Voices of Doomsday

[GDIS Pathe]

May I ask why Boston was nuked considering that Vespucci's TL stated that the US Regulus subs mirrored the successes of their Soviet counterparts which was no success all subs sunk and lost with all hands and I find hard to believe a Soviet submarine managed to get into range of its missile surface and not get sunk by a USN that has already been fighting WW3 for the past day or so

 

[Lost Freeway]

May I ask why Boston was nuked considering that Vespucci's TL stated that the US Regulus subs mirrored the successes of their soviet counterparts which was no success all subs sunk and lost with all hands and I find hard to beieve a Soviet subamrine managed to get into range of its missile surface and not get sunk by a USN that has already been fighting WW3 for the past day or so

Psst, ever heard of this thing called punctuation?

 

[Shevek23]

May I ask why Boston was nuked considering that Vespucci's TL stated that the US Regulus subs mirrored the successes of their soviet counterparts which was no success all subs sunk and lost with all hands and I find hard to beieve a Soviet subamrine managed to get into range of its missile surface and not get sunk by a USN that has already been fighting WW3 for the past day or so

Fog of war? The vast majority of Soviet submarines were well tracked by USN before the conflict escalated, and relentlessly pursued and sunk over the days of naval war. The Soviet missile subs were especially vulnerable, and all that attempted to surface and fire their airborne cruise missiles, which had short range, during those intensive days were located and destroyed before they could do this--the few surviving the submarine chase quickly sunk in the process of attempting to fire after the Soviets gave the go code.

And I think AV was largely silent on the question of just how Soviet submarines would get a general order to launch--giving them the order by broadcast radio before the land-based first strikee was complete would give NATO powers early warning and ample cause to launch their assets before they could be preempted, so any broadcast order would have to be delayed, and waiting for a time when WP assets, including signal stations, not to mention intra-bloc communications, would be degraded by Western counterstrikes.

Submarines, especially subs trying to evade a determined USN effort to hunt them down and kill them, would generally be out of communication, submerged and unable to receive normal radio. The USN developed ultra-low frequency systems that I suppose deeply submerged and buttoned-down subs might be able to hear, but I'm not sure when, and even less confident was a Soviet asset in 1962.

Probably sub commanders had standing orders (to be countersigned by the on board political officer no doubt) to use discretion should it become evident the USSR was badly damaged.

Saying that the USN was very successful in clearing the seas of Soviet naval assets is not say positively that they got every single one however. Possibly some subs were scattered far and wide, and others were lucky in evading attacks and subsequent tracking. Once the majority of subs were known to be sunk (and in how many cases did the Navy believe they had sunk one, but were mistaken?) the Navy would scatter on various other tasks. As weeks and months go by, a single vessel whose commander and crew are evidently some combination of lottery lucky and skilled creeps cautiously into range of some American target. By listening to radio they make deductions about which American targets are already lost, and focus on attempting one they might get positive intelligence is unharmed--say by identifying that city's radio and TV stations, or picking up positive statements it is all right out of radio chatter. Thus they focus on Boston. The USN has plenty of force with nothing better to do than watch for unswept Soviet subs to be sure, but the high alert conditions of wartime give way to exhausted post-conflict mentalities. There might be a Soviet boomer out there--but what are the odds? Meanwhile there are convoys of returning US survivors from Europe to repatriate. Meanwhile resources are tight, and the USN might be tasked with a thousand miscellaneous duties. And no one knows which target a rouge surviving Soviet vessel might choose; they all have to be covered.

Nor did the USN come out of the war undamaged itself--quite a few Soviet targets were able to take some attackers down with them, the ratio being about 1 US hull lost to every 2 Soviet sunk.

So it is not that crazy that one cruise missile sub can get in range of a coastal city like Boston, and have time to surface and fire. A cruise missile might be intercepted, but coming out of a blue sky it is entirely possible the air defenses--depleted like the Navy by heavy demands on the disrupted resource supply chain and distracted by weeks of apparent peace after a brutal trauma--might not detect it in time, or might miss. The sub itself has betrayed its position and is likely now doomed to be sure, but it will fire its whole arsenal (possibly just the one missile) immediately therefore.

Once one has done this, I suppose Naval and air defense forces will be belatedly knocked together and raised in priority; the navy will drop everything and go on a mouse hunt. A second or third Soviet missile sub will have a harder time. But by the same token, it will never be certain there can't be one or two more...

 

[GDIS Pathe]

The Soviets only have 7 Hotels class subs. They have to surface to launch within 600km of Boston Harbor patrolled by a USAF and USN paranoid for any Soviet subs no way it's gonna be to the surface before being nailed by an ASW aircraft. The USN will be at full wartime mobilization 24/7 patrols over the Atlantic. The Soviet subs will be sunk before the launch unless the USN and USAF had suddenly become massively incompetent

 

[Historyman 14]

I forgot, or never read it, but what ever happen to Yugoslavia? And Austria?

Iran had a 25 year civil war, but was getting better. Anything on it?

Jordan still has Jerusalem, right?

 

[GDIS Pathe]

Just doing some double checking here italic parts are from ver 1.8

Hanford, Washington; Arco, Idaho; Loring AFB; Larson AFB; and Mountain Home AFB are taken by bomber plus Seatle Minneapolis and 9 Canadian cities in addition to the ICBM targets

as for SSBNs only 3! submarines survived the war, so I stand by my point it is highly likely the Soviet silent service failed to destroy and major city

US Navy vessels on the quarantine line and around the world acknowledge the presidential order. Over the next twenty minutes, 17 Soviet ships will be sunk around the world. Six American ships will join them at the bottom of the sea.

That means any Soviet submarine tracked by USN or USAF assets will be sunk and the US goes to war footing again any Soviet SSBN will have to penetrate multiple layers of defense and then surface which is a virtual death sentence for at least 30 minutes during that time it is highly like to be obliterated by a nuclear weapon especially around naval bases. And going be the TL which states only 3 Soviet subs survived the war I'm very much convinced that the Soviet subs failed in their job.

 

[GDIS Pathe]

I forgot, or never read it, but what ever happen to Yugoslavia? And Austria?

Iran had a 25 year civil war, but was getting better. Anything on it?

Jordan still has Jerusalem, right?

Tito still around he mediated a truce between NATO and Warpact I believe

Iran is democracy, and the country is getting back on its feet

Isreal kicked their neighbor's asses in a two-week conflict

 

[Lost Freeway]

Just doing some double checking here italic parts are from ver 1.8

Hanford, Washington; Arco, Idaho; Loring AFB; Larson AFB; and Mountain Home AFB are taken by bomber plus Seatle Minneapolis and 9 Canadian cities in addition to the ICBM targets

as for SSBNs only 3! submarines survived the war, so I stand by my point it is highly likely the Soviet silent service failed to destroy and major city

US Navy vessels on the quarantine line and around the world acknowledge the presidential order. Over the next twenty minutes, 17 Soviet ships will be sunk around the world. Six American ships will join them at the bottom of the sea.

That means any Soviet submarine tracked by USN or USAF assets will be sunk and the US goes to war footing again any Soviet SSBN will have to penetrate multiple layers of defense and then surface which is a virtual death sentence for at least 30 minutes during that time it is highly like to be obliterated by a nuclear weapon especially around naval bases. And going be the TL which states only 3 Soviet subs survived the war I'm very much convinced that the Soviet subs failed in their job.

Are you gonna keep harping on this until the author changes it?

 

[Michel Van]

Just doing some double checking here italic parts are from ver 1.8
Hanford, Washington; Arco, Idaho; Loring AFB; Larson AFB; and Mountain Home AFB are taken by bomber plus Seatle Minneapolis and 9 Canadian cities in addition to the ICBM targets
as for SSBNs only 3! submarines survived the war, so I stand by my point it is highly likely the Soviet silent service failed to destroy and major city
US Navy vessels on the quarantine line and around the world acknowledge the presidential order. Over the next twenty minutes, 17 Soviet ships will be sunk around the world. Six American ships will join them at the bottom of the sea.
That means any Soviet submarine tracked by USN or USAF assets will be sunk and the US goes to war footing again any Soviet SSBN will have to penetrate multiple layers of defense and then surface which is a virtual death sentence for at least 30 minutes during that time it is highly like to be obliterated by a nuclear weapon especially around naval bases. And going be the TL which states only 3 Soviet subs survived the war I'm very much convinced that the Soviet subs failed in their job.

Some note on that:

Soviet bomber had little chance to get in American Airspace nearly zero
First Interceptors from Alaska, Canada and USA will welcome them some are Armed with Air to Air missile with Nuklear Warhead.
next to that are Fighter squadrons on second level of defense
The third level of defense: the USA was literal paved with sites with Nike-Hercules anti aircraft missiles and some got a Nuklear Warhead.
but this system work only 100% if there NORAD coordination centers are intact, take them out with ICBM strike,
Now the system work localized, but still bloody effective for every Soviet bomber in there range.
so some of those bomber can escape the carnage and complete there murderous mission.

After sinking of US Aircraft carrier by Soviet sub with a Nuclear Torpedo
The US Navy known now HOW deadly are the Soviets Sub.
once the War start the US navy will strike back on every Soviet sub, they will get in there hands.
either by hunter submarines, Air-patrol, fleet true Sonar (local, fleet, air drop probe) will get Soviet sub and sink it
by torpedoes, rocket or Nuclear bomb. US navy not care so long soviet subs never surface again.
same goes for Soviet military Harbors they get visit by USAF & US Navy with a "delivery"

"Delivery" that innocent term is use in the SIOP-62 paper for nuclear mass murder...

 

[Lost Freeway]

Some note on that:

Soviet bomber had little chance to get in American Airspace nearly zero
First Interceptors from Alaska, Canada and USA will welcome them some are Armed with Air to Air missile with Nuklear Warhead.
next to that are Fighter squadrons on second level of defense
The third level of defense: the USA was literal paved with sites with Nike-Hercules anti aircraft missiles and some got a Nuklear Warhead.
but this system work only 100% if there NORAD coordination centers are intact, take them out with ICBM strike,
Now the system work localized, but still bloody effective for every Soviet bomber in there range.
so some of those bomber can escape the carnage and complete there murderous mission.

After sinking of US Aircraft carrier by Soviet sub with a Nuclear Torpedo
The US Navy known now HOW deadly are the Soviets Sub.
once the War start the US navy will strike back on every Soviet sub, they will get in there hands.
either by hunter submarines, Air-patrol, fleet true Sonar (local, fleet, air drop probe) will get Soviet sub and sink it
by torpedoes, rocket or Nuclear bomb. US navy not care so long soviet subs never surface again.
same goes for Soviet military Harbors they get visit by USAF & US Navy with a "delivery"

"Delivery" that innocent term is use in the SIOP-62 paper for nuclear mass murder...

I don't get what you're trying to say.

 

[Michel Van]

I don't get what you're trying to say.

I'm German with bad grammatical english
Try Google Translate, maybe it can help

 

[Geon]

I originally wrote this for the 50th anniversary of the Cuban Missile Crisis on the Cuban Missile War Timeline. At that time this thread wasn't even in its earliest creative stages. Now that it is full-blown however, I would like to re-submit this speech and hope everyone who didn't see it the first time around enjoys it.
----------
My fellow Americans, today we pause to remember possibly the greatest tragedy in human history. Fifty years ago today the United States was a nation optimistically looking ahead to the challenges of the latter half of the 20th century. We had a handsome young charismatic president who believed that anything was possible for America. He called us to ask not what our country could do for us but what we could do for our country. And he laid down a challenge for us to put a man on the moon and return him safely to the Earth.

Already we had taken our first steps to fulfilling that vision. In project Mercury we had successfully achieved the goal of sending men into space and successfully returning them to the Earth. The names of Alan Shepherd and John Glenn still resonate with us. We were reaching for the stars. Those of us who remember those days have made them an idyllic golden age in our memories and in our culture.

Then came the events of the last week in October, 1962 that totally changed our world forever. In the matter of a few days we were transformed from an optimistic nation with a "can do" attitude toward the future to a nation struggling to survive the brutal aftermath of an atomic war.

Millions of our people died both in the first days of the war and in the aftermath that followed. We found the freedoms we had fought so hard for not only in previous wars but in this final war were taken away from us by an ambitious and self-serving politician who sought to make himself a dictator and take advantage of this tragedy. We saw our greatest cities including the one we stand in now, leveled to ruins and the work of countless generations destroyed in seconds.

The war tore away for a time our hope and our idealism and forced us to deal with grim realities. We buried our dead, we cared for our injured, we rebuilt our lives as best we could. But the vision for America never truly died, it underwent a transformation.

In his, now famous, "Like a Phoenix", speech President Martin Luther King said, "Like the legendary phoenix which was reborn from his own ashes so we are seeing America be reborn." We have now seen that rebirth in our national rebuilding effort, in the rebuilding of our military force into one that can truly protect our interests here and abroad. And we also see the rebirth of a dream. Within 6 months of today, the good Lord willing, we will see the next phase of the dream of John Fitzgerald Kennedy. Project Gemini, which was scheduled to follow Project Mercury will commence after 50 years. Once more America will reach for the Moon and the stars beyond. [sounds of applause]

Our nation today is not the nation of 50 years ago. We have changed and we have grown older and wiser. It is a wisdom built on the blood of millions both here and around the world. As we remember the events of 50 years ago here, around the world others remember these tragic events in London, in Paris, in Berlin, in Rome, and elsewhere. Much has been lost. Much of our culture and our links with the past are gone in the destruction of priceless works of art in art galleries, of priceless books in the great libraries of the world. These cannot be replaced. Even more irreplacable are the lives that were lost. We stand today near a cenotaph that marks one of the many mass graves that were dug here to bury the dead. It's inscription haunts us today, "Dedicated to the memory of those who died in the nuclear strike on Washington, D.C. on October, 30, 1962. May their names be remembered before God."

May we also remember. May we remember the loved ones who died that day that many of us still cherish in our hearts. May we remember the hope and idealism of those days and work for it to live again in our day in the hearts of our young people as we urge them on to continue the great work of rebuilding this nation and this world. May we as Americans pause and reflect this day not only what has passed but let us look forward with hope to what lies ahead.

I close this speech with words that were uttered at the dedication of another place of rest over 149 years ago, I believe that they are appropriate here at the dedication of this cenotaph. "That we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain, that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government, of the people, by the people, and for the people shall not perish from the Earth."

Thank you,

-Speech by President Donald Evans commemorating the 50th anniversary of the Third World War and the Cenotaphs for the mass graves in Arlington Memorial Park, October 30, 2012, Washington, D.C. (now restored as the capital)

 

[Vikingstar]

I don't get what you're trying to say.

I think (And Michael can correct me if I'm mistaken) that he was agreeing with GDIS Pathe about how few successful attacks the Soviets would manage in 1962 against North America.

 

[Lost Freeway]

I think (And Michael can correct me if I'm mistaken) that he was agreeing with GDIS Pathe about how few successful attacks the Soviets would manage in 1962 against North America.

Oh, OK.

 

[GDIS Pathe]

So what does the world look like in 2012? Is there a Belgium and a Netherlands? Is Germany a thing again is Eastern Europe still a death trap is China still around is Russia still gone?

 

[Geon]

So what does the world look like in 2012? Is there a Belgium and a Netherlands? Is Germany a thing again is Eastern Europe still a death trap is China still around is Russia still gone?

I'll be answering some of these questions in a later post here. I will simply say this however. Political/Social order begins to break down east of the Rhine and gets worse the farther east you go.

Like it or not, in the CMW timeline China came out the major "winner" in the war by gaining a big chunk of Soviet Siberia and beyond.

And in OTL 2017 there are 10 nuclear powers - I am including nations not "officially" yet in the nuclear club.

In the post CMW TL there are 12 nuclear powers - three of them in the Western Hemisphere. (note-this is according to Amerigo's TL)

I will go into detail on this later.

 

[Vikingstar]

In 2012 most of the radiation would be gone, except in localized places that took surface hits. But with the overwhelming number of hits that Eastern Europe took, there would be very little left to rebuild with, i would think. Ditto Germany (East and West). There probably would have been very few survivors in Eastern Europe after about a year, so I think that there would be scattered settlements, perhaps, but mostly just empty space and ruins. I don't know how much would have been left of Belgium or the Netherlands, but I think they would have been hit pretty hard as well.

I think that there would likely still be a China, but not a populous as today. I don't think that the Russians attacked China in the original timeline, and Kennedy ordered that China not be hit, so they would still have infrastructure after the fallout cleared. Were I them I would be tempted to make a move into Siberia.

Russia as such is gone--no Soviet Union, no central government, probably like Eastern Europe very low population in scattered settlements.

Edit: Ninja'd by Geon

 

[Michel Van]

On Belgium and Netherlands and remains of Germany will be issue here

Some notes
Rebuilding Washington, D.C. it will take some time until the Radioactive wasteland can be enter save and clean up can start.
Do Isotope decay, from 1992 on it safe to stay in area and not get radiation sickness, so rebuild can begin what is finish before 2012.
This goes also for London, Paris, Tokyo and other big cities who are destroyed with H-bombs
Off course you can speed thing up by sending prisoners to clean the mess up, as form of death penalty...

Project Gemini
What happen to Apollo ? that was NASA designation for JFK Moon Race in 1961.
Gemini was interim program original label Mercury mark II program.

 

[Geon]

On Belgium and Netherlands and remains of Germany will be issue here

Some notes
Rebuilding Washington, D.C. it will take some time until the Radioactive wasteland can be enter save and clean up can start.

Project Gemini
What happen to Apollo ? that was NASA designation for JFK Moon Race in 1961.
Gemini was interim program original label Mercury mark II program.

As to rebuilding Washington, D.C. a lot will depend on how much rainfall there is in the area between 1962 and 2000. However, assuming the warheads that hit were airbursts and not ground bursts it is likely the fallout could be cleared up much sooner.

With regard to Gemini note that President Evans says in the speech above that "America will reach for the Moon and the stars beyond." Gemini is needed before Apollo for two reasons. First: a new generation of astronauts has to relearn all the lessons that were learned in Mercury. Any of the original Mercury 7 that survived would now be passing on. So, you need Gemini to get that new generation acclimatized to space first. Second, remember that Gemini helped develop the skills needed to land a man on the Moon successfully: spacecraft rendezvous and docking, extra-vehicular activity, handling the psychological/physical demands of long-term space flights (long term in this case meaning more then 24 hours.) all needed to be mastered before Apollo would begin.

Apollo will still take place but I see it more likely that a Moon landing will happen by 2019 or 2020 in this TL.

 

[Lost Freeway]

Apologies if this question has already been answered but how far behind from OTL is TTL's technology in 2017?