Recovery Time from 1962 World War Three

How much would 1962 WWIII set back technolgy?

  • 1 year

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • 2 years

    Votes: 2 1.7%
  • 4 years

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • 7 years

    Votes: 2 1.7%
  • 10 years

    Votes: 14 11.7%
  • 15 years

    Votes: 13 10.8%
  • 25 years

    Votes: 14 11.7%
  • 40 years

    Votes: 11 9.2%
  • 50 years

    Votes: 18 15.0%
  • 75 years

    Votes: 3 2.5%
  • 100 years

    Votes: 10 8.3%
  • 150 years

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • 200 years

    Votes: 2 1.7%
  • 300 years

    Votes: 2 1.7%
  • 500 years

    Votes: 1 0.8%
  • 1000 years

    Votes: 1 0.8%
  • Infinity

    Votes: 1 0.8%
  • I am unable to make a guess

    Votes: 10 8.3%
  • Technology would progress in a completely different direction

    Votes: 10 8.3%
  • Meaningless

    Votes: 6 5.0%

  • Total voters
    120
I've voted 25 years to get to a reasonable amount of time for recovery.

But! . . but! . . that's with the population at medieval levels.

A book called "One Second After" deals with the effects of a great die-off following a E.M.P attack similar to a nuclear attack.

But in 1962, most all electronics was still tube and selenium rectifier based, hardened to a pulse

1963, IMO would have been worse than 1816, climate wise. Northern Hemisphere would deal with fallout.

Population drop off?
yes.
Dark ages?
certainly not USA would not lose enough infrastructure for that to happen, and the Southern Hemisphere is all but untouched.
No tech loss, at all.
 
I'll say this though: I'm not sure how many targets in the USA can be hit with a nuclear missile strike, given the poor reliability state of Soviet ICBM's at the time. They'll be lucky to get 15-17 successful strikes before American retaliation wipes out much of the Soviet Union (we had 145 ICBM's on launch alert status).

In short, the USA will have more or less fully recovered within 50-75 years, while Europe and the Soviet Union would take as much as 150 years to recover.

USSR will be much longer, far worse than Chernobyl, USA far faster than 50Y

Germany and Japan were bombed flat by 1945, most cities with more than 100K pop. heavily damaged/ destroyed.
10 years, they had mostly recovered.
 
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USSR will be much longer, far worse than Chernobyl, USA far faster than 50Y

Germany and Japan were bombed flat by 1945, most cities with more than 100K pop. heavily damaged/ destroyed.
10 years, they had mostly recovered.

Yes, with intense help.

You are all also forgetting the nuclear winter.
 
USSR will be much longer, far worse than Chernobyl, USA far faster than 50Y

Germany and Japan were bombed flat by 1945, most cities with more than 100K pop. heavily damaged/ destroyed.
10 years, they had mostly recovered.

I think it would take about 75 years, given the need to be able to get back into the bombed-out cities safely so the demolition and rebuilding can finally begin. On short, the 2016 in that time line is when the demolition of the cities destroyed by the nuclear strikes can finally begin. By 2030, the USA will have pretty much recovered back to its pre-war economic level, though New York City would look VERY different, to say the least; it's even possible that if the Soviet warhead did detonate over Manhattan, the island itself would be better served by turning most, if not all, of the island into a memorial park and the New York City skyline starts up again in the Bronx, Queens and Brooklyn, along with new cities on the New Jersey side of the Hudson River.
 
One does not need to destroy the USA too to cause a nuclear winter. The USSR would drop bombs on Europe. China is also destroyed so the sticks and stones are not that far off.

It will get cold, lonely and cold.

even a full on strategic exchange in the 80s is unlikely to cause more than a rather short "nuclear autumn". even less so in the 60s
 
I think it would take about 75 years, given the need to be able to get back into the bombed-out cities safely so the demolition and rebuilding can finally begin. On short, the 2016 in that time line is when the demolition of the cities destroyed by the nuclear strikes can finally begin. By 2030, the USA will have pretty much recovered back to its pre-war economic level, though New York City would look VERY different, to say the least;

Their R-7 didn't have the range to hit NY

One of the reasons they wanted missiles in Cuba, as just being able to destroy Seattle or Bangor, and other far north cities wasn't enough to deter the USA
 
You are all also forgetting the nuclear winter.

Oh, I'd say that it has been accounted for. A: it is wildly exaggerated and B: the nuclear war would occur at the end of October, which in most of the northern hemisphere may as well be winter. Even in the worst case, it is not going to have an effect comparable to having the war in June.

All the casualties incurred are going to come from the nuclear attacks themselves, fallout, a disruption in the transportation network leading to food shortages (North America) or famine (Europe and Russia) and a lack of shelter. Some places (Russia, Europe) will be hit far worse than others (North America) with much of the world completely untouched.
 
Oh, I'd say that it has been accounted for. A: it is wildly exaggerated and B: the nuclear war would occur at the end of October, which in most of the northern hemisphere may as well be winter. Even in the worst case, it is not going to have an effect comparable to having the war in June.

That said, Tambora blowing up in April, 1815 made 1816 'Year without Summer' with hard frosts and snowfall in the USA in June.

But a 1961 event wouldn't put as much ash as high in the Mesosphere and Thermosphere as Tambora did, nor for as long, as it kept erupting thru August 1815

Saddam's deliberate firing of oil wells, the soot rarely got above 20,000 feet, well short of the Mesosphere where you need the particles to get long term cooling. Sagan, originator of the Nuclear Winter theory, thought those wellhead fires would act similar to his theory. They didn't. His model was wrong.

WWII Firestorms also had smoke rarely getting higher than that.

Like you say, radioactive fallout is the real problem
 

Geon

Donor
Cuban Missile TL

Amerigo's legendary TL on the Cuban Missile War posited it would be approximately 40 years before the U.S. was rebuilt although the psychological scars would last longer. I wrote a small piece on the thread which I don't know if it is considered canon that assumed the Capitol would return to a rebuilt Washington, D.C. around 2000 or so. Such a move would be a major step toward finishing the rebuilding.

Also, consider that the U.S. did not lose most of its industrial centers in the CMW TL. While there would be difficulties I could see us rebuilding the destroyed cities in less time then it took Japan and Germany to rebuild their cities following WW2 in OTL.

Geon
 
Their R-7 didn't have the range to hit NY

One of the reasons they wanted missiles in Cuba, as just being able to destroy Seattle or Bangor, and other far north cities wasn't enough to deter the USA

The R-16 certainly did though, and that represented the majority of deployed Soviet ICBM strength in Oct 1962. Very vulnerable to a first strike though.

Really, recovery time will depend on how the exchange goes down. USSR and Europe destroyed regardless, China probably but not necessarily heavily damaged. USA with 5-50 targets hit depending on who strikes first.

I think using the WW2 experience is flawed. Nuclear bombing is vastly more destructive from a population and physical perspective than conventional plus potential radiation effects. Also, the damage is sustained in a short period of time which magnifies the economic and societal disruption.

There will be climatic effects after an exchange of this magnitude - the original 1986 study may have been a bit off the mark but the using current climate models and a "small" exchange (India-Pakistan, 100 weapons) there was significant global cooling. It wouldn't be world-ending but shortened growing seasons added to disruption in agricultural and transport infrastructure and you're likely seeing famines for at least the first couple years post-exchange.

All in all, best case scenario (US first strike) you're looking at progress being set back at least 25 years. Worst case, more like a century. Agree that '62 exchange would be much better for humanity than an '83 one, where you're basically looking at the collapse of industrial civilization in the Northern Hemisphere at the very least and most probably much worse than that.
 
The R-16 certainly did though, and that represented the majority of deployed Soviet ICBM strength in Oct 1962. Very vulnerable to a first strike though.

I think that, what, two dozen were at launch ready status by time of the CMC? And the Mod1 wasn't the most reliable of missiles
 
I think that, what, two dozen were at launch ready status by time of the CMC? And the Mod1 wasn't the most reliable of missiles

This source says 50 deployed by 4.10.1962 with missiles 51 and 52 coming online 31.10.1962. Agree that reliability was a big issue, as it was for the US counterparts. Best case probably 50% launcher reliability, and that doesn't take accuracy into account (although with a 3-5 MT warhead missing a city center by 5 km is only small comfort :().
 
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