WI: Yom Kippur War turns nuclear?

Okay. So let's say that Saudi Arabia, Iraq, and Jordan join Egypt and Syria in the war against Israel. Officially and with real force, I mean, not just de facto. Let's handwave away Israel's tactical, technological, and organizational superiority for a moment -handwave-. The Israeli army cracks under the pressure and Israel itself is invaded. As the state crumbles, the Israeli government launches several tactical nuclear weapons into its enemy's lands in a desperate final bid for victory, or failing that, survival, or failing -that-, revenge. Cairo, Alexandria, Damascus, Baghdad, Amman, Riyadh, and most heinously, Mecca, are all vaporized in an instant of terror. Vengeful Arabian troops tear Israel apart, and massacre hundreds of thousands of Jews. To boot, they're now in possession of what few nukes Israel had left. The Israeli government, shunned from almost every nation for their actions, ends up in South Africa.

What happens now?
 
Okay. So let's say that Saudi Arabia, Iraq, and Jordan join Egypt and Syria in the war against Israel. Officially and with real force, I mean, not just de facto. Let's handwave away Israel's tactical, technological, and organizational superiority for a moment -handwave-. The Israeli army cracks under the pressure and Israel itself is invaded. As the state crumbles, the Israeli government launches several tactical nuclear weapons into its enemy's lands in a desperate final bid for victory, or failing that, survival, or failing -that-, revenge. Cairo, Alexandria, Damascus, Baghdad, Amman, Riyadh, and most heinously, Mecca, are all vaporized in an instant of terror. Vengeful Arabian troops tear Israel apart, and massacre hundreds of thousands of Jews. To boot, they're now in possession of what few nukes Israel had left. The Israeli government, shunned from almost every nation for their actions, ends up in South Africa.

What happens now?

Why wouldn't Israel use all the nukes it had? For that matter, how many nukes does Israel have in this scenario? IIRC while Israel has never even admitted that they have nukes (officially), open sources credit them with a high single-digit arsenal.

Anyway... ouch, with Mecca gone, I think Islam unites (as much as that is possible) and goes on a REAL worldwide crusade against Judaism. Not pretty.
 
I'd say they'd have about 12, 13, or so. I'm personally of the opinion that Israel can and is hiding quite a few nukes under that otherwise-useless piece of sand they call a country.

Also, as to the not-pretty, I would most definitely agree. What else?
 
Don't think so. But we -did- talk about a more nuclear power-based U.S., which someone thought should be achieved with this route. I'm running with the idea.
 
Turkey's leaders, seeing how their plan has come together. Throw off the mask of a ‘’secular republic’’, crown a new Sultan and declare the rebirth of the Ottoman Empire. Then Turkish crush the ragged remains of the Arab armies and regain the Empire holdings in the Middle East.

On a serious note Iran would be gleeful, that with Baghdad nuked, Iraq is in no shape to challenge them.
 

Don Grey

Banned
This is such a cluster fuck scenario the effects are just horrible not to mention there isnt a jew left alive in israel.What little stability the middle east has just deteriorates completly as major capitals have been hit and your left some sort of rump states most of them cant become proper nation states again.With out the infrastructer and health services neccesary to help with this catastrophy casualties are stagering. Effect of radiation posioning linger for years. With mecca nuked muslims and jews hate each other for ever. Then what ever is left in the middle east is rediculasly radicalised.
 
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The Middle East becomes more of a clusterfuck than it already is. And millions of people will be dead and billions of people are going to hate Israel and the Jews for it.
 

CalBear

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Simply put:

GAME OVER MAN, GAME OVER! I'm short and now I'm gonna buy it on this rock!

Any use of nukes in the October War brings the likelihood of a U.S./USSR exchange to 95%+.

As was, Nixon took the strategic forces to DEFCON 2 IOTL. At that point any error in judgement or preception of danger would bring about unfortunate events. A couple mushroom clouds would be more than enough to get birds in the air.
 
Any use of nukes in the October War brings the likelihood of a U.S./USSR exchange to 95%+.

As was, Nixon took the strategic forces to DEFCON 2 IOTL. At that point any error in judgement or preception of danger would bring about unfortunate events. A couple mushroom clouds would be more than enough to get birds in the air.

I'm sure there'd be a risk of that, but... 95%? Why would Nixon nuke the USSR, or why would Brezhev (IIRC?) nuke the US over what's happening in the mid-east?
 
If the Jews went strategic nuclear in Yom Kippur, they'd have likely used up all their nukes. In for a penny, in for a pound. Most likely they'd use their small ones on the advancing forces from Egypt and Syria, and if such tactical use wasn't enough, they'd go strategic. They'd win the war, but much of Israel would be unliveable for years. I don't think the chances of the US/USSR escalating to nukes of their own are that high, but lots of cans of worms would be open.
 

CalBear

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I'm sure there'd be a risk of that, but... 95%? Why would Nixon nuke the USSR, or why would Brezhev (IIRC?) nuke the US over what's happening in the mid-east?


SAC was already cocked and locked. All it would have taken was a raised eyebrow and thing would have gone seriously sideways.
 
If the Jews went strategic nuclear in Yom Kippur, they'd have likely used up all their nukes. In for a penny, in for a pound. Most likely they'd use their small ones on the advancing forces from Egypt and Syria, and if such tactical use wasn't enough, they'd go strategic. They'd win the war, but much of Israel would be unliveable for years. I don't think the chances of the US/USSR escalating to nukes of their own are that high, but lots of cans of worms would be open.

Under this scenario, one nuke at the Aswan dam would probably wipe out 80% plus of the Egyptian population A second at the Golan Heights would stop the Syrian attack if done before breakthrough By the time the fighting ends, both sides will be using bayonets :eek:
 
SAC was already cocked and locked. All it would have taken was a raised eyebrow and thing would have gone seriously sideways.

SAC was always cocked and locked. That was kindof the point? They had to be able to get off a retaliatory strike before the Soviets wiped them out on the ground.

Defcon 2 is still not Defcon 1, and Defcon 1 still isn't an order to shoot.

I'm sure you have more than that; would you mind elaborating? Near-extinction events for the human race interest me. :-}
 
SAC was always cocked and locked. That was kindof the point? They had to be able to get off a retaliatory strike before the Soviets wiped them out on the ground.

Defcon 2 is still not Defcon 1, and Defcon 1 still isn't an order to shoot.

I'm sure you have more than that; would you mind elaborating? Near-extinction events for the human race interest me. :-}

Nixon had SAC & the missile subs go on higher-than-normal alert (the last time the entire US military was on DEFCON 2 was in October, 1962) to send a message to the Soviets when they started considering intervening in the Yom Kippur War (the Politburo was considering things such as sending airplanes & at least a division of paratroopers to reinforce the Syrians)- there were B-52s hanging around their final go/no go points, and just about everything else SAC had being held as close as possible to being ready for instant launch as was technically possible- it would take an ICBM about 30 minutes to go between the US & USSR, and everything was ready to be on its way before then. Normally, only part of the strategic force was kept on that high of an alert so they could go immediately, as opposed to needing several minutes to get going, as there was a rotation to allow time for maintenance and to prevent excessive crew fatigue.

When things are on a hair-trigger like that, it doesn't take much for something to provoke a launch order or possibly even generate a situation where the ROEs permit someone at the sharp end to launch on their own- a dozen mushroom clouds appearing in the mideast when things are that tense provides a lot of changes for things to blow up like that.
 
Wouldn't Israel use it's nukes tactically instead of just simple trying to destroy the capitals/major cities of all of those who oppose it?
 
Nixon had SAC & the missile subs go on higher-than-normal alert (the last time the entire US military was on DEFCON 2 was in October, 1962) to send a message to the Soviets when they started considering intervening in the Yom Kippur War (the Politburo was considering things such as sending airplanes & at least a division of paratroopers to reinforce the Syrians)- there were B-52s hanging around their final go/no go points, and just about everything else SAC had being held as close as possible to being ready for instant launch as was technically possible- it would take an ICBM about 30 minutes to go between the US & USSR, and everything was ready to be on its way before then. Normally, only part of the strategic force was kept on that high of an alert so they could go immediately, as opposed to needing several minutes to get going, as there was a rotation to allow time for maintenance and to prevent excessive crew fatigue.

When things are on a hair-trigger like that, it doesn't take much for something to provoke a launch order or possibly even generate a situation where the ROEs permit someone at the sharp end to launch on their own- a dozen mushroom clouds appearing in the mideast when things are that tense provides a lot of changes for things to blow up like that.

Wikipedia says our military was officially on DEFCON 3 during that war, although it may have been de facto on DEFCON 2. DEFCON 3 was last used on 9/11.

**Interestingly enough, the USA has been in shooting wars since the DEFCON system was created and it has yet to go to DEFCON 1. What does THAT say about us?**
 

Riain

Banned
Wasn't the SIOP very different in 1973 than it was in 1962, I think the massive retaliation of 1962 was replaced by flexible response by 1973. So any US involvement would not have been a nuclear ejaculation at USSR, it would have been nuclear sniping at relevent targets. Until of course the Soviets started nuclear sniping at relvent targets, and then it'd be the race to see who could fuck the world fastest.
 
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