The Cuban Missile War Timeline

[Kit]

Originally Posted by Thande

OK, here is the map. Grim reading.

Even given that only maybe a third of these would actually be hit, we can see that there's a corridor of destruction stretching northward from West London up and then along the coast. Lincolnshire will probably be completely obliterated, a sea of glass and fire...

Fantastic map Thande. Really fascinating.

I'm trying to imagine it with only a third of the targets listed, but it still makes very grim reading. Prevailing winds blow east to west, so, with the majority of sites on the east coast radiation will be limited, but still quite bad.

[Thande]

Originally Posted by Kit

Fantastic map Thande. Really fascinating.

I'm trying to imagine it with only a third of the targets listed, but it still makes very grim reading. Prevailing winds blow east to west, so, with the majority of sites on the east coast radiation will be limited, but still quite bad.

Well, my view is that if you're in the Lincolnshire/London area, it doesn't matter if only 1/3 of those nukes hit - you're almost as likely to be toast either way.

However, if most of the 2/3 of the nukes that fail were aimed at say East Anglia or those on the Northumberland coast, then that makes a huge difference because it means a vast swathe of the UK would be undamaged.

Have to consider the statistics, I suppose (Amerigo, how many different delivery systems are we considering here?)

[Arachnid]

Well for the really important targets (London, RAF bomber fields etc.) The Soviets would go for a belt and braces approach: Bombers and IRBM's, probably not subs as in '62 they only had a few and the would probably use them against the US.

[Thande]

Originally Posted by Aracnid

Well for the really important targets (London, RAF bomber fields etc.) The Soviets would go for a belt and braces approach: Bombers and IRBM's, probably not subs as in '62 they only had a few and the would probably use them against the US.

According to Amerigo their subs were crap and short-range (they had to get very close to Hawaii to attack Pearl Harbour, for e.g.) so I think they'd have to be in the North Sea to attack Britain - and at this stage the RN was very good at stopping that sort of thing AFAIK.

[Arachnid]

Yes and no they had a very high success rate of catching Soviet subs enerting the North Sea in Peacetime, but in the middle of a nuclear war, hmmm I think the chances of slipping through the net are okay, still I really doubt any SSBN's would be targeted at the UK or anywhere in Europe, IRBM's and bombers can reach those targets and the USSR have enough of those what they lack is nukes deliverable to the CONUS and as far as the Sov's are concerned ICBM's, IRBM's in Cuba, or subs are their only practical options.

[Amerigo Vespucci]

Originally Posted by Aracnid

Yes and no they had a very high success rate of catching Soviet subs enerting the North Sea in Peacetime, but in the middle of a nuclear war, hmmm I think the chances of slipping through the net are okay, still I really doubt any SSBN's would be targeted at the UK or anywhere in Europe, IRBM's and bombers can reach those targets and the USSR have enough of those what they lack is nukes deliverable to the CONUS and as far as the Sov's are concerned ICBM's, IRBM's in Cuba, or subs are their only practical options.

The ironic thing is that despite the fact that more submarines will be targeted at North America, more submarine-launched missiles will hit targets in Europe than in North America, simply due to the fact that the chaos caused by the overwhelming nuclear attack will open launch windows for the submarines that simply aren't present in the relatively undamaged United States.

One also must consider the fact that at the time of the war, the Soviet Union didn't send its submarines on long-term deterrence patrols like the United States. They tended to keep their submarines in port, where they could be watched and controlled. In OTL, less than a dozen were at sea at the time of the Crisis. In TTL, more will be surged from Soviet ports, but it's going to take time to reach North America. In that time, a fully-alerted NATO submarine fleet is going to be hunting for anything with a Soviet propeller. The odds aren't good for anything bearing the Red Star at sea.

The difficulty is further compounded by the 200km range of the submarine-launched missiles and the fact that they must be launched from the surface after a 20-minute warmup time. North America's got a thick screen of radar picket ships and radar platforms, as does the UK. Only isolated areas like the Pacific Islands, Puerto Rico, Iceland, and so forth are going to be really vulnerable to submarine missile attack.

The vast, vast majority of the Soviet submarines are going to be sunk by the RN or USN a long ways away from their targets. A handful will be sunk while on the surface, attempting to launch their missiles. Three or four might make successful attacks. None will survive to launch a second attack -- any missile launch will draw naval vessels from hundreds of miles around, and Soviet submarines are at a gross disadvantage against anything NATO has to offer. Only the sheer size of the ocean and the chaos of the fighting will allow any to make attacks.

On the other end of the spectrum, you've got the American Polaris submarines, which are SSBNs as we think of them today -- 16 missiles, launched from underwater, with a range of several thousand miles. A few Regulus cruise missile submarines have characteristics similar to those of the Soviet subs, and they're likely to be no more successful. But the Ethan Allens, the George Washingtons... they're going to do almost as much damage as the land-based ICBMs.

[Hendryk]

Originally Posted by Shadow Knight

For example French Algeria. I can see millions of French refugees fleeing there to escape the devastation. That is not going to please those hoping for independence from French rule.

Nope. Algerian independence was formally acknowledged in March 1962. No "France-Outre-Mer" scenario in TTL, I'm afraid.

[Thande]

Originally Posted by Hendryk

Nope. Algerian independence was formally acknowledged in March 1962. No "France-Outre-Mer" scenario in TTL, I'm afraid.

And even if this was happening in 1956 or 1957, a France-outre-mer under the same circumstances would be about as sensible as modern Americans fleeing to Iraq...

[Glen]

Originally Posted by Kit

Fantastic map Thande. Really fascinating.

I'm trying to imagine it with only a third of the targets listed, but it still makes very grim reading. Prevailing winds blow east to west, so, with the majority of sites on the east coast radiation will be limited, but still quite bad.

East to West, or West to East?

If its East to West, then with major targets in the East, the West gets fallout.

However, if West to East then the Wales and Ireland are in better shape.

[Max Sinister]

Usually, in the area the wind mostly comes from the west, as in most of Europe.

[Glen]

Looked it up. Appears the predominant winds blow from Southwest to Northeast, with occasional arctic winds blowing down from Northwest to Southeast.

Bottom line, this bodes very well for the Republic of Ireland, as they don't get hit AND the winds will mean they get very little fallout. Also good in general for Western UK.

[Glen]

Great work! I too agree that Havana is unlikely as a military target early. Would possibly be targeted as a revenge strike should a US city be hit from the region of Cuba.

[Glen]

I do think that in this timeline, the Former British colonies in Africa with minority white rule are much more likely to stay in power, and indeed band together to do so. Rhodesia will likely continue to exist as such....by any means necessary....

While the US has taken a heavy hit, and the world will be plunged into a deep depression for years to come, the US is STILL a superpower. There's just too much of it that didn't get destroyed, and with the USSR and Europe out of the picture, the US still dominates the world in stats. Not that that is saying much in this war-ravaged world.

BTW, don't worry about US currency too much. They still have Ft. Knox to back it up with. And plutonium....

Latin America is likely to become the new 'Europe' in the future, the secondary economic area to the US. Along with Australia and New Zealand. But I just don't see Argentina or Brazil or Mexico arising to rival the US even with its war-scars.

Japan is not likely to turn anti-American in the least. They are relatively spared, will hate the Soviets for striking Japan, and will be greatly in fear of China. They will want to continue good relations with the US.

The Chinese are likely to receive a blunt message from Johnson not to attempt to capitalize on the aftermath of the war, and they'll likely listen since the US still has significant nuclear arms and no better targets than China at this point.

I think that North Korea would get a few nuclear warheads once South Korea was hit, but I might not be right on that.

North Vietnam will take South Vietnam, its just not worth the US's time now to worry about. On the otherhand, the new Vietnamese government is likely to make overtures to the US to have a strong counter to China.

India is going to have a lot of the same troubles we've quoted for China with the loss of European markets and expertise. However, they certainly will be a major power over time.

It will take some time, but we're likely to see significant pressures from both internal and international forces for the complete eradication of nuclear weapons. China is likely to get them still, but are also still way behind. The US will be the one hardest to convince as they are at the top of the nuclear heap, but then again there's a lot of Americans who lost family to nuclear fire and radiation poisoning.

I think we will eventually see a complete nuclear disarmament agreement, but only when the US feels it has a deal that either massively decreases Chinese military size and/or the US rebuilds its conventional military numbers to a commanding presence. However, I suspect the two main factions will be 'destroy nuclear weapons now' versus 'destroy nuclear weapons once our conventional capability is strong enough'. I think the idea of keeping a nuclear arsenal indefinitely will be politically non-viable. Yes, the nuclear war worked out 'as planned' for the US, but the cost in suffering and loss of life will make nuclear arms very unpopular with the American population afterward. A theoretical cost is one thing, living through a nuclear war is quite another.

A note on space and technology. The world is MUCH poorer after this war. Expect technology and space science to be very delayed compared to OTL. Unlike other wars, this one will spawn no new technologies. The only things equal to or more in advance to OTL is decontamination and treatment of radiation poisoning.

Speaking of which....for a variety of reasons, life expectancy for decades to come will be more like the 19th century than the 20th century. While the human race won't be killed off by the amount of radiation dumped into the world, it will suffer far more disease and early mortality due to it. Eventually a combination of time and selection will mitigate this, but don't expect life expectancies to creep back to 20th century levels until the 21st century.

[Thande]

I don't think Russia is completely out of the picture, either. Its distribution is similar to the US - even if all the cities are wiped out by the larger American nuclear arsenal, there's still going to be ten or twenty million people at least left in the villages, even considering the losses to radiation.

[Max Sinister]

@Thande: Don't forget the complete breakdown of the state. Russia's economy which depends on stuff transported over long ways would be in shambles. Add the nuclear winter, and you see why the survivors are pretty bad off.

[galanx]

In Southern Africa there still existed the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland:
Northern Rhodesia ( Zambia), Southern Rhodesia (Zimbabwe) ,and, of course, Nyasaland (Malawi).

While Britain might just wash its hands of colonies elsewhere- too expensive and troublesome- an influx of white settlers might strengthen the federation enough that the whole area could go UDI. Though Northern Rhodesia's economy was much more dependent on its copper mines, which would certainly see a collapse in demand.

Speaking of colonies, would China take the chance to swallow HK?

[Amerigo Vespucci]

Originally Posted by Max Sinister

@Thande: Don't forget the complete breakdown of the state. Russia's economy which depends on stuff transported over long ways would be in shambles. Add the nuclear winter, and you see why the survivors are pretty bad off.

Precisely. The areas that won't get hit are enormously dependent on the industrialized areas to survive. It's the result of a several-decade effort of the Soviet government to ensure that every portion of the state was reliant on every other portion. You'd have one or two massive factories that manufacture shoes -- in the entire country. They'd be enough to supply need (or relatively close) but once those are destroyed, there's no one available to pick up the slack, as there is in the United States, where multiple corporations exist spread out around the country.

Collectivization means that when the state factories are destroyed, even the untouched areas are going to suffer -- they don't have indigenous production to make up the slack as does the West.

[Max Sinister]

Good point. After the complete breakdown of the Communist government, the Russians will have to build up everything (like factories for fertilizer and tractors) from scratch.

If anyone thinks the Soviets could survive: I don't. I rather think the angry Russians will use the opportunity to kill off surviving party bureaucrats (most of whom will be living in the cities anyway) and KGB snitches.

[Amerigo Vespucci]

Originally Posted by galanx

Speaking of colonies, would China take the chance to swallow HK?

Not immediately. China tends to move cautiously in such things (at least in OTL), and they may not even have to, what with the fall-off of British influence. I imagine that a few years down the line, they'd stage a plebiscite with Chinese annexation as one of the options. To ease the process, the Chinese government would probably make it a special administrative district like it is in OTL.

[Oddball]

Originally Posted by Thande

How's this for an alliance map?

I know the US had other allies beside these marked, but I only wanted to mark those that had were likely to be directly involved in the crisis.

A little late perhaps, but

Why is not Norway member of the NATO?