When the Wind Blew: a P&S Open Thread
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I'm working on a New York State hit map. However, there is some dispute in terms of Buffalo. "Don't Turn Your Back on the Wolf Pack" indicates a 1 megaton bomb that airburst over Buffalo, crippling a wide area. Link to my assessment. Earlier in this thread, Unknown had indicated three atomics going off in Downtown Buffalo, one at the airport, and one in Niagara falls. I'm going with Unknown's assessment for the moment.
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I'm not even going to try New York City. It's gone. G-o-w-n, gone. This map is obviously not canon, but it's the best I can guess from canon sources or theories in this thread. The strike icon is just an indicator of a central area hit. It is not an indicator of fallout radius or blast area radius. It's simply aesthetic. Also, in certain areas, icons are next to one another to indicate multiple nuclear hits over a limited target area. For example, West Point. In other areas, they're to indicate different targets hit. For example, Rochester includes a strike on it's downtown and the Rochester airport. Buffalo includes three strikes on it's downtown, and one on the Buffalo airport. Click for larger image.
EDIT:
I'm not even going to try New York City. It's gone. G-o-w-n, gone. This map is obviously not canon, but it's the best I can guess from canon sources or theories in this thread. The strike icon is just an indicator of a central area hit. It is not an indicator of fallout radius or blast area radius. It's simply aesthetic. Also, in certain areas, icons are next to one another to indicate multiple nuclear hits over a limited target area. For example, West Point. In other areas, they're to indicate different targets hit. For example, Rochester includes a strike on it's downtown and the Rochester airport. Buffalo includes three strikes on it's downtown, and one on the Buffalo airport. Click for larger image.
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That's pretty much what I meant, adding in details covered in the TLs but not in the overarching narrative on the wiki
New York City would be a primary target for an R-36M (SS-18 Satan) missile fitted with a 25 MT warhead. Detonated at an altitude of (maybe) 2.5 miles off the ground with the Empire State Building as the aiming point, the blast wave will essentially flatten or severely damage every building in Manhattan and most every other borough in New York City and probably flatten most of Newark, NJ, too.
That warhead was intended for strikes on C3 sites: NORAD, SAC HQ, and other sites. As well as high-altitude bursts to produce EMP.
You're a beacon of optimism, aren't you?
I just say that on account of you having predicted an even gloomier 25 megatons of instant sunshine for Hoover Dam, and noting the SS-18 throughout. Mind you, I suppose you could be right, in total megatonnage if not in terms of the yield of a single warhead. Perhaps a 5MT burst from a single bomb, and ten one-megaton MIRV impacts around the area? London got ten detonations in canon, so I imagine NYC getting a dozen, maybe twenty when Newark and such are counted.
Alternatively, it could be that one SS-18 Mod 3 is used with its 25MT payload; do note, though, that the Sovs had 30 at maximum deployed, so they'd use those big bastards sparingly - only one is used in Europe that we know of, at SHAFE in Brussels in Macragge's TL (30MT, probably one 25er and a MIRV with 10 550KT).
I see could see the Mod 3 getting used a lot in nailing counterforce targets in the Plains rather than countervalue ones: there are two 20MT blasts over Omaha in Chipperback's TL, so presumably a lot worse at Cheyenne Mountain and the Springs (maybe two 25MT bursts?), and a whole lotta silos peppered about the place which would demand the attention.
Interestingly, it seems that the Mod 1 with its 20MT warhead was out of action by 1983, so perhaps chalk up the two bursts at Omaha as being from the Mod 3s. This leaves two dozen to work with, so NYC is plausible, but perhaps not the most productive.
EDIT: It would appear that Matt ninja'd me, or was at least a damn sight more succinct about it
Supplementing the above, a few realistic targets for 25 MT attacks off the top of my head.
Total number of weapons to work with: 30
Assume perhaps one-sixth out of commission/destroyed on the ground/failed leaves us with 25 at most.
Washington certainly merits such an attack.
SAC HQ, Offutt AFB: two groundbursts
NORAD, Cheyenne Mountain: probably another two groundbursts, mentioned as 'looking like it had a missile regiment emptied on it'.
20 left.
Maybe a few are frittered away on EMP attacks, though the effects of that have generally been repudiated so that's of debatable utility.
Any other ideas? Beijing, Tokyo?
Total number of weapons to work with: 30
Assume perhaps one-sixth out of commission/destroyed on the ground/failed leaves us with 25 at most.
Washington certainly merits such an attack.
SAC HQ, Offutt AFB: two groundbursts
NORAD, Cheyenne Mountain: probably another two groundbursts, mentioned as 'looking like it had a missile regiment emptied on it'.
20 left.
Maybe a few are frittered away on EMP attacks, though the effects of that have generally been repudiated so that's of debatable utility.
Any other ideas? Beijing, Tokyo?
I believe in February 1984, the Soviets still had a number of R-36 (8K67 or SS-9 Scarp) missiles fitted with 25 MT nuclear warheads still in service since the R-36M had just only started to ramp up operational status at the time. As such, using one of those missiles to target New York City--even if the CEP was around half a mile--made sense, since a 25 MT air burst would essentially flatten or heavily damage every building in Manhattan.
As for the targeting Hoover Dam, Grand Coolee Dam, and Glen Canyon Dam with a big nuclear warhead, it made a lot of sense given all three had enormous hydropower generating capacity and water storage capacity. Destroying Hoover Dam would wipe out a huge fraction of the power generating capacity of southwestern USA and the rush of radioactive water downstream would effectively end the usefulness of the Imperial Valley for agriculture.
As for the targeting Hoover Dam, Grand Coolee Dam, and Glen Canyon Dam with a big nuclear warhead, it made a lot of sense given all three had enormous hydropower generating capacity and water storage capacity. Destroying Hoover Dam would wipe out a huge fraction of the power generating capacity of southwestern USA and the rush of radioactive water downstream would effectively end the usefulness of the Imperial Valley for agriculture.
IMO, the Niagara Falls blast was either an off-target nuke (in my estimation) or it could be spared completely (1) (that would be interesting)...
OTOH, New York City is so screwed it's not even funny.
Corning is likely to survive, so the Corning Glass Company is likely to survive. So is Elmira, IMO...
Going to Louisiana, we know that New Orleans gets a near-miss over the Michoud factory (2) (that kills or injures tens of thousands (3), IMO), but Baton Rouge, Alexandria, and Shreveport get hit, IIRC.
(1) Actually, I'm considering retconning the Niagara Falls blast, Emperor Norton I
(2) This is from vl100butch's comments in his thread The Island.
(3) Including, ironically, people trying to flee New Orleans, IMO.
OTOH, New York City is so screwed it's not even funny.
Corning is likely to survive, so the Corning Glass Company is likely to survive. So is Elmira, IMO...
Going to Louisiana, we know that New Orleans gets a near-miss over the Michoud factory (2) (that kills or injures tens of thousands (3), IMO), but Baton Rouge, Alexandria, and Shreveport get hit, IIRC.
(1) Actually, I'm considering retconning the Niagara Falls blast, Emperor Norton I
(2) This is from vl100butch's comments in his thread The Island.
(3) Including, ironically, people trying to flee New Orleans, IMO.
If you guys can give me a general idea about what types of nukes hit the targets and whether ground burst or air burst, I can revise the map. I can include such things as radiation and fallout.
I may retcon the Buffalo hit myself given what was in the Buffalo timeline, limited though it was. Our late writer stated that it was a 1 megaton airburst meant to knockout the electric grid and kill everyone off by radiation, while leaving the infrastructure intact once the radiation died down for the glorious potential occupation of the Motherland. You could argue that it was a biased narrator given that it was a character saying what they thought they saw, but I don't know. That was my thinking in including the three strikes, regardless. I worry that too much is given to "well everyone else was flattened, but the nukes missed here/it was kid gloves here". But, it's what he wrote.
On your note about Corning and Elmira, I have a related comment on such towns. Rochester, Buffalo, and Syracuse are gone, so you've just taken out the three metropolitan areas of Western New York. We know Buffalo is intact and relatively not radioactive within a month of the attack. The rest is unknown. What is left behind is what we could label "flyover country"; those smaller cities to small towns (to a hundred acres of wheat fields we somehow label towns, of which there are a lot) which make up the in between. They may be suburbs of those major cities, or they may just be in the metropolitan area. The suburbs will catch fallout; Greece NY may be screwed. The rest is what you are going to be left with in the aftermath, which isn't that bad. So far as I can recall, the winds are northwest as of the attack, but the fallout to a lot of areas is only so much. Rochester's fallout would hit Greece, but it'd totally miss Albion and Medina, and even Brockport may be more or less limited in it's fallout. Those areas have local business and production, and it's cornfield country so you can feed the population.
I keep coming back to the idea that Batavia is going to be the great city of Western New York in the aftermath. You have Lockport, and Northern New York has Watertown, but Batavia is centrally located between Buffalo and Rochester, it's along a waterway which won't be irradiated (referencing the Buffalo nuke), it has business and production, it has the Genesee Community College which is a bang-up school which does very well for itself despite what someone may perceive it to be, it has the agricultural strength of the surrounding area right next door (I mean right next door; drive 5 minutes out and you can find a barn), and it's where the roads meet. All roads lead to Batavia. And that might not mean something to people who don't live in the area, so I may not have reader interest here, but I'm telling you it's the little city that could here. Batavia is the successor to Buffalo and Rochester, in my opinion.
EDIT:
http://www.batavianewyork.com/sites/bataviany/files/file/file/1981-1990.pdf
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I know that I've promised you this also before, without succeeding in it, but I'll try to list some events from TLoSS in the coming days and PM the list(s) over to you...
I have a lack of wherewithal timeline idea. I won't write it, but I'd love to read it. It's an evolution of a thought I had that these people would still consider Joe Piscopo funny, and God help them, he may host a New Jersey Relief funding drive for devastated areas.
Title of TL: Live From New York
Setting: New York City and around the country wherever SNL cast members are.
Brief Description:
A vignette timeline covering the experiences of the Saturday Night Live cast on February 21, 1984 and the aftermath. It's the rough years before Lorne Michaels takes the show back, and the show relies on Joe Piscopo and Eddie Murphy. The latter intended the February 25 show to be his last. Humor in the face of imminent vaporization. It could also deal with the former cast members wherever they may be and whatever they may be doing. And maybe the writer could include some sketches from the alternate show in the lead up to the war.
Title of TL: Live From New York
Setting: New York City and around the country wherever SNL cast members are.
Brief Description:
A vignette timeline covering the experiences of the Saturday Night Live cast on February 21, 1984 and the aftermath. It's the rough years before Lorne Michaels takes the show back, and the show relies on Joe Piscopo and Eddie Murphy. The latter intended the February 25 show to be his last. Humor in the face of imminent vaporization. It could also deal with the former cast members wherever they may be and whatever they may be doing. And maybe the writer could include some sketches from the alternate show in the lead up to the war.
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I think both.
It was certainly the opinion of Jonathan Schell in "The fate of the earth" (from memory) that as well as the hardened C3I targets, the 20-25MT warheads were intended for massive urban targets such as New York. It's been a while since I've read it so I won't comment on the reasoning, but it seemed sound at the time I saw it 20 odd years ago.
When dealing with a weapon with a CEP of a good mile or two, I suppose large metropolitan areas are the smallest bullseyes you want to be flinging those at. I will concede the point to SactoMan, then. In that case, perhaps another couple on Chicago, Denver (Columbine, US CoG HQ, is mentioned as damaged in canon, so I can imagine a suitably large detonation affecting them), LA, and Dallas-Fort Worth?
In my humble opinion, I think the Soviets kept a small number of the older 8K67 (SS-9 Scarp) missiles operational well into the 1980's for one reason: they could detonate their 20-25 MT nuclear warheads 800-1,000 km altitude in space over North America to create a MASSIVE amount of EMP to knock out the electrical grid just before the other nuclear warheads impact on their targets.
I apologize for my continued sidetracking, but I found this article interesting. I found it while researching into specific Soviet atomic war strategy (related to this recent discussion) and coming up short.
https://www.commentarymagazine.com/...nion-thinks-it-could-fight-win-a-nuclear-war/
https://www.commentarymagazine.com/...nion-thinks-it-could-fight-win-a-nuclear-war/
Waxing poetic, did you know Rochester NY once had a subway that was abandoned in 1956, and still stands as a hotspot for hipsters and the homeless, and potential atomic refugees?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rochester_Subway
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rochester_Subway
I think 1/6 is a low number for missiles that never got launched...personally I think 1/3 would be a low number and you have to throw Murphy in on top of that...
In the aftermath of the exchange, how irradiated would the Great Lakes be? It was not exactly clean in the 1980s; in fact, it was heavily polluted and likely not to be swam in. That said, fallout and assorted radiation from atomic warfare would be another matter entirely. Per what I can estimate, a strike on Rochester would have limited fallout reaching the lake, while Buffalo or Niagara Falls would have a higher potential. However, per the Buffalo timeline, the strike was an airburst that had the effect of limited if lethal initial radiation, which then died down within a month or more. Another matter entirely are the water ways and rivers. That's a matter of no just the Erie Canal (which interconnects all those smaller towns and cities between the larger cities), but the strike against Albany could have a great danger for anyone living up/down river. A double whammy for Schenectady.
I further apologize for getting on a tangent about my homeland. I tend to do that when these discussions get resurrected again.
I further apologize for getting on a tangent about my homeland. I tend to do that when these discussions get resurrected again.
I'd think the Great Lakes would be in pretty bad shape. Lots of potential targets and fallout therefrom right along the shoreline of most of the lakes and if nuclear power plants are hit, you have that to contend with as well. Throw in a ton of fallout washing into the lakes from rivers in the Great Lakes watershed. It would eventually wash away up the St. Lawrence River but IIRC it takes years for the lakes to cycle out all their water. Of the 5 of them, I'd imagine Lake Michigan, Lake Erie and Lake Ontario to be the worst off.