11-13-2018, 05:50 AM | #3761 | |
Join Date: Jun 2006
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Re: New Reality Seeds
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A more serious problem with a nuclear strike to kill even dozens of city centers is that it isn't *actually* going to knock any Great Power out of a war. Certainly not the British Empire or the United States. Their populations and productive capabilities are just too spread out (and in the case of the United States, not particularly coastal). Do something like this and what you get isn't victory, it's a somewhat damaged but definitely not crippled enemy who is now enraged to the point a negotiated end to the war is impossible. You may be able to get a period appropriate post-apocalypse out of it - after the more than a decade long war nukes a couple hundred cities on both sides and both of them are running short of young men for the fronts - but I think your chances of scoring a victory you couldn't have at least made a serious go at with conventional forces are negligible.
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11-13-2018, 05:55 AM | #3762 |
Join Date: Jun 2006
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Re: New Reality Seeds
This one is actually pretty exaggerated in post-apocalypse stories too. Lingering radiation at the level of actual radiation sickness is pretty short lived. Detectable, or even cancer inducing, levels of radiation can be considerably more persistent, but the miles (or more) across radioactive wastelands that kill anyone who enters them decades (or even months) later you see in a lot stories are probably impossible even if you are trying for them.
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11-13-2018, 06:37 AM | #3763 |
Join Date: Jul 2007
Location: West Virginia
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Re: New Reality Seeds
Devastating the U.S. or even just the East coast is out. You might get New York in a sneak attack and create economic chaos. This would lead to Chicago quickly becoming America's first city.
Perhaps the Government flees DC for Chicago as well. For greater security.
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11-13-2018, 07:00 AM | #3764 | |
Hero of Democracy
Join Date: Mar 2012
Location: far from the ocean
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Re: New Reality Seeds
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Sure, the economic structures will move there. But my bet is on Federal government moving to a smaller area, one it can dominate as completely as it dominates D.C. They'll still want to be close to the power centers, so I suspect somewhere between Pennsylvanian and Illinois is ideal. Though they may take up residence on the Mississippi somewhere.
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11-13-2018, 09:01 AM | #3765 | |
Join Date: Jul 2009
Location: UK
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Re: New Reality Seeds
Quote:
And even if the target has radio, they still have to is to realise what exactly has happened, how it happened, and formulate a security response that will prevent it happening again. Even today, that doesn't happen fast. Worst case, a crew might be put in a situation of setting a short fuse on their bomb if a search party approaches before they are ready. Done properly, the attacker has taken out all the major freight harbours, crippling sea trade. Any any security protocol sufficient to deter repeat attacks would reduce trade to a trickle of what it could be with the remaining harbours. True, you haven't taken down any of the inland infrastructure, so how effective this is does depend on how much the inland infrastructure relies on sea trade. And equally, you haven't taken out any military harbours (unless of course they were co-located with a freight harbour to within a few miles). So there is still room for a military response. So yeah, it's not most the most strategically sound of decisions. But given that MAD theory clearly hasn't taken hold in the timeline in question, it follows that proper strategic planning that involves nuclear weapons is not this timeline's strong suit. |
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11-13-2018, 09:48 AM | #3766 |
Join Date: Dec 2006
Location: Meifumado
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Re: New Reality Seeds
Didn't the Hindu-German Conspiracy in WWI manage to do a lot of weapon smuggling in and out of New York? If they were nukes instead, it wouldn't have been a great deal more difficult.
If it wasn't that conspiracy, there at least was some other historical case, maybe more related to the IRA. Indeed. Japan didn't even know what happened in Hiroshima for some time, and had no idea about what to do against the next one. I think having nuke freighters blow up over a course of even weeks in east coast city harbours would be easily viable.
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Collaborative Settings: Cyberpunk: Duopoly Nation Space Opera: Behind the King's Eclipse And heaps of forum collabs, 30+ and counting! Last edited by Daigoro; 11-13-2018 at 09:51 AM. |
11-13-2018, 03:13 PM | #3767 | |
Join Date: Jul 2007
Location: West Virginia
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Re: New Reality Seeds
Quote:
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11-13-2018, 03:39 PM | #3768 |
Join Date: Jan 2014
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Re: New Reality Seeds
Maybe Pittsburgh. It would have the symbolism of Mount Washington.
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11-13-2018, 03:42 PM | #3769 |
Join Date: Jul 2007
Location: West Virginia
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Re: New Reality Seeds
It would also be linked to multiple transport systems. My Fathers Aunts lived there, sweet ladies.
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11-13-2018, 04:17 PM | #3770 |
Join Date: Feb 2016
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Re: New Reality Seeds
What about diesel electric submarines using nuclear torpedoes?
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