In article ,
says...


OM wrote:

...Which, depending on the location, would pretty much guarantee water
table contamination on a total, long-term basis.


Not to mention a fair degree of fallout contamination from the earth in
the crater being blown into the atmosphere.

Which is why I didn't find it surprising when the old Soviet targeting
strategies for their nuclear weapons got leaked right around the time of
the fall of the Soviet Union.

I lived for more than two decades in the Chicago metro area, and I
always figured that the Sovs would target the Spaghetti Bowl (the main
junction between the various superhighways leading into downtown) with
their missiles aimed at Chicago. But their real targeting, it turned
out, was about a half-mile east of the Lake Michigan shoreline. And at
about 50 to 100 feet altitude, at most. That would have served both to
blast over most of the largest buildings in downtown Chicago AND would
have created a wall of superheated (and radioactive) steam that would
have destroyed a vastly larger area than the bomb could have hoped to,
all by itself.

IIRC, the same theories were in place for missile targeting against NYC,
LA -- anywhere that had a close body of water.

Doug