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The part that's counterintuitive is probably "current comes from everywhere", a fuse or circuit breaker won't be much help if there's no circuit to break because the voltage is coming from every piece of conducting metal at once, including the insides of the circuit breaker and electronics themselves. IIRC the USSR performed a few spectacularly successful experiments with high altitude detonations that could blow out power lines hundreds of miles away, . Cold war memory: my dad subscribed to some magazine for VHS aficionados. One month somebody wrote to the letter column asking what precautions they needed to take to protect their videotape collection from an EMP. The editor totally lost it, and just ranted angrily that if the USSR was firing nukes at the USA, his goddamn videotape collection would not matter anymore. This contradicts the scenario presented in Threads, because I clearly remember birth defective radiation mutated kids being shown fuzzy and damaged tapes of educational childrens shows in an effort to keep them from becoming too feral to till the soil. So its a valid question. If a local warlord wanted to see all 15 hours of The Winds of War in standard play or watch Superbowl XX one more time before he dies a clan could trade those for grain and furs or give them as tribute.
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Jun 26, 2016 01:40
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If I'd spent age 15+ in a post-apocalypse wasteland and lived long enough to raise the next generation, the kinds of Gods and Legends I'd have passed down to the tribe through oral history would have been stuff like Rambo, Dr Who, and that time at Wrestlemania when Hulk Hogan bodyslammed André the Giant. I wish the WWIII in Fallout had taken place right at the end of the Cold War so the root style was all 80s retro.
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Jun 26, 2016 01:53
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Syd Midnight posted:If I'd spent age 15+ in a post-apocalypse wasteland and lived long enough to raise the next generation, the kinds of Gods and Legends I'd have passed down to the tribe through oral history would have been stuff like Rambo, Dr Who, and that time at Wrestlemania when Hulk Hogan bodyslammed André the Giant. I wish the WWIII in Fallout had taken place right at the end of the Cold War so the root style was all 80s retro. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NCBA1wii70o
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Jun 26, 2016 02:15
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Nebakenezzer posted:That's really nasty. I think if North Korea only had a few missiles/atom bombs, they would detonate them high in the atmosphere to get this effect for maximum destruction. Pretty sure NK's 'SIOP' is similar to Pakistan's, which is generally regarded to be "groundburst the gently caress out of everything." If you have a limited amount of deliverable warheads (and you know yours aren't as good as the type that'll be used on you), and you *hate* the people you're using them on, the M.O. is usually going to be "render their biggest/most valuable population centers uninhabitable and doom their best and brightest to acute radiation poisoning." From Hell's heart, I stab at thee - that sort of thing. Now, setting off an EMP over Japan? *Completely* different story. Japan without electricity or wireless service would turn into Battle Royale in the first hour.
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Jun 26, 2016 03:40
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BIG HEADLINE posted:Pretty sure NK's 'SIOP' is similar to Pakistan's, which is generally regarded to be "groundburst the gently caress out of everything." If you have a limited amount of deliverable warheads (and you know yours aren't as good as the type that'll be used on you), and you *hate* the people you're using them on, the M.O. is usually going to be "render their biggest/most valuable population centers uninhabitable and doom their best and brightest to acute radiation poisoning." From Hell's heart, I stab at thee - that sort of thing. Now, setting off an EMP over Japan? *Completely* different story. Japan without electricity or wireless service would turn into Battle Royale in the first hour. I don't doubt your reasoning (and mine requires nuclear weapons carried by missiles, ha) but still. Can you imagine trying to do things out of South Korea and Japan if they were EMP-flashed back into the 1890s?
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Jun 26, 2016 04:14
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The New York metropolitan area (NYC, Newark, Westchester etc) has 23 million people. There aren't a lot of farms in the NYC metropolitan area. 72 hours after a large EMP strike would be catastrophic.
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Jun 26, 2016 16:34
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Smiling Jack posted:The New York metropolitan area (NYC, Newark, Westchester etc) has 23 million people. I don't think that's entirely accurate. It would take things longer than 3 days with no power to really have things go to poo poo. The 2003 blackout wasn't really that bad nor was the power outages that effected large parts of the east coast after sandy hit. For many people they went over a week without power after Sandy.
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Jun 26, 2016 18:35
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kill me now posted:I don't think that's entirely accurate. It would take things longer than 3 days with no power to really have things go to poo poo. A simple power outage is very different from literally everything electrical or electronic dying or catching fire. They also had a week of warning to stock up on supplies for Sandy. How many New Yorkers do you think kept that up? When everything fails out of the blue, it's going to be a goddamn major disaster within minutes. Millions of people trying to evacuate buildings with no lights (emergency lights won't function), emergency services won't be able to respond because their vehicles are down, nobody having ANY idea what's going on because there's no way to get the message out. Absolute loving chaos. A person is smart. People are stupid. Panicked people in large numbers are exponentially worse.
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Jun 26, 2016 18:48
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Godholio posted:A simple power outage is very different from literally everything electrical or electronic dying or catching fire. They also had a week of warning to stock up on supplies for Sandy. How many New Yorkers do you think kept that up? When everything fails out of the blue, it's going to be a goddamn major disaster within minutes. Millions of people trying to evacuate buildings with no lights (emergency lights won't function), emergency services won't be able to respond because their vehicles are down, nobody having ANY idea what's going on because there's no way to get the message out. Absolute loving chaos.
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Jun 26, 2016 18:56
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I'd like to see what a Slow-Motion Countercity war would look like..... in a technothriller movie series maybe. more choises http://wiki.baloogancampaign.com/index.php/Kahn%27s_Escalation_Ladder
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Jun 26, 2016 19:03
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kill me now posted:I don't think that's entirely accurate. It would take things longer than 3 days with no power to really have things go to poo poo. I don't think you understand what at EMP pulse would do. It's not a power outage.
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Jun 26, 2016 19:09
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standard.deviant posted:Even so, given the choice between that and actual counter-value nuclear warfare I know which I would rather experience. The sun is regularly throwing these "nukes" at us so we should be ready regardless.
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Jun 26, 2016 19:09
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Smiling Jack posted:I don't think you understand what at EMP pulse would do. It's not a power outage. Yeah Phanatic's post and the ramifications of a sufficient series of EMP bursts alone are pretty horrifying. There's a bright flash in the sky, and everything goes dead. Instinctively you wander over and toggle the lightswitch a few times. gently caress all, so you walk over to get your phone off charge and it's entirely dead, and smells a bit like an old 486 got warmed up. Land line is dead. You try a torch despite the continuing lightshow in the sky continues and it's dead. You check on your neighbors and they are in the exact same situation so you dig out and old battery powered radio out the back of the basement but that's hosed too. You hunker down that night but the next day go out and try the car, thinking the metal body saved it but it's just as dead as pretty much everything else. Gas and water won't flow much longer. Many governments could survive this over two or more cities. But it's like that over much of the nation. Food supply is paralysed as most of the transportation grid is dead. The replacement components got fried. The military has some vehicles that were emp proof but not enough to deal with the needs of an entire nation, but much of government is also paralysed as it also relies on people who can't get to work anymore. Food stocks that aren't seized (by locals or government) quickly run out. If riots are the language of the unheard, they are putting in a pretty stern order for lunch, and poo poo breaks down rapidly, the more so the greater the density of the population.
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Jun 26, 2016 21:05
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EMP means that ALL emergency services comms are down except for hardened federal emergency and military networks (and maaaaaaybe some of the really high-end financial firms who had particularly good/paranoid contingency planners). You might as well have people on rooftops calling 911 with smoke signals for all the good it'll do you. The bridges are clogged with people trying to flee and all the traffic lights are out everywhere. I used to live in Manhattan. The whole place is three meals away from going full retard at the best of times; a regional or, god forbid national, crisis would be absolute Lord of the Flies territory. People will pull together on a neighborhood level, but there's enough psychopaths in a population that size that with emergency communications completely down, poo poo is going to get real bad real fast, and violence begets violence.
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Jun 26, 2016 21:33
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kill me now posted:I don't think that's entirely accurate. It would take things longer than 3 days with no power to really have things go to poo poo. Counterpoint: These are NYC people, I give them approximately 6 hours before they start eating each other.
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Jun 26, 2016 21:51
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bitcoin bastard posted:Counterpoint: These are NYC people, I give them approximately 6 hours before they start eating each other. Counter counterpoint: These are New Yorkers, they've already literally started eating each other in some cases.
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Jun 26, 2016 22:05
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Back Hack posted:Counter counterpoint: These are New Yorkers, they've already literally started eating each other in some cases. Triple counter, New Yorkers are already quite clannish, so civilization's downfall will be abated as cultural lines are drawn between Mets and Yankees and Rangers And Islanders and Jets and Giants and Knicks and Nets fans. Tennis fans will be thrown into a pit in queens and fermented. So I give it 6 hours before civil war.
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Jun 27, 2016 00:10
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Ok, so maybe it's not all bad.
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Jun 27, 2016 00:14
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Baloogan posted:I'd like to see what a Slow-Motion Countercity war would look like..... in a technothriller movie series maybe. I disagree with this chart because it implies that escalation will go from 41->1 linearly. In reality you'll be down in the 30s but someone will escalate to 5 (looking at you Turkey) to send a political message, then fall back down into the 30s. Also large scale evacuations are not in the 20s, that poo poo is single digit for sure. Once again it's about the message; if the US/Russia evacuates their cities, that's a pretty loving clear message to the other side that the initiating side is planning on sucking up a first strike. Also nothing happens in a vacuum, and this handy 41 point list completely ignores context. E: gently caress we were already making fun of that list, imagine I was just chiming in. E2: I would support a nationwide initiative to get Youtube back up just to see Suspect Bucket posted:Triple counter, New Yorkers are already quite clannish, so civilization's downfall will be abated as cultural lines are drawn between Mets and Yankees and Rangers And Islanders and Jets and Giants and Knicks and Nets fans. Tennis fans will be thrown into a pit in queens and fermented. So I give it 6 hours before civil war. goatsestretchgoals fucked around with this message at 00:20 on Jun 27, 2016 |
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Jun 27, 2016 00:17
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New York City - still people's preferred target in WMD what-if scenarios I was thinking about it, totally blanking the world's electronic grids is something that the non-superpower nuclear nations could actually do if they had enough bombs or missiles. Brb, gonna write a depressing science fiction novel
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Jun 27, 2016 00:35
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Nebakenezzer posted:New York City - still people's preferred target in WMD what-if scenarios "It's been one month since Facebook went down in The Big Fizzle of 2018, and the 'Signalers' are beginning to die from starvation. Poor bastards, all they do is wander the country holding up their fried smartphones. When you try to talk to them, all they seem to be able to say in response is 'I don't have a signal' or 'I need to check my wall' while refusing to look you in the eyes."
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Jun 27, 2016 00:46
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bitcoin bastard posted:I disagree with this chart because it implies that escalation will go from 41->1 linearly. In reality you'll be down in the 30s but someone will escalate to 5 (looking at you Turkey) to send a political message, then fall back down into the 30s. Also large scale evacuations are not in the 20s, that poo poo is single digit for sure. Once again it's about the message; if the US/Russia evacuates their cities, that's a pretty loving clear message to the other side that the initiating side is planning on sucking up a first strike. Also nothing happens in a vacuum, and this handy 41 point list completely ignores context. Turkey shooting down those Russian jets was going from 1 or so (sub-crisis) to maybe 8 at most if you assume Turkey acted illegally. I don't think any crisis moved past 12 (Korea/Vietnam) or possibly 16 (Cuban Missile Crisis) during the entire Cold War, though there were times where it was possible to have gone from 0 to 34 or 44 without an actual crisis due to failures in the early warning/command and control systems. It's also labeled figure 3 and you can safely assume that figures 1, 2, and the rest of the 300+ page book goes into great detail on that context, at least as it existed in 1965 when the book was written--basically the beginning of the ICBM era. The author had some hosed up ideas about the after-effects of a nuclear war, but I don't think this chart is totally useless if you look at the context behind it.
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Jun 27, 2016 01:12
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standard.deviant posted:You also can't read the chart. You start at the bottom and escalate up. Fair, I misread it. I still think the idea of a linear path from USA/USSR having a bad day to to nukes flying is suspect. WW3 doesn't happen because someone decides they really want to make rubble bounce in DC/Moscow, it happens because of a bunch of miscommunications. I was chatting about how much of a shitshow Able Archer 83 was earlier, and I stand behind the idea that reasons we should have been dead are: -Cuban Missile Crisis -Able Archer 83 -Gorbachev->Yeltsin boogaloo
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Jun 27, 2016 03:05
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Boomerjinks posted:B4Com1, you were never assigned to "Papa" flight, were you? Yes, P, Q, R, S, T mostly, and E occasionally.
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Jun 27, 2016 14:57
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I had this thought the other day: why have our missile silos in our farming heartland instead of out in the middle of the desert/in some mountains that are strategically useless? I mean we were all probably boned anyway but saving some farmland from direct attack seems like a better play.
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Jun 27, 2016 17:32
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Naramyth posted:I had this thought the other day: why have our missile silos in our farming heartland instead of out in the middle of the desert/in some mountains that are strategically useless? I mean we were all probably boned anyway but saving some farmland from direct attack seems like a better play. Cheap land formerly owned by easily displaceable people who are given the choice of allowing the silos or getting paid a pittance to forcibly GTFO.
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Jun 27, 2016 18:26
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Naramyth posted:I had this thought the other day: why have our missile silos in our farming heartland instead of out in the middle of the desert/in some mountains that are strategically useless? I mean we were all probably boned anyway but saving some farmland from direct attack seems like a better play. BIG HEADLINE posted:Cheap land formerly owned by easily displaceable people who are given the choice of allowing the silos or getting paid a pittance to forcibly GTFO. They are also near the geographic center of the North American air defense area. That gives you more reaction time for a launch-on-warning second strike capability.
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Jun 27, 2016 18:37
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Naramyth posted:I had this thought the other day: why have our missile silos in our farming heartland instead of out in the middle of the desert/in some mountains that are strategically useless? I mean we were all probably boned anyway but saving some farmland from direct attack seems like a better play. They did that too: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Titan_Missile_Museum
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Jun 27, 2016 18:44
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TasogareNoKagi posted:They did that too: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Titan_Missile_Museum
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Jun 27, 2016 20:10
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BIG HEADLINE posted:Cheap land formerly owned by easily displaceable people who are given the choice of allowing the silos or getting paid a pittance to forcibly GTFO. I bet the desert would be cheaper though. TasogareNoKagi posted:They did that too: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Titan_Missile_Museum Maybe we just had Too Many Missiles.  standard.deviant posted:They are also near the geographic center of the North American air defense area. That gives you more reaction time for a launch-on-warning second strike capability. That makes sense.
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Jun 27, 2016 21:03
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Anos posted:Industrious Syrians finding new and tasty uses for Russian submunitions. I thought you beautiful garbagemen might experience some pleasureful feelings while looking at the computer screen and clicking.
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Jun 27, 2016 21:46
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Naramyth posted:I bet the desert would be cheaper though. Farmland is very, very cheap, and missile sites really don't take up very much room, in comparison to the size of most midwestern farms.
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Jun 27, 2016 22:09
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Combustible rocket fuels, either solid or liquid is not something you want to bury in 100+ degree soil that gets no water.
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Jun 27, 2016 22:34
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Doesn't the temp drop like 20 degrees compared to the surface, even in the desert once you get down 40-50 feet? E: I looked it up and at 7 meters the ground temp is roughly the yearly mean temperature in most places. Which is why heat pumps work. Plinkey fucked around with this message at 22:45 on Jun 27, 2016 |
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Jun 27, 2016 22:41
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Naramyth posted:I had this thought the other day: why have our missile silos in our farming heartland instead of out in the middle of the desert/in some mountains that are strategically useless? I mean we were all probably boned anyway but saving some farmland from direct attack seems like a better play. standard.deviant posted:They are also near the geographic center of the North American air defense area. That gives you more reaction time for a launch-on-warning second strike capability. North Dakota isn't our most productive agricultural area. Allegedly RAND actually did a study about where the least harmful place to have the Russians set off a gigaton of counter-force weapons was. Plus, they're also right up near the border, so there's a 50/50 chance that Ontario and Quebec get hosed with fallout instead of Wisconsin and Michigan, depending on the winds.
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Jun 27, 2016 23:07
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AceRimmer posted:Map of all the other ex-ICBM sites around Tucson: https://www.google.com/maps/d/u/0/viewer?mid=1ZYaMhFJqpTcCrLX_HFyZ39ZdNW8&hl=en
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Jun 27, 2016 23:10
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chitoryu12 posted:A partially declassified report on developments in charged particle beam weapons from the Cold War, including figuring out "How will we deflect Soviet beam weapons?". There's some heavy redaction still in it but it's not a subject that usually gets discussed when talking about Cold War experiments. Oh my loving god, this is amazing. My dad is a plasma physicist and he's told me about rumours of this poo poo since I was a kid. Haha, they reckon the capability was there for a full on pulse cannon on the Soviet side. If you don't know the physics, this is literally a lightning gun. If you ever fired one, I really wouldn't want to have been within 5 miles or so. If you value your bollocks anyway.
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Jun 27, 2016 23:37
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evil_bunnY posted:Holy poo poo tucson would have gotten glassed thrice over. Silver linings
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Jun 27, 2016 23:50
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Hexyflexy posted:Oh my loving god, this is amazing. My dad is a plasma physicist and he's told me about rumours of this poo poo since I was a kid. Haha, they reckon the capability was there for a full on pulse cannon on the Soviet side. Soooooo, for us non-physicists, how do you make a lightning gun? My understanding of lighting is that it is a massive buildup of charge trying to get to the ground; I don't see how'd you aim that effect.
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Jun 28, 2016 00:26
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Nebakenezzer posted:Soooooo, for us non-physicists, how do you make a lightning gun? My understanding of lighting is that it is a massive buildup of charge trying to get to the ground; I don't see how'd you aim that effect. I read something once about using some kind of lower powered beam to create an ionised/polarised/something path between emitter and target that the larger discharge would use as a path of least resistance? It could have been in a dumb game though.
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Jun 28, 2016 00:28
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