How strong is a nuclear bomb in the Dragon Ball universe?

[Eternal Super Saiyan]

I'm curious who and when in the series would be capable of withstanding nuclear blasts?

[Angelus]

Well, for one, Buu.

[Eternal Super Saiyan]

Well, for one, Buu.

I was estimating much earlier in the series. Maybe Saiyan arc Vegeta? lol

[CatouttaHell]

Piccolo Daimao IMO. He can completely obliterate an entire city, while even a nuclear bomb could leave a lot of buildings intact if it landed in a city IIRC.

[Darkprince410]

If we're talking sheer concussive force from the blast, then yeah, I'd say late Dragon Ball era characters like Piccolo Daimao and those in the 23rd Budoukai. However, when you get into the intense heat and radiation that also comes from such an explosion, I honestly don't think any character outside of Buu could really survive them.

[FindKenshi]

We used to talk about this on Dragon Ball - General Discussion on GameFAQs. The general consensus is the shockwave/kinetic energy released by a nuclear weapon is nothing in terms of late DB power.. but the thermal energy can dwarf the temperatures on the sun, and it's generally thought that no DB character has shown that kind of durability. Even Toei seems to agree, as some notable villains of great power died by being flung into the sun.. Cooler, Baby, etc. Also since Goku fell victim to the heart virus, it's thought that the radiation might prove lethal to them as well.

While the idea of manmade nukes killing Saiyans and Freeza seems really silly at first, if you look at it form a Sci-Fi angle instead of just a pure fantasy angle, a typical nuclear blast gives off enough heat that should turn a DBZ character into ashes. But that's probably only with a direct hit, and only if they don't have some kind of shield up.

[ShaneisMC]

Roshi blew up the moon in the first tournament...... just in case anyone forgot :p

[Eternal Super Saiyan]

We used to talk about this on Dragon Ball - General Discussion on GameFAQs. The general consensus is the shockwave/kinetic energy released by a nuclear weapon is nothing in terms of late DB power.. but the thermal energy can dwarf the temperatures on the sun, and it's generally thought that no DB character has shown that kind of durability. Even Toei seems to agree, as some notable villains of great power died by being flung into the sun.. Cooler, Baby, etc. Also since Goku fell victim to the heart virus, it's thought that the radiation might prove lethal to them as well.

While the idea of manmade nukes killing Saiyans and Freeza seems really silly at first, if you look at it form a Sci-Fi angle instead of just a pure fantasy angle, a typical nuclear blast gives off enough heat that should turn a DBZ character into ashes. But that's probably only with a direct hit, and only if they don't have some kind of shield up.

Wasn't that virus supposed to be a special case of heart virus, compared to normal ones? Saiyans have immune systems stronger than a human's, at least I heard.

[mAcChaos]

Couldn't the characters create a ki barrier or something to protect them?

[Darkprince410]

We used to talk about this on Dragon Ball - General Discussion on GameFAQs. The general consensus is the shockwave/kinetic energy released by a nuclear weapon is nothing in terms of late DB power.. but the thermal energy can dwarf the temperatures on the sun, and it's generally thought that no DB character has shown that kind of durability. Even Toei seems to agree, as some notable villains of great power died by being flung into the sun.. Cooler, Baby, etc. Also since Goku fell victim to the heart virus, it's thought that the radiation might prove lethal to them as well.

While the idea of manmade nukes killing Saiyans and Freeza seems really silly at first, if you look at it form a Sci-Fi angle instead of just a pure fantasy angle, a typical nuclear blast gives off enough heat that should turn a DBZ character into ashes. But that's probably only with a direct hit, and only if they don't have some kind of shield up.

Wasn't that virus supposed to be a special case of heart virus, compared to normal ones? Saiyans have immune systems stronger than a human's, at least I heard.

There was nothing ever stated, at least that I know of, that suggested that the heart virus was anything special, or that Saiya-jin have heightened immune systems as opposed to humans. Granted, it would make sense for them to have stronger immune systems, but I don't recall that ever being stated anywhere.

[NitroEX]

That would have made for quite the twist if the military suddenly decided to drop a nuke on everybody during the Cell games.

Seems like something real life military would do.

[Hellspawn28]

Roshi blew up the moon in the first tournament...... just in case anyone forgot :p

Yet the same attack was only powerful enough to blow up a mountain and did no damage to the Earth. You can say it was ki control but ki control was not introduced until much later on the series. It's hard to tell if early DB characters knew ki control or not. It would be like saying that Namek Saga Vegeta had rage boost when he most likely never knew about his inter angry strength until much later on. Besides I doubt Roshi would tank a nuke since the power of him would kill him.

[ShaneisMC]

Well I'm not necessarily saying Roshi could withstand a nuke, though honestly i wouldnt be too surprised. But certainly if nothing else, we cant simply just take a way the fact that he did have the power to blow up the moon in early series material.

[Friezacooler]

They tank planet busters, so what is nuke gonna do lol.

[rereboy]

You can say it was ki control but ki control was not introduced until much later on the series.

Without any Ki control Kamehameahs of different intensities would be impossible.

[CatouttaHell]

Buff Roshi's moon-busting feat is really hard to take seriously. It's ridiculously inconsistent with all other shown and stated feats. It's like trying to explain Ozaru Raditz busting a star system before coming to Earth or something.

Piccolo Daimao should be worlds above Mutaito, who was far above Roshi even back in his prime. Yet even the Daimao's greatest shown feat was blowing up a city and his greatest stated feat was turning the Earth into a wasteland (though he never says this is something he can do with one blast as opposed to systematically doing it.)

[rereboy]

Buff Roshi's moon-busting feat is really hard to take seriously.

Only if you believe that dragon ball intends to follow and be perfectly consistent with real life physics and degrees of size, mass and distance of the stellar bodies in the real world. But it doesn't.

[Diotor]

Cell could probably survive it as well, even if the heat + radiation did some damage to him he'd most likely be able to recover.

[Rocketman]

No Dragonball character could survive a nuclear inferno.

The temperature in the core of a fission bomb breaks 100,000,000 degrees Celsius. The surface of the Sun is 'only' 6,000 degrees C, and lava is a comparatively chilly 1,000 degrees C.

[Regarder]

Nukes are never shown to exist in DB as they do in real life. Even more notably, none of the thermal effects of nuclear weapons are evident in ki explosions. A nuclear weapon creates a fireball from the intense radiation turning the atmosphere into plasma, and thermal effects which can set things on fire are evident even far outside the fireball. In DB, the "fireball" is simply the expansion of the ki itself (meaning that there isn't really a fireball), which though it creates a blast wind, never seems to emit radiation that is dangerous in its own right. In fact, the Solar Flare technique is far brighter at any level than any ki attack (Krillin can make Freeza feel agony from light, but Krillin never goes blind just from seeing Freeza's ki). Ki is more substance like than radiation, being that it is a malleable stuff that can emit radiation in the form of light, but the light never seems to get stronger with the strength of the ki itself. No one is like "Crap. I just got blinded by seeing the light of Freeza's blast!" Even Mr.Satan can look at a DB explosion unharmed, even though the blast wind might hurl him, and if he was inside the ki he would be "varporized" (or crushed/torn into microscopic pieces). Ki does damage by enveloping things or hitting them. Nukes do damage by being a giant "Solar Flare" so bright it burns stuff and creates a shockwave.

That all said, one of the databooks directly compares Piccolo Daimao's power to a "small nuclear bomb". I'd have to believe that anything that can blow up a planet is far greater than that too. On the other hand, IIRC, one of the databook entries for Buu's planet busting attack says it works by causing the magma in the planet to swell and explode, rather than just saying that it blows the planet up by virtue of being a big explosion to begin with.