Nuke Globe

Nuke Globe is a free nuclear strike simulator on a 3D Earth. Pick a launch city and a target from 578 cities in 148 countries, choose a warhead from the Hiroshima bomb to the Tsar Bomba, and watch the missile fly the real great-circle route. On impact the page draws the fireball, the blast rings, the burn zone, the mushroom cloud and the downwind fallout plume, and reports flight time, blast radii and an estimated death toll.

The numbers use the same public scaling laws as the well-known NUKEMAP: blast overpressure and thermal radiation scale with the cube root of the yield, so a bomb eight times bigger only doubles the destroyed radius. Casualties come from a simple population-density model for each city. Treat everything as an educational estimate, not a prediction.

How to play

• Click a city dot on the globe, or use the dropdowns. First pick is the launch city, second is the target.
• Choose the warhead yield and press Launch strike.
• Read the damage report, copy your result to share it, and check the worldwide leaderboards.

Warheads you can use

• 15 kt Little Boy, the Hiroshima bomb of 1945
• 100 kt W76, the US Trident submarine warhead
• 300 kt W87, the US Minuteman III warhead
• 800 kt Topol-M, a Russian ICBM warhead
• 1.2 Mt B83, the largest US gravity bomb
• 5 Mt DF-5, a Chinese ICBM warhead
• 50 Mt Tsar Bomba, the biggest bomb ever tested

How big is the blast radius of a nuclear bomb?

It depends on the yield. In this simulator a 1 megaton airburst has a fireball about 1 km across, flattens most residential buildings out to roughly 5 km, causes third-degree burns to about 11 km and shatters windows beyond 13 km. The Hiroshima bomb, at 15 kilotons, destroyed buildings out to about 1.2 km and burned people out to about 2 km.

How long does an ICBM take to reach its target?

An intercontinental ballistic missile flies at up to 7 km per second on a high arc. Paris to New York, about 5,800 km, takes roughly 20 minutes. Moscow to Washington takes about 30 minutes. Shorter-range missiles between neighbouring countries arrive in under ten minutes.

How many people would die if a nuclear bomb hit New York?

Nuke Globe estimates about 800,000 deaths and 1.3 million injuries for an 800 kt airburst over Manhattan, and several million for a multi-megaton weapon. Real outcomes depend on the burst height, the time of day, the weather and how many people find shelter.

What is the green area on the map?

Radioactive fallout. The small green ring at ground zero is the prompt radiation from the blast itself. The long green plume is the contaminated dust carried downwind over the first hours, drawn here for a steady 30 km/h wind blowing east-north-east.

What really happened in Hiroshima and Nagasaki?

The only two nuclear weapons ever used in war were dropped on Japan in August 1945. Read the full story, with the bombs, the numbers and the aftermath, on our page Hiroshima and Nagasaki, 1945.

Is Nuke Globe free?

Yes. It runs in your browser on desktop and phone, with no download and no account. Made by PG App Studios in Lisbon, Portugal.