[jacobush]

It matters, a great deal in a sort of sad way.

I can only speak for Sweden, but a lot of large military and civilian defence bunkers (and hardened, fixed in bedrock artillery) went obsolete went “the other side” got better targeting systems.

Until then, a lot of the installations were immune to anything but a direct hit, which was incredibly unlikely. Airbursts just wouldn’t have cut it to crack open the more serious underground installations.

[iagovar]

Hmm, didn't think it that way, you're right.

[nyolfen]

modern airburst fuzes are indeed accurate enough to destroy hardened underground bunkers: https://thebulletin.org/2017/03/how-us-nuclear-force-moderni...

[jacobush]

Minutiae:

Just to clarify I meant the old “hit somewhere in the city core” airbursts against which our underground shelters would have held up pretty well. To maximise impact a ground hit is seldom the right choice, too much energy is initially absorbed. (Also the fallout is made worse in a ground burst which can be a bad thing for an attacker if they want to follow up with boots on the ground.)