The book is very clear about it, that it is just 10 cylinders. 10 explosions on Mars, 10 cylinders. All landing near London. This in no colonist fleet, its propably just a couple of hundred Martians. A small military unit send to test Earth defense on one of his strongest points. Why strongest? Because they can see from space, that Britain is one of the most developed places on Earth. If they can conquer it, it means that their weapons are truly superior."
And that's what I get for not reading much of the original book and it being a Looooong time ago at that? But I'd say it wasn't that they figured that Britain was 'strongest' but that it's an island.
We can assume, that the Movie-Martians had observed our nuke-test and estimated that their shields can take it. They propably hope, that their rays can take anything down, what the Eartlings throw at them. But they just will know for sure after the landing, simply because all the intel they have come from their telescopes and some TV-signals. They need to take Earth down fast to avoid the risk, that the Earthlings have something else up in their sleeves.
Besides something else I noticed: the Movie-Martians seems to have no flying machines! And they propably have no experience crossing an ocean. Makes the whole bridgehead-tactic unpractical. If they want to conquer a place, they have to land in the near it.
Not sure you really 'need' flying machines if you have counter-gravity and what every they used to get the cylinders to Earth. (No explosions mentioned that I recall) If the CG is limited to 'leg' length then seas can be an issue but I have my doubts as a "habitable" Mars and inferred in the dialogue was a slowly dying/drying planet so they had to have some historical experience with "seas" even shallow ones. (Otherwise any large 'island' land-mass is going to be pretty safe as they have far to much risk of 'missing' and landing in the ocean)
If you watch Moscow through your Supertelescope on Mars, you see a large, heavy industrialized city, which definitly dominate a large landarea. Dependend how good you telescope is, you propably also see that all traffic lines lead to Moscow and you propably als had seen like the War moved till the suburbs of Mocow and then moved further and further away, till the citys in Central Europe go bust. So even from space you can figure out, that Moscow is a important place. You can´t say the same about Washington.
Actually you can as it is obviously an 'important' place in the same manner. They would easily identify national 'capitals' or "important places" (tm) in the run up and Washington would be as obvious as Moscow on that scale.
The UNO still function, because they sit in New York and the Martians still haven´t attacked New York ( This is the place again for my "the Martians hesitate to attack costal-areas"-theory)
This my even be the reason the french goverment can escape, if the Martians avoided to land between the Channel-coast and Paris. But Moscow lies in the middle of a continent.
I'd go with the "stay away from coasts" but they landed in-land and around LA which is a port city in and of itself. (Ignore the real fact they could use "local" scenery to save costs on the movie
) I'd say they tried to hit Washington and New York but probably had to land in-land and move towards them which wouldn't necessarily be as easy as it sounds.
And if a functional soviet goverment still exists, why they don´t use their nukes.
Because, in 1953, their bombs could only be delivered by Tu-4 Bulls (the reverse-engineered copy of the B-29).
What he said mostly and who says they didn't? Just because it's not mentioned doesn't mean it didn't happen. Delivery could have been by truck or placed in a bunker as a 'mine' in the path of the advance. Problem is nukes give off some radiation at all times, (though far less than you'd think given the payload, still enough to be detectable if you're looking close enough) and without an effective means of air-delivery they can probably spot and avoid one. Again, interesting they used one in the movie when the program had already been canceled and all but one of the 'wings' broken up for scrap already
"Post-War" I'd wonder how the politics plays out? Unless one or the other is wiped out you'd still have a "stand-off" between the USSR and US though both are now almost as bad off as the rest of the world after WWII but with every incentive to get back on their feet as soon as possible because we'd expect another attack. Even if we found evidence that the "Martians" had shot their bolt the OTHER incentive that we'd have is that we'd be absolutely sure the "other guys" (and pretty much anyone who could do so at any rate) was going full blast to obtain and study/reverse-engineer "Martian" gear. And not being one of those having the technology would have major ramifications in geopolitical power and prestige.
Randy