McPherson
Banned
The NVA resourced combat rations locally. Just wanted to point that out. Vietnam is called "the rice bowl" for a good reason.
America Be Watching With The Popcorn: A Sino-Soviet War TL
- Thread starter theflyingmongoose
- Start date
Great. maybe Sihanouk will have the sense not to irritate his cousin, and worse make his Faustian bargain with the Rouge?
The Unrest In China Will Lead To Anarchy (Sing To The Tune Of Hamilton)
Chapter 4: Destruction and Treaty
Shanghai, Chongqing, Tianjin, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Chengdu, Nanjing, Wuhan, Xi’an, Hangzhou, Shenyang, Jinan, Qingdao, Luoyang, Tangshan, Xiamen, Kunming, Heifei, Taiyuan, Handan, Wuxi, Beijing, and Changzhou.
All twenty-three of these cities were incinerated in nuclear fire on February 18, 1970, after the Soviet’s two-week ultimatum expired. A majority of China’s leadership was in bunkers around the country, so the number caught up in the Beijing strike was relatively small. However, an increasingly large amount of high-level officials were disgruntled with Mao’s antics and refusal to debate surrender. On February 25, Mao’s bunker was stormed by military personnel. Mao escaped while his guards distracted the invaders. However, his car was blown up by a mine just a few minutes later. When news reached Lin Biao, he declared himself acting Premier and began to consolidate remnants.
Unfortunately, he wasn’t the only one trying to get power from this situation. Some tried to gain favor with the Soviets by surrendering or announcing ceasefires. The senior officials and commanders in Tibet and Manchuria surrendered, followed soon after by Xinjiang. The Soviets recognized the Manchurian government as the legitimate ruler of China and outlined a treaty:
CHINA will pay $10,000,000,000 in compensation over 10 years for the bombing of Soviet cities.
CHINA will pay $15,000,000,000 in general reperations.
CHINA will be limited to 500,000 total armed forces personnel.
CHINA will grant independence to Xinjiang (‘East Turkestan’) under Soviet administration.
CHINA will grant independence to Tibet under the previous government.
CHINA will cede border regions to the Soviet Union.
CHINA will cede border regions to Mongolia.
The treaty was fairly lopsided, although the Soviets were mad. On the international front, many were relieved that the death and devastation were no longer happening. The Americans had forced North Vietnam into accepting a favorable peace deal, which split the country into two parts. America appropriated over $10 Billion in nation-building funds, which was supposed to increase the quality of life in the south by enough that the North would want reunification. The Soviet treasury was basically non-existent at this point, so it ended up taking half of China’s entire reserves after the war ended. The Republic of China launched two ‘expeditions’ into the Guangdong province, where they were greeted as liberators. The world was now changing.
Shanghai, Chongqing, Tianjin, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Chengdu, Nanjing, Wuhan, Xi’an, Hangzhou, Shenyang, Jinan, Qingdao, Luoyang, Tangshan, Xiamen, Kunming, Heifei, Taiyuan, Handan, Wuxi, Beijing, and Changzhou.
All twenty-three of these cities were incinerated in nuclear fire on February 18, 1970, after the Soviet’s two-week ultimatum expired. A majority of China’s leadership was in bunkers around the country, so the number caught up in the Beijing strike was relatively small. However, an increasingly large amount of high-level officials were disgruntled with Mao’s antics and refusal to debate surrender. On February 25, Mao’s bunker was stormed by military personnel. Mao escaped while his guards distracted the invaders. However, his car was blown up by a mine just a few minutes later. When news reached Lin Biao, he declared himself acting Premier and began to consolidate remnants.
Unfortunately, he wasn’t the only one trying to get power from this situation. Some tried to gain favor with the Soviets by surrendering or announcing ceasefires. The senior officials and commanders in Tibet and Manchuria surrendered, followed soon after by Xinjiang. The Soviets recognized the Manchurian government as the legitimate ruler of China and outlined a treaty:
CHINA will pay $10,000,000,000 in compensation over 10 years for the bombing of Soviet cities.
CHINA will pay $15,000,000,000 in general reperations.
CHINA will be limited to 500,000 total armed forces personnel.
CHINA will grant independence to Xinjiang (‘East Turkestan’) under Soviet administration.
CHINA will grant independence to Tibet under the previous government.
CHINA will cede border regions to the Soviet Union.
CHINA will cede border regions to Mongolia.
The treaty was fairly lopsided, although the Soviets were mad. On the international front, many were relieved that the death and devastation were no longer happening. The Americans had forced North Vietnam into accepting a favorable peace deal, which split the country into two parts. America appropriated over $10 Billion in nation-building funds, which was supposed to increase the quality of life in the south by enough that the North would want reunification. The Soviet treasury was basically non-existent at this point, so it ended up taking half of China’s entire reserves after the war ended. The Republic of China launched two ‘expeditions’ into the Guangdong province, where they were greeted as liberators. The world was now changing.
let's see if the roc can concur the nuclear wasteland that is china right now
Well, as everyone foresaw, that was a disaster.
I suppose TTL's version of r/propagandaposters won't have as many denunciations of capitalist warmongering.
I suppose TTL's version of r/propagandaposters won't have as many denunciations of capitalist warmongering.
McPherson
Banned
Extreme. The Russians would likely go for air burst and with the dirty warheads of that era, the suck-up of surface debris and planetary wind patterns, that means North America gets the fall out. THIS is a go to war event.
I mean that. The environmental damage would be seen as an intended act of war.
I'm just curious: after all was said and done, how many casualties were there on the Soviet side and how many were there on the Chinese side? Also, is there any chance of America making a backroom deal with the USSR to not intervene while the Republic of China gobbles up southern China? The reason I'm metioning this is because I think a version of what the European powers did, partitioning China into spheres of influence, isn't out of the question for the two superpowers in the this period. After a few years of Civil War, as Taiwan presses into the Chinese wasteland, the Han Chinese core could be split into north and south, with the north, due to its isolation and general state of disrepair, falling even deeper into the Soviet sphere of influence and the south being icorporated into the Republic of China. If the Americans want, they can even sweeten the deal by sending aid to the Soviet reconstruction effort.
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But if they're airbursts, won't that limit the fallout? I would think that Japan would be the country most impacted by the fallout.
Edit: Looking at the map again, also the Koreas...
Not gonna lie. Kinda disappointed how quickly things went south. I thought the point of it all was for a non nuclear war. Would’ve been more interesting with a conventional but longer war, and to see what came of it.
McPherson
Banned
Since these are likely 3-5 megaton Russian city-killers the column of suck-up would rise into the jet-stream. Worse, the size of the burst means the vacuum event would not lift tens of thousands of tonnes of particulate but several millions of tonnes per burst.
Japan would get her dose as would the Koreas. But...
Here.
And to be specific, the lunatic Russians would be eating A LOT of that fall-out themselves before it crossed Europe and reached the Americas. The planet spins east to west. But the jet-stream does not care...
Japan earthquake and tsunami: America on nuclear alert ...
How would the Americans react? Badly.
My guess is 1-2 Million on Soviet , Chinese though, with civil war and famine on horizon, death toll could reach nine digit like someone previously mention, not to mention environment and refugee problem which gonna cause chaos to surrounding countries.
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It might sound cold, but, as a whole, it seems like this war was worth it for the Union. It asserted itself as the foremost military power in the world and showed the ability of its nukes, as well as pretty much nullifying the chances of China taking Siberia from it further down the line. The money from the reparations is compounded by the assertion of military might to really make it fearsome in the eyes other communism countries. I predict Alabania rejoining the eastern bloc a couple of years after China was nuked to oblivion, and maybe the revolutions of the late eighties won't happen at all. Hell, maybe even the presidents of the individual SSRs, especially Belarus and Ukraine, won't have the guts to go up against Moscow.
So USSR become mega North Korea by 2000, or it fall into warlordism like China, both of which isn't going to be pretty.
Actually, that's not what I believe would happen. By essentially nuking the only other great communist power, the USSR assures that the communist world will spin around it, which is why I believe the Soviet-Albanian Split will be reversed. Also, the Soviet Union has shown that it won't tolerate instability on its borders, so the likelihood of massive protests like the Prague Spring happening from now on in the Eastern Bloc is greatly diminished. Finally and most importantly, Moscow has shown that it's not afraid of taking the gloves off and what happens when it does take'em off. I highly doubt that the individual republics will have the guts to declare independence in this world. I'm not saying it would be nice to live in this alternates timeline, just that the USSR would continue to exist in it.
McPherson
Banned
All it means functionally, is that now we have cold war to the knife. Think about it.
I don’t think their use of nukes will keep protestors in Eastern Europe down. The Soviets would never be so foolish as use nukes or other WMDs in Europe. That’s lunacy of the highest order. And given how the issues that the USSR are still going to exist I can’t see them avoiding some version of their collapse simply because how brutal they were in a war. If anything this will speed things up and or make the collapse worse.
And for your earlier post I don’t think this will assert their power. If anything they’ve become far weaker. They’ve lost vast amounts of men, money, and material. As well as most likely having to relocate some men to the east to guard the border. They did something previously unthinkable: use nuclear weapons in war. They will get shit for this. They’ve also lost a once valuable partner. China will never be their ally again and will oppose them for all time. This war and the devastation of China will really hurt their operations around the world. As we see in North Korea and North Vietnam. Now Russia can’t rely on another superpower for aid. Hell, China probably won’t be communist for too long either.
Russia won the battle...but America won the war.
The most interesting part of this TL (to me, at least) is the after affects- my favorite type of alternate history is the type that dives into the after-affects years later, so in that sense a nuclear war is much more interesting.
Nope . in an air burst the only material that can be contaminated and spread as fallout is basically the bomb itself. Its only if the fireball in whole or part touches the ground ie some form of ground burst, that enough material would be sucked up to cause any issues. Environmental damage would be minimal if the bombs went off at optimal height for blast ( which is what an airburst should detonate at )