There Is No Depression: Protect and Survive New Zealand

[Julius Vogel]

No worries. The book has come up a few times on the forums and I think 3 to 4 of us have copies too!

Re P&S, are you planning to have nukes hit NZ, I understand that the canon does state that? I've discussed this issue in the past in the thread below and had some great discussion.

https://www.alternatehistory.com/discussion/showthread.php?t=320118

 

[Mumbles]

Thank. You.

You have no idea how much I searched for this on the internet without once thinking to check the 100,000-odd works literally ten minutes down the street

CIT in Heretaunga had a copy or two as well. No idea where the contents of that library got to though, they'd be WelTec assets now I expect.

 

[Tsar of New Zealand]

Re P&S, are you planning to have nukes hit NZ, I understand that the canon does state that? I've discussed this issue in the past in the thread below and had some great discussion.

https://www.alternatehistory.com/discussion/showthread.php?t=320118

All in good time. We've still got some terrifying-arse days to cover before the Northern Hemisphere turns itself to ash, which will be the subject of update 2. Progress report: about 60% there, just have some IRL stuff to deal with first, and I'd like to give the finished product a couple days so I can make sure it's not, well, terrible. The feedback is reassuring though (ego quietly bloats)

An open question though; would people prefer future updates to follow the omniscient, textbook-like pattern so far, or character-focused updates which follow people we can come to know and love? And whom I can kill like GRRM on a writing binge

 

[Tsar of New Zealand]

UoA represent Nah, Vic would be great for politics (what I'm studying). What year/courses are you? (I ask because I've got heaps of mates down there)

Same here, and you pinned down my logic exactly Oh, and cause you ask, second year. Put it one way, any of your mates go to Weir House last year? I'm not a Law wanker, I promise

 

[Julius Vogel]

Well, I like both style of updates. You could always go for factual updates and sometimes do a narrative style if you think the story requires it.

Speaking for myself, I should be safe. I was a very small child in rural Otago at the time, on a farm. We were pretty far away from any towns or townships (15 to 20km) and none of those were very big or obvious targets.

If the Soviets get to the point that they start bombarding small rural service towns and isolated farm houses with no military or strategic significance then I suspect your story will be as simple as "Everyone died in the attacks. The end".

The only local targets I could think of would be:

1. Waitaki Bridge - cut that and SH1 is cut, the diversion being very long (60km up the river either side to Kurow).

2. The Waitaki hydro dam system. Hitting Benmore at the top of the 3 dam network would likely knock out the two below it and may also knock out Kurow and Waitaki bridges. The dams provided probably about 1/6th of NZ's power at the time.

3. Oamaru - small coastal port, probably a decade since coastal shipping largely stopped. Rail yards though.

 

[Maeglin]

Well, I like both style of updates. You could always go for factual updates and sometimes do a narrative style if you think the story requires it.

Speaking for myself, I should be safe. I was a very small child in rural Otago at the time, on a farm. We were pretty far away from any towns or townships (15 to 20km) and none of those were very big or obvious targets.

If the Soviets get to the point that they start bombarding small rural service towns and isolated farm houses with no military or strategic significance then I suspect your story will be as simple as "Everyone died in the attacks. The end".

The only local targets I could think of would be:

1. Waitaki Bridge - cut that and SH1 is cut, the diversion being very long (60km up the river either side to Kurow).

2. The Waitaki hydro dam system. Hitting Benmore at the top of the 3 dam network would likely knock out the two below it and may also knock out Kurow and Waitaki bridges. The dams provided probably about 1/6th of NZ's power at the time.

3. Oamaru - small coastal port, probably a decade since coastal shipping largely stopped. Rail yards though.

If we're dealing with south of the Waitaki river generally, there's the Tiwai Point Aluminium Smelter down in Southland that could be a target. Even Dunedin is less interesting (major city, but why nuke a University and a chocolate factory?).

(I reckon I'm safe too. I'm a very small child in Greymouth at this point - nuking the local coal mines would be a bit odd, since, well, the coal would still be there afterwards).

 

[Tsar of New Zealand]

Well, I like both style of updates. You could always go for factual updates and sometimes do a narrative style if you think the story requires it.

Speaking for myself, I should be safe. I was a very small child in rural Otago at the time, on a farm. We were pretty far away from any towns or townships (15 to 20km) and none of those were very big or obvious targets.

If the Soviets get to the point that they start bombarding small rural service towns and isolated farm houses with no military or strategic significance then I suspect your story will be as simple as "Everyone died in the attacks. The end".

I'm from a similar background in...okay, exactly the same area. Go figure.


...and how did you anticipate my account of the strategic nuclear strike on Otematata? The transportation hub for the entire southern Mackenzie country!

The only local targets I could think of would be:

1. Waitaki Bridge - cut that and SH1 is cut, the diversion being very long (60km up the river either side to Kurow).

2. The Waitaki hydro dam system. Hitting Benmore at the top of the 3 dam network would likely knock out the two below it and may also knock out Kurow and Waitaki bridges. The dams provided probably about 1/6th of NZ's power at the time.

3. Oamaru - small coastal port, probably a decade since coastal shipping largely stopped. Rail yards though.

Though if the Soviets were that desperate to cripple every part of New Zealand's transport infrastructure as to hit minor parts of the Southern Main Trunk, they could just as easily hit my family farm (which straddles said line). You have no idea how tempted this makes me to write in my grandad finding a dud nuke in the milking shed

The Waitaki dams have occurred to me; I feel like Manapouri would be a bigger target myself - knock it out, you've taken out Tiwai Point's power supply and thus a source of Allied aluminium. Or hit the smelter and cut out the middleman, as Maeglin said.


Not to give anything away, of course.

 

[Julius Vogel]

Hah! I'm now rather worried, what kind of sods are these 1980s Soviets, with their hatred of the people of Otemetata?! Now, Kurow I can understand, but Otemetata are peaceful, they have no weapons!

More seriously, I don't see that the Soviets are likely to hit anything south of Burnham, unless they've got a non trivial number of warheads spare. If they've got several dozens of missiles for the job, then all bets are off, but so far as I recall the canon story only suggested a couple and my view of the situation is that even that number seemed a bit unlikely.

The Soviets had a large diplomatic presence in NZ and were almost certainly pretty aware of what our military capabilities would be. They also were regular traders with New Zealand, for dairy and agricultural products. In turn, New Zealand had to import Soviet exports to help deal with the trade surplus (Lada cars!). I can't see why they'd see NZ as anything but a tenuous threat.

Some of the responders in the thread I linked earlier believe that there would be several possible launchers (submarines) that would likely move to target secondary or tertiary targets at some point. Largely in order to degrade likely strike backs at a later point.

 

[Mumbles]

Some of the responders in the thread I linked earlier believe that there would be several possible launchers (submarines) that would likely move to target secondary or tertiary targets at some point. Largely in order to degrade likely strike backs at a later point.

Seems vaguely plausible, but presumes the command and control would be around to exercise it, unless there are some "dead-hand" options involved which don't bear thinking about - everyone thinks they survived relatively unscathed until weeks or months later when they find out they were on borrowed time all along.

 

[Dan]

NZ threads seem to be like busses, wait ages for 1 then a load turn up at once...

 

[Mumbles]

Well, I like both style of updates. You could always go for factual updates and sometimes do a narrative style if you think the story requires it.

Speaking for myself, I should be safe. I was a very small child in rural Otago at the time, on a farm. We were pretty far away from any towns or townships (15 to 20km) and none of those were very big or obvious targets.

If the Soviets get to the point that they start bombarding small rural service towns and isolated farm houses with no military or strategic significance then I suspect your story will be as simple as "Everyone died in the attacks. The end".

The only local targets I could think of would be:

1. Waitaki Bridge - cut that and SH1 is cut, the diversion being very long (60km up the river either side to Kurow).

2. The Waitaki hydro dam system. Hitting Benmore at the top of the 3 dam network would likely knock out the two below it and may also knock out Kurow and Waitaki bridges. The dams provided probably about 1/6th of NZ's power at the time.

3. Oamaru - small coastal port, probably a decade since coastal shipping largely stopped. Rail yards though.

I was living in Lower Hutt then (and still do), so would have had a more ringside view of proceedings according to P+S canon.

A family joke at the time was no matter what happened, as long as the Griffins biscuit factory not far away from us in Gracefield stayed open to ensure a post apocalyptic supply of gingernuts we'd be fine


While realistically these days I wouldn't see Wellington getting more than one or two warheads, in the early 90's I did some pondering and came up with some extreme worst case MIRV target possibilities for Wellington:

1: Beehive. As a bonus even a smallish warhead here not only takes out the centre of government, but the port facilities, railyard, and urban motorway interchange to points north at Ngauranga as well.

2. Wellington airport. Wouldn't necessarily be rendered unusable from the Beehive strike due to Mt Vic being in-between. You might not be able to run strategic bombers out of the place but Hercs, Orions, and fighters can use it just fine.

3. Point Howard tanker terminal and Seaview storage tank farm in Lower Hutt. Major supply and storage point for POL for the lower North Island. Lots of industry and DSIR in the immediate area as well. Even if not directly struck they could burn for days/weeks.

4. Haywards Hill power substation in the Hutt Valley at Taita Gorge. Major link between North and South Island power generation and distribution hub for the lower North Island

5. Trentham Army Camp. Military target, nuff said.

 

[Mumbles]

An open question though; would people prefer future updates to follow the omniscient, textbook-like pattern so far, or character-focused updates which follow people we can come to know and love? And whom I can kill like GRRM on a writing binge

I prefer the former, as the latter seem to be harder to write convincingly

 

[Erin Go Bragh]

That book--New Zealand after Nuclear War--is it available as an ebook anywhere?

 

[Julius Vogel]

That book--New Zealand after Nuclear War--is it available as an ebook anywhere?

I couldn't find a copy that way last year, nor does it seem that Google Books has it. I'd suspect you would need to approach the author.

 

[Julius Vogel]

Seems vaguely plausible, but presumes the command and control would be around to exercise it, unless there are some "dead-hand" options involved which don't bear thinking about - everyone thinks they survived relatively unscathed until weeks or months later when they find out they were on borrowed time all along.

I thought it sounded a bit implausible, given that the boats would have to, in most circumstances, set off to the appropriate station, then likely re-target, all knowing that MAD had occurred.

 

[Julius Vogel]

I was living in Lower Hutt then (and still do), so would have had a more ringside view of proceedings according to P+S canon.

A family joke at the time was no matter what happened, as long as the Griffins biscuit factory not far away from us in Gracefield stayed open to ensure a post apocalyptic supply of gingernuts we'd be fine


While realistically these days I wouldn't see Wellington getting more than one or two warheads, in the early 90's I did some pondering and came up with some extreme worst case MIRV target possibilities for Wellington:

1: Beehive. As a bonus even a smallish warhead here not only takes out the centre of government, but the port facilities, railyard, and urban motorway interchange to points north at Ngauranga as well.

2. Wellington airport. Wouldn't necessarily be rendered unusable from the Beehive strike due to Mt Vic being in-between. You might not be able to run strategic bombers out of the place but Hercs, Orions, and fighters can use it just fine.

3. Point Howard tanker terminal and Seaview storage tank farm in Lower Hutt. Major supply and storage point for POL for the lower North Island. Lots of industry and DSIR in the immediate area as well. Even if not directly struck they could burn for days/weeks.

4. Haywards Hill power substation in the Hutt Valley at Taita Gorge. Major link between North and South Island power generation and distribution hub for the lower North Island

5. Trentham Army Camp. Military target, nuff said.

Having looked at the nuclear missile vs NZ thread, there seemed to be doubt as to whether there would be a MIRV or MRV. No one was quite sure what kind of subs would be sent our way. Could be a Delta/Golf/Kilo or whatever. Depending on the boat, they might have lots of MIRVs, or MRVs.

So for Wellington, I would imagine one would need to have 3 warheads - one for Central Wellington, which might hit the Petone docks, one for the airport/Mirimar (bases?), one for the base further north.

 

[Tsar of New Zealand]

Having looked at the nuclear missile vs NZ thread, there seemed to be doubt as to whether there would be a MIRV or MRV. No one was quite sure what kind of subs would be sent our way. Could be a Delta/Golf/Kilo or whatever. Depending on the boat, they might have lots of MIRVs, or MRVs.

So for Wellington, I would imagine one would need to have 3 warheads - one for Central Wellington, which might hit the Petone docks, one for the airport/Mirimar (bases?), one for the base further north.

Makes sense. Bear in mind that that is the _worst_ case scenario. Results may vary.

 

[Hrvatskiwi]

Same here, and you pinned down my logic exactly Oh, and cause you ask, second year. Put it one way, any of your mates go to Weir House last year? I'm not a Law wanker, I promise

No, a few of them are in there at the moment, but not last year. That first year-second year generation gap

 

[Julius Vogel]

No, a few of them are in there at the moment, but not last year. That first year-second year generation gap

Hah. I used to live next to Talavera station when I first moved to Wellington for uni, then just by the Kelburn terminus station.

 

[Mumbles]

Having looked at the nuclear missile vs NZ thread, there seemed to be doubt as to whether there would be a MIRV or MRV. No one was quite sure what kind of subs would be sent our way. Could be a Delta/Golf/Kilo or whatever. Depending on the boat, they might have lots of MIRVs, or MRVs.

So for Wellington, I would imagine one would need to have 3 warheads - one for Central Wellington, which might hit the Petone docks, one for the airport/Mirimar (bases?), one for the base further north.

Petone docks? The only dock in Petone is the wharf built in the 1880's