WI: US nukes North Vietnam
- Thread starter Jonjo
- Start date
Or the electorate decides to fuck with future generations by voting Goldwater into office.
Serious shitstorm does not begin to describe the Chinese & general international response if either LBJ or RMN orders said nuclear strikes.
Really, I could have sworn that the French Were the Ones that asked, but Washington turned them down. But either way, lets say it goes through, whoes shit hits the fan?
Wolfpaw
Banned
The colonized and non-colonized worlds explode into protest and condemnation. France becomes a pariah and Colonialism in general comes to be seen as morally equivalent to Nazism, and certainly worse than Stalinism.
Wolfpaw
Banned
I have no idea. I suspect it would be bad, with fallout and the like. I'm no expert on nuclear weapons.
amphibulous
Banned
The US came pretty near to using nuclear weapons in Korea:
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/bomb/peopleevents/pandeAMEX58.html
Given a better target and with fewer objections from his allies - Atlee, the British PM, flew to Washington specifically to object - they might well have done. And the number of civilians killed by the US in SE Asia reached genocide levels anyway - it may easily have been as high as 3 million. So Stupid (and Vicious) Flakes were already the meal of the day; the only question was how big a portion would be consumed.
It depends on where they are used and when. If you do it in the dry season and set large tracts of jungle aflame, I imagine it'd spew quite a bit of ash into the upper atmosphere.
amphibulous
Banned
Wait - the AMERICANS supply the bomb and are so the French's partners in crime, but they escape moral condemnation while generic "colonialism" is condemned?? Perhaps Americans are capable of this much doublethink ("How dare those French people mis-use that bomb that nice General Eisenhower gave them! It was supposed to be for peaceful purposes only!") but I think the rest of the world would react differently.
amphibulous
Banned
Assuming an airburst - which is the only semi-sane use of a bomb in Korea - minimal.
Incognito
Banned
We were discussing Vietnam, not Korea. I ask because I was wondering what effect a nuclear detonation would have on Vietnam's jungles - would the humid environment result in a lot of radioactive dust & debry ending up in the river systems, resulting in ecological disaster for the whole region? Or would the damage be more localized and limited?
amphibulous
Banned
Ash from secondary fires wouldn't reach the upper atmosphere - only the debris boosted by the mushroom does that. So you're not talking about any nuclear winter type effects - you only get those from ground bursts (used to dig for bunkers etc - these convert huge masses of said ground into particles). And even then you need a fair quantity of them.
Someone else asked about river systems becoming radioactive: no, not to any real extent with an airburst:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_burst
The air burst is usually several hundred to a few thousand feet (100 to 1000m) above the hypocenter to allow the shockwave of the fission or fusion driven explosion to bounce off of the ground and back into itself, creating a shockwave that is more forceful than one from a detonation at ground level. This "mach stem" only occurs near ground level, and is similar in shape to the letter Y when viewed from the side. Airbursting also minimizes fallout by keeping the fireball from touching the ground, limiting the amount of debris that is vaporized and drawn up in the radioactive debris cloud. For the Hiroshima bomb an air burst 1800 to 2000 feet (550 to 610m) above the ground was chosen "to achieve maximum blast effects, and to minimize residual radiation on the ground as it was hoped U.S. troops would soon occupy the city".
Last edited:
amphibulous
Banned
Yeah, I just typoed Korea because I had been using the discussion we know about there as an indicator for plausibility for Vietnam. See my other post for an answer to your questions.
Wolfpaw
Banned
I should have mentioned that, yes. The Americans will get in trouble and bear a great deal of blame as well. Frankly the whole thing would be a bonanza for the Soviet bloc.