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"Only the dead have seen the end of increasingly implausable books about war." - Plato
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Oct 2, 2013 18:28
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| # ? May 12, 2024 19:15 |
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Gawker just published this CIA parody of Red October, from an appendix of someone's dissertation. Linked because it's loooong. It's well done and pretty funny to an outsider. http://gawker.com/read-the-cias-parody-version-of-tom-clancys-most-famo-1440143480
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Oct 2, 2013 18:40
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One thing that always bugged me about Tom Clancy's books for some reason--all of the military officers that I can remember went to one of the academies. It's like he either fetishized or had never heard of OCS or ROTC. He always emphasized "this character went to West Point" or whatever.
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Oct 2, 2013 19:16
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Slo-Tek posted:I always leaned toward the morbid side. Looked at the maps, looked at the blast radiuses and consulted with my pop "Hey Dad, do you think the Goodyear facilities in Akron would get a nuke? Are we far enough from Cleveland, if the winds are right?" Looking at the sheer number of warheads and launch vehicles kicking around in the early 80's, if it had gone to the full out spasm, use it or lose it style plan of attack (as it probably would have quickly evolved to) then I could readily imagine the vast majority of all industry (as well as the towns/cities full of workers) to be smouldering ruins. Population base and industrial bases are generally in the same places, at least as far as the blast radius from a spread of thermonuclear devices is concerned. It's why I have pretty much stalled down on the alternate history- just trying to examine the number of weapons/targets for a single nation is a phenomenal task, but it's also entirely depressing. The world would have been hosed. Probably not quite the end of humans, but certainly the end of large scale civilisation for a long time.
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Oct 2, 2013 19:58
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Who would bother to nuke the Kiwis except for that like, one listening post we had, maybe? Of course they'd be reliant on imports still sooo yeah.
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Oct 2, 2013 20:02
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That's why I doubt it'd actually have been "use it or lose it"; it'd probably have been a steady tit-for-tat, chipping away at each other's capability to fight until one side screamed uncle. After all, if you're a Soviet general and you manage to knock out the US's ability to flatten Za Rodina while your armies storm Germany why wouldn't you? Likewise, if you're his American counterpart and you neuter the Soviet deterrent why wouldn't you do that and then kick the Kremlin's door in?
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Oct 2, 2013 20:05
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No targets near me. So 80s me might actually have survived a nuclear war long enough to die of starvation/disease/whatever.  
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Oct 2, 2013 20:06
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grover posted:No targets near me. So 80s me might actually have survived a nuclear war long enough to die of starvation/disease/whatever. The blobs on the east coast I can understand, but what's around the black blobs in North Dakota, Montana, and Wyoming/Nebraska/Colorado?
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Oct 2, 2013 20:09
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Silos, also possibly Cheyenne Mountain.
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Oct 2, 2013 20:10
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Davin Valkri posted:The blobs on the east coast I can understand, but what's around the black blobs in North Dakota, Montana, and Wyoming/Nebraska/Colorado? The North Dakota blob is because of the Minot AFB. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minot_Air_Force_Base
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Oct 2, 2013 20:13
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grover posted:No targets near me. So 80s me might actually have survived a nuclear war long enough to die of starvation/disease/whatever. Aren't you in Norfolk? You'd be flattened.
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Oct 2, 2013 20:14
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Naramyth posted:The North Dakota blob is because of the Minot AFB. Ah, that link gave the answer! Those are where the Air Force units in charge of ICBM units might be hiding. Thanks!
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Oct 2, 2013 20:14
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Any non-trivial population center. Also any military installation larger than a ROTC detachment and any industrial area producing or reasonably convertible to production of military hardware. Those midwestern silo hits are all going to be multimegaton groundbursts so if you're within about three states downwind and you're not in a 200-year vault the fallout will be short-term fatal anyway.
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Oct 2, 2013 20:22
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Who would want to nuke Harrisburg? I mean some areas around it, yeah (a rather large depot is in the area), but otherwise I would think at the point where Harrisburg comes up you're pretty much flipping coins. I wonder if the Russian's ever delisted Philly once the Navy Yard got closed? Snowdens Secret posted:Any non-trivial population center. Also any military installation larger than a ROTC detachment and any industrial area producing or reasonably convertible to production of military hardware. Those midwestern silo hits are all going to be multimegaton groundbursts so if you're within about three states downwind and you're not in a 200-year vault the fallout will be short-term fatal anyway. Which ironically compromises the nations grain producing centers IIRC.
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Oct 2, 2013 20:22
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Mortabis posted:Aren't you in Norfolk? You'd be flattened. gfanikf posted:Who would want to nuke Harrisburg? I mean some areas around it, yeah (a rather large depot is in the area), but otherwise I would think at the point where Harrisburg comes up you're pretty much flipping coins. grover fucked around with this message at 20:33 on Oct 2, 2013 |
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Oct 2, 2013 20:28
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gfanikf posted:Who would want to nuke Harrisburg? I mean some areas around it, yeah (a rather large depot is in the area), but otherwise I would think at the point where Harrisburg comes up you're pretty much flipping coins. Yup. Eastern ND/Western MN is pretty much the bread basket of the country. Having all that fallout come east from prevailing winds would just destroy the nations agriculture.
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Oct 2, 2013 20:29
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grover posted:No targets near me. So 80s me might actually have survived a nuclear war long enough to die of starvation/disease/whatever. What the gently caress were they going to nuke in Jackson, Michigan?!  Although this shithole already looks like something went off in some neighborhoods so.
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Oct 2, 2013 20:30
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The good people of Pennsylvania might not see Harrisburg as much of a center for command and control, but the Soviets surely did. Philly probably spent the entire Cold War on the top 10 list of countervalue strike targets regardless of any counterforce plans.
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Oct 2, 2013 20:33
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Mortabis posted:One thing that always bugged me about Tom Clancy's books for some reason--all of the military officers that I can remember went to one of the academies. It's like he either fetishized or had never heard of OCS or ROTC. He always emphasized "this character went to West Point" or whatever. Most of them were generals and admirals, so that's not really unexpected. But iirc Jack Ryan went to Boston College, so ROTC for him. Forums Terrorist posted:That's why I doubt it'd actually have been "use it or lose it"; it'd probably have been a steady tit-for-tat, chipping away at each other's capability to fight until one side screamed uncle. After all, if you're a Soviet general and you manage to knock out the US's ability to flatten Za Rodina while your armies storm Germany why wouldn't you? Likewise, if you're his American counterpart and you neuter the Soviet deterrent why wouldn't you do that and then kick the Kremlin's door in? How do you maintain a tit-for-tat posture when your C3 nodes are being eliminated and you lose the ability to track the situation and communicate with anyone? Godholio fucked around with this message at 20:37 on Oct 2, 2013 |
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Oct 2, 2013 20:33
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Nostalgia4Infinity posted:What the gently caress were they going to nuke in Jackson, Michigan?! Forget that, I wanna know what nuke-worthy high value target sits at the borders of Washington, Idaho, and Canada.
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Oct 2, 2013 20:39
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Any cold war experts want to explain why the silo-filled areas out west are completely untargeted in the 500 warhead scenario, but absolutely obliterated in the 2000 warhead one? It seems somewhat counter-intuitive. Wouldn't you have a greater need to destroy the US's launch capabilities in a limited launch than in a "scorch the goddamn earth" scenario? Or, for that matter, why does Akron get hit 6 times in a limited strike, and only once in a massive strike?
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Oct 2, 2013 20:44
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Forums Terrorist posted:That's why I doubt it'd actually have been "use it or lose it"; it'd probably have been a steady tit-for-tat, chipping away at each other's capability to fight until one side screamed uncle. After all, if you're a Soviet general and you manage to knock out the US's ability to flatten Za Rodina while your armies storm Germany why wouldn't you? Likewise, if you're his American counterpart and you neuter the Soviet deterrent why wouldn't you do that and then kick the Kremlin's door in? You can't knock out the enemy sufficiently to neuter them though- (especially by the late 70's, with 50,000+ warheads around) that was the sticking point of MAD, and the reason for spreading/hiding your deterrent as best you could, so the enemy doesn't play because there isn't a winning move, you can always be hit back (also why SDI was such a potential destabilizing game changer, "I can hit you, you can't hit me nearly as well"). If I was that Soviet general, I wouldn't be having a paddle in the channel after a week of rolling through Europe, NATO doctrine demands that my lovely armoured divisions got their tank crews all neutroned up after it became clear that the onwards march of global communism is unstoppable by conventional means. Someone launches say, a few dozen ICBM's at you. Until very late in the stage, you have no idea of where they are headed. It might be a few military bases, or they might be intended for your government, or your super shiny expensive missile fields. There might be single warheads aboard, maybe your opponent said "gently caress START, load up 50 MIRV's on each those fuckers". So, you launch them, because otherwise your command and control might be killed or disrupted, or one of your best weapons systems just got turned into a lot of burnt corn fields you don't want to go near, because you don't have time to think this over clearly. Your opponent sees you do the same, and starts fretting over their remaining missile fields (and there are a metric fuckton of them). They launch more. You launch a shitload more, because now the first batch are already on re-entry, and this might be your last few moments. Or, you just got whacked by an SLBM strike, there is no clear command and control, and your "dead hand" system triggers and issues commands automatically for massive retaliation. Or, the other side gets real lucky, and decapitates your CnC. The headless chicken that's left, however, is more than capable of pressing the right buttons- again, it's how nuclear warfare is set up, to make it such an unattractive proposition, to make mutual death so likely no sane person would go for it- that's the problem. People aren't sane, and the systems they put in place prone to error but very efficient at causing megadeaths. There's many of ways it could have gone full with neither side wanting it, and the whole system was designed around massive retaliation and surviving a first strike so you can hit back adequately. It's the two sides of the MAD coin, reduce the risk of it happening on one side, increase the risk of it being full blown on the other. DesperateDan fucked around with this message at 20:53 on Oct 2, 2013 |
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Oct 2, 2013 20:44
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Nostalgia4Infinity posted:What the gently caress were they going to nuke in Jackson, Michigan?! I figure in MI at that time, Detroit obviously is getting a few being a population center, and they might as poo poo all over the industrial capacity in the state as well... lots of automotive-related plants nearby.
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Oct 2, 2013 21:04
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Apparently being one of the early internet hubs makes the university in my town cool enough to target. Although now that I think of it there is a pretty massive liquid natural gas storage field a bit west and north.
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Oct 2, 2013 21:37
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gfanikf posted:Who would want to nuke Harrisburg? Anyone who grew up there? (I grew up there, I kid, I kid. Except not really.) Also, it's something of a rail center, and all the stuff at the DLA distribution center would have flowed through there. That's probably the big depot you're thinking of. http://www.ddc.dla.mil/sites/sp/Susq/AboutDDSP.aspx gfanikf posted:
Doubtful. NAVSEA is still there, specifically the Naval Surface Warfare Center, Carderock Division (my old employer), and there's still a substantial mothball fleet tied up there. Like, JFK and Forrestal are *still* there, along with bunch of Ticos. Phanatic fucked around with this message at 22:03 on Oct 2, 2013 |
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Oct 2, 2013 21:56
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SyHopeful posted:Forget that, I wanna know what nuke-worthy high value target sits at the borders of Washington, Idaho, and Canada.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boundary_Dam ( VVVV I bow to your superior knowledge of Kevin Costner's oeuvre. joat mon fucked around with this message at 23:15 on Oct 2, 2013 |
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Oct 2, 2013 22:52
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joat mon posted:
True, but The Postman isn't post-nuclear, just post-collapse.
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Oct 2, 2013 22:56
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Tom Petty playing himself was the only good part of that movie.
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Oct 2, 2013 23:20
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Phanatic posted:Anyone who grew up there? (I grew up there, I kid, I kid. Except not really.) Harrisburg would have been improved if 3 mile island exploded.
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Oct 2, 2013 23:24
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Mortabis posted:Harrisburg would have been improved if 3 mile island exploded. Duh, how could I forget that, I lived there during that mess and my father made my pregnant mother grab me and get the hell out of town. A working nuke plant is probably enough for the Soviets to assign warheads.
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Oct 2, 2013 23:55
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That map looks like it was put together as an argument for countervalue targeting vs. counterforce. It's post cold war, also; there are a number of bases omitted that would have been targeted in the cold war that are closed now. See FEMA 196, which http://www.armageddononline.org/PDF/General%20Survival/Risks%20&%20hazards%20-%20A%20State%20by%20State%20Guide%20-%20FEMA196.pdf ; I think this has been posted before. Page 14/15's pretty sobering, and it has more accurate state-by-state target information circa 1990.
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Oct 3, 2013 00:00
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Davin Valkri posted:Ah, that link gave the answer! Those are where the Air Force units in charge of ICBM units might be hiding. Thanks! They're not hiding, those silos are very visible and a prime target for a massive first strike. stealie72 posted:Any cold war experts want to explain why the silo-filled areas out west are completely untargeted in the 500 warhead scenario, but absolutely obliterated in the 2000 warhead one? As PCjr sidecar, it's the difference between a countervalue and a counterforce strike. It's a bit counter-intuitive (hey that might be the name for a nuke scenario in itself!) but if you want to wreck a nation you'll probably need less warheads than you'd use digging out those hardened concrete tubes in the Midwest. Missiles and warheads don't work every time so you'll need to target every aimpoint (so every single silo plus their command facilities) with at least two warheads to get a +~>90% kill chance. There are hundreds of silos.
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Oct 3, 2013 00:04
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What is going on down in the Ashland-area of Oregon? Did the Soviets hate Shakespeare festivals that much?
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Oct 3, 2013 00:38
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Ugh, that New York map. All of Long Island (thankfully) and then a straight line up the Hudson to Poughkeepsie. Duck and cover, kids! It's only a few hundred megatons! Between West Point and Stewart, I was sooooo hosed.
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Oct 3, 2013 00:47
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Didn't look at a map, but I'm pretty sure living less than a mile from TACOM http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Army_TACOM_Life_Cycle_Management_Command combined with being like 20 minutes away from Selfridge ANG where there used to be B-52s, that if it all went down, I might be lucky enough to see a flash of light before just being vaporized.
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Oct 3, 2013 01:21
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Oxford Comma posted:What is going on down in the Ashland-area of Oregon? Did the Soviets hate Shakespeare festivals that much? Klamath Falls ANG base. And the spot near Corvallis is probably the Camp Adair SAGE center. joat mon posted:
Didn't know about that dam at all! Thanks.
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Oct 3, 2013 01:46
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A very interesting video of the SR-71 cockpit checkout. oh, and don't forget the SR-71 engine tour https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VpZfBFlTC_c
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Oct 3, 2013 04:55
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Oct 3, 2013 05:59
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A McDonnell Douglas product with hydraulic leaks? Say it ain't so.
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Oct 3, 2013 14:29
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| # ? May 12, 2024 19:15 |
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Growing up reading Alas Babylon it's funny looking at that map for Florida. We'd be utterly hosed with pretty much every population center being killed on the 600 war-head map.
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Oct 3, 2013 15:08
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