# Question About the A-Bomb tests (in Movies/Books) **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [December 1, 2008, 7:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-about-the-a-bomb-tests-in-movies-books/475225 "2008-12-01T19:26:56Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![mlees](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ba8739/32.png) [@mlees](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mlees)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2008, 6:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-about-the-a-bomb-tests-in-movies-books/475225/21 "2008-12-02T18:35:07Z")
> [@msmith537](#): > > [Wasteful? Did you ever see the footage where they blew up a fleet of old ships?](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bWjWpVbadTg&feature=related) To be fair, at the end of both world wars, the nations involved usually ended up with a whole lot of spare ships that they couldn’t even find buyers who want the scrap metal. A glut of steel on the market. A lot of historic ships where used as targets in the Bikini (Operation Crossroads) test: _USS Saratoga_ (CV-3), _USS Nevada_, _USS Pennsylvania_ (both Pearl Harbor survivors), _HIJMS Nagato_ (largest Japanese battleship until the Yamato came along), the German cruiser _Prinz Eugen_, (which participated in the Bismark sortie, and the Channel Dash). (USS = “United States Ship”, HIJMS = western words for the Japanese ships “His Imperial Japanese Majesty Ship”, which I don’t think the Japanese themselves used… What was the Kreigsmarine lettering in English? “KM”? “KMS”?) ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2008, 6:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-about-the-a-bomb-tests-in-movies-books/475225/22 "2008-12-02T18:45:48Z")
> [@Bryan\_Ekers](#): > > What about teenage kids driving onto the range for a dare? > > Take it easy, Daddy-O. The bomb wouldn’t affect them, but they’d probably end up being eaten by the giant ants. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2008, 7:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-about-the-a-bomb-tests-in-movies-books/475225/23 "2008-12-02T19:16:53Z")
> [@ralph124c](#): > > Anyway, can you survive a nuke by crawling into a refrigerator (like Indiana Jones did?) No. ---
**Author:** ![flex727](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/258eb7/32.png) [@flex727](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/flex727)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2008, 8:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-about-the-a-bomb-tests-in-movies-books/475225/24 "2008-12-02T20:29:34Z")
> [@ralph124c](#): > > Anyway, can you survive a nuke by crawling into a refrigerator (like Indiana Jones did?) > [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > No. Agreed, but note that they took great pains to show us that the refrigerator was lead-lined! What would definitely kill him would be suffocation - those refrigerators had no way to open them from the inside! ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2008, 8:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-about-the-a-bomb-tests-in-movies-books/475225/25 "2008-12-02T20:33:10Z")
I think the battering at the end was what opened the thing up. But Indy lived in a world where primitive tribes could construct elaborate death traps in rock caves and have an extremely sophisticated knowledge of perspective, so you might as well buy it. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2008, 8:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-about-the-a-bomb-tests-in-movies-books/475225/26 "2008-12-02T20:34:20Z")
> [@flex727](#): > > Agreed, but note that they took great pains to show us that the refrigerator was lead-lined! What would definitely kill him would be suffocation - those refrigerators had no way to open them from the inside! Getting blown through the air and crashing to the ground in the inside of a metal box would break every bone in his body and crack his skull like a robin’s egg. Radiation doesn’t even need to be a consideration. ---
**Author:** ![Mycroft\_H](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/898d66/32.png) [@Mycroft\_H](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mycroft_H)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2008, 10:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-about-the-a-bomb-tests-in-movies-books/475225/27 "2008-12-02T22:03:29Z")
> [@ralph124c](#): > > I recall seeing a government-supplied leaflet on civil defense-advising you to “lower and shut venetian blinds, to stop flying glass”! Whole lotta good that would do. [Here](http://safetycenter.navy.mil/photo/archive/archive_301-350/photo313.asp) is another interesting pamphlet from the past. I don’t know if the writer was naive, ignorant or figured that lying was better than making people worry. “Lingering Radiation: [Risk] So small it is not a hazard.” Note that you can view the back side of the pamphlet as well. ---
**Author:** ![mlees](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ba8739/32.png) [@mlees](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mlees)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2008, 10:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-about-the-a-bomb-tests-in-movies-books/475225/28 "2008-12-02T22:31:34Z")
> [@Mycroft\_H](#): > > [Here](http://safetycenter.navy.mil/photo/archive/archive_301-350/photo313.asp) is another interesting pamphlet from the past. I don’t know if the writer was naive, ignorant or figured that lying was better than making people worry. > > “Lingering Radiation: [Risk] So small it is not a hazard.” > > Note that you can view the back side of the pamphlet as well. “Keep your shirt on.” 😃 [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-about-the-a-bomb-tests-in-movies-books/475225.md?page=1)