New nuclear bunker.

[adam2]

Stocks are fairly comprehensive, and include at least two means of achieving almost any desired result.
For example, safety matches AND lighters.
Several can openers AND Swiss army knives that incorporate can openers.
Cyalume light sticks AND battery torches/lanterns AND candles.
Chlorine tablets AND gravity water filters.
Two washing machines AND facilities for hand washing, AND large stocks of clothing.
Duplicated electric well pumps, AND a hand pump, AND a storage cistern, AND bottled water.

And remember that danger from fallout or other radiation is cumulative, so a brief excursion outside the shelter to fetch vital supplies MIGHT be an acceptable risk. A dose rate that would kill in a few days, might be acceptable for a few minutes.

[BritDownUnder]

I would be interested to know how the story of the construction of the bunker was, to use a New Labour term, spun.

Was it hidden, or a roof put over the site to hide from satellites, because you never know who is watching, or a story concocted that is was basement for a house?

[adam2]

It consists largely of an existing basement, reinforced for extra blast resistance. A few bits are new construction. A determined inspection of satellite images MIGHT reveal the work, but firstly a private bunker is not that interesting to a foreign power, and secondly large excavations are a frequent event for so many purposes that no likely enemy can monitor them all.

The only unusual feature is the water supply from a well within the shelter.

There are several emergency exits, blocked by piles of sand bags so no good for a quick exit, more a longer term plan in case the collapse of the house above prevents use of the ordinary entrance.

[adam2]

Many thanks for that insight. Sounds like an interesting project.

I would have never thought to have a double-pole-double-throw switch (I presume) short circuiting in the off position.

Light switches are of the SINGLE pole, double throw type. When the lamp is turned off, the negative side of the lamp remains connected to the earthed negative pole of the battery, but the positive side of the lamp is also connected to the negative pole of battery.
I saw no merit in disconnecting the lamp from the earthed side of the battery since an EMP event could then result in a damaging voltage between lamp and earth.

13 amp sockets on the generator supply are wired similarly. Un switched socket with switch adjacent, not built in. When off, the live pole of the socket is connected to the earthed neutral pole.
No changeover arrangements. Pairs of sockets one on each generator. Water heater has three elements, one on mains, one on each generator. No changeover except by manually altering the connections.

[adam2]

Update by phone.

Extra stocks of food added, the lift is most useful for moving such heavy supplies.
Tinned tuna, tinned toms, and tinned ham mainly. These supplies are replaced each year, and the older stocks moved to the kitchen for daily use.

A static bicycle has been purchased as an extra means of battery charging, and provides exercise. charges the 12 volt battery at between 10 and 15 amps according to fitness of operator. 22 amps achieved briefly.

Most unusually for a shelter, frozen food is now stored, in a super efficiency DC freezer. Butter and frozen ready meals mainly.

[Vortex2]

Is this in the UK?
The UK which the Soviets had 200 warheads aimed at, yet HMG said that 8 would finish us off?
That UK?

Sadly, we live 2 miles or so from one of the key Russian targets, plus within 20 miles of two main ammo dumps.

No chance.

[adam2]

Yes it is in the UK, not near any obvious targets, but who knows.

[Vortex2]

This map is one of the better maps on the web.

Even so, it's probably not accurate.

For example, Hereford, the home of the SAS, is not targetted.

Also, Russian missiles are not accurate, so they use quite large warheads .. can be megatons to compensate.

[clv101]

I don't believe Russia have any MT scale warheads.

[Catweazle]

Which are the 8 targets HMG say would finish us ? Given the recent unreliability of Russian hardware is it likely they'd send all the missiles there ? In the hope that at least one would both find the target and actually detonate ?

[BritDownUnder]

Supposedly the Russians now have about 1500 functioning nuclear warheads and during the Cold War when they had upwards of 40,000 of them they would use 200 on the UK. I don't see them using one seventh of their warheads just for the UK. They would have to reserve most for the US due to the geographic size of the place and also think about Canada as well. Then Russians would need to take into account the nuclear arsenals of France, India and China and keep some in reserve for them. You could put 200 onto Australia and 95% of the land would be unaffected (but you could get 90% of the population in the major cities maybe).

If a bunker can take 9 bar of overpressure - a big ask but designable with steel doors and reinforced concrete - it could survive quite a close nuclear explosion as long as you are not within the crater that would be excavated. That is what the Finnish underground car park bunkers in Helsinki are designed for. A Russian 800kT warhead has a 5psi (or 0.3bar) overpressure radius of about 5km according to Nukemap. The lingering nuclear radiation might need to be considered in calculating the waiting time inside the bunker.

It's all hypothetical though because major Russian cities would be destroyed shortly after the 200 start falling in the UK. The Russians know this and it is about time the West starts reminding them of the fact. A few NATO nukes stationed near Sumy in Ukraine would be about 260 miles from Moscow would help to remind them of the fact - perhaps even under Ukrainian control.

The 8 targets are probably all that is needed to take out 50% of the UK population. They probably looked at the population of the 8 largest cities and considered that 75% casualties could be achieved with megaton weapons on those major cities.

Interesting about the DC freezer. It would be a good experiment to see whether on of the old 'ice houses' that date back from Victorian times could be used to preserve food. I think they could keep ice all summer long with the ice collected from frozen lakes in winter. The bunker would be quite cold anyway - about 10 degrees C in the UK due to the temperature of the surrounding earth.

[Vortex2]

I don't believe Russia have any MT scale warheads.

I have checked : the current warheads are indeed sub MT (typically 500kt - 800kt) ... except for one missile system where the multiple warheads are 7.5MT each.

Some Soviet era missiles might have been in the MT range .. but that is hard to confirm.

I'm sure that I have seen mention in the media of 2MT - 5MT warheads being available ... but I cannot currently confirm that .. although Wikipedia does mention some.

See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_nuclear_weapons

[BritDownUnder]

Chinese have megaton warheads I believe which makes it logical that they should have megaton ones pointed at them. Preferably based in Northern Australia.

[clv101]

Chinese have megaton warheads I believe which makes it logical that they should have megaton ones pointed at them. Preferably based in Northern Australia.

That's not logical. A larger number of smaller warheads - now that they can be accurately targeted offers greater utility.

Table 1 of this paper suggests Russia tops out at 800 kT https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10. ... 21.1885869
If maintenance has been poor, tritium boosters haven't been replaced frequently enough, yield may under perform.

[Catweazle]

The tritium will probably have been sold off years ago