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Yeah, I've been thinking and reading about nuclear war in recent days (unsurprisingly), and it soon become obvious people's idea of a nuclear war continues to be based on the Cold War era, chiefly 80s (when the nuclear stockpiles were highest). For instance, I did know that the total combined number of nukes is considerably smaller than in those days, but I was genuinely surprised that they are also smaller than in those days; when people talk about nuclear capabilities, they often discuss it in megatons, but even the largest Russian nukes these days are smaller than 1 Mt, and certainly not the capacity of Tsar Bomba, which was one-time demonstration that was never supposed to be anything else than essentially a proof of concept.
There's a listing of Russian nuclear warheads here.
They started trending smaller as soon as ICBM delivery became practical. Prior to this they where designed to be large enough so that thermal pulses from the devices could simply ignite enormous firestorms at great distance, facilitating their delivery. I think it would still be a grave mistake to ignore the dangers of a smaller device and believe that even a 20 or 30 kiloton device delivered near or in a city will be the worst thing that has ever happened.
Yeah, it's easy to forget the only bombs dropped in action were, what, 10-20 kilotons? The destructiveness of bigger bombs doesn't scale linearly with yield (at least against civilian targets rather than mountain bunkers and missile silos) so number of warheads accurately delivered is going to be the best measure of damage potential.
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On a related note, you can go to Nukemap.org to simulate what effects (apart from fallout and economic devastation, etc.) a nuke would have on you. Find the nearest military base and/or major city center and simulate away. Fortunately for my family it looks like we'd likely be completely safe from any (direct) effects from a nuclear attack, since the military base likely to be the closest target is over 30 miles away.
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