I'd say that's pretty obvious.
I would also say that I'd like an update to this TL.
Protect and Survive: A Timeline
- Thread starter Macragge1
- Start date
I'd say that's pretty obvious.
I would also say that I'd like an update to this TL.
Moving!!!!!!!!!!
I hope it's an occasion for congratulations
Either way, hope it goes as well as it can!
TheKinkster
Banned
I would prefer if the "nuclear winter or no" hypothesis were never tested in real life, since we know there really is only way to be sure.
Could we at least all agree that nuclear winter or no nuclear winter, we'd all be in deep, deep doo-doo if Macragge's scenario ever came to pass?
If anything, Macragge's scenario is underestimating the depth of the doo-doo. By a LOT.
I found a scenario...
I found a scenario on a potential nuclear exchange in 1988 here: http://www.johnstonsarchive.net/nuclear/nuclearwar1.html.
Has anyone on the board read it, and, if so, what do they think of it (granted the war takes place in August, not February)?
IMO, it is really, really bad (to put it mildly).
Waiting for the next update.
I found a scenario on a potential nuclear exchange in 1988 here: http://www.johnstonsarchive.net/nuclear/nuclearwar1.html.
Has anyone on the board read it, and, if so, what do they think of it (granted the war takes place in August, not February)?
IMO, it is really, really bad (to put it mildly
).Waiting for the next update.
I found a scenario on a potential nuclear exchange in 1988 here: http://www.johnstonsarchive.net/nuclear/nuclearwar1.html.
Has anyone on the board read it, and, if so, what do they think of it (granted the war takes place in August, not February)?
IMO, it is really, really bad (to put it mildly
Waiting for the next update.
targeting does not seem what a military planner would actually do... for example, the strikes on the Rio Grande valley are directed against minor military targets. Using SLBMs in the first attack is also unreasonable. They are your reserve force, and he is assuming the majority of the Soviet boomers are at sea and within range of US targets while we know that servicability rates and deployment patterns of Soviet subs were never that high.
I do agree with you there, galveston bay, that SLBMs would be held in reserve and not used in the first strike. I have also discovered DIA reports on Soviet military power here: http://www.fas.org/irp/dia/product/smp_index.htm.
The portion that should most interest readers is this link: http://www.fas.org/irp/dia/product/smp_84_ch2.htm, which shows Soviet military power in 1983 (including nuclear weapons).
Interesting reading.
The portion that should most interest readers is this link: http://www.fas.org/irp/dia/product/smp_84_ch2.htm, which shows Soviet military power in 1983 (including nuclear weapons).
Interesting reading.
Clipper747
Banned
Bingo. Some people do not take into consideration the immense amount of soot, debris etc that would come from fires resulting from so many bombs.
Schell did in "Fate of the Earth"... however, he assumed nuclear carpet bombing, with 1960s era weapons, and the principal targets being cities, not ICBM silos in the American West (or Siberia for that matter). Also, the Kuwaiti fires, while having serious local effects, did not have regional or global effects. The long running forest fires in Amazonia and Borneo are a better example of large conflagarations that produce a global effect, and they are rather low temperature (but produce more smoke because they smolder more).
I have read several articles and reviews that were not kind to his book. My main problem is that the attack he postilated did not make any military or political sense.
And that is one of the things that killed the arguments of the pro-nuke side: The Kuwait fires may have been damaging, but in all reality, they released nowhere{perhaps a 10,000th} near the amount of soot, debris, etc. that would have been released in a massive nuclear weapons exchange.........even Yellowstone couldn't do that much damage in any but perhaps the absolute worst case scenarios.........you'd need another Toba to top the effects of full-scale MAD.
Another example that's often used in relation to fires causing a lot of environmental problems are Tokyo and Dresden after they were firebombed during WW2.
Also, an interesting article:
http://gsn.nti.org/gsn/nw_20110224_3136.php
Basically it says that even a limited (~100 "Little Boy" sized bombs (~15kT)) nuclear war would damage the ozone layer for a number of years.
Macragge1
Banned
XVIII - Suffer Little Children
A woman said I know my son is dead/ I'll never rest my hands upon his sacred head
After the firestorms the airbursts comes peace and quiet.
The leaves are coming in brown in half-dead woods across the country, silent testament to the whispering killer that gets into soil and air and blood.
We do not go into the forests.
Two days after the arrival of the Soviet submarine at Whitby, another nautical arrival - this time in the English Channel - sets alarm bells racing across the South.
A pair of Lightning fighters are dispatched to investigate; the bad weather conditions force them to fly recklessly low, throwing up white trails in the churning waves beneath them. They almost collide with the vessel that comes screaming at them out of the fog.
They narrowly avoid SAS President Pretorious and are able to relay their message to Portsmouth. When the destroyer sent to escort her arrives, she is unable to adequately pass on all that her crew sees.
As the Pretorious limps into port, the assembled observers question their binoculars and rub their eyes. From the hull up, the entire frigate appears to be wriggling as if the steel skin is bedecked by feathers. Turns out it's worse.
The vessel was hardly a warship anymore, but rather a great big lifeboat; the helicopter, the guns, even the radar are long gone, replaced by flesh and tarpaulin. The closer they get, the greater the sense that something is wrong even in the currency of the day.
The frigate was quarantined before it got into the docks proper; there was an astonishingly high risk of disease. The local commander was forced to glean the rest of his information via loudhailer from a lifeboat launch at fifty yards.
The Republic of South Africa, it is discovered, no longer exists. As the lights went out all over Europe, the dark continent went darker. South African forces on the border were evaporated by Soviet tactical weapons delivered by Angolan-marked aircraft. Communist-backed forces poured into the republic. In the shadow of mushroom clouds, centuries of hate and humiliation exploded with a force immeasurable by megatons. The white republic, collapsing on the battlefield and disintegrating at home, deployed her home-made nuclear weapons.
Of the handful of devices deployed, only two actually detonated; appallingly, one of these blew Cape Town away following the departure of much of the apartheid government and their families on the Pretorious. The second group of 'evacuees' were fused to the hull of SAS President Steyn , which was still in Cape Town when the SAAF released their device.
One other device successfully airburst over Cuban troops staging just inside the South African border; the rest fizzled out and left their filthy payloads corrupting the veldt. By now it was too late; the kaffir were rising up almost to a man, woman and child. It was rocks and spears and bare hands and hatred against tanks, guns and atom bombs. It was the hatred that swung it. All semblance of order was gone at the point that the government fled; the old tribal lines returned.
Back in the cold waters of Portsmouth, the frigate is ordered to wait out.
*
After the crowds disperse the submarine looks as if it's been there forever and ever. The Rider takes a few hours of wakeful sleep and smokes too many cigarettes and then volunteers for the search party. He is handed a heavy, old torch that's covered in oil for some reason.
The stench inside the thing is terrible; it is as if the Red Navy had been running a secret side-project designed to weaponise odour. Nevertheless, the team press on.
It's empty - the yellow torchlight throws up only chairs and tables and charts - here and there, a couple of intelligence looking soldiers grab something that must be fabulously interesting to the trained eye. To the Rider, however, it all looks terribly dull.
When they get to the missile tubes, the Rider wishes with all his might that it had stayed dull. We've found the rest of them; some are covered in blankets; some have clean cuts where their arms and legs should be.
Don't think about it. Survivors survive and that's it. Don't think about it.
*
In a well-lit interview room at Corsham, it's discovered that none of the fifty speak anything more than the most rudimentary english. The Spook takes a long draw on his cigarette and punches a filing cabinet. How the FUCK am I meant to make progress if the stupid bastards don't even know what I'm talking about?
From behind him, a quiet, crisp voice - 'Well, my man, are we not just as' - he clears his throat - 'stupid bastards as they are for not getting one Russian-speaker down in the bunker?'
Hang on, thinks the Spook - did I say that last bit out loud? As he turns round he's stunned to see the Prime Minister stood, looking through his notes through a pair of thick glasses.
'Well...sir...I mean -'
'No use worrying about it now, I suppose' - the Prime Minister continues, not even glancing up from the notes he is leafing through - 'I've sent a message out to the Counties and the Forces seeing who they've got, but you know what they're like. No,' - he snaps the notebook shut and looks up at the Spook - 'we need results now.\
'Yes, sir... It's just, they're just babbling - they could be speaking in Greek or in tongues for all any of us can...' A raised finger by the Prime Minister stops the Spook from really raising his voice.
'Now, now, son - would you mind going and checking on the stationery situation?'
*
The Soviet Captain is brought into the room, given a cup of coffee and a cigarette and sat in front of a great big atlas map of the USSR. From his pocket, the Spook produces a plastic box full of 100 red WH Smiths drawing pins, and hands them to the mariner.
A blank look.
The Spook picks up one of the red pins and then makes an explosion noise with his mouth like a child, gesturing with his hands.
Come on now this is fucking ridiculous.
Still, the Soviet Captain gets it now. Solemnly, he begins fishing out pins from the box and placing them on the map. A lot are predictable - a fair few for Leningrad and Murmansk, a great big handful for Moscow. For ten minutes, he keeps going, only briefly pausing now and again to refresh his memories of broken, frantic transmissions.
The Spook walks over to the wall, sighs and buzzes the intercom - 'We're going to need more pins.'
*
With Operation NIGHTINGALE having been completed, the Freeman Hospital is returned to 'normal' usage. The bulldozers are still working in the field opposite when a crying woman, barefoot and huddled in filthy, ragged clothes, trudges through the car park and then collapses, screaming, in reception.
Two nurses, both going grey in their twenties, pick her up and drag her, thrashing, into a bed.
The Doctor has been trying to steal an hour's sleep in an ex-patient's bed - he is not best pleased when he is shaken awake by one of the gaunt nurses and shown to the woman's bed. Her lank hair is sticking to her face through sweat and tears, and she is already ruining the sheets around her middle with blood and ogod she's giving birth.
The Doctor and the nurses let their training take hold and drive them like machines; the necessary equipment is scraped together and a hasty attempt is made to sterilise it. As the Doctor removes the sheets around the Mother he is sickened but not surprised to find cuts and bruises about the woman's midriff; quickly searching through her writhing pockets, he finds the knife and throws it as far away from him as he can. She is not the first and she will not be the last she will not be the last she will not be the last.
She has tried to save her child she has tried to kill it she has tried to save it.
The nurses hold her as she screams and the Doctor performs the procedure as an automaton. There's not much pushing so he pulls oooooooo no
It's another one. He wipes the thing down and passes it to a crying nurse. It takes all he has just to look at it. Its mouth open, it tries to outdo its mother's screaming and it pierces so deep.
A huge forehead, like a sick fairground mirror joke, its blameless eyes on the sides of its head oooooo god. No nose, just the holes in the skull opening and closing in primal fear. The arms and legs too long, far too long and thin, stretched like grey plasticine. It's a boy.
The Doctor closes his eyes and tries to hand it to the Mother. She bats and claws and bites at it and screams and screams before turning herself on herself; the nurses do all they can to hold her down.
The Doctor is shouting and crying now - 'Do you want to name him?!'
screaminghyperventilatingscreaminghyperventilating
The nurses douse a tea towel in chloroform and calm her down.
*
In the Doctor's office he gives the boy five minutes with a teddy bear that was once his son's; the baby can't really understand but for a couple of minutes, he stops screaming.
I gave him that. I gave him that.
He picks the poor thing up and puts him on the table. Through a dry mouth he starts to sing.
'Rock-a-bye baby, on the tree-top'
He opens the drawer and takes out the pillow
'When the wind blows, the cradle will rock'
He says sorry with his eyes and then he pushes down
'When the bow breaks, the cradle will fall'
little kicks
'And down will come baby, cradle and all'
Silence.
Without a sound, the Doctor walks over to his desk and makes a note.
John Seventy-Seven.
Without a sound, he makes the preparations to have them dealt with.
We do not go into the forests.
A woman said I know my son is dead/ I'll never rest my hands upon his sacred head
After the firestorms the airbursts comes peace and quiet.
The leaves are coming in brown in half-dead woods across the country, silent testament to the whispering killer that gets into soil and air and blood.
We do not go into the forests.
Two days after the arrival of the Soviet submarine at Whitby, another nautical arrival - this time in the English Channel - sets alarm bells racing across the South.
A pair of Lightning fighters are dispatched to investigate; the bad weather conditions force them to fly recklessly low, throwing up white trails in the churning waves beneath them. They almost collide with the vessel that comes screaming at them out of the fog.
They narrowly avoid SAS President Pretorious and are able to relay their message to Portsmouth. When the destroyer sent to escort her arrives, she is unable to adequately pass on all that her crew sees.
As the Pretorious limps into port, the assembled observers question their binoculars and rub their eyes. From the hull up, the entire frigate appears to be wriggling as if the steel skin is bedecked by feathers. Turns out it's worse.
The vessel was hardly a warship anymore, but rather a great big lifeboat; the helicopter, the guns, even the radar are long gone, replaced by flesh and tarpaulin. The closer they get, the greater the sense that something is wrong even in the currency of the day.
The frigate was quarantined before it got into the docks proper; there was an astonishingly high risk of disease. The local commander was forced to glean the rest of his information via loudhailer from a lifeboat launch at fifty yards.
The Republic of South Africa, it is discovered, no longer exists. As the lights went out all over Europe, the dark continent went darker. South African forces on the border were evaporated by Soviet tactical weapons delivered by Angolan-marked aircraft. Communist-backed forces poured into the republic. In the shadow of mushroom clouds, centuries of hate and humiliation exploded with a force immeasurable by megatons. The white republic, collapsing on the battlefield and disintegrating at home, deployed her home-made nuclear weapons.
Of the handful of devices deployed, only two actually detonated; appallingly, one of these blew Cape Town away following the departure of much of the apartheid government and their families on the Pretorious. The second group of 'evacuees' were fused to the hull of SAS President Steyn , which was still in Cape Town when the SAAF released their device.
One other device successfully airburst over Cuban troops staging just inside the South African border; the rest fizzled out and left their filthy payloads corrupting the veldt. By now it was too late; the kaffir were rising up almost to a man, woman and child. It was rocks and spears and bare hands and hatred against tanks, guns and atom bombs. It was the hatred that swung it. All semblance of order was gone at the point that the government fled; the old tribal lines returned.
Back in the cold waters of Portsmouth, the frigate is ordered to wait out.
*
After the crowds disperse the submarine looks as if it's been there forever and ever. The Rider takes a few hours of wakeful sleep and smokes too many cigarettes and then volunteers for the search party. He is handed a heavy, old torch that's covered in oil for some reason.
The stench inside the thing is terrible; it is as if the Red Navy had been running a secret side-project designed to weaponise odour. Nevertheless, the team press on.
It's empty - the yellow torchlight throws up only chairs and tables and charts - here and there, a couple of intelligence looking soldiers grab something that must be fabulously interesting to the trained eye. To the Rider, however, it all looks terribly dull.
When they get to the missile tubes, the Rider wishes with all his might that it had stayed dull. We've found the rest of them; some are covered in blankets; some have clean cuts where their arms and legs should be.
Don't think about it. Survivors survive and that's it. Don't think about it.
*
In a well-lit interview room at Corsham, it's discovered that none of the fifty speak anything more than the most rudimentary english. The Spook takes a long draw on his cigarette and punches a filing cabinet. How the FUCK am I meant to make progress if the stupid bastards don't even know what I'm talking about?
From behind him, a quiet, crisp voice - 'Well, my man, are we not just as' - he clears his throat - 'stupid bastards as they are for not getting one Russian-speaker down in the bunker?'
Hang on, thinks the Spook - did I say that last bit out loud? As he turns round he's stunned to see the Prime Minister stood, looking through his notes through a pair of thick glasses.
'Well...sir...I mean -'
'No use worrying about it now, I suppose' - the Prime Minister continues, not even glancing up from the notes he is leafing through - 'I've sent a message out to the Counties and the Forces seeing who they've got, but you know what they're like. No,' - he snaps the notebook shut and looks up at the Spook - 'we need results now.\
'Yes, sir... It's just, they're just babbling - they could be speaking in Greek or in tongues for all any of us can...' A raised finger by the Prime Minister stops the Spook from really raising his voice.
'Now, now, son - would you mind going and checking on the stationery situation?'
*
The Soviet Captain is brought into the room, given a cup of coffee and a cigarette and sat in front of a great big atlas map of the USSR. From his pocket, the Spook produces a plastic box full of 100 red WH Smiths drawing pins, and hands them to the mariner.
A blank look.
The Spook picks up one of the red pins and then makes an explosion noise with his mouth like a child, gesturing with his hands.
Come on now this is fucking ridiculous.
Still, the Soviet Captain gets it now. Solemnly, he begins fishing out pins from the box and placing them on the map. A lot are predictable - a fair few for Leningrad and Murmansk, a great big handful for Moscow. For ten minutes, he keeps going, only briefly pausing now and again to refresh his memories of broken, frantic transmissions.
The Spook walks over to the wall, sighs and buzzes the intercom - 'We're going to need more pins.'
*
With Operation NIGHTINGALE having been completed, the Freeman Hospital is returned to 'normal' usage. The bulldozers are still working in the field opposite when a crying woman, barefoot and huddled in filthy, ragged clothes, trudges through the car park and then collapses, screaming, in reception.
Two nurses, both going grey in their twenties, pick her up and drag her, thrashing, into a bed.
The Doctor has been trying to steal an hour's sleep in an ex-patient's bed - he is not best pleased when he is shaken awake by one of the gaunt nurses and shown to the woman's bed. Her lank hair is sticking to her face through sweat and tears, and she is already ruining the sheets around her middle with blood and ogod she's giving birth.
The Doctor and the nurses let their training take hold and drive them like machines; the necessary equipment is scraped together and a hasty attempt is made to sterilise it. As the Doctor removes the sheets around the Mother he is sickened but not surprised to find cuts and bruises about the woman's midriff; quickly searching through her writhing pockets, he finds the knife and throws it as far away from him as he can. She is not the first and she will not be the last she will not be the last she will not be the last.
She has tried to save her child she has tried to kill it she has tried to save it.
The nurses hold her as she screams and the Doctor performs the procedure as an automaton. There's not much pushing so he pulls oooooooo no
It's another one. He wipes the thing down and passes it to a crying nurse. It takes all he has just to look at it. Its mouth open, it tries to outdo its mother's screaming and it pierces so deep.
A huge forehead, like a sick fairground mirror joke, its blameless eyes on the sides of its head oooooo god. No nose, just the holes in the skull opening and closing in primal fear. The arms and legs too long, far too long and thin, stretched like grey plasticine. It's a boy.
The Doctor closes his eyes and tries to hand it to the Mother. She bats and claws and bites at it and screams and screams before turning herself on herself; the nurses do all they can to hold her down.
The Doctor is shouting and crying now - 'Do you want to name him?!'
screaminghyperventilatingscreaminghyperventilating
The nurses douse a tea towel in chloroform and calm her down.
*
In the Doctor's office he gives the boy five minutes with a teddy bear that was once his son's; the baby can't really understand but for a couple of minutes, he stops screaming.
I gave him that. I gave him that.
He picks the poor thing up and puts him on the table. Through a dry mouth he starts to sing.
'Rock-a-bye baby, on the tree-top'
He opens the drawer and takes out the pillow
'When the wind blows, the cradle will rock'
He says sorry with his eyes and then he pushes down
'When the bow breaks, the cradle will fall'
little kicks
'And down will come baby, cradle and all'
Silence.
Without a sound, the Doctor walks over to his desk and makes a note.
John Seventy-Seven.
Without a sound, he makes the preparations to have them dealt with.
We do not go into the forests.