Protect and Survive: A Timeline

[modelcitizen]

Yeah - I imagine that for a while, the emphasis is going to be on escapism - given the logistic constraints that afford the survivors (try finding the time to go to a recording studio or even get a clean easel and some paint) means that we're going to be looking at art that has already been produced - a lot of 'recent' music is out because the early '80s had this big theme of nuclear paranoia; still, there's enough nice harmless disco and whatever out there; whilst personally I find the idea of Boney M playing over the wasteland a particularly chilling one, it would certainly be more popular with the survivors than sitting listening to Unknown Pleasures or something.

I like the poster - whilst as you say there'll be some changes related to situation and geography, I can see posters with similar sentiment cropping up eventually.
.

a good friend of mine is from Cambodia.

before his parents and siblings and he had made it to Massachusetts, they had spent some time in a refugee camp by the Thai border.

the guards used to play disco music on the PA system, KC and the Sunshine band most memorably.


I think the more opulent music of the 1970s would make for twisted but overall excellent morale-boosting on the agricultural work-areas, crackling over beaten but unbowed public address speaker systems. (The "tannoy," right?)

"Dancing Queen" comes to mind especially.

throw in some Boy George and you've got the farm-work song-list building nicely.

 

[modelcitizen]

so - if someone make a plot about brasila struggeling for surviving... fine.
but writing about UK survive with "only" 20-30 million deaths and any future for a country is just asb.

half-dead means half-alive.


the struggle it takes to survive is what makes it interesting!

 

[ivfl]

The idea of listening to all the crap disco/funk bands of the '70s in a post nuke world is pretty scary.Jokes aside some trends are pretty clear,the movie industry is pretty much dead north of the Ecuator whatever is left is only in a few countries in Latin America,Australia maybe by 1990 could have something come back.One place of possible resurgence in interest would possibly be diaries something like Ann Frank had.Most people would not keep something like this but a few here and there might take the time to record what happened in the day it shouldn't take more than a few minutes.Taking into account the loss of communication and the fact that some regions won't be reacheable for years to come maybe a resurgence in travel literature(??) only with a darker tone.Still its pretty sad to think that most movies,books and songs are lost forever.That would make them a bit more valuable in the long term.30 years after the war an original copy of movies like Risky Business would probably be worth a lot.Maybe even more valuable an original BMW 3-series E30 in this timeline one of the last BMWs to roll of into production of course this is not part of pop culture but a minor point of interest.For any surviving germans it would be probably important as a reminder of their former glory when Germany was still a word in the dictionary.

 

[Dunois]

French only the USSR.

There are rumors that East Germany was a possible target of the IRBMs missiles located on the Albion plateau. Historical reasons may have been at work here. This should be taken with a pinch of salt however.

I would imagine to be fair that targeting is not set in stone and flexible depending on the exact circumstances of a potential conflict.

With regards to the Albion plateau, the place has definitely been hit by possibly up to a dozen Soviet missiles. Planners expected that a dozen would be needed in order to take out the entire complex as silos were dotted around a large area of the plateau. Luckily the area is sparsely populated, very poor for farming and radiation from a grounburst would drift towards the Alps.

 

[ivfl]

Of course it would depend on the exact circumstances the only problem is there is no way to have a limited nuke fest lets bomb them and leave these other guys alone.Any nuclear war would escalate and when things would start escalating considerations like what other enemies do we have besides them would come into play ,it may seem a bit excessive but its not like it matters anymore.

 

[Dunois]

For any surviving germans it would be probably important as a reminder of their former glory when Germany was still a word in the dictionary.

To be entirely fair even Germany will sooner or later come back to the world as a nation. Granted that it will take a century for them as opposed to decades for the United Kingdom. There will be parts of Germany where survival on a very local level (market towns and such) will be possible, though harder than in Britain as whatever German communities are left will have to rely on themselves only. It takes a lot to completely destroy a nation and a culture. A combination fo genocide+resettlement is the only way to do that. Who would settle into Germany a few years down the line after the war?
The French? They will need all the manpower they can to farm western France, I could see inroads into the Saarland ten years down the line for the coalfields though.
The Poles? Poland has likely been hit hard and if a government has not survived the country will propably fall in some kind of anarchy. If and when expansion does occur, it will go west towards traditionally Polish areas.
The Scandinavians? They will have enough on their plate and enough land can be cleared in southern Sweden for agricultural purposes.
The Dutch? They have enough bread on the table now that the Deltawerkens are gone and the dykes have broken.
The Belgians? The country has likely recieved more hits per square kilometre compared to Britain.
The Swiss/Austrians? They are the most likely candidate, but then both countries are German speaking so the difference it will make won't be massive.

Sooner or later a new German polity will emerge, possibly one which is even more decentralised and federalised than present day Germany. If any royal families from Bavaria/Saxony and so on has survived, I don't think that it is impossible to have them reinstated. Mainly for cosmetic purposes and to give some hope to the population.

Germany will be poor for a long time but not forever. Once the radioactivity levels have decreased to an acceptable level, the land will be cultivated once again and the soils in Germany are good for agriculture. The rich coal veins of the Rhineland, Saxony and the Rhur are still there. The lack of manpower will be a major issue and this mean that Germany won't ever become the largest economy in Europe for a long time. For all purposes the economic centre of gravity of the continent has shifted from its London-Amsterdam-Düsseldorf-Münich-Milan axis to an arc which will span from Stockholm to Western Britain to Western France to Spain and then to Southern Italy. The Mediterranean Sea is once again the "core" of Europe and trade from the south to the noth will go back to the land and sea routes used in the 13th century, that is along the coasts circling around Spain and overland through Western France.

Will this last foever well into the 21st and then 22nd century?
Not necessarily since it is very likely that once western Europe are recovered and reliable food supplies are back, there will be a demographic boom through a combination of state incentives and a desire to repopulate the nations. Granted there is no way to know whether this will happen for sure, but I think that it will. In a century it would not be unreasonable for the German population to boom from 5/7 millions back to 40 millions. British demographic growth during the 19th century was massive and this included dozens of millions of emigrants to the New World.

 

[Hörnla]

First of all, as a German I can wholeheartedly state that not eating pure white bread which you can reduce to a tenth of its width with the force of your small toes, but dark bread instead is not the end of the world.

Considering the death of all "modern people": consider the millions who will perish without being able to use alternatehistory.com. Oh, good, that website wasn't around yet in the 1980s.

Despite the general unpleasantness of a certain newcomer to the thread, the guy has a certain point. Receiving as few hits as envisaged in this excellent timeline might need a little explanation. After all, the UK was a nuclear power with several hundred warheads at its disposal. Shouldn't we assume that the mighty Sovjet Union would grant them almost as many?

Now, IIRC, Macragge left the way the exchange started rather in the dark - except for the inital escalation after the Kassel-incident. The following came to my mind yesterday:

as unwilling as we might be to take it into account as Westerners; how about Ronnie (possibly after a call from Maggie?) deciding to go for a massive US nuclear first strike? Now the Sovjets wouldn't be surprised in general, but this is the only sensible explantion to me. Nuclear war is decided in minutes and hours, and despite all the drills and rehearsals - who shoots first has a tiny advantage. Add to that the "luck" of unexpectedly crappy Sovjet communications and nuke-reliability and you have somewhat reduced the Sovjet strike from the expected apocalyptical 20-40,000 warheads.

To be entirely fair even Germany will sooner or later come back to the world as a nation.

Thank you very much for your generosity. While German culture will maybe survive, if enough Germans survive to carry it, the decline it took throughout the 20th century will continue on a steeper path.

Now politically, I would say it rather depends on how much pre-war-borders are considered granted by the UK and France. From what my impression of the damage done to Central Europe is, they could rather colonially draw a line from the North Sea to the East and state where their "spheres of influence" are. Include Sweden and Italy in the deal as the Northern and Southern flanks and you have a new order for Europe in the 21st century.

The demographic recovery is not Germany's friend either.

In the mid-1980s we deal with ca. 80 million Germans compared to ca. 50 million British, French, Italians respectively.

A demographic recovery might be based on ... let us assume ... 5 million Germans but 20 million British, 15 million French and 10 million Italians. I am friendly on the Germans here and a bit pessimistic when it comes to Italy and France, I think most on the board agreed on the British number. At least, there is no demographic challenge from the East for the Germans.

Now I assume that Frangland-Europe has established a sort of "right for Europeans to settle where they wish" in their European sphere of influence. That means that as soon as Franco-British populations have recovered to something close to pre-war levels, they are probable to already have started to settle outside their pre-war borders.

As you stated with your shift of the economic centre of Europe, the whole continent will in this scenario have become a place where the Western, Southern and Northern rims (Western France, British Isles, Iberia, Southern Italy) are prone to recover far earlier than the depopulated rest. As soon as the radiation-fest is over, the Centre and East will attract the ambition to get a grip on its fertile lands (the more valuable if average agricultural fertility actually falls) and its ressources.

Let us say that if demographic recovery starts in earnest at the end of the 20th century, then by 2030 we might have again 40 million British, 30 million French and 20 million Italians. Even if German numbers tripled instead of doubled to 15 million... the weights have shifted a lot. If the Germans have to start from less than 5 million, and I fear that we might rather get down to 2 million or even less, Germans will sooner than later become a minority within their own country.

If and when expansion does occur, it will go west towards traditionally Polish areas.

I am sure you meant Eastwards?

Sooner or later a new German polity will emerge, possibly one which is even more decentralised and federalised than present day Germany. If any royal families from Bavaria/Saxony and so on has survived, I don't think that it is impossible to have them reinstated. Mainly for cosmetic purposes and to give some hope to the population.

As sad as the end of monarchy was for German history, I do not see a chance for this.

Germany will be poor for a long time but not forever. Once the radioactivity levels have decreased to an acceptable level, the land will be cultivated once again

You are right, but as I stated before by a few Bauern, but more paysans and farmers.

For all purposes the economic centre of gravity of the continent has shifted from its London-Amsterdam-Düsseldorf-Münich-Milan axis to an arc which will span from Stockholm to Western Britain to Western France to Spain and then to Southern Italy. The Mediterranean Sea is once again the "core" of Europe and trade from the south to the noth will go back to the land and sea routes used in the 13th century, that is along the coasts circling around Spain and overland through Western France.

Very good description, though I think the Med will be less of a core than the North-South connections through Western Europe. Channel and Bay of Biscay, Ebro- resp. Garonne Valleys.

I made a very improvised map on my points.

 

[ivfl]

I doubt Turkey and Greece still exist.The turks had a direct border with the soviets and nuclear weapons on their soil.They would have been annihilated.Another problem is that Turkey was already unstable at the time with a coup taking place only a few years earlier,and the kurdish resistance movement was just forming.Following the war its doubtfull that Turkey survived most likely a civil war is brewing among surviving generals and the kurds are in open revolt.As for the greeks the smaller size would be a problem along the fact that most greeks live concentrated in a few regions like Athens.Whatever is left of Greece and Turkey i doubt we can call them countries anymore.

 

[LeX]

Here are some of my thoughts on survival rates in the TL's scenario. "Survival" means that they escaped the blasts and the accompanying death by fires that would persist for a few days.

UK: 10-15 million. Like I said before, the UK is a nuclear power and would've attracted a lot of attention from the SRF on these grounds. It is also a small country and with at least a couple hundred blasts I can't imagine less than 60% of them being wiped out, even if they run into the countryside. Most of the concerns I have about a number like 20-25 million living Britons lie in the fact that the country is just so damn small.

German-speaking peoples: 10-15 million. If Switzerland has around 4-5 million survivors (I think it's largest towns were hit, but didn't Bern survive?), Austria 3-5 million, and Germany 5 million total, largely in the south, we can reach 15 million living German speakers, but I would expect this number to decrease to at a greater rate than in, say, the UK because a lot of those survivors in the BRD and DDR will be injured, sick, and thus very ephemeral while those in Switzerland in Austria would be more untouched and have the benefit of being better-organized in the postwar term.

USA: 30-60 million. A few pages back, someone talked about some city in France that would've been hit because it housed aircraft manufacturing complexes. Well, a history teacher of mine once remarked that a certain town of 10,000 in eastern Oregon (my state) would've been targeted simply owing to the fact that there was an airport located there. The USA was the USSR's principal enemy and this would've been made apparent in the event of nuclear war. I do not expect any city with more than 100,000 or even 50,000 inhabitants to go untargeted. The saving grace of America is the fact that our land size is large and our population lives in sprawls. With some early warning (was was the case in this TL), a lot of Americans could survive the initial attacks, though a figure of 60 million is IMO optimistic.

USSR: 20-50 million. As with the US, the Soviet Union would've eaten many a nuke at any applicable location. And as someone mentioned earlier,the US has less targets to deal with and so could hit the USSR somewhat harder. But the USSR is even larger than the USA and has more people to start with. However it is important to take into account the facts that less Soviets lived in suburbs and the government probably did a better job of encouraging their population to sit tight and be incinerated. But if the war happened in summer it might happen that particularly large percentages of the Soviet peoples were resting in their dachas at the time, far from the cities...

China: 100-400 million. The number for the PRC depends on how hard the Soviets decided to hit them in favor of other targets. I do not know if the USA would've joined in on the fun as well, but in any case it is certain that like other large nations, all metropolises would be destroyed along with possible military objects. But in 1983 China was even more rural than it is now and so even if 90% of all cities were nuked there would still be vast numbers of farmers left over. China would've been deindustrialized completely and probably balkanized since the ruling structure would've disappeared with the cities and military.

Japan: 40-80 million. Japan is an island nation like the UK but it has a couple thinsg going for it. It is not a nuclear power (but nearly so), it is not in Europe, and most importantly its population is over twice the size of the UK's. However Japan is nevertheless a historical power and a major country so the Soviets may have decided to mess them up a bit further than just the formulaic "target all military bases and capital city", but I do not think they would go out of their way to exterminate Japan as they are not a principal enemy and do not pose such a military threat. China may also hit Japan a few times but according to my knowledge most Chinese weapons were pointed at Russia.

RoK: 10-25 million. A cold war battleground, Asia's equivalent of the BRD. It will be targeted and ravaged by the USSR.

DPRK: 5-10 million. A cold war battleground, the DDR except crazier. It will be targeted and ravaged by the USA and maybe even China. I expect a low number of people to survive.

There's my view on the situations in the above countries. Obviously I am doing a lot of guesswork but it is in the end just some food for thought.

 

[phoenix7846]

RoK: 10-25 million. A cold war battleground, Asia's equivalent of the BRD. It will be targeted and ravaged by the USSR.

DPRK: 5-10 million. A cold war battleground, the DDR except crazier. It will be targeted and ravaged by the USA and maybe even China. I expect a low number of people to survive.

There's my view on the situations in the above countries. Obviously I am doing a lot of guesswork but it is in the end just some food for thought.

Those figures are damn optimistic. What a lot of people don't realize about the Korean peninsula is just exactly how mountainous the peninsula is. ROK for example is about 75 percent mountain ranges, and virtually everywhere you have either massive bustling cities or fairly rural areas, the provinces themselves are extremely rural, and most have barely more than a million or two people in them even now. There's not a whole lot in the manner of what we would call suburbs in the US except near the capital. Hit the capital metro, all the other metropolitan cities sufficiently, and you've immediately taken out over half the country, and probably would lose a lot more, because the RoK still would depend on the outside world for a lot.

NK might be realistic, but that's only to the extent that we actually know a damn thing about that country.

 

[modelcitizen]

The idea of listening to all the crap disco/funk bands of the '70s in a post nuke world is pretty scary.Jokes aside some trends are pretty clear,the movie industry is pretty much dead north of the Ecuator whatever is left is only in a few countries in Latin America,Australia maybe by 1990 could have something come back.One place of possible resurgence in interest would possibly be diaries something like Ann Frank had.Most people would not keep something like this but a few here and there might take the time to record what happened in the day it shouldn't take more than a few minutes.Taking into account the loss of communication and the fact that some regions won't be reacheable for years to come maybe a resurgence in travel literature(??) only with a darker tone.Still its pretty sad to think that most movies,books and songs are lost forever.That would make them a bit more valuable in the long term.30 years after the war an original copy of movies like Risky Business would probably be worth a lot.Maybe even more valuable an original BMW 3-series E30 in this timeline one of the last BMWs to roll of into production of course this is not part of pop culture but a minor point of interest.For any surviving germans it would be probably important as a reminder of their former glory when Germany was still a word in the dictionary.

I totally can see travelogues/"news from..." items attracting a lot of interest. In this hypothetical discussion board, so many posters are asking, "How did _____ make out?" In a 'real' situation, some people would literally be dying to know. Someone's record of attempting to find out what's happened to x y and/or z would be very compelling.

 

[Wolf]

Japan: 40-80 million. Japan is an island nation like the UK but it has a couple thinsg going for it. It is not a nuclear power (but nearly so), it is not in Europe, and most importantly its population is over twice the size of the UK's. However Japan is nevertheless a historical power and a major country so the Soviets may have decided to mess them up a bit further than just the formulaic "target all military bases and capital city", but I do not think they would go out of their way to exterminate Japan as they are not a principal enemy and do not pose such a military threat. China may also hit Japan a few times but according to my knowledge most Chinese weapons were pointed at Russia.

Where Japan gets screwed over is once its stocks of food run out and it runs out of fuel to power its fishing fleet.

 

[John Farson]

Where Japan gets screwed over is once its stocks of food run out and it runs out of fuel to power its fishing fleet.

I concur. The 40-80 million figure is too optimistic, in my mind. 30-40 million would be more like it. This is what I posted back in page 105:

On the other hand, Japan is highly dependant on foreign imports to meet their food needs, more so than the UK, I would guess. By 1980 Japan had a food self-sufficiency rate of 53%, according to this site. The people killed in the nuclear attacks and the immediate aftermath would alleviate this somewhat, but I foresee that there would still be food shortages, at the very least. Famine would be a real danger here.

Personally, I think Japan would be very heavily hit in this situation, despite their less prominent military status (and because of their very prominent economic status) and the resulting die-off would plunge the population level back to where it was when Commodore Perry came to visit with his "black ships".

Also, take a look at what wiki has to say about Japan's metropolitan areas. Granted, it's from the last decade, but I doubt it's too different from the early-mid-80s. Only about 15% of Japan's surface area is fit for agriculture, and it shows in the extremely dense populations. As of 2005, over 75 million people live in the 8 major metropolitan areas of Japan, with Kanto alone accounting for 35 million. The Soviets wouldn't have had to use that many nukes to take out most of Japan's population.

 

[LeX]

Well, 40-80 million was my estimate for immediate (like a few days) survivors of blast and fire. How many can be fed afterwards is a different story. Of course, it really depends on how thoroughly the Soviet Union wants to ravage Japan. Will they use 20, 50, or 100 warheads, and of what size? Will Tokyo be hit a couple times or is the entire Kanto plain gone?

 

[ivfl]

In the strike on Japan the main targets would have been the US military bases there.In this case the targets would be Fleet activities Yokosuka,Fleet activities Sasebo,Naval air base Atsugi,Camp Smedley Butler,Misawa air base,Yokota air base,Kadena air base.While other us military facilities might be targeted these are the ones which surely would receive strikes.Of course one problem is the fact that many of these are close to japanese cities like Yokosuka to the east of Tokyo.To these we must add probably 4-7 strikes on Tokyo itself mainly targeting the japanese government.Other strikes would probably include Chitose air base the primary japanese air base in northern Japan,Sapporo which unfortunately for the residents happens to be the headquarters for the northern army of Japan.Any other strikes on the rest of the japanese army are possible but the soviets would have decided that with taking out the US army in Japan and the main japanese bases on Hokkaido close to the Soviet Union plus obviously Tokyo it would be enough.

 

[JasonQ]

Update...

I am dying for one.

 

[modelcitizen]

Where Japan gets screwed over is once its stocks of food run out and it runs out of fuel to power its fishing fleet.

oh, shucks, there's always improvised sailboats.


The bottom-half of an eviscerated airliner could make for an interesting "galley," if it isn't too cumbersome to maneuver.

 

[Wolf]

oh, shucks, there's always improvised sailboats.


The bottom-half of an eviscerated airliner could make for an interesting "galley," if it isn't too cumbersome to maneuver.

True, but that would require enough of the leadership and the airliners to survive the Exchange.

 

[modelcitizen]

True, but that would require enough of the leadership and the airliners to survive the Exchange.

I didn't foresee any leadership roles in this, just a random salvage effort or two

 

[Hörnla]

I doubt Turkey and Greece still exist.The turks had a direct border with the soviets and nuclear weapons on their soil.They would have been annihilated.Another problem is that Turkey was already unstable at the time with a coup taking place only a few years earlier,and the kurdish resistance movement was just forming.Following the war its doubtfull that Turkey survived most likely a civil war is brewing among surviving generals and the kurds are in open revolt.As for the greeks the smaller size would be a problem along the fact that most greeks live concentrated in a few regions like Athens.Whatever is left of Greece and Turkey i doubt we can call them countries anymore.

Yes, I had doubt about both countries. I decided on letting them survive in the longer run. Turkey is fairly large and still rather rural. So despite a post-Exchange Turkey losing control over Kurdistan, it might stand better chances than Greece.

I imagine that reconstruction in both places could run along different patterns than in Britain or France insofar as isolated regions, where living conditions have always been dire, would have been "less affected" if not hit directly. From these places, a slow re-organization of these nations could occur very slowly.