Australia would have seemed an attractive place for my real family to try evacuating to before the nukes start flying if WWIII got started like it did in Protect & Survive. Not just that Oz would get off more lightly than Canada, but also there was that fear of a nuclear winter as portrayed by Carl Sagan (today, it turns out that this is overblown by a great deal).
My father is Australian by birth, my late mother English, and they both first came to Canada in 1968, but spent a few years in Sydney and Canberra after I was born and we returned to Canada in '75. I was living with a foster family in Edmonton in the 1980s, but I would have been sent home to my real family, who lived up in Northern Alberta - and probably likely went to Australia shortly afterwards with them.
All of my cousins, aunts and uncles and grandparents on my dad's side would have been living in various parts of Sydney in 1984. Most, if not all, were living in the northern suburbs up to as far north as Bayview by Pittwater. Unfortunately, evacuating by road from there would be a bit of a hassle because of Ku-Ring-Gai Chase National Park in the way and you'd have to drive a bit south to get to the M1 north in the direction of Newcastle and the Central Coast of NSW. Getting out by boat would be a lot easier - if you can get to the ferry in Barrenjoey, or if you own a boat yourself (one of my uncles did have a yacht of his own, but I'm not sure if he still had it by then).
However, if I choose to start a P&S-related story thread of my own in the future, it's going to be set in Alberta and Western Canada, because that's where I've lived my whole life since 1975.
Now, I've been reading up on some P&S-related stuff regarding Australia, so I just want to point out which targets most likely got hit in P&S canon besides the obvious like Cairns and Canberra. Not to mention a few pieces of P&S-related literature set in Australia hidden away in When the Wind Blew: a P&S Open Thread.
According to this piece written by Weaver, Cairns was hit by an SS-N-21 SLCM (Sea Launched Cruise Missile) several days after the Exchange.
And in The Land of Red and Black Scars, written by Alex1Guy, the Williamstown port and the Victoria Barracks (both just south of Melbbourne's CBD) were hit during the Exchange. Also, there were radio reports of a nuclear attack on RAAF Darwin, which means NT's capital is toast, and also unconfirmed reports of a nuclear attack in or near Townsville (there is an RAAF base and a military barracks there).
As some of you say, it's probably safe to assume a number of major RAAF/RAN bases and other significant military installations across Australia like Pine Gap will get destroyed. But some may survive.
But what of the state capitals? Would they also get targeted in order to decapitate state/territorial governments?
Might a new national capital be set up in Jervis Bay after Canberra's gone?
A few of you might be familiar with this link: AusSurvalist - Top 40 Australian Targets. Once again, I'm sure that many such places would likely survive.
In here, written once again by Weaver, there is a group of Indonesian soldiers invading by helicopter, all of whom end up getting shot and knifed to death by a trio of local Australians in Cape York. It's also mentioned that an Australian had killed a carload of Indonesian military officials, but that Aussie guy ended spraining his ankle and was caught and hanged.
A nuclear strike on Jakarta and Surabaya and maybe a few other targets in Indonesia during the Exchange sounds possible. Especially by the Soviets. In OTL, Indonesia purged the Communists big time in 1965-66, killing about at least 500,000. So, if the same thing happened in this TL, then it's quite possible that the Soviets probably would have lobbed a few nukes at Indonesia in retribution for this.
I'd have to agree that if any members of the Indonesian military do end up on Aussie soil, it's probably most likely due to some rogue Indonesian military official ordering his men to go raiding for food and other stuff rather than an actual concerted effort to invade Australia - or they may be refugees themselves. As I mentioned in one of my posts earlier in this thread, Indonesia would very likely also be having too many problems at home, like Aceh separatists for example. After a nuclear war like this, it's much more likely that Australia would have to deal with refugees and pirates rather than soldiers coming from Indonesia (and other countries as well).
It's also plausible that like many navies, that the RAN will have tried to put as many working naval assets as possible out to sea in advance of a nuclear war so they don't get destroyed along with their bases, and in doing so, it may very well have quite a few of them patrolling the Arafura Sea in order to deter Indonesians (and probably others) from trying to reach Australia. Not to mention perhaps a few boats from the US Navy, Royal Navy and maybe even the French Navy (look at PimpLenin's most recent update).
My father is Australian by birth, my late mother English, and they both first came to Canada in 1968, but spent a few years in Sydney and Canberra after I was born and we returned to Canada in '75. I was living with a foster family in Edmonton in the 1980s, but I would have been sent home to my real family, who lived up in Northern Alberta - and probably likely went to Australia shortly afterwards with them.
All of my cousins, aunts and uncles and grandparents on my dad's side would have been living in various parts of Sydney in 1984. Most, if not all, were living in the northern suburbs up to as far north as Bayview by Pittwater. Unfortunately, evacuating by road from there would be a bit of a hassle because of Ku-Ring-Gai Chase National Park in the way and you'd have to drive a bit south to get to the M1 north in the direction of Newcastle and the Central Coast of NSW. Getting out by boat would be a lot easier - if you can get to the ferry in Barrenjoey, or if you own a boat yourself (one of my uncles did have a yacht of his own, but I'm not sure if he still had it by then).
However, if I choose to start a P&S-related story thread of my own in the future, it's going to be set in Alberta and Western Canada, because that's where I've lived my whole life since 1975.
Now, I've been reading up on some P&S-related stuff regarding Australia, so I just want to point out which targets most likely got hit in P&S canon besides the obvious like Cairns and Canberra. Not to mention a few pieces of P&S-related literature set in Australia hidden away in When the Wind Blew: a P&S Open Thread.
According to this piece written by Weaver, Cairns was hit by an SS-N-21 SLCM (Sea Launched Cruise Missile) several days after the Exchange.
And in The Land of Red and Black Scars, written by Alex1Guy, the Williamstown port and the Victoria Barracks (both just south of Melbbourne's CBD) were hit during the Exchange. Also, there were radio reports of a nuclear attack on RAAF Darwin, which means NT's capital is toast, and also unconfirmed reports of a nuclear attack in or near Townsville (there is an RAAF base and a military barracks there).
As some of you say, it's probably safe to assume a number of major RAAF/RAN bases and other significant military installations across Australia like Pine Gap will get destroyed. But some may survive.
But what of the state capitals? Would they also get targeted in order to decapitate state/territorial governments?
Might a new national capital be set up in Jervis Bay after Canberra's gone?
A few of you might be familiar with this link: AusSurvalist - Top 40 Australian Targets. Once again, I'm sure that many such places would likely survive.
In here, written once again by Weaver, there is a group of Indonesian soldiers invading by helicopter, all of whom end up getting shot and knifed to death by a trio of local Australians in Cape York. It's also mentioned that an Australian had killed a carload of Indonesian military officials, but that Aussie guy ended spraining his ankle and was caught and hanged.
A nuclear strike on Jakarta and Surabaya and maybe a few other targets in Indonesia during the Exchange sounds possible. Especially by the Soviets. In OTL, Indonesia purged the Communists big time in 1965-66, killing about at least 500,000. So, if the same thing happened in this TL, then it's quite possible that the Soviets probably would have lobbed a few nukes at Indonesia in retribution for this.
I'd have to agree that if any members of the Indonesian military do end up on Aussie soil, it's probably most likely due to some rogue Indonesian military official ordering his men to go raiding for food and other stuff rather than an actual concerted effort to invade Australia - or they may be refugees themselves. As I mentioned in one of my posts earlier in this thread, Indonesia would very likely also be having too many problems at home, like Aceh separatists for example. After a nuclear war like this, it's much more likely that Australia would have to deal with refugees and pirates rather than soldiers coming from Indonesia (and other countries as well).
It's also plausible that like many navies, that the RAN will have tried to put as many working naval assets as possible out to sea in advance of a nuclear war so they don't get destroyed along with their bases, and in doing so, it may very well have quite a few of them patrolling the Arafura Sea in order to deter Indonesians (and probably others) from trying to reach Australia. Not to mention perhaps a few boats from the US Navy, Royal Navy and maybe even the French Navy (look at PimpLenin's most recent update).
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