How many times stronger are the nuclear weapons today than the US dropped on Japan?

Question

I also need a respectful source as this is for a debate. Thanks alot! May the best answer win!

Answer 1

The approximate yield of the Hiroshima blast was 18 kilotons.... it did more damage than the slightly more powerful 22 kiloton blast at Nagasaki because of terrain and geographical features. 22 kilotons means 22,000 tons of TNT (dynamite).

The biggest nuke ever tested was dropped over Siberia by the soviets and it weighed in at around 95 megatons.... that's 95,000,000 tons of TNT. Most Strategic weapons nowadays use MIRV technology. (Multiple Ignition Re-entry Vehicles) What that means is one missile goes up, eight warheads come down. Each warhead can be targetted independantly of the others. Realistic estimates for the yield of a MIRV in use by the US military today are around 5 - 10 Megatons for land based missiles, and 2 - 5 Megatons for submarine based missiles.

So the answer to your question is about 100 to 500 times more powerful.