... this undated document (late 1950's?) discusses the advantages of using nuclear warhead armed air-to-air missiles to destroy attacking Soviet bombers. As it points out, what at first seems like a ironic or even idiotic idea, makes a lot of sense when you consider that one bomber with one large H-bomb can kill millions of people. In other words 'throw everything you've got at them'! The scientific reality is that small atomic weapons used at high altitude generate no fallout because they do not suck up surface soil or water to irradiate.
There is an uncomfortable, unspoken question here - if you are a pilot of a jet fighter defending against the mentioned bombers - and your arsenal of weapons miss or fail - with millions of lives at stake- what would you do next?
... here is an entertaining. and rather silly, film of a group of Air Force personnel demonstrating that you can stand under a 2-kiloton atomic blast at an altitude of 2 miles and not get your hair mussed! (1957)
In 1969 when I was taking a class at Ft. Belvoir, US Army Endgineers HQ I found and read a manual on Nuclear demolitions. The how-to of blocking passes and closing valleys to invaders. I remember nothing on how deep to bury them to block radiation release. Later at the Colorado School of Mines I did learn how.
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