major influence on tactical operations in that it can produce casualties within very large areas outside the
area of initial casualty effects of the nuclear burst. It is potentially the most important casualty-
producing effect of a nuclear weapon. Fallout can incapacitate personnel while leaving vehicles,
weapons, and materiel intact which can be used later. The primary personnel hazard from fallout is
whole body gamma radiation. The presence of fallout can severely restrict unprotected personnel from
vast areas of terrain. Knowledge and understanding of the operational aspects of radiological
contamination by commanders and individuals at all levels will permit the commander to determine
more accurately the courses of action available in the execution of assigned missions.
In order that commanders can control the amount of radiation to which their personnel are exposed, they
must be able to predict the amount of radiation an individual would receive if the individual were
required to occupy or cross an area of radiological contamination. It is necessary, therefore, for
commanders to have a means of predicting, in advance of exposure, the anticipated total dose of
radiation to be received by personnel who must occupy or pass through a fallout area.
In this lesson you will learn about transmission factors. You will learn how shielding affects the amount
of radiation absorbed by the body and how to determine transmission factors.
In order to understand the significance of transmission factors, you must be able to:
■
Describe shelters and vehicles used for shielding radiological fallout.
■
Obtain dose rate readings and compute transmission factors.
PART A: DESCRIBE SHELTERS AND VEHICLES
USED FOR SHIELDING RADIOLOGICAL FALLOUT
Weapons used by armies to wage war have gone through a constant process of change from the
beginning of time up through the present. As weapons are developed and improved upon, commanders
or defenders must find new improved methods of countering the effects of those weapons. Since the
first nuclear weapons were introduced on the battlefield in World War II, vast amounts of money and
time have gone into the study of the effects of nuclear weapons so that defensive measures can be
developed. Like conventional high explosive weapons, nuclear weapons have heat and blast effects.
Though these effects are much more powerful than the same effects from high explosives, the protective
measures are basically the same. However, unlike high explosive
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