Re: The Effects of a Global Thermonuclear War in 1988 (Re: NuclearWar, 1980's)

Hi all

"zolota" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>
> "Chad Irby" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
> news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> > In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>,
> >  "zolota" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> >
> > > Could you kindly explain how fire bombs are the optimum weapon to
> destroy a
> > > rail yard.
> >
> > Railroad ties are usually made of wood.

If railroad ties in Europe are made from the same wood they were in South
Africa (the new ties are concrete) than I fully expect that they do not
burn. South African railway ties were made from either Burman Teek or a
local wood called Ironwood. Both woods are practically indestructible once
dried. I worked in a carpentry factory years ago and the idiot boss's son
wanted a private job done for a friend. Just sand down a railway tie till
its nice and smooth enough to serve as a bar top. The canvas and nylon
sanding belts with silicon carbide working surfaces lasted about 5 seconds
at minimum speed. They caught fire, disintegrated and turned to smoke. The
teek wasn't barely scratched.

>
> Now that is funny.

I'm no expert on strategic bombing but I will venture to suggest that
firebombing is the optimum weapon for destroying rails for the same reason
that fire destroys steel framed buildings so easily.

At high temperatures the carbon in steel reacts with the oxygen in the air
and becomes carbon monoxide or carbon dioxide. The steel, fairly quickly,
becomes iron and much softer. Steel framed buildings collapse under their
own weight for this very reason and this is one of the primary reasons why
fire fighters try to control the temperature of a fire in a tall building.
If the temperature gets too high nothing will save the structure, nothing at
all, because it will all be coming down.

Once sections of steel rail have been exposed to a hot fire they will be
nothing but soft iron. They can not simply be put back on new railway ties
and re-layed. They need to be remanufactured, more carbon needs to be added.
Remanufacturing iron into steel is not as energy intensify as manufacturing
steel from new ore but it is pretty close.

This, of cause, ignores the facts that a rail yard is a big place filled
with goods that are usually flammeable. The rolling stock itself is most
often, even today, still constructed in part of wood, and burns nicely. The
structures around a rail yard and the warehouses and rail sheds are wood or
contain enough to burn long enough that their steel structures will be
ruined.

>
> Z
>
>

Regards
Frank