10 Times Video Games Got Weapons Wrong
7. Mini Nukes Aren't Very Nukey - Fallout 4
It's time to talk about the Fat Man, and I don't just mean the guy typing this article.
In the post-apocalyptic world of Fallout 4, the Fat Man refers to a shoulder-mounted mini-nuke launcher. You heard that right. You literally fire nuclear bombs at your enemies. As if the irradiated, warped world hadn't seen enough atomic damage for one lifetime.
The Fat Man is founded on a real-world experiment conducted by the US military in the late '50s, where they created a fully functional mini-nuke launcher named the M-29 Davy Crockett Weapon System. Standing on a tripod, the glaring flaw of the weapon was that it was significantly lighter than the miniature warheads it was attempting to launch, so aiming was extremely difficult and the launcher itself had a tendency of toppling over.
In the Fallout universe they have clearly worked out a much more effective method of firing these mini-nukes, but what about the radiation?
The events of Fallout 4 take place 210 years after the 'Sole Survivor' first enters cryogenic sleep in the prologue. Following the timeline of a nuclear bomb's fallout, bombed areas could remain seriously irradiated and uninhabitable for up to 5 years, which is more than enough time for the world of the wasteland to be safe to live in. And yet, how is it that the 'Sole Survivor' can launch a mini-nuke into a crowd of enemies, and then walk straight into the blast zone and collect all of the still perfectly intact loot?