WallShadow wrote:
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Of course one of the woefully inaccurate Soviet warheads may have detonated in the weakest point of the caldera, and Ka-boom!
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Only in some bad Bay/Emmerich pastiche.
The magma chamber is too deep for even a 20-25Mt surface burst to do that. Its uppermost point is about 3.5 miles (~6km) beneath the surface.
Ground shock at that depth would be negligible, despite the 500m crater depth and the ~2.5km (1.5 mile) fireball radius.
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/n...me-larger.html
Soviet missiles were pretty accurate by the 1970s.
SS-18 Mod 1 or 3 with the 20-25Mt warhead had a CEP of 1000m according to the Soviets; western estimates were 300-550m.
Have a look at the Global Security website for details.
http://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/wo...sia/index.html