Protect and Survive: A Timeline

About six hours passed between the Soviet's response to the first Kassel bomb (two hours after the first detonation) and the Exchange - during this time, Pandora's box was opened on the battlefield and tactical use of CBRN weaponry was undertaken massively by both sides.

With both sides front lines completely devastated and with larger and larger weapons being deployed (including heavy NATO tactical detonations over supply dumps within the GDR, Czecho and the Kola Peninsula), the Soviets took the decision to launch a massive attack on our ability to continue waging war.

We responded. Within four hours it was over.

So the exchange didn't place until the afternoon in the eastern half of the U.S.? IIRC, it was already 2 pm in Great Britain when the Kassel bomb blew up. I would assume the exchange started at around 6 pm GMT..........
 

John Farson

Banned
Having done research on potential nuclear targets in the US for a WWIII timeline elsewhere on the web, I was surprised to see how close many military bases are to major population centers.

For example, Nellis AFB is only about 14 miles from Caesar's Palace in Las Vegas.

In an all-out exchange (which if I understand correctly happened in this TL, please correct me if I'm wrong), I can't see how a missile intended to take out the entire installation would NOT also take out the adjacent city/town.

Not if a certain Mr. House has anything to say about it...;)
 
Depends on the size of the warhead(s) and the DGZ on what damage is done to nearby towns/cities. E.g. Nellis AFB is huge, but a lot of it are ranges which the Soviets are hardly going to waste a warhead on; a lot of settlements adjacent to Nellis are likely to avoid major damage.

IIRC we did discuss what damage a 1.4 MT warhead used against Nellis AFB would do to Las Vegas and from using Ground Zero II it was pretty clear that most of the city would escape serious damage. Sunrise Manor will be gone and North Las Vegas badly damaged, but further out in places like Spring Valley and Henderson even windows won't be broken. Worst thing there would be temporary blindness.
 
It's quite interesting just how much is attributed to Palin was actually said by Fey. :D

That's what happens when you nominate someone who looks more like Tina Fey than Tina Fey.

Alaska's closest to Soviet land missile bases so missiles just took less time to get there. Command and Control in the capital plus a few Airbases make it a pretty important target, I guess.

Juneau is the capital of Alsaka. Fairbanks and Anchorage are the largest cities.

Elemandorf AFB is in Anchorage. So assuming multiple missiles were used to military bases, any kinda of near miss by one missile kills Anchorage.

Alaska is closer to the Soviet Union...remember the Secretary saying that as they were being evacuated, Anchorage and Thule (site of an early-warning station) had been hit. So Alaska was likely hit first, then the rest of the US.

Thule is not in Alaska, it is in Greenland

I've also just had the very depressing realization that the Terminal Tower is probably the tallest standing structure remaining in the midwestern United States and may once again be the tallest building in North America outside of perhaps Las Vegas.

If LV takes a near miss from one of the missiles intended for Nellis, it is dead. So the Terminal Tower might even be the tallest structure in the world with Los Angeles, New York, Seattle, Toronto (presumably), London, and Paris gone.



1.) Baltimore ~ 637,418*
Baltimore is gone. It has a significant port, plus a major airport (B52s can land there).

2.) Las Vegas ~ 567,641**
A near miss from a Soviet missile is all it needs.

3.) Oklahoma City ~ 560,333
Probably ok. Their airport is probably gone, as are all major airports in the West where B-52's could land. Although OKC might have gotten lucky
4.) Tucson ~ 543, 910 ***
5.) Mesa ~ 467,157
6.) Virginia Beach ~ 433,575

As others have said all are gone, or at least severely damaged and decimated.
7.) Cleveland ~ 431,369
8.) Raleigh ~ 405,612

I would put Raleigh in the question mark category. It has a major airport, a major transit corridor, plus the Research Triangle Park. I'm sure the Soviets would have wanted to and attempted to cripple our high tech research and manufacturing capabilities.

9.) Colorado Springs ~ 399,827 ****

Definitely a deader between Cheyenne Mountain and the Air Force Academy.

10.) Arlington ~ 380,085

Probably severely battered by blasts from Dallas and Fort Worth.


The Alaskan oil pipeline would be of immense interest, I'd guess.

I wonder if Prudhoe Bay would have taken a nuke, or would they had been hoping to move in and occupy it?


Depends on the size of the warhead(s) and the DGZ on what damage is done to nearby towns/cities. E.g. Nellis AFB is huge, but a lot of it are ranges which the Soviets are hardly going to waste a warhead on; a lot of settlements adjacent to Nellis are likely to avoid major damage.

IIRC we did discuss what damage a 1.4 MT warhead used against Nellis AFB would do to Las Vegas and from using Ground Zero II it was pretty clear that most of the city would escape serious damage. Sunrise Manor will be gone and North Las Vegas badly damaged, but further out in places like Spring Valley and Henderson even windows won't be broken. Worst thing there would be temporary blindness.

Over course just one missile missing and exploding over say, the Strip means bye bye Vegas.
 
So, adjusting the list accordingly we have this:

1.) Las Vegas, Nevada ~ 567,641
2.) Oklahoma City, Oklahoma ~ 560,333
3.) Cleveland, Ohio ~ 431,369
4.) Raleigh, North Carolina ~ 405,612
5.) Anaheim, California ~ 337,896*
6.) Aurora, Colorado ~ 323,348
7.) Toledo, Ohio ~ 316,179
8.) Plano, Texas ~ 273,613*
9.) Henderson, Nevada ~ 256,445
10.) Greensboro, North Carolina 255,124

* Disneyland is located here.
** Somewhat amusing fact: Plano has been consistently chosen as one of the best places to live in the United States. The area has good schools, an extremely low poverty rate and very little crime. I wonder how quicjly social order will fall apart.

I've kept on Las Vegas in hopes that either the missile likely aimed for Nellis either A.) hit the base but only did minimal damage to the city itself B.) was shot down before reaching its destination or C.) was a dud. If not, then the tenth largest city becomes Jersey City with a population of about 223,532 in the 1980s.


Living in Cleveland is going to be an extremely surreal experience. Like most of northern Ohio it seems to have recieved little damage, with the closest detonation being in Akron. After decades of decline, they will have become one of the most important cities in the world overnight. Furthermore, going off of a map of the wind patterns in the continental US, Cleveland along with Toledo will only recieve mild fallout.


Not sure about long term survival for the area though. Although there are a lot of farms in the Greater Cleveland area, I expect many of them will be rendered unusable by fallout. Then there is the issue of lake effect snow and fleeing survivors.
 
I think Oklahoma City is probably gone too. The runways at Tinker AFB are 16 km (10 miles) from the centre of Oklahoma City and are sure to be targeted. Two large runways (so multiple ground strikes to be sure to put them out of order), 25,000 air force and civilian personnel and one of the Air Force's three main logistics hubs - the Soviets will probably put redundant warheads on the place just to be sure.

The northern suburbs of the city might be habitable depending on fallout patterns but probably not.
 
If not, then the tenth largest city becomes Jersey City with a population of about 223,532 in the 1980s.


...


Jersey City is kind of close to NYC.

It's right across the Hudson River from Manhattan, accessible by the Holland Tunnel.

I'd be worried for the NYC metro area in general, and Jersey City is really close.
 
Depends on the size of the warhead(s) and the DGZ on what damage is done to nearby towns/cities. E.g. Nellis AFB is huge, but a lot of it are ranges which the Soviets are hardly going to waste a warhead on; a lot of settlements adjacent to Nellis are likely to avoid major damage.

IIRC we did discuss what damage a 1.4 MT warhead used against Nellis AFB would do to Las Vegas and from using Ground Zero II it was pretty clear that most of the city would escape serious damage. Sunrise Manor will be gone and North Las Vegas badly damaged, but further out in places like Spring Valley and Henderson even windows won't be broken. Worst thing there would be temporary blindness.

What about fallout from the blast, and lingering radiation around Ground Zero? How much of Vegas would be habitable?
 
References to B-52s reminds me of the urban legend about the portions of the U.S. Interstate highway system having been developed for emergency use by the military in case of war. I won't presume that the military had extensive contingency plans for commandeering a stretch of interstate somewhere, but in this TL I do wonder if the military may have decided to do so after the fact, due to usable runways having been knocked out in the exchange.
 

Tovarich

Banned
References to B-52s reminds me of the urban legend about the portions of the U.S. Interstate highway system having been developed for emergency use by the military in case of war. I won't presume that the military had extensive contingency plans for commandeering a stretch of interstate somewhere, but in this TL I do wonder if the military may have decided to do so after the fact, due to usable runways having been knocked out in the exchange.
I know (if "know"= having seen a documentary about V-Force on the History Channel) that sections of M/A road were eyed as emergency runways, but it was more a case of the RAF looking at roads already there/planned for civilian traffic use, rather than roads being laid as potential runways.

I'd imagine the same applies in the US, where straight lengthy stretches of road would occur naturally, anyway?
 
So, adjusting the list accordingly we have this:

1.) Las Vegas, Nevada ~ 567,641
2.) Oklahoma City, Oklahoma ~ 560,333
3.) Cleveland, Ohio ~ 431,369
4.) Raleigh, North Carolina ~ 405,612
5.) Anaheim, California ~ 337,896*
6.) Aurora, Colorado ~ 323,348
7.) Toledo, Ohio ~ 316,179
8.) Plano, Texas ~ 273,613*
9.) Henderson, Nevada ~ 256,445
10.) Greensboro, North Carolina 255,124

* Disneyland is located here.
** Somewhat amusing fact: Plano has been consistently chosen as one of the best places to live in the United States. The area has good schools, an extremely low poverty rate and very little crime. I wonder how quicjly social order will fall apart.

I've kept on Las Vegas in hopes that either the missile likely aimed for Nellis either A.) hit the base but only did minimal damage to the city itself B.) was shot down before reaching its destination or C.) was a dud. If not, then the tenth largest city becomes Jersey City with a population of about 223,532 in the 1980s.


Living in Cleveland is going to be an extremely surreal experience. Like most of northern Ohio it seems to have recieved little damage, with the closest detonation being in Akron. After decades of decline, they will have become one of the most important cities in the world overnight. Furthermore, going off of a map of the wind patterns in the continental US, Cleveland along with Toledo will only recieve mild fallout.


Not sure about long term survival for the area though. Although there are a lot of farms in the Greater Cleveland area, I expect many of them will be rendered unusable by fallout. Then there is the issue of lake effect snow and fleeing survivors.

I'd make the point that perhaps Baltimore got lucky, but considering the number of other bombs in the area, including on miltary targets, perhaps Baltimore actually was unlucky. There will be a lot of people there, with lots of fallout, very few supplies and no easy way out. It's a delayed action megatomb.

RDU is 15km from Raleigh and RTP about the same distance. That's probably far enough away for Raleigh to survive.

Anaheim might not get a direct hit (SNA is a short runway) , but LA will have had several and there could be attacks on Long Beach, Long Beach airport, Los Alamitos and the Naval Weapon station not far from it. King Rat's empire might be useful however in providing accomodation etc.

Aurora - Buckley AFB includes the 460th Space Wing. Bound to be a target and it's not far from the centre of Aurora.

I can't see any obvious reason to nuke Toledo, but TOL (16km away) has got one of those nice long runways that BUFF's like.

Plano looks ok, but lots of refugees from the rest of the Metroplex.
 
I know (if "know"= having seen a documentary about V-Force on the History Channel) that sections of M/A road were eyed as emergency runways, but it was more a case of the RAF looking at roads already there/planned for civilian traffic use, rather than roads being laid as potential runways.

I'd imagine the same applies in the US, where straight lengthy stretches of road would occur naturally, anyway?

I know from several newspaper articles that here and there, stretches of the FRG-Autobahn system had been designed to be quickly equipped as emergency airbases.

I pass by one of those each day while commuting to Münster. There is an almost 3km long strip of dead-straight Autobahn (not as usual in Germany as in other places), with unusually large rest-areas set at each end of the strip. Additionally, the section in between lanes had, until the early 2000s, no plants etc., as is usual, but was just set in concrete.

For some pictures of military exercises, see:

http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autobahn-Behelfsflugplatz

---

By the way, the first time I felt compelled to add something to this excellent thread. Hard to believe that this timeline's author is too young to be a Cold-War-ContemporarY!
 
What about fallout from the blast, and lingering radiation around Ground Zero? How much of Vegas would be habitable?

An air base would likely be hit by an air burst so there'd be no fall out. There would be a lake formed precisely at GZ where the pressure of blast would push the ground down, the immediate area would also become glass.
 
So, adjusting the list accordingly we have this:

1.) Las Vegas, Nevada ~ 567,641
2.) Oklahoma City, Oklahoma ~ 560,333
3.) Cleveland, Ohio ~ 431,369
4.) Raleigh, North Carolina ~ 405,612
5.) Anaheim, California ~ 337,896*
6.) Aurora, Colorado ~ 323,348
7.) Toledo, Ohio ~ 316,179
8.) Plano, Texas ~ 273,613*
9.) Henderson, Nevada ~ 256,445
10.) Greensboro, North Carolina 255,124

* Disneyland is located here.
** Somewhat amusing fact: Plano has been consistently chosen as one of the best places to live in the United States. The area has good schools, an extremely low poverty rate and very little crime. I wonder how quicjly social order will fall apart.

I've kept on Las Vegas in hopes that either the missile likely aimed for Nellis either A.) hit the base but only did minimal damage to the city itself B.) was shot down before reaching its destination or C.) was a dud. If not, then the tenth largest city becomes Jersey City with a population of about 223,532 in the 1980s.


Living in Cleveland is going to be an extremely surreal experience. Like most of northern Ohio it seems to have recieved little damage, with the closest detonation being in Akron. After decades of decline, they will have become one of the most important cities in the world overnight. Furthermore, going off of a map of the wind patterns in the continental US, Cleveland along with Toledo will only recieve mild fallout.


Not sure about long term survival for the area though. Although there are a lot of farms in the Greater Cleveland area, I expect many of them will be rendered unusable by fallout. Then there is the issue of lake effect snow and fleeing survivors.

Well, if Cleveland is going to live, why not Cincinnati, too? :D

{P.S. don't think Plano, TX would fare too well here, either, especially if a 1983: Doomsday scenario had developed, where Dallas was destroyed by not just one, but 2 mid-range yield weapons.........would 9 megatons be sufficient?
 
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An air base would likely be hit by an air burst so there'd be no fall out. There would be a lake formed precisely at GZ where the pressure of blast would push the ground down, the immediate area would also become glass.

Wouldn't it make more sense to hit an airbase with a ground burst aimed at the main runway?
 
There would be no guarantee of hitting the runway, which width wise is a tiny target. Remember that the CEP of Soviet ICBMs was still measured in miles in some models, the best would probably manage half a mile, or so. Unless one is very lucky you've just dug a hole in a field.

An air burst will cause damage over a much wider area and take out all of the air base's facilities. If all of the hangars, repair facilities, fuel storage and aircraft are destroyed who cares about the runway?

Just look at some of the JIGSAW studies into attacks on British targets, they, IIRC, expected two air burst warheads on each target airfield. Ground bursts are used to dig out hardened targets like bunkers, or dockyards and ports.
 
About airbursts, groundbursts and runways,

Russian CEPs were not great but I am surprised that they were not tight enough to reasonably reliably put a grounbursts crater across a runway.

If the Russian missiles were that inaccurate wouldn't they have almost no counterforce capacity against silos, which are smaller and harder targets than runways? Why hide Mt Weather etc if the Russians can't destroy hardened targets? I am happy to accept that the Soviet threat was played up by the military and politicians for their own end but there being no counterforce threat to the US at all seems a bit extreme.

Still this has important implications if true - it would free up a couple of thousand Soviet warheads I had assumed would have been targeted on missile silos. If they were instead targeted at 1000 additional transport, industrial and military sites I think that would do a lot more damage to the US than blasting missile Silos in Nebraska.
 
Since I happen to get to Münster :D once or twice a year - whereabout is that strip ?

On the A43 between the exits of Nottuln and Dülmen-Nord.

They have changed some of the features in recent years, e.g. the midsection is planted now as on a usual strip of Autobahn. Also, some kind of stell-grid-tower on a rest-area has disappeared.
 
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