Reply #102: It sure as hell doesn't tell me...

[AZCat]

"small nuclear devices" were used.

Are there warheads that have a yield that low? There used to be some in the U.S. arsenal (at least until 1989). The catch is that such a device would have to be a fission only weapon and would yield enormous amounts of radiation. There are clean nuclear weapons, but in order to eliminate most (but not all) the radiation you have to have a very high yield fusion weapon. The cleanest bomb ever tested (97% of the yield from fusion) had a yield of approximately 50 megatons, enough to wipe out pretty much all of Manhattan.



Edit: minor correction