Conditions in South America after 1983 global nuclear war

I've mentioned in another thread I posted a few weeks ago I was planning on writing a story. What would South America look like following full nuclear exchange between the United States and the USSR during Able Archer '83, specifically if the POD is this:

"Lt. Gen. Leonard H. Perroots is credited with the decision not to place NATO forces on increased alert despite increased Soviet readiness, thereby reducing the possibility of a nuclear exchange."

Perroots for reasons that would spoil the story (hint: not of his own free will. Don't ask it involves something that would be compared to an ASB around these parts) decides to place NATO forces on increased alert which further alarms the already paranoid Soviet leadership. The rest is history. None of this known to most of the characters of the story, as it mainly takes place 20 years later with occasional flash backs to the pre-exchange world.

Given the above, how difficult would it be for an international faction of white supremacists, augmented by rogue US military forces with advanced technology (this includes corporate research facilities based in SA, affiliated with the faction) to conquer a significant portion of South America (Argentina, Brazil, and/or Venezuela for nat resources such as the oil fields) within the span of 20 years in order to establish a white ethnic state?

Just to make it clear, in case it wasn't already obvious, they're the villains of the story.
 
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Does anyone know what places the USSR would've targeted? I'd guess they'd at least target Venezuela's oil industry, but where else?
 
Depends on how many many weapons and people The white supremacist have, as Brazil, Argentina, Chile and Colombia have important homegrown weapons industries during The eigthies, so as like and in all depends on what resources after have their homeland bombed With nuclear weapons they could muster, but Is most than probable that no nuclear weapon Landed in south america
 
Sth America, much like Australia and Sub-Saharan Africa, would get the dregs of the Soviet nuclear arsenal; what was left over after the hundreds or thousands of CONUS targets were 'serviced' minus what was destroyed by the US forces (a large chunk) and what was kept in reserve. My guess is perhaps less than a dozen targets in Sth America get hit, and those by the oldest and least accurate missiles and maybe a bomber or two.
 
I've mentioned in another thread I posted a few weeks ago I was planning on writing a story. What would South America look like following full nuclear exchange between the United States and the USSR during Able Archer '83, specifically if the POD is this:

"Lt. Gen. Leonard H. Perroots is credited with the decision not to place NATO forces on increased alert despite increased Soviet readiness, thereby reducing the possibility of a nuclear exchange."

Perroots for reasons that would spoil the story (hint: not of his own free will. Don't ask it involves something that would be compared to an ASB around these parts) decides to place NATO forces on increased alert which further alarms the already paranoid Soviet leadership. The rest is history. None of this known to most of the characters of the story, as it mainly takes place 20 years later with occasional flash backs to the pre-exchange world.

Given the above, how difficult would it be for an international faction of white supremacists, augmented by rogue US military forces with advanced technology (this includes corporate research facilities based in SA, affiliated with the faction) to conquer a significant portion of South America (Argentina, Brazil, and/or Venezuela for nat resources such as the oil fields) within the span of 20 years in order to establish a white ethnic state?

Just to make it clear, in case it wasn't already obvious, they're the villains of the story.

Sounds The Stand/Swan Song-ish. Is the ASB a Randall Flagg/Man with the Scarlet Eyes kinda guy?

As for your question, South America will be mostly spared the nuclear holocaust the rest of the world will suffer. The USSR will be too focused on leveling the US, Europe, China, and the Middle East to devote many nukes to South America. A few cities and a few ports (especially if they give harbor to NATO submarines) might eat it, but that’s about it. Fallout might be

As for your other question, I’m not sure that an international white supremacist faction would be able to marshal that much support. For one thing, Europe, America, and Russia are ashes. South Africa may have eaten a nuke and probably has it’s hands full the rest of Africa.
 
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Sth America, much like Australia and Sub-Saharan Africa, would get the dregs of the Soviet nuclear arsenal; what was left over after the hundreds or thousands of CONUS targets were 'serviced' minus what was destroyed by the US forces (a large chunk) and what was kept in reserve. My guess is perhaps less than a dozen targets in Sth America get hit, and those by the oldest and least accurate missiles and maybe a bomber or two.
This the main targets will be large naval harbors, decent air fields that could take bombers, also Brazil and Argentina were developing nukes, granted it never got far but they had some facilities, they will be gone and oil refineries/production areas, and nuclear material refinement and production. My guess it could be 100 to 500 or so maybe more or less. At this time the Soviets if I recall had 35,000 nukes so this is not that massive a diversion. The entire Southern Hemisphere I could see 3,000 nukes total.
 
This the main targets will be large naval harbors, decent air fields that could take bombers, also Brazil and Argentina were developing nukes, granted it never got far but they had some facilities, they will be gone and oil refineries/production areas, and nuclear material refinement and production. My guess it could be 100 to 500 or so maybe more or less. At this time the Soviets if I recall had 35,000 nukes so this is not that massive a diversion. The entire Southern Hemisphere I could see 3,000 nukes total.

It's not the warheads that are the bottleneck, but the delivery systems with the range to reach Sth America. Most of those 35,000 warheads would be artillery shells, FROG rockets, free-fall aircraft bombs and other tactical weapons, and much of the rest would be ICBM/MRBM/SLBM which can only spread their warheads in an oblong 200 x 100 miles in the direction of flight. The vast majority of delivery systems with the range to reach Sth America will be already allocated to the thousands of vital strategic targets in the US; 1054 SAC missile silos alone will soak up some 3000 ICBM warheads (2 per silo for the kill and one spare for misses, duds and other mishaps) which is basically every SS18 in the Soviet arsenal, although this is not how it would be in reality.

What would be more likely to receive the attention of the SS18 force, the SAC ICBMs, or Sth America, Australia and Africa?
 
What would it be like in reality?

There would at least be a mix of SS17s and SS19s, and possibly other things like manned bombers and the odd SLBM. The SS18 analogy was just to illustrate the firm limits of the number of launchers with the required range.
 
Sounds The Stand/Swan Song-ish. Is the ASB a Randall Flagg/Man with the Scarlet Eyes kinda guy?

Well, kind of. He's the enemy of one of the main protagonists from another universe with vast magical powers. He's also not human, so there's that. He's doing it out of revenge for the one protag defeating them in a previous encounter, a scattershot attempt at murder, since they're one of the fee that can defeat them.

As for your other question, I’m not sure that an international white supremacist faction would be able to marshal that much support. For one thing, Europe, America, and Russia are ashes. South Africa may have eaten a nuke and probably has it’s hands full the rest of Africa.

Like I said, they have advanced technology. It's a 1983 that is like ours but is slightly different. Think Lex Luthor and his corporation in developing advanced tech yet everyday stuff is more or less the same as RL, like in a comic book.

Edit: the setting isn't intended to be ultra-acuurate or realistic. All writers take liberties to make an interesting story after all.
 
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There would at least be a mix of SS17s and SS19s, and possibly other things like manned bombers and the odd SLBM. The SS18 analogy was just to illustrate the firm limits of the number of launchers with the required range.

Thanks for the clarification. I know nuclear winter is far from a proven thing, but would there be some degree of cooling in the Global South for at least a few months?

I know I need to do a lot of research too for that time on the economies (and cultures) of South America (ex. how much food/supplies they had to import etc) because the collapse of international trade would probably hurt them and lead to famines and instability, leaving behind power vacuums for others to fill, I'd imagine, talking out of my rear.
 
It’s plausible that even without any nuclear strikes South America would suffer from the use of Soviet engineered bioweapons against the US (smallpox, plague, ebola etc).
 
It's not the warheads that are the bottleneck, but the delivery systems with the range to reach Sth America. Most of those 35,000 warheads would be artillery shells, FROG rockets, free-fall aircraft bombs and other tactical weapons, and much of the rest would be ICBM/MRBM/SLBM which can only spread their warheads in an oblong 200 x 100 miles in the direction of flight. The vast majority of delivery systems with the range to reach Sth America will be already allocated to the thousands of vital strategic targets in the US; 1054 SAC missile silos alone will soak up some 3000 ICBM warheads (2 per silo for the kill and one spare for misses, duds and other mishaps) which is basically every SS18 in the Soviet arsenal, although this is not how it would be in reality.

What would be more likely to receive the attention of the SS18 force, the SAC ICBMs, or Sth America, Australia and Africa?
You do have a point but I would think the sub forces would have say and orders as well
 
Well, kind of. He's the enemy of one of the main protagonists from another universe with vast magical powers. He's also not human, so there's that. He's doing it out of revenge for the one protag defeating them in a previous encounter, a scattershot attempt at murder, since they're one of the few that can defeat them.

Neat. What sort of entity is he? A demon, a god? Is he involved in the army of white supremacists?

The TL I’m doing has a somewhat similar main villain. He’s a Nyarlathotep/Randall Flagg type figure who takes pleasure in chaos and human suffering. He can take many forms, appear in multiple places at once, and manipulate people through dreams. Relative to the other eldritch abominations that inhabit his universe his powers are relatively minor, but he’s much more powerful than any human. He aims to bring about the apocalypse and bring his far worse “siblings” into our universe.

He orchestrates World War III in the early 2020s by manipulating NATO and a surviving Warsaw Pact + their respective allies into conflict. While his plans to cause a worldwide strategic nuclear war are ultimately thwarted by occult intelligence agencies on both sides, six months of conventional war ravage the world, a limited nuclear exchange destroys the Middle East, and black magic set loose by Islamic terrorists under his thrall set off a number of natural disasters and plagues that ravage the world. He now seeks to finish what he started and bring about the final extinction of the human race.


Edit: the setting isn't intended to be ultra-acuurate or realistic. All writers take liberties to make an interesting story after all.

True. I try to keep it to a minimum but find that there’s always some element that needs to be stretched just a tad to make the story plausible and interesting.
 
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