The principal military advantage of an air burst over a ground burst is that the energy from the explosion ( as well as any shell fragments ) is distributed more evenly over a wider area; however, the peak energy is lower at ground zero.
32.
_But should Iraq strike Israel with weapons of mass destruction causing devastating casualties, " Israel would probably massively retaliate with nuclear ground bursts against every Iraqi city not already occupied by U . S .-led coalition forces, " he writes.
33.
Further, the requirement to use ground burst strikes to destroy hardened targets would produce enormously more fallout than the air bursts used to strike countervalue targets; introducing the possibility that a counterforce strike would cause more civilian casualties over a medium-term view than a countervalue strike.
34.
Once a nuclear strike on the UK had been confirmed by the Director UKWMO ( or his deputy ), readings from AWDREY were ignored during subsequent nuclear bursts within the attack, and the readings from ROC posts became the main method of detecting and identifying any subsequent near ground bursts.
35.
Is it claimed that the Soviets would have gone out of their way to hit NYC with a " dirty bomb " encased in cobalt or whatever, or that 1960 nuclear strategy called for dirty ground bursts rather than high altitude bursts with a wider circle of destruction from blast and flash ignition?
36.
Due to the hardened nature of the missile silos, the military believed that the silos could be destroyed only by a direct hit from a nuclear warhead; warhead air bursts were believed to be ineffective to the task of penetrating the armored silos, as were any " near-miss " ground bursts that might occur from an inaccurate ballistic trajectory.
