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Old 01-07-2021, 12:14 AM   #21
Rupert
 
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Default Re: Calculating Technological Regression from Global Thermonuclear War

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Technology would likely drop to TL5 in the USA, as there would be enough survivors in communication with each other to sustain that level of technology. Places like Australia, New Zealand, etc. would likely drop to TL4 because of their isolation. Enough books would have likely survived though that the survivors could build back up to TL8 in sixty years.
This depends a lot on just how the last round of nukes was used. If there was a serious attempt at 'counter recovery', the combatants would be lucky to stay as high as TL5. Meanwhile, if NZ, Australia, etc. were not heavily bombed they'd be good for TL5-6. Australia had enough heavy industry in the period to manage for itself, plus massive natural resources and extraction infrastructure. New Zealand not so much, but unless solidly bombed NZ would suffer a slow decline rather than a sharp loss as things normally imported wore out despite efforts to maintain them the workforce is/was highly technically skilled but the manufacturing plant has never really existed.
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Old 01-07-2021, 12:19 AM   #22
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Default Re: Calculating Technological Regression from Global Thermonuclear War

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There is no reason to believe that nuclear explosions on the ground, which would be all or almost all of them, would have an impact on the ozone layer.
Quite the contrary. Only some counter-force attacks (i.e. the strikes at missile silos) were to be ground bursts. Everything else could be expected to be air bursts (possibly excepting some attacks on fleets at sea). So, there's be plenty of ozone depletion, but less fallout than from extensive ground bursts.

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EMPs from a ground level nuclear explosion are negligible as close as five miles away from the event. High altitude EMPs are much more widespread, but high altitude nukes are pointless when you are nuking all of the major population centers anyway. And EMPs in the northern hemisphere aren't going to have an effect on the southern hemisphere even at high altitudes.
They have a very high value if you want to destroy your enemy;s ability to recover from the war. Also, if you think they're gaining more from having satellites than you are using EMP bursts to clear away all the satellites has value.

Remember, the major powers had thousands of missiles, each with multiple warheads, at their disposal. Using a few for an EMP attack 'just to be sure', or to 'nuke 'em into the stone age' costs very little, especially if you can expect that the enemy will find and kill the missile(s) at some point anyway.
And, once you're done with you direct enemy, there are his allies, likely allies, possible allies, the neutral countries that might aid them more than you, and so on down the list. And there were nukes enough for all.
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Old 01-07-2021, 01:01 AM   #23
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Default Re: Calculating Technological Regression from Global Thermonuclear War

In 1983, I think that there is a lot of difference between nations with large arsenals (the US and USSR) and nations with small arsenals (China, France, Israel, and the UK). In the former case, they are torching their target because they have the nukes available, and their enemy might not recover for a few generations. In the latter case, they are likely crippling the military capabilities of their enemy, so the targeted nation would probably come back in five to ten years.
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Old 01-07-2021, 01:11 AM   #24
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Default Re: Calculating Technological Regression from Global Thermonuclear War

Something else to consider, and something that changed a lot since the time most studies where done (ie during the cold war) :

There are perhaps a couple hundred semiconductor fabrication plants and foundries worldwide. Often clustered close to each others, and in major cities likely to be nuked in a mass conflict.

It is unlikely that any big one would survive.
Those are NOT something you can rebuild from scratch in a hurry.
And the actual microchip designs would be extremely unlikely to have survived.

There are of course billions of existing IC to salvage, but you will not be producing any new "late TL-8" ones for a looooong time.

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Old 01-07-2021, 01:20 AM   #25
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Default Re: Calculating Technological Regression from Global Thermonuclear War

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According to the big amount bombs and the resulting amount of Fallout, even if 95% would drop dead next to the bombs, the whole planet would be covered in toxic doses of fallout.
Um...no. Even if all the bombs were cobalt-salted, it wouldn't be enough to blanket the whole planet at lethal levels.

When you see calculations that claim to show stuff like 'enough to kill everyone' or 'wipe out civilization', keep in mind that they're usually very naïve calculations. In practice, the fallout doesn't go everywhere. The winds concentrate it in some places, protect others. You might be moderately upwind of ground zero and be fine, or many miles downwind and be in big trouble.

It also depends on who is nuking who and why. If the blasts are largely confined to the northern hemisphere, much of the southern hemisphere will be essentially unaffected (except by subsequent disruptions of trade and economics and politics). If it's the USA vs. the USSR, China might conceivably emerge more or less intact, depending on the details.

Don't get me wrong, such a war would be an inconceivable disaster, but the world would survive, and on a historical scale it probably wouldn't be as bad as the Black Death was.

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Back to tchernobyl even areas upwind in certain areas of europe have a high radiation, in fact the radiation is so high that hunting or collecting fungi is forbidden. Yes you can life inside but donīt dare to argue if you get cancer.
In short, the land is habitable, if unhealthy long term. That was true of many regions (for other reasons) through history. An uptick in cancer rates won't keep civilization from recovering, or lower TL.

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And the sowjets did a lot to reduce fallout, including doting clouds with solver iodid. There are wonderfull maps published by the US department of defense from that time that show everybody what happens to downwind areas after a bomb explodes. Just take a look at them and you see you are wrong, its not the question of reduced life expectation, itīs a question of pure survival. But even if your position is true, it would make overland travel and trade near impossible.
Again, it depends. The DoD estimates are no more inerrant than any other, and in practice it all depends on the details. It makes a big difference, for ex, whether the bomb in question was designed to maximize fallout or maximize blast. It makes a big difference how much of the energy of the reaction came from fission and how much from fusion. The higher percentage of fusion contribution in big bombs means that a 10 megaton bomb doesn't have 10 times the fallout of a 1 megaton bomb.

It also makes a big difference where the bomb goes off. Some places will generate a lot more or a lot less fallout than others.

And of course the radiation levels fall off quickly. Areas that are deadly a week after the bomb goes off may merely be dangerous a month later. A few years later, most of the problem (other than cancer rates and the like) is past.
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Old 01-07-2021, 05:01 AM   #26
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Default Re: Calculating Technological Regression from Global Thermonuclear War

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In 1983, I think that there is a lot of difference between nations with large arsenals (the US and USSR) and nations with small arsenals (China, France, Israel, and the UK). In the former case, they are torching their target because they have the nukes available, and their enemy might not recover for a few generations. In the latter case, they are likely crippling the military capabilities of their enemy, so the targeted nation would probably come back in five to ten years.
Of the smaller powers, the UK has only had SLBMs for ages, and during the Cold War the French had both ICBMs (barely 'intercontinental, but they didn't need as much range as the US did) and SLBMs. SLBMs at the time were very much anti-city devices, and thus both these minor powers (and it was assumed China, for lack of accuracy) were running pure deterrent forces - "You nuke us, and we will turn your top few dozen cities into ash."

That's rather more than 5-10 years worth of rebuilding and repopulating.
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Old 01-07-2021, 05:09 AM   #27
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Default Re: Calculating Technological Regression from Global Thermonuclear War

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It also depends on who is nuking who and why. If the blasts are largely confined to the northern hemisphere, much of the southern hemisphere will be essentially unaffected (except by subsequent disruptions of trade and economics and politics). If it's the USA vs. the USSR, China might conceivably emerge more or less intact, depending on the details.

Don't get me wrong, such a war would be an inconceivable disaster, but the world would survive, and on a historical scale it probably wouldn't be as bad as the Black Death was.
That depends on how bloody-minded the warring powers are. If they decide that seeing as they're going under, they'll take everyone else too ("If I can't win, nobody does") it could've been very bad. That's nukes fired at basically everyone.

Even assuming a saner war (if any mass nuclear exchange can be considered 'sane') if it's at the wrong time of the year it'd be rather bad for China (and many other countries). It doesn't take a full-on 80-hype nuclear winter to ruin the grain crops in the northern hemisphere if there's a week-long cold snap at the wrong time in spring. That means mass starvation, and given the added stress of injury, loss, homelessness, etc. in any country that was directly attacked it gets even worse. The 'good' news is that the ruin international travel infrastructure means epidemics will tend to remain 'local'.

That said, humans would survive, and some places would recover fairly quickly. Just who ends up as the new world powers is up in the air, though. If writing a setting after a nuclear war, you're pretty much free to choose who's on top, and who never really recovered and then mould the war to fit that outcome (though I'd just leave it vague - less likely to make a major error that the players pick up on that way).
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Old 01-07-2021, 07:26 AM   #28
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Default Re: Calculating Technological Regression from Global Thermonuclear War

Other high impact target would have been dams. Detonated a nuclear weapon in the reservoir a few miles from a dam would create a tsunami that would have destroyed any community on the shores of the reservior and pushed over the dam, devestating any community downstream and pushing over any downstream dams with the resulting flooding. It would have also deprived local communities of electricity and clean water, the latter being an immediate survival problem, and deprived irrigation networks of water, which would have been a more long term survival issue.
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Old 01-07-2021, 08:53 AM   #29
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Default Re: Calculating Technological Regression from Global Thermonuclear War

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Um...no. Even if all the bombs were cobalt-salted, it wouldn't be enough to blanket the whole planet at lethal levels
I wrote toxic and not deadly for a reason, yes in some areas you can survive in the open, but itīs very unhealthy. In the long run you most surely will get cancer. The farer away from impact the better for the inhabitants. there are people who live in the tchernobyl area, and near fukushima too, the question for such a scenario is, if people die faster than they reproduce.

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When you see calculations that claim to show stuff like 'enough to kill everyone' or 'wipe out civilization', keep in mind that they're usually very naïve calculations. In practice, the fallout doesn't go everywhere. The winds concentrate it in some places, protect others. You might be moderately upwind of ground zero and be fine, or many miles downwind and be in big trouble.
The part with the wind is true, I mentioned the maps of the DoD for this reason, because most show what happens according to wind patterns. In the cold war among the best places was at the west coast in a less populated area, awy from mayor military installations, because nearly all the bombs then where downwind. Even better was deep in the southern hemisphere, far away from targets

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Originally Posted by Johnny1A.2 View Post
It also depends on who is nuking who and why. If the blasts are largely confined to the northern hemisphere, much of the southern hemisphere will be essentially unaffected (except by subsequent disruptions of trade and economics and politics). If it's the USA vs. the USSR, China might conceivably emerge more or less intact, depending on the details.
The basis for the scenario was USA versus Sowjets, full nuclear exchange. The strategy wasnīt called MAD for nothing, basically both sides threatened with a total annihilation of the emeny, and thanks to the aftermath rest of the world. Itīs unlikely that any side hadnīt used nearly the full arsenal. This strategy included a anti recovery bombing, in other words even non strategic targets were bombed, to make the whole country inhabitable. A nice upgrade was that both sides ordered some SSBNs to launch some time after the initial exchange, to cover areas in which becase of dudes or interception no bomb exploded, and everey area that showed to be a still in good condition, i.e. some radio emissions and other signs of recovers with this next wave.

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Don't get me wrong, such a war would be an inconceivable disaster, but the world would survive, and on a historical scale it probably wouldn't be as bad as the Black Death was.
Depending whom you ask the plague killed up to 30% of the population. A massive nuclear exchange is likely to destroy all cities bigger than 250K persons and any important military installation. If you count this together it will kill more then 50% of the population in NATO and sowjet pact in the first exchange. A good deal more in the aftermath.


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In short, the land is habitable, if unhealthy long term. That was true of many regions (for other reasons) through history. An uptick in cancer rates won't keep civilization from recovering, or lower TL.
I mentioned areas upwind, not the area around a bomb, as you wrote upwind means much less radiation. The uptick will more likely a sputnik. For the TL a high TL needs a population base to support it, there is anymore such a base, and the people need time to learn and study for this, less life expectancy means less long active time less TL. And of course a TL means that you can still build new goodies not only the knowledge to build them. the labs, factory, are all gone the scientists, medics, and workers with them.


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Originally Posted by Johnny1A.2 View Post
Again, it depends. The DoD estimates are no more inerrant than any other, and in practice it all depends on the details. It makes a big difference, for ex, whether the bomb in question was designed to maximize fallout or maximize blast. It makes a big difference how much of the energy of the reaction came from fission and how much from fusion. The higher percentage of fusion contribution in big bombs means that a 10 megaton bomb doesn't have 10 times the fallout of a 1 megaton bomb.
The DoDs are the official ones acording to military research and scenarios, they are most likely the most accurate, a layman can get his hands on. Donīt believe in the stuff some so called survivalists sell. Most are vendors of there products, and they wanīt tell you outright that you donīt stand a chance. I live near a major research facility and a nuclear scientist I showed some of their stuff was first amused, before becoming really angy. He also told me a lot of the background knowledge, well at least as much as I understood.


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It also makes a big difference where the bomb goes off. Some places will generate a lot more or a lot less fallout than others.
True, alone the composition of the surface makes a lot of difference among others.

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And of course the radiation levels fall off quickly. Areas that are deadly a week after the bomb goes off may merely be dangerous a month later. A few years later, most of the problem (other than cancer rates and the like) is past.
No sorry wrong, there is a lot of difference in the half life of radioactive particles, basically the ones wtih the heavy radiation, have ( mostly ) a very short half life. Therefore the threat level first will drop drastically. Now to the big but a lot of other have a long half life, so the radiation level after a few month will be still dangerous and stay so for a very long time. there is also a difference in what peopl call dangerous, in war this means for soldiers safe enough to cross and fight on. For survivors who stay there and try to live from the products of farming etc itīs still deadly. Exposure time means a lot, also the accumolation of radioactivity. Another often neglected fact is that the radiation at waist level, where most dosimeters are, is significantly lower than on ground level. In fact you can cross a radiated area in 20 h and be fine, but sleeping in the same area for 8h will certainly kill you.

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Other high impact target would have been dams. Detonated a nuclear weapon in the reservoir a few miles from a dam would create a tsunami that would have destroyed any community on the shores of the reservior and pushed over the dam, devestating any community downstream and pushing over any downstream dams with the resulting flooding. It would have also deprived local communities of electricity and clean water, the latter being an immediate survival problem, and deprived irrigation networks of water, which would have been a more long term survival issue.
Exactly, or like Putins new toy, a explosion in the water near the emenys coast the tsunami would be multiple the devastation, in whatīs normally among the most fertile and dense populated areas.

Last edited by Willy; 01-07-2021 at 08:56 AM. Reason: spelling error added example and quote
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Old 01-07-2021, 11:59 PM   #30
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That depends on how bloody-minded the warring powers are. If they decide that seeing as they're going under, they'll take everyone else too ("If I can't win, nobody does") it could've been very bad. That's nukes fired at basically everyone.

Even assuming a saner war (if any mass nuclear exchange can be considered 'sane') if it's at the wrong time of the year it'd be rather bad for China (and many other countries). It doesn't take a full-on 80-hype nuclear winter to ruin the grain crops in the northern hemisphere if there's a week-long cold snap at the wrong time in spring.
But nobody really knows how much, if any, global cooling effect would actually exist. It's highly theoretical, since no testing can be performed. It might be significant, it might be nothing.
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