Posted on Aug 4, 2020
LTC Hbpc Physician Assistant
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Edited 4 y ago
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LTC Jason Mackay
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Once upon a time there was a nuclear weapon blast calculator on line where you could pick a location and some equivalent of TNT and it would show you on a map the blast effect. You could get your question answered there.
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LTC Jason Mackay
LTC Jason Mackay
4 y
2800 tons of Ammonium Nitrate. You can google the conversion factor and find the NEW in TNT.....and compare to MOAB which I believe is 2000lbs of TNT equivalent
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CW4 Guy Butler
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LTC Jason Mackay
LTC Jason Mackay
4 y
Post script: LTC (Join to see) talked to someone else that had a conversion factor .74. Grind the math 4580ish KT blast from the Ammonium Nitrate depending on what percentage it was. MOAB is 11KT.
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SGM G3 Sergeant Major
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The news reports stated 2750 tonnes (metric) of ammonium nitrate detonated.
That is 3031 tons, given an RE factor of .74, the explosion was equivalent to 2243 tons of TNT, or 2.2 kiloton yield.

A MOAB is 11 tons, for comparison.
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LTC Hbpc Physician Assistant
LTC (Join to see)
4 y
W. O. W.
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SGT Christopher Hayden
SGT Christopher Hayden
4 y
Imagine keeping all that shit so close to a city like that...morons.
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SSG Aircraft Pneudraulics Repairer
SSG (Join to see)
4 y
SGT Christopher Hayden - I read somewhere they had that stuff sitting there for the past six years. Crazy.
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CPT Lawrence Cable
CPT Lawrence Cable
4 y
A better comparison would the the Texas City disaster. The SS Grandcamp exploded with 2300 tons of Ammonia Nitrate, which then set off a series of chain reactions among the local refinery and chemical plants. At the time, it was the largest non nuclear explosion in the world.

By an odd coincidence, both the ships in the Halifax and Texas City disasters were of French registry.
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TSgt David L.
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We'd have to time out the blast wave in milliseconds and then figure out the NEW based on how far the damage was. I'm guessing close to 5-10,000 pounds since it broke windows over 6 miles away. Just a SWAG though.
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CPT Staff Officer
CPT (Join to see)
4 y
Would a pressure change give that number?
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TSgt David L.
TSgt David L.
4 y
CPT (Join to see) - Yes Sir. It would give you the overpressure at a given point in space. If they could tell what it was at the airport you could get pretty close if you could tell how long it took to get there.
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TSgt David L.
TSgt David L.
4 y
CPT (Join to see) - If it was the 2,750 TONS like they said I was WAY off. Hard to judge size and distance from the video.
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MSgt Steve Sweeney
MSgt Steve Sweeney
4 y
They must have been out of transmission fluid...
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