all out Nuclear war.

[Strategos' Risk]

Originally Posted by BrianP

Jericho only had 25 U.S. cities taken out. The Soviets would be dropping hundreds, if not thousands, of nukes on us.

There's got to be some prairie insignificant enough to hide in.

[Syphon]

Originally Posted by black angel

a lot of people say that, but given that most likely no Nukes would be used in Africa, or Latin America, maybe even Oceania, i don't see how the Human race would die out.

Don't bet on the Oceania bit.

Australia was targeted in about a dozen places one about 10 klicks from my place so I'm probably dead.

Now remember in an all out nuclear war other countries much bring out their nukes cause they have just lost their principle backers.

So expect israeli nukes to be used in the middle east with more used between Pakistan and India.

Oh and don't forget South Africa they might just use them to keep the black countries surrounding them on the back foot.

And according to DMA you might need to add Australia to the books as well.
Do they go after indonesia?

[Bobindelaware]

See TRIUMPH by Philip Wylie. Not as bad as some, but not too optimistic. Ends with something like 13 people surviving in the United States.

Bobbo

[Marius]

Originally Posted by wkwillis

The Russians didn't have the means to attack the Southern Hemisphere, we didn't have any targets, so Australia/New Zealand, Argentina/Brazil/Chile, and Azania would have survived as industrial states. Indonesia is possible, except that it was considered commie back in 1961.

Azania? WTF?

Are you a member of some sort of Pan-Africanist, black supremacy movement?

[Norman]

There are several studies on the internet from the late 70's that outline some of the effects, that I found interesting. see: http://www.fas.org/nuke/intro/nuke/7906/ and another at http://www.atomicarchive.com/Docs/Ef...enw_chp2.shtml (hopefully the links will work)

What I found interesting that discussions seem to miss, is that 1) strikes are not going to be random, they are going to be clustered about military targets, and 2) the effects of the bombing diminish fairly quickly the further away from the bombsite you are. Thus, at 2 miles you have a survival are of only 13%, while at five miles, you have a rate of around 7%. (please note, they have raw numbers in the report, but the percent is incorrect for the five mile scenario.)

Having read the entire thing, I think what you get is this. It depends on the intent of the strike.

If the intent is to immobilize the enemy, then you will want resources to be consumed to care for people (if they are dead, you don't need to care for them). Under this objective, you would probably have a number of strikes at military and industrial targets, followed by numerous low level strikes at population areas that are large enough to cause destruction, but are not specifically designed to kill large numbers of people. The idea being, resources will be tied up caring for the sick and injured. There would probably be a death rate of 10 - 20 %.

Conversely, if the strike is genocidal in purpose, then you are going to get a much higher death rate, in the area of 55 - 65%.

If you assume a sort of 'average' on this, the death rate from this approach would still be very high, but it would take place over years, probably, 35 - 45 % in the US after the first strike, but then more from disease, starvation and illness in the next three or four years. I guesstimate that within the first two years another 25 % would die from these causes, leaving approximately 30 - 45 % of the pre-war population, now living largely rural, agragrian based lives. I have no idea as to the form of government, but I think we can assume that it would be fairly decentralized.

After three years the background radiation would be much higher than today's, but survivable everywhere except for the very center of the target zones. Cancers and other radiation caused illness would be much higher everywhere in the world, and life expectancy would probably drop from our current 70 years + to around 45 - 50 years.

By year 10, radiation levels in most places would be near today's levels, but certain long half life radioactive elements would still about. Great care would have to be taken in fishing, because these elements would probably accumulate in a layer of sediment.

Illness levels would still be very high, and would probably not approach today's levels for close to 100 - 200 years.

I have no idea about the weather effects of a massive nuclear exchange.

[flamelord]

Originally Posted by BrianP

Jericho only had 25 U.S. cities taken out. The Soviets would be dropping hundreds, if not thousands, of nukes on us.

So would the U.S. If anyone lives in russia afterwards it's gonna get REALLY cold.

[Iamwinterborn]

Can someone summarize Threads for me? Everyone keeps commenting on it yet I have never read/seen it so.

[Lordofthedogs]

Originally Posted by Iamwinterborn

Can someone summarize Threads for me? Everyone keeps commenting on it yet I have never read/seen it so.

I'll do you one better I found it in full here http://video.google.com/videoplay?do...90698427111488

[Winner]

Originally Posted by Iamwinterborn

Can someone summarize Threads for me? Everyone keeps commenting on it yet I have never read/seen it so.

A British film about a nuclear war, following the desperate attempt of a pregnant girl to survive in the post-apocalyptic world.

It's both realistic and very, very depressive (compared to this film, the Day After looks like a weekend picnic), especially to the end, which is just terrible. It feels more like a documentary, I'd say.

BTW, it was censored in Britain because the government feared that the public morale would have been negatively affected if the film had been shown.

[Fellatio Nelson]

You have to remember that sporadic nuclear exchanges, including tit-for-tat, could go on for months after the initial strike, done deliberately to hamper any re-organisation efforts because the 'best off' nations would be winners (used advisedly).

Surviving SSBNs and the like could carry out standing orders/those communicated to them since outbreak of war.

[Fellatio Nelson]

Originally Posted by Iamwinterborn

Can someone summarize Threads for me? Everyone keeps commenting on it yet I have never read/seen it so.

It's very good. Very dated and somewhat cliched (BBC view of t'Northern folk like Thande), but interesting.

Was shown in Staff Colleges, alongside the 1965 Wargame.

[Amerigo Vespucci]

Originally Posted by Fellatio Nelson

It's very good. Very dated and somewhat cliched (BBC view of t'Northern folk like Thande), but interesting.

Was shown in Staff Colleges, alongside the 1965 Wargame.

As long as it wasn't the 1985 Wargames.

[Fellatio Nelson]

Originally Posted by Amerigo Vespucci

As long as it wasn't the 1985 Wargames.

Heh... I still like that film.


And 1983, I think!

[Weaver]

You might find these interesting:

http://www.johnstonsarchive.net/nucl...clearwar1.html

http://www.johnstonsarchive.net/nuclear/nukergv.html

I found these pretty convincing.

[SirAshfordFanrico]

Yeah, I'm on the view that it wouldn't wipe out all of mankind, would certainly reduce the overall population drastically, by maybe 25-50% or more, but humanity would live on. We're adaptable that way.

There'd be some initial chaos afterwards, power & resource grabs, skirmishes along borders or between rival factions vying for power, etc. etc. There'd be a major increase in sicknesses, possible deformities/mutations, whole areas would be completely inhospitable for quite some time, etc. etc.

But after things have been genuinely settled down, after possible skirmishes and wars, things would possibly go back to a sort've normal.

At least till the Giant Ants come.

[Winner]

I think we must take 2 things into consideration:

1) Destruction of the nation states

-> Major cities would be destroyed and major cities are usually the centers of industry, trade, culture, healthcare, research, politics. I believe that the post-apocalyptic cliché of lawlessness similar to the old Wild West is not very stretched. Modern day governments are very centralized and they rely on fast communications made available through Internet, mobile phones, satellites etc.

This would be gone. People would have to get back to couriers and other forms of message delivery, which would favour decentralization.

Moreover, the surviving communities would have to be self-sufficient in many ways - agriculture, tools manufacturing etc., since long distance transportation which is now secured by railroads and motorways would not be possible.

I think it is very possible that the most damaged countries (essentially the Northern Hemisphere) would plunge back into semi-medieval state of extremelly decentralized states. Many present day nation states would cease to exist alltogether, especially the large ones, the US for example. Once you remove the only thing which holds them together (federal government, democracy), the smaller subunits would see no point in identifying themselves with the central government.

2) Enviromental damage

-> While the real nuclear winter is probably just a myth, the destruction of the ozone layer, fallout contaminating large portions of land and the dust in the atmosphere would make living during the first five years after the war very difficult. Agriculture wouldn't be nearly as effective, so even if more than 50% of the population in modern US or Europe survived, there would be simply no way to fed them. Japan, India or China would suffer even more due to bigger population and its density. Famine combined with diseases (some of them introduced during the war) would probably kill as many people as the war itself.

Many species of plants and animals would probably die off, and we don't know how it would affect the biosphere as a whole.


All in all, I guess it would take at least one century until the most damaged countries would begin to even partially recover. The least hit countries in Latin America would probably become the leading powers in the post-war worls.