re: Some hi-res footage of vehicles vs nukes.

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If the paint is burning off why don't the tires catch on fire or explode

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The same reason radio waves can travel through empty space without a medium.

This was perfect. Thank you. Seriously.

A friend was on Eniwetok for at least six months as an engineer officer for part of the clean up (moving the soil into sarcofagasses (?spelling) . Their sport: shooting rats.

He's dead of C in his early 50s, less than 30 years later. He always used to joke " His kids would glow in the dark."

Note to self: DO NOT HIDE IN A TENT TO ESCAPE A NUCLEAR DETONATION.

This stuff has always fascinated me. My papaw was stationed at Caribou AF Base in Maine during Korea, and told me so many interesting stories when I got older about it being a SAC/AEC base and having Q clearance after the feds interviewed his entire family and close friends. Said they always kept the core and initiator separate until the moment they were loaded in the bomber, and how the base was surrounded by multiple fences, with one being electrified. Apparently, it was one of the first bases the US had that had atomics and alert ready aircraft. His only regret was declining an offer to work as a civilian at Oak Ridge after the AF

I’ve always wondered what type of bomb they were putting together at that point, he was in from ‘50-‘54 but he said he never knew. The way the he described made me think it was probably fission, but I know the hydrogen bombs were developed just not sure when they actually entered service.

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If air does not attenuate thermal radiation, what happens to the civilian crouched behind that car, before the blast wave hits?

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They're in the shadow of the car. The air is very transparent to the thermal radiation. The car, on the other hand, isn't. Thermal radiation is just UV, visible, and infrared light. Really REALLY bright UV, visible, and infrared light, but still just light. If you're behind something opaque to those wavelengths, they'll cast a shadow and the thermal radiation might not be bright enough to just vaporize you directly because the thing casting a shadow is absorbing or reflecting that light. Of course, the car is heating up because it's absorbing all that light so you don't, and it's on fire. Whatever's behind the car that you're near that isn't in the shadow of the car is on fire. The grass is on fire. The building across the street? On fire. You might not get instantly incinerated by the thermal radiation, but everything around you is on fire. Then the shockwave traveling just at the speed of sound hits and the winds are several hundred miles an hour. Now you're on fire and flying toward that building across the street, but GOOD NEWS; If you're close enough, the winds will likely put out the fire you're covered in. However, BAD NEWS; the winds will turn everything around you into very flammable rubble. WORSE NEWS: the wind will reverse and rush back toward ground zero because something's got to rush in to fill the hole in the air where that giant rising fireball forming the mushroom cloud used to be. That wind isn't as strong as the outgoing wind, so it's going to be dragging the fire from just a little farther out that the blast didn't extinguish. Now you've been set on fire, thrown through the air into a building while the several hundred mile an hour wind blew the fire out and crumbled the building you just slammed into, and you're about to be on fire again, along with all the flammable rubble around you. It's really a moot point if you're close enough for the thermal radiation to be intense enough to ignite things. You're pretty much fricked. I think Cameron got close to what it would be like in the apocalypse scene from T2.

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Real talk at what point do I die? The part where the paint comes off the cars or when the cars get knocked over? And how much suffering do I go through?

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Yes. See above. Take your pick.

Well, at least there's some good news.

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IS that just dust flying off the objects before the shock wave hits?

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paint

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IS that just dust flying off the objects before the shock wave hits?

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That's whatever paint is on the surfaces vaporizing from the flash of heat.

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Real talk at what point do I die?

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If you're fortunate enough, you'll be incinerated by the initial blast. I'd consider that an act of mercy.