles, it will take about 2-4 hours to travel 100 miles and 4-8 hours to travel 200 miles etc
So that’s your times
Next is the 7 10 rule… high energy gamma radiation is insanely destructive but it follows the 7 fold and 10 rule..for every every seven-fold increase in time after a nuclear detonation, the radiation exposure rate from fallout decreases by a factor of 10
So that means after 7 hours it’s at 10% of what it was when the bomb went off at 49 hours it’s at 1%
So the closer you are in time and space the more dangerous it is
So what will kill you
400 rads dose over a few hours.. spread over a 2 week the body may just manage it.. but in hours to under 2 weeks it will kill 50% of people within 2-8 weeks if they have the best medical care.. assume you will not and assume you are dead if you receive well over 400 rads or in very short time it will be a nasty 2 weeks ending in multi organ failure and overwhelming sepsis.. although it’s possible you survive without medical intervention… but it’s very unlikely as an infection will kill you.
1000-5000 Rads in hours or days you are so 😵 dead as the radiation destroys your cardiovascular vascular and central nervous system.. infact at this level you become incapacitated with minutes.. nausea, vomiting and diarrhoea as well as confusion.. within an hour you suffer high fever, servere debilitating headaches, crash of Blood pressure as you go into hypovolemic shock ( you will have shate out your blood volume) you will loss consciousness… you may enter the walking dead phase for a couple of hours where symptoms for some bizarre reason subside a bit.. either way within a couple of hours you enter the terminal phase suffer convulsions and ataxia as your CNS collapses.. you die
If we take that tank crew 10 miles down wind of a 1 MT ground burst.. within 30 mins or so their tank will be covered in fallout which will be emitting around 3000-10,000 rads per hour.. let’s say they have the most advanced radiation shield known to man ( a modern western MBT) so they have a protective factor of 100.. that means they are still getting 30-100 rads an hour in the tank after 7 hours that will be cut to about 3-10 rads per hour.. they are still getting a lethal dose.. but the cynic in me says ( and really the reason for the shielding) that they will still be able to fight for some days…. Instead of being incapacitated within minutes
If you are 10-miles down wind of a 1 MT ground burst in the first hour you will get 3000-10,000 rads after 7 hours it will be down to 300-1000 rads an hour and 49 hours 30–100 an hour
If you are 100 miles down wind with higher wind speed in the UK your looking at up to 100 rads an hour two-four hours post blast and 5 rads 7 hours post blast.. then 49 hours .5 rads an hour
If you are 200 miles down wind looking at 4-8 hours for fallout and your looking at 5-15 rads an hour then 49 hours later less than 1 rad
The terminal radiation poisoning period for high energy gamma radiation in fallout is that first 49 hours
How do you cut your rad exposure.. the gamma rays from fallout will travel a good 200 meters in all directions from the particle.. and you need massive density of stuff to stop it.. your roof and floors are essentially like thin air.. useless.. its the fallout on your roof and shining through your windows that will cook you.. so if your in your house and sheltering under the stairs you will die.
So what do you need.. all round protection.. you must be protected from radiation from all angles and from shine ( it bounces ).. so your shelter roof must be as good as your walls and your entrance must have a right angle as must any ventilation..but you don’t need air filters.. just having baffles will keep the heavy sand like fall out from your shelter.
Now you must understand about half-value layer (HVL).. what layer of material will half the radiation..
1 HVL layer will attenuate 50% of the high energy gamma radiation
2 HVL layers will attenuate 75% of the high energy gamma radiation,
3. HVLs attenuate 87.5% ( near 90%) of rads removed.. so if your within 10-20 miles 3 HVLs is a chocolate teapot as your still getting 300- 1000 rads and hour for the first 7 hours.. it’s a bit better 100 miles away as your collecting 10ish rads for 7 hours then about .5 to 1 rads an hour for 2 days..but still your going to feel a bit shite and I would not risk getting higher winds or a freak hot spot.. but if your 200 miles away 3 HVLs are a lot of good .
7 HVLs: 99.2 % protection.. now this is better but if your 10-20 miles away your still getting ARS as essentially 7HVLs is about what that modern MBT has with its radiation shields (a 100 protection rating).. but 100 miles down wind your looking at maybe 2 rads an hour peak from 3-7 hours then post 7 hours blast down to .2 rads an hour.. you will be fine
10 HVLs: Roughly 99.9% protection that’s a 1000 protective factor.. even at that peak 10000 rads an hour at 10 miles your only getting 10 rads an hour for the first 7 hours then down to 1 rad an hour till hour 49..build this if you can because even a 10 mile away up wind ground burst will not give you ARS.
So what to build… use soil as its free and it’s all around..
The 1 HVL of soil is 3.5 inches.. so the 3 HVL shelter is only 10.5 inches of packed earth, the better 7 HVL shelter needs 2 feet of packed soil ( 24 inches ) 3 feet will give you 10 HVL..
so as a rule of thumb 3 feet of soil and you will live through all fall out, 2 feet and your fine unless your 10-20 miles from a big arses dirty bomb..1 foot and your ok 200 miles away and should be ok ish 100 miles away..
Stone and concrete are a bit higher density for HVL calculations so the 1 HVL is 2.4 inch’s stone wall will give you 7 HVL on one side.
But remember your house may have good HVL walls but the roof, doors and windows will kill you..
Best advice is dig a trench 4-5 foot deep 4 foot wide and 10 foot long.. cover it in 6inch wood poles ( leaving a small entrance tunnel at each end ) cover in a water proof membrane.. then mound 16 inches of soil over it in a dome.. then cover that with a tarp ( this is your internal waterproof roof) then continue to cover that tarp until the roof over your trench is 36 inches deep.. ( dome it for strength and a bit of overpressure resistance if your 10 miles from a target).. fill it with water and food, have a poo bucket and bags.. have some lights…
After 3 days you can come out for a short spell ( cover your mouth, and change clothes before entering main shelter)..
14 days and your golden..
But then you’re dealing with longer term alpha particle contamination.. but that’s about good hand hygiene and using earth fillered water and is less likely to melt your organs with an hours contact…
Basically 3 feet of earth all around you.. if you cannot do that do 2 feet.
The US did an experiment.. give a family a shovel or two.. the timber and waterproof cover.. they found a well motivated average family can make a 36inch of soil roofed fallout trench shelter in 24 hours flat… so if we end up at war with Russia do your family a favour.. don’t be embarrassed just dig the fucking hole 👍
And that, Your Honour, was what I was doing in the park at 2 o’clock, with a pickaxe and several large sacks. I vehemently deny the bit about SWAG being printed on the bags.
Thank you for the information.
Given that I live in a gardenless flat less than 10 miles from Northwood with no intervening hills, it sounds like the main prep I need to do is have a couple of bottles of good brandy available to toast my oblivion. Even my nearest Underground is overground.
There were concrete bunkers in my local park in WW2, but they were filled in after the war. Rather later than most London councils, mine put the job out to tender in August 1939, eventually hiring a private construction firm, Rigg & Remington, to build shelters of a capacity to seat around 12,000 people at a cost of £37,500, subsidised by the Home Office. By March 1940 they’d delivered five parallel trench shelters made from pre-cast, reinforced concrete. They were rectangular, measured roughly two metres deep, and featured an offset staircase at the entrance specifically designed to deflect the blast radius and flying shrapnel of a nearby bomb hit. At the far end of each trench, a vertical ladder led up to an emergency roof hatch sealed tightly with a heavy metal door. According to the plans, inside, long benches lined the walls to pack in as many locals as possible. (Although an excavation of one of the trenches a few years ago found no sign of benches or anywhere for them to have been.)
As I understand it, back then the council were legally obliged to build shelters for 10% of the locals. I can’t see my local council building anything these days, and if they did, I can’t see the government arranging a ten-minute warning to let us get there.
I’ll keep that brandy next to a bible. On his deathbed, WC Fields was asked why he, an atheist, was reading the bible. He replied, I’m looking for a loophole.
Well your 10 miles from possible 1 MT ground burst..
The good news is as long as your not next to a window or fully exposed your not feeling any ill effects of that blast… the bad news is within about 15 minutes both up and down wind your going to get 3000-10000 rads an hour of gamma radiation from any fall out..
Now the big question for you is what type of flat do you live in..
If you are in a solid concrete multiple floor hi rise you can really do something with that.. as a hi rise will probably use a concrete floor.. because of this if you can get two whole floors below you and 2 gold floors above you and be in a room with 2 concrete walls between you and the outside you are potentially in an area with a protective factor of 100 before you start…
That means you are looking for another 3 half value thicknesses for a full 1000 protective factor.. so if you get in the middle with 2+ floors above and below and flats all around you can build an inner bunkers with 3 HTVd, that’s 10 inches of dirt, 15 inches of water or stacked books ( yes paperbacks are a radiation shield).
If your not in a hi rise with normal brick construct.. you could always buy a 1000 sandbags.. but you would need to build the sandbag bunker ( 3 sandbags deep) on a solid ground floor…your other option is buy a transit van park it in the communal car park and build a sandbag bunker in the back.. if you put sandbags under the van as well..
To be honest your very best bet is to get a roof rack..and if Russia declares war..stick 4 hollow core doors on it, (must be hollow core not solid wood) … pack a shovel, saw, a couple of tarps and a 2 weeks supplies drive straight to west wales or Cornwall well south and west of Plymouth.. find a secluded spot and dig your hole…put the doors over it and make your soil dome roof..
just for kicks the US civil defence did design an emergency car based bunker.. you dig a hole.. drive your car over the hole.. then shovel all the soil into the car… get some bed sheets, lay them around the car.. then fill them up with soil and roll then into soil sausages to fill in any gaps around the car… then pile more soil around..leaving a crawl hole entrance..
How deep would you need to go?
People think about the blast from a nuke but forget about the heat pulse which IMHO is the worst effect, as everything exposed either evaporates, chars, or melts. A shallow bunker/shelter would heat up pretty quickly.
Survive that and next comes blast.
Survive that and you have to deal with fallout ….. now the struggle begins
So for the vast majority of people you don’t need to worry about blast and direct radiation.
Take the 1 MT bomb ( this is a big boy and most blasts will not be 1 MT.. if it’s a soft airbase the Russians would probably drop a 100kt or less airburst.
The likelihood is your probably not going to be in the high PSI overpressure zone of a nuclear blast
So affects of a ground burst 1MT bomb
Thermal effects
1 mile vaporised
3.1 miles mass ignition, instant death from thermal radiation if exposed
6.8 miles light combustible materials ignited ( paper ect) 3rd degree burns to exposed people
8.7 miles second degree burns to exposed people
Blast wise
3.1 miles 20+ PSI overpressure.. total flattening.. including all heavy reenforced structures
5 miles 5 PSI overpressure normal civilian buildings collapse
10 miles 1 PSI overpressure glass and doors shatter ligher structures and roofs suffer partial damage
As you can see a 1 MT ground burst will destroy everything with 3 miles essentially zero chance of life no matter if you have a blast resistant shelter or not
3-5 miles you will need a blast resistant shelter that can manage 5 PSI. So you need that 3 feet of earth in a dome so it makes a blast resistant earth arch.. you will also need 5 PSI blast resistant doors.. you can DIY these, the rule is they must flex not shatter.. as you are not in line of the thermal radiation you will not get burnt. ( the US army tested all the DIY civilian trench shelters and published the results they found that some survived 50 PSI overpressure) the other finding wax the blast damage was wider than the thermal radiation damage.
Beyond the 5 mile zone no blast door is needed and the 36inch earth arch will protect from the 1 PSI overpressure and you 90 degree entrance will protect from thermal energy burn..
The one issue is the ignition potential is out to about 10 miles with an airburst and nobody will fight any fires… which is why your best not building a shelter in your house… just incase it burns down..
Air burst wise for a 1 MT
.85 miles Vaporisation zone
The ignition and 3rd degree burn zone is out to 7.5 miles. Ignition zone is up to 10 miles.
So basically if your in your expedient fallout shelter and five miles or more from a 1 MT blast your probably golden.. the only thing is make sure your earth mound is wet.. because dry soil will blow off with blast winds and you will loss depth..
If we take the most likely knocking the UK out punch focused on counter force..
Primarily and secondary military targets.
1) Portsmouth 1MT range ground burst
2) Plymouth 1MT range ground burst
3) faslane 1MT range ground burst
4) Coulport 1MT range ground burst ( event though it’s only 3.2 Km from faslane it will get its own)
5) Fylingdale 1MT range ground burst
6) Aldermastern 1MT range ground burst
6) RAF Laken health 1MT ground bursts
7) RAF Lossiemouth 100kt range air burst
8) RAF marham 100kt range air burst
9)RAF brize 100kt range air burst
10) RAF waddington 100kt air burst
11) RAF coningsby 100kt air burst
12) RAF fairford 100kt air burst
13) Northwood 1MT ground burst
14) GCHQ 1 MT ground burst
15) RAF Menwith hill 100kt air burst
16 ) Barrow in Furness 100kt
Any other military bases would be considered low priority and if hit would be hit with a likely sub strategic weapon.. air burst.. Russia cannot waste that many strategic warheads on the UK as it has probably over 30 other nations to target.
So if your more than five miles from those you are golden..
Make this man Prime Minister already.
I have always assumed that in any type of nuclear strike our atomic power plants would be targeted. I think the plumes from these would be an ongoing ground strike event. Would there be any other difference?
I honestly don’t think Russia would ground blast a nuclear power station for the simple reason a nuclear power plant will contain tons of cesium-137, and strontium-90.. a ground blast nuclear weapon would vaporise a vast amount ( many many tons ) and put into the stratosphere.. a lot of they would end up heading back to Russia and poisoning its own food production for 2 generations.. a ground burst nuclear explosion of a nuclear facility is a global event because of the caesium 137….
The question would be what was the benefit? Vs the increase risk to your own population.
If you want to knock out a nuclear power station with a nuclear weapon you would air burst.. this would shatter the reactor and creat a more standard nuclear reactor disaster.. but that’s only happening in a full MAD exchange that gone full counter value.. it has no military benefit.
But and this is the thing, there is a very very big difference between a limited counter force exchange ( say up to 10 warheads hitting key targets ) and the full MAD exchange that would be a massive counter value exchange… a limited counter force exchange is something humanity picks itself up from.. a full MAD counter value exchange ends human civilisation across the globe and may end the species.. If you look at black soot models from even a limited count value exchange with 100 smaller sub strategic warheads ( the India Pakistan scenario) the black soot production from the burning cities will reduce global food production for by 10% with the impact lasting a decade… you move to a full counter value exchange of thousands of warheads and there is essentially zero global agricultural production for a decade.. you then bomb say 20+ nuclear power stations and put many hundred of tons of Cerium 137 and strontium 90 into the stratosphere, you have then also poisoned everything else for 30-50 years.. humanity would die not just its civilisation.
It’s one of the reasons I’m a firm believer the UK needs a second part of the triad so it is able to threaten to engage in a limited counter force exchange and not just threaten a MAD counter value exchange.
Good to improve the public knowledge of the threats. Maybe a bit of a shame the failure to build robust & necessary capabilities force levels we need right now, through decades of insane cuts. They’ll want to keep that quiet. I bet the Tories will try to castigate Labour for the loss of capabilities & numbers which they imposed themselves while they were in power. But both have been poor.
This is a pathetic government programme and the wrong way round. It’s those idiots in Parliament who need to be told how it is by the public. If the government wants to get the public’s attention about the threat don’t go on about nuclear annihilation tell them about far worse things that will happen, namely their local Amazon depot copping it when hit by a Shahed launched from an old coaster plodding up the east coast. What no Prime delivery….help…we’re doomed spend money of defence Burnham you clown will be heard loud and clear.
Start this campaign in the Treasury offices …. make them see reality, and maybe then they will cough up the finances that the country needs to rebuild our defences.
Deckchair on Southsea Common with a bottle of strong gin and Quadrophenia in my headphones – goodbye everyone! (most of you were c***s 😁)
*other survival plans are available 😉
BUY AND KEEP A COUPLE OF SHOVELS AND POINTED 25 MM STEEL BAR ABOUT 5 FOOT, SO FEW PEOPLE REALISE THAT A GARDEN WELL IS THERE FOR THE DIGGING AND PLENTY OF WATER.