Most likely aftermath of an early 80s nuclear war?

The problem is that the areas downwind of the red dots are going to get a lot of contamination from fallout. Air bursts produce very little but ground bursts, and especially any that penetrate at all (the type for missile silos, control centers etc) make quite a lot. This stuff settles out and then the radioisotopes will be taken up in the food chain, just like their non-radioactive analogs. Sadly for Wisconsin, as an example, the St(90) will mean Wisconsin dairy products are off limits for quite some time - only an example.
 
The problem is that the areas downwind of the red dots are going to get a lot of contamination from fallout. Air bursts produce very little but ground bursts, and especially any that penetrate at all (the type for missile silos, control centers etc) make quite a lot. This stuff settles out and then the radioisotopes will be taken up in the food chain, just like their non-radioactive analogs. Sadly for Wisconsin, as an example, the St(90) will mean Wisconsin dairy products are off limits for quite some time - only an example.

Would this fallout significantly kill off vegetation/ecosystems?
 
If limited to military targets using the bombs available at that time and assuming all air bursts the radioactivity would not be a problem. Half life rule. However, if things totally got out of hand with many civilian cities hit along with many military hard target surface bursts or the use of dedicated nasty salted bombs there would still be areas quite dangerous.

Are there any records of plans that indicate which scenario was more likely?
 
Overall? Population worldwide drops to 500 million by year's end and bottoms out about 150 million about 1986. Brazil, Argentina, South Africa, and New Zealand are tech centers. Switzerland survives better than most think as will Scandinavia. Most of the rest of the world is chingada.

In Asia, Siberia is wrecked but a functional Soviet successor state emerges in about 5-7 years. Southeast Asia is largely ignored but implodes while China and Japan are glassed. India and Pakistan would be a superpower if they cooperated but instead fight amongst each other and delay recovery for one or two decades. Middle Eastern regimes either die off fast but maybe a few survive, perhaps Iran and Iraq survive only to pummel each other harder. Israel dies but takes their neighbors with them.

Africa above the Congo River degenerates i to feudal or tribal states with perhaps a city-state or two seen by satellite at night. East Africa might recombine - Uganda likely survives in some form - and if Kenya can work with Tanzania maybe an East African power emerges. Or perhaps tribal warfare consumes the region. South Africa probably sees some sort of civil war but could emerge either as a racist power or federation of (tribal?) nations. Technology probably matches 1940s with some areas a bit more advanced.

South America likely unites under a military government led by Brazil but not painfully dominated it. If they play their cards right, South America becomes the global power. If they fight amongst themselves...well...the world recovery is likely slowed even more.

For North America the new tech center is Oregon outside of Portland, western Idaho, northern Maine, eastern Kentucky with western/central West Virginia, and western Texas. Smaller cities will be centers of recovery, but the Plains and Northeast are screwed along with the major and mid-sized ports. Parts of Mexico and western Canada will do well, as will the bulk of Alaska, but Hawaii and eastern Canada are graveyards. Recovery starts West and goes East with an Appalachian nation-state emerging to prominence along with one out of Oregon and probably another out if Utah. Tech levels vary widely from Middle Ages to 1960s or even early 1970s.

Do you have any sources for this? They would be really helpful.
 
By 1984 the US and the USSR both had around 10,000 strategic nuclear warheads with thousands more tactical weapons.

Total warheads of strategic nature, yes, but actual ability to deliver them is another matter entirely; according to your source, both sides combined only had about 2,500 ICBMs in 1980.

What interception efforts - the only place on the planet with a working ABM system was Moscow and that is likely to have been only marginally effective as it would almost certainly be overwhelmed by sheer volume.

Most obvious being the ability to intercept bombers and hunt down boomers; this was also the era of AEGIS coming online, among other systems. As for the sheer volume thing, that works in the favor of the defense, as the more weapons relegated to Moscow means fewer American systems to hit other targets. I've heard second and third hand that both sides expected targets like the aforementioned Soviet capital or New York City would require up to 100 to target them in order to ensure they're fully destroyed. Whether that's true or not is, of course, a matter of debate but that major cities and certain strategic targets could act as "bomb sinks" is certain.
 
Actual strategic weapons were limited to about 3-5,000 each IIRC between the USSR and US, with the other nuclear powers having much smaller arsenals; no idea on the relative tonnage. It must also be remembered that this stockpile would be subjected to interception methods, reliability issues, and simple distance that will limit its effectiveness. For example, an SS-18 launched from around Moscow is too far away to strike Cape Town in South Africa. Nuclear Winter wasn't, and still isn't, a likely prospect in the aftermath of such an exchange.
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1984 Warhead counts
USA 23,621
USSR 37,431
UK 270
France 280
China 415
 
In the 1980s, with the development of MIRVs you had a much more efficient way of causing wide area of destruction. Assuming you wanted to hit Moscow, using 5x200kt weapons would be much more effective than one 1mt weapon. Particularly large warheads would only be useful for deep/hardened targets. You don't need to knock down every structure in Moscow or NYC to "destroy" the city. You will get huge firestorms which are quite effective - look at Dresden which was not built of wood/paper like Japanese cities - and these will kill lots of people and destroy structures that were not trashed by the blast waves. If any of the blasts were ground bursts, which means the fireball touches the ground even if exploded above the surface, you now have significant long lasting radioactive contamination and fallout spread in the vicinity. This combination will render a large chunk of the urban area "destroyed and this is one missile, one MIRV. Targeting using nukes is a somewhat straightforward engineering problem, although being creative to achieve the damage required with the least resources is a bit of an art.

In terms of boomers, it depends a good bit on how the war starts. The "other side" surging boomers will be an indicator. In any case in the 1980s the USA/NATO had a pretty good at tracking Soviet SSBNs outside of their bastions. OTOH the Soviets rarely if ever in the 80s were able to find our boomers (not sure about the French and British). In terms of bombers, since they will be coming in after the missiles have hit, both sides will have difficulties with their air defense systems.

Bottom line you first define the damage you want done to a given target, and then solutions are worked for various systems. Factors included are the probability the system will work (missile launch, aircraft not abort etc), the odds it will reach the target area, the CEP of that system, etc. Of course, nukes that miss the intended target but still land somewhere and go off will add to a more generalized destruction and more widespread fallout.
 
The American agricultural breadbasket in the Midwest would have a vast accumulation of foodstuffs,

Most all the Midwest has is Yellow Dent Corn, used for animal feed, and in few year, ethanol production. Corn that is harvested for human consumption, I think it was small% of the overall crop
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Of the 100 million acres of Corn production, a 1M is for Sweet Corn that is harvested fresh, and surprising little in the big Corn States like Iowa or Nebraska

Same goes for soybeans, about 98% for animal feed
 
Except that the whole area was dotted with missile silos. It would be deluged with fallout from ground bursts trying to take out Minuteman and Titan fields in Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Dakota, etc. Yes, there will be food, but between the silos and cities like Omaha, Des Moines, Minneapolis/St. Paul, Rapid City, Grand Forks, Kansas City, St. Louis and so forth that were probable targets, the population will be devastated by the initial attack and the fallout and disease that follows. Much of that food will go to rot unconsumed. Farm animals will certainly die or be contaminated. I wouldn't hang my hat on this being a particularly pleasant part of the nation to be. It will help those who do survive, but this region was just chock full of military targets.
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Here's what some Belgian animator came up with in 1987:

A maffia war gets out of hand and Sicily gets nuked in the process. Italy responds by nuking Lybia, Syria nukes Italy, Israel nukes Syria, Everybody else nukes Israel, South Africa nukes all other African nations just for the XXXX of it. Although nominally partners, Germany, France and Britain nuke each other threeways, and not to be left out, Sweden nukes itself... the result... minute 2.30 of the video
 
My first post here. Go easy on me. Great story idea and it would depend greatly as to what kind of nuclear war was fought. If limited to military targets using the bombs available at that time and assuming all air bursts the radioactivity would not be a problem. Half life rule. However, if things totally got out of hand with many civilian cities hit along with many military hard target surface bursts or the use of dedicated nasty salted bombs there would still be areas quite dangerous.

Even a total insane nuclear exchange with all sides emptying there silos on each other would NOT result in a nuclear winter. Nuclear Winter was disinformation foisted upon the West by the Commies. Yes this is true.

The disruptions in food supply would reduce the worlds population, over 25 years to just a small fraction of todays. Figure a 90%+ die back. You do not die from the nuclear bombs; you die from starvation. No food. No distribution chains. No transport. Many world areas would be non affected, particularly in the Southern hemisphere. A great story line of survivors trying to re establish civilization, Figure tech being around the 1900 mark? Quite a disruption indeed. Yikes!

HB of CJ ex FF RN PM radiological officer
Do you have a source for this statement?
 
How would the world look after a world nuclear war?
- 1 year after?
- 5 years after?
- 10 years after?
- 20 years after?
- 50 years after?
-100 years after?
- 200 years after?
 

apollo11

Banned
How would the world look after a world nuclear war?
- 1 year after?
- 5 years after?
- 10 years after?
- 20 years after?
- 50 years after?
-100 years after?
- 200 years after?
I think we'd have to set perimeters to judge this. While nuclear winter is unlikely the full effects of the Soviet bioweapons are hard to quantify. Also the availability of ICBM on both sides and the targeting perimeters would determine the amount of "neutral" nations that don't receive a strike. For example is either side going to spend a delivery vehicle on Asuncion, Paraguay? That may seem like a minor question but the capital of Paraguay being struck could be the difference between it becoming a post-war regional power or not.
 
As I understand it, and I am no expert, the north/south atmospheric exchange dynamics are such that the amount of fallout that would go south of the equator would be a relatively small percentage and fall off as you got further south, if this is not the the case I recommend the movie (and book) "On the Beach". There fore the further south of the equator you go the actual radiation effects will depend on how much megatonnage is used in the southern hemisphere and where the hits are. Obviously the more area that has a significant radiological contamination the worse things are both short and long term as this poison gets in the food cycle. IMHO even if atmospheric exchange limits radiation drift south from "the big one", ocean currents and migrations of marine creatures will cause a significant contamination of the oceans in the southern hemisphere. Contamination of marine species means that yet another food source is markedly reduced...making famine worse.
 
@apollo11 : Could be been a long time for me. However the issue is not what the radiation is (issue with Cobalt 60 is half life) but how much was drifting south across the equator. If the exchange is limited, this is not an issue.
 
while it may not be your favorite, people can eat the corn used for feed, likewise soybeans etc.
Popcorn and sweet corn are varieties consumed by humans directly as kernels. Yellow Dent corn, though, is the source for corn meal, corn starch, corn syrup, taco shells, Fritos corn chips, corn flakes, etc.
 
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