The A Land Of Black and Red Scars: Protect and Survive Australia

[Alex1guy]

Many, many more. Australia has entire states undamaged in this scenario, with only a few cities actually hit. Australian water problems are always overrated by foreigners; there'll actually be plenty more without Melbourne and Sydney sucking it up. Country areas in the eastern states will do just fine providing they aren't hit by fallout and/or civil war, and with support from the fully functional state governments in Tasmania, SA and (maybe) Queensland the state will do far better than any in the northern hemisphere.

I am of the belief too, that Australia would weather this storm far better than most. I was going to put the death toll around seven million to eight million by the time things stabalized and the government having largely escaped (given the timing, with the war heating up in Europe, I see Bob Hawke and his cabinet fleeing Canberra). The fact that the population is spread over a large area is to Australia's advantage. One question I have is, will New Zealand be hit.

 

[Lord Brisbane]

Many, many more. Australia has entire states undamaged in this scenario, with only a few cities actually hit. Australian water problems are always overrated by foreigners; there'll actually be plenty more without Melbourne and Sydney sucking it up. Country areas in the eastern states will do just fine providing they aren't hit by fallout and/or civil war, and with support from the fully functional state governments in Tasmania, SA and (maybe) Queensland the state will do far better than any in the northern hemisphere.

Although Wivenhoe dam was only partially completed at this point in the timeline, Somerset would be more than able to supply water for SEQ, and thats not including all the many hundreds of smaller damns and reservoirs that have supply. Also, the infrastructure could deliver water to certain areas (at this time, QR still had plenty of water wagons on the books for drought mitigation) if needed.

 

[Alex1guy]

EDIT: I meant would New Zealand be hit?

 

[Lord Brisbane]

EDIT: I meant would New Zealand be hit?

I would say something would be directed at either Auckland or Wellington purely for the reasoning that NZ could provide support in the post strike world for western assets and rebuilding and it wasn't till 84 that Lange issued the ban on American nuclear powered/armed ships but it wouldn't go unscathed IMO.

 

[Weaver]

It seems certain that we would have been hit, the only question is just how hard.

As pointed out by other posters, time-urgent targets like Harold Holt base, Pine Gap, Nurringar etc would have been covered by a FOBS system (SS-18) launched directly from the USSR. These are all tied in to the US Strategic C3 network and would have to go, probably in the first hour or so of the Exchange.

So far as the rest is concerned I visualise strikes from Soviet submarines using cruise missiles to retard recovery. I imagine the ACT plus all state capitals at a minimum and in addition any airports capable of taking large aircraft etc plus any Army, Navy and Air Force assets not covered by the first categories. These strikes could have taken place up to several weeks after the initial attacks.

There would have been very substantial surviving populations, at least 8 millions, most of whom would have been living in areas untouched by the war.

 

[Weaver]

Oops, missed the edit re NZ.

Whether NZ gets hit or not depends very much on the inclination of surviving Soviet submarine captains. Can't see any formal preplanned targetting of NZ, no point to it and the Kiwis have no strategic relevance at all in this context.

 

[Lord Brisbane]

The smack of firm, but slightly corrupt leadership.

Well it means maintaining control would be easier (providing Brisbane isn't hit) as the public service and the police all have clear control from the Premiers office.

I think though that there are a number of targets of military value (some of which are near or in cities, would the Soviets "waste" nukes on the cities Brisbane, Adelaide, Hobart just for the sake of it when there are plenty of more worthwhile targets? Sydney and Melbourne and Canberra for sure and Darwin and Perth as well (for military targets, city just a collatoral target).

 

[Dominic]

An undamaged New Zealand would change everything as far as Australia is concerned. A fully functioning, undistracted first world state which just happened to be really good friends with Australia would be of untold value. I'd be entirely unsurprised if within ten years the entire region was more or less functioning 'normally', considering that fallout in a country with as few actual hits as Australia would be a minor problem and that there is _no_ third party which would have either the capability or interest in causing trouble. An undamaged New Zealand, though not the most likely outcome, leaves the Australasian region with an unparalleled ability to rebuild.

 

[HaroldWinthrop]

I've based this on a list I found of top 40 targets. While probably not a reliable site, (the creator sounds paranoid IMO, but who am I to judge) but he did produce a list of probable targets. Since P/S seems to go for the worst case scenario I was liberal with who and where was hit.

If you accept Weaver's vignettes as canon, it was claimed Australia was attacked by 'at least seven weapons' during the February 1984 exchange with targets claimed to be:

• Brisbane
• Canberra

And confirmed strikes on

• Townsville
• Cairns (post-exchange)

The other four targets with a minimum strike of seven weapons on Australia would include:

• Sydney (fleet base & dry dock)

and the three C3I facilities part of the US strategic tracking and communications programme:

• Alice Springs (Pine Gap)
• Woomera (Nurrungar)
• Exmouth (North West Cape)

Some other targets might include

• Perth
• Darwin

particularly if the previous Fraser government pushed further plans for B52 basing in Darwin and home porting of a US carrier battlegroup in Perth and maintained by the Hawke government in the run-up to the Exchange.

If the Soviets really wanted to mess things up, hitting Adelaide, Whyalla, Newcastle, Wollongong, Port Hedland, Port Pirie and some additional warheads on Sydney, Melbourne, etc would reduce Australia's industrial capacity for reconstruction, in addition to the military targets in the AusSurvivalist list: http://www.aussurvivalist.com/nuclear/top40targets.htm

 

[Archangel]

Subscribed, Alex!

 

[Das_Colonel]

Finally - kudos to you for picking it up.

You may also want to look into the Kojarena ECHELON facility, situated just out of Geraldton, WA. I couldn't find any info on when it was constructed though.

If it was around in the 1980s, I could see that getting hit.

 

[Hörnla]

Subscribed. I agree with the tenor here that a range of 10-20 strikes on Australia is within what the P&S-universe sees as the expected scope of devastation.

I cannot imagine NZ to escape completely unscathed.

 

[Aussie Dingbat]

Really interested to see where you take this, subscribed.

 

[Dunois]

Australia will be blessed post war by the fact that it is sufficient in almost everything, chiefly coal, iron ore and a lot of agricultural commodities. Starvation in Australia is out of the question and let alone famine, so survival rates post exchange will be much higher than in many other places.

The only problem I can see in the case of Australia will be the lack of crude oil and petroleum. But even then New Zealand has a Mobil process plant to make gasoline from natural gas and methanol so things won't be too bad, but rationing will inevitably be implemented in some form.

One vignette from Weaver posits an Indonesian invasion of the north, which while plausible in the "it's now or never" sense I think is a bit too far fetched. Indonesia has likely been hit itself and should have way bigger fishes to fry. In a cold strategic manner, it is frankly in Australia best interest if the country collapses and the death toll increases over there to be fair.

 

[Bernard Woolley]

With regards to New Zealand I'd say yes, it would be hit. Probably a weapon on Wellington and Auckland on the basis of 'equalisation of misery' and to have them a bit too busy rebuilding themselves to help anyone else.

I reckon somebody will have hit Indonesia too, taking out Jakarta at least. They may well be too busy with their own internal affairs to bother with Oz.

 

[Hörnla]

I reckon somebody will have hit Indonesia too, taking out Jakarta at least. They may well be too busy with their own internal affairs to bother with Oz.

I agree and I ask myself if Indonesia would actually possess the capability to do so.
Also Australia's Army would Be busy, but Not destroyed, considering the Target List in Australia.

I would Even say that a Loss of 8 Million is Too high. My Own Offizial Swiss estimates go for a Population Reduction of less than 5 millions.

 

[Lord Brisbane]

The only problem I can see in the case of Australia will be the lack of crude oil and petroleum.

Depending on where was hit, a few of the refineries, which are small by international standards, might survive intact.

In terms of crude production, there are numerous small fields which could keep a minimum of essential supply maintained including:
Moonie,
Roma (the Surat fields)
Jackson
Eromanga
Tirrawarra
Julia Creek (Oil Shale)
and smaller oil shale deposits along the QLD coast, which may not have been economical to extract pre exchange.
Tirrawarra
Eromanga Basin

And in the long term, the Great Barrier reef (not to many tourists...)

 

[HaroldWinthrop]

Depending on where was hit, a few of the refineries, which are small by international standards, might survive intact.

In terms of crude production, there are numerous small fields which could keep a minimum of essential supply maintained including:
Moonie,
Roma (the Surat fields)
Jackson
Eromanga
Tirrawarra
Julia Creek (Oil Shale)
and smaller oil shale deposits along the QLD coast, which may not have been economical to extract pre exchange.
Tirrawarra
Eromanga Basin

And in the long term, the Great Barrier reef (not to many tourists...)

The key oil and gas field which may (or may not) be untouched in a nuclear attack on Australia would be the Bass Strait fields of SE Australia. The most vulnerable part is the onshore processing plant at Longford (Victoria) that distributes crude oil via pipeline to the BP refinery at Westernport, the Mobil refinery at Altona and the Shell refinery at Corio.
Longford also would have handled in 1984 the majority of Victoria's natural gas supply for domestic and industrial use. By the early 1980s most of Melbourne and the regional Victoria cities were connected to reticulated natural gas supply. Bass Strait oil and gas was deemed sufficiently important in the 1970s and 1980s that the Royal Australian Navy regularly deployed boats to patrol the offshore rigs.

The kind of economic disruption the loss of oil and gas from Bass Strait alone would wreak on Victoria was seen in 1998 when an explosion at Longford halted natural gas supplies for 20 days: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Esso_Longford_gas_explosion

 

[HaroldWinthrop]

I reckon somebody will have hit Indonesia too, taking out Jakarta at least. They may well be too busy with their own internal affairs to bother with Oz.

It's likely the destruction of the Javanese empire would cause Indonesia to fracture, with the kind of communal violence seen after the fall of Sukarno being greatly magnified and destabilisation occurring across the region, affecting Malaysia, Singapore, the Phillipines, Australia and Thailand. A natural reaction for many on the outer islands (and Java too) might be to take to the boats and head south. It would certainly make the Australian Government's current problems IOTL with 'illegal boat arrivals' of refugees look trifling by comparison.

 

[Chipperback]

Welcome to the Party, Oz!
If Australia does end up surviving well...This Ad could be running in Nebraska
"We love football, Runzas, buffaloes, and Holden Cars."