Protect and Survive: A Timeline
- Thread starter Macragge1
- Start date
TheKinkster
Banned
No way Cherbourg survives in a scenario like this. No way in hell.
As for the Channel Islands, the conditions would depend on the exact winds, but there's a whole bunch of detonations going on within a not-too-big distance...they're almost certain to take some major fallout from one or more.
As for the Channel Islands, the conditions would depend on the exact winds, but there's a whole bunch of detonations going on within a not-too-big distance...they're almost certain to take some major fallout from one or more.
If Cherbourg has not been targeted by several Soviet warheads I'd be surprised. Also remember the 'blue burst' in the Channel, that will effect the CIs.
Perhaps it was one of the missiles headed for Cherbourg? My points were that so far in the timeline it doesn't look like the Channel Islands have been hit (or even that nearby), and that you'll still have a continuation of government if not hit because its not part of the UK. They are small islands, and won't have half the problems with lawlessness and keeping order because there is 'no where to run to' and they would have 'everything needed' left intact to begin reconstruction, because they don't need to rebuild their homes, but do need to have light industry and manufactured goods, the only thing sensible to do would be to look to France to see what can be done there. Britians just a bit too far away to make it practical to sail there and back everyday/week.
The post-war as described is going to be nothing half so bad here, as on either of the two mainlands.
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Nuclear Blast Effects Calculator Site;
http://meyerweb.com/eric/tools/gmap/hydesim.html
French Airbases in france;
From elsewhere on this site, Swedish Magazine for 1984;
1Mt Nuclear Blast at Cherbourg;
Jersey is about 80mi from Cherbourg, with the weathermap looking like it does, most of the fallout might settle in a general area around here, rather than be dragged anywhere. But I'm not an expert at reading weather maps...
Here is with the winds due west and another calculator for fallout;
Tool didn't come with estimated rad levels for the cloropleth.
Using the FAS tool that (which is essentially the same thing), with wind direction directly pointing at the Channel Islands we don't even fall withing the 1REM dose levels...(1Mt Ground Burst)
1REM is about 10 times more than background radiation, 1 REM=0.01 Sv, background radiation count is about 1mSv
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Indeed we've no confirmation from Jack of whether Cherbourg has survived, or not, but an educated guess from me would be not. Conditions in the CI would not be too bad, at least initially, so long as the islanders can shelter from fall-out.
On the bright side both Jersey and Guernsey have CD organisations and ROC type monitoring posts, so the authorities can warn the population when fall-out is inbound. I would also assume that they have a link to the UKWMO and its French equivalent.
On the bright side both Jersey and Guernsey have CD organisations and ROC type monitoring posts, so the authorities can warn the population when fall-out is inbound. I would also assume that they have a link to the UKWMO and its French equivalent.
On Jersey at least the Nazis left a valuable resource for the islansers in this sort f situation, the underground hospital would certainly make a rqather good communal shelter.
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:German_Underground_Hospital_entrance_Jersey.jpg
So these islanders, at least in the short term should fare pretty well
Not to mention Fort Regent on Jersey that has the capacity for thousands of people, since it was covered over in the '70s;
However, non of the islanders need to 'take shelter' since unless they are directly targeted, they will in general, be far enough away from the detonations on the mainland to have to worry about firestorms/broken windows/heavy fallout.
Indeed nobody really did worry that much, since who was going to waste a nuke on each of the islands? And even then, the accuracy to hit the islands and not have the weapon land in the sea...
However, non of the islanders need to 'take shelter' since unless they are directly targeted, they will in general, be far enough away from the detonations on the mainland to have to worry about firestorms/broken windows/heavy fallout.
Indeed nobody really did worry that much, since who was going to waste a nuke on each of the islands? And even then, the accuracy to hit the islands and not have the weapon land in the sea...
Cherbourg is an obvious target for at least one Soviet warhead if not even a second one, more than that would be overkill. The town is small, but it is a naval base with significant installations and it is also the place where the French nuclear submarines are built so for that reason I would expect it to be hit by a single warhead.
Now the whole "return to feudalism" thing is a lot of rubbish and forgive my French for that.
A lot of people don't seem to realise that communications are a lot sturdier than they seem at first and one of the hardest things to actually destroy properly. The relative backwardness of the French telephone system at that time will actually be an asset there since good portions if not the vast majority of it will survive in a usable condition.
Local départemental prefects and mayors will assume emergency powers for the duration of the crisis and these guys especially local village mayors are known figures and will get the majority of the population behind them. The local gendarmerie will uphold law and order through martial law.
Western France and especially Brittany will be rather well off compared to the rest of France, Brest is gone and 150 000 people are dead there. But in the grand scheme of things, this is just a statistic of almost meaningless importance. What matters the most is that subprefectures twon are still standing and able to act as coordination centres and that a local hierachy of command and control still exists.
The Anglo-Norman islands will act as a way point for shipping from France to Britain and there will be some of this again during the summer I would expect. Brittany and western France is a net exporter of agricultural goods and even factoring in the effects of fallout and a bad summer. There will be still be surpluses of some kind to export as you can expect millions of excess pigs (Brittany has nearly 80% of the French pig farms) to be killed.
There will be bacon on the table in England in 1985 and that bacon will be French!
Which decays to 30% of its initial level over a period of two weeks ...
One more time:
FALLOUT FROM A NUCLEAR WEAPON < FALLOUT FROM A NUCLEAR MELTDOWN
Now the whole "return to feudalism" thing is a lot of rubbish and forgive my French for that.
A lot of people don't seem to realise that communications are a lot sturdier than they seem at first and one of the hardest things to actually destroy properly. The relative backwardness of the French telephone system at that time will actually be an asset there since good portions if not the vast majority of it will survive in a usable condition.
Local départemental prefects and mayors will assume emergency powers for the duration of the crisis and these guys especially local village mayors are known figures and will get the majority of the population behind them. The local gendarmerie will uphold law and order through martial law.
Western France and especially Brittany will be rather well off compared to the rest of France, Brest is gone and 150 000 people are dead there. But in the grand scheme of things, this is just a statistic of almost meaningless importance. What matters the most is that subprefectures twon are still standing and able to act as coordination centres and that a local hierachy of command and control still exists.
The Anglo-Norman islands will act as a way point for shipping from France to Britain and there will be some of this again during the summer I would expect. Brittany and western France is a net exporter of agricultural goods and even factoring in the effects of fallout and a bad summer. There will be still be surpluses of some kind to export as you can expect millions of excess pigs (Brittany has nearly 80% of the French pig farms) to be killed.
There will be bacon on the table in England in 1985 and that bacon will be French!
Which decays to 30% of its initial level over a period of two weeks ...
One more time:
FALLOUT FROM A NUCLEAR WEAPON < FALLOUT FROM A NUCLEAR MELTDOWN
During which time shelter is required which is why the war tunels are possibly pretty useful.
I agree that there is little or no chance that the Channel Islands would receive a hit other than by unfortunate undershoot or overshoot from another target. Although the proximity of several reasonably high profile targets on both the southern UK coast and northern French coast do present a certain amount of risk to the islands. An airburst a mile or so off the coast would be somewhat unpleaasant.
I agree that there is little or no chance that the Channel Islands would receive a hit other than by unfortunate undershoot or overshoot from another target. Although the proximity of several reasonably high profile targets on both the southern UK coast and northern French coast do present a certain amount of risk to the islands. An airburst a mile or so off the coast would be somewhat unpleaasant.
I'll be considering a similar situation with the Isle of Man in a future "No illuminations" update.
How do you think Turkey would fare in the PS TL?
On one hand their gonna get hit with around a hundred warheads. And worse will get fucked up by fallout from Syria, Israel, Greece, The Ukraine and more.
On the other hand they have a fairly strong and respected military with a sizable paramilitary. They also have a incredibly mountainous terrain which should helpfully shield them from Fallout. Would the Deep State survive and have Kemalist military officials seize control of whats left?
On one hand their gonna get hit with around a hundred warheads. And worse will get fucked up by fallout from Syria, Israel, Greece, The Ukraine and more.
On the other hand they have a fairly strong and respected military with a sizable paramilitary. They also have a incredibly mountainous terrain which should helpfully shield them from Fallout. Would the Deep State survive and have Kemalist military officials seize control of whats left?
A revived Turkish empire, commanding the remnants of the Middle East...? That could be interesting, in a bleak, twisted cousin of Lawrence of Arabia's depiction of Lawrence's time in Turkish custody, or something like that.
In fact, I could imagine the Turkish general in charge of the cobbled-together empire having the same manner as the commander of the post that detained Lawrence, that combination of sophistication and deep, deep, deep resignation and quiet despair mixed with zero hesitation for brutal force as he sees fit.
Just staying inside your house is good enough to be honest. All you need to do is keep the dust off you/not breath it in. You don't need big reinforced concrete bunkers for that.
On proximity, have you looked at the maps and distances involved? Far more of England is within a short distance of a major target from the list given than any of the islands (bar Alderney) really. The winds aren't blowing in the direction of the islands, and even if they were, the calculator images I put up in my post for a 1Mt ground burst, hardly show any fallout reaching the islands even in the worst case scenario that the winds are pointing in the right direction.
At the worst it looks like that area of France is going to get off lightly with fallout. Unpleasant yes, but a darn sight better off than ~60% of the UK by those other maps!
Furthermore the weather maps are important because they are critical to the amount of fallout. I can look up fairly limited weather reports by searching Google that tells me that it was raining on the date given in parts of France. This will certainly reduce fallout spread, but what it will have done is concentrate fallout in the rivers, streams lakes and ponds in the immediate aftermath. A lot of fresh water fish and people are going to die from ingesting that water where it was raining (Caen, Normandy, West coast of France, Bordeaux: I presume from pressure chart and the few weather stations in France I cared to sample from the almanac I found).
A 'miss' is highly unlikely to effect any of the islands, compare just a couple hundred km square to the 10,000 or so km square on any of those maps of the region and you get an idea of how for a random miss the odds of hitting a location that could effect the islands is small. In fact that’s the same with any argument for any 'unfortunate miss' on a target. Nukes may have massive blast radius compared to normal bombs, but they are still really 'drops in the ocean' compared to the scales of nations.
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That's not what I said though was it
, so don't 'quote me' as if it was.I concur that your not going to see feudalism, but I can quickly see a form of 'Balkanisation' or 'devolution to local governance' occurring. This is what I meant by 'kingdom of fiefdoms' and that where you've got strong centres of power, your going to have better recovery because they are already organised to deal with it. In particular you're going to have the island governments seeking out the situation in France and getting involved there because the islands themselves cannot just sit there on their own, they need to import some foodstuffs and nearly all manufactured goods. Thus making a proactive, outward looking situation the only sane option for a post war government. This means making contact with the French 'controllers' and local populaces. I apologise if I wasn't clear on what I meant.
I agree that in terms of an agricultural 'bread basket' the whole Brittany/West Normandie area is going to be very important to the recovery, your probs right about the bacon! But I don't know what dominated French agriculture back then in this region.
However I do believe your going to see more than the channel islands being a simple 'way point' after all they have got what few other places in Europe will have at this time; a complete continuity of government and modern infrastructure having suffered no direct attack.
Unless of course Mac decides that they did cop a bomb or two, but he hasn't mentioned it so far, and through the sources I've included (which is more for the arguments against it) nearby targets in France should have minimal effect to the islands anyway. He'll have to decide in the end how this all resolves, my main point was to draw attention to the fact that the Channel Islands do exist, and that for all intensive purposes might actually have a substantial effect on the recovery process of the regions.
You're not having evil thoughts again are you?
Put down that white cat and step away from the volcanic lair
Oh I'm always having evil thoughts. Comes of spending too much time thinking about blowing stuff up.
The cat's currently upstairs AFAIK.
On interesting thing to consider about the IoM is that it will have several internment camps full of left-wing subversives. Now what will the Manx population do to the people they may blame for what has just happened?
Turkey would have been hit pretty hard.Letting aside the fact that it has a common border with the USSR, nuclear weapons were stored at US military bases.Most likely at the beginning of the conflict soviet forces tried to invade from Georgia, with the region there mountainous any advance would be limited.At the same time the Black Sea fleet probably engaged the Turkish navy.Once nukes were used most likely turkish forces engaging the soviets were nuked with tactical weapons.Post-war there would probably be remnats of the soviet forces still operational on the front lines while whatever is left of the Black sea Fleet launching raids on surviving turkish towns on the coast.This would be a pretty good moment for the kurds to launch their uprising though.With the turkish army largely destroyed and whatever is left of it busy engaging the remnants of the soviet army its the best possible time.In real life the kurdish uprising picked up steam in 1984 in this world most likely it would be far worse.
Hmm... interesting power vacuum up in the mountainous border regions. I guess we can assume that Tehran, Baghdad and Damascus are rubble, if not already stated. Is there anything militarily significant in Armenia that's likely to warrant a nuke, I wonder? The Kurds are brilliant mountain fighters, but can they get it together organisationally before a surviving military force with the big guns steps in to stomp them, I also wonder.