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Old 10-22-2018, 10:25 AM   #11
ericthered
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Default Re: Post nuke Alaska

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Originally Posted by Anaraxes View Post
FEMA's 1990 "Nuclear Attack Planning Base" document is a county-by-county list of their expectations of nuclear attack effects in the entire US at that time. Since that's a 500-page monster document, and scanned images so not searchable, here's an image of Alaska that's supposed to be based on that report. It shows four nukes in the Fairbanks area, compared to only one each on Anchorage and Juneau (and six others elsewhere in the state, including one on Kodiak Island). So Fairbanks rated a third of the total warheads dropped on the state, at least according to 1990's FEMA.

That's a really nice find! A few notes:


Most of the maps are in the two annexes, which start off an intro and follow very quickly with tables of contents. you have to find the region for the state you're looking for, but two pages of scanning will give you the exact page. The pages are scanned and simple but get the point across. Blast waves are very clearly marked, and the psi for given areas listed. Fallout is done by county which is much less useful.



Unfortunately, map quality for very large states (California and Texas) is rather low, and maps for outside of the contiguous 48 are "published separately)



These assume a 1990 attack, which you should keep in mind: some population centers have shifted.



Also, remember that this is made by FEMA, and I don't know what kind of security clearance or effort level was put into it. It was built by civilians, not soldiers. When I look at areas I know well, I spot things that make me scratch my head. In particular, Duchesne county in Utah gets nuked in an off-center fashion (12,000 population at the time, middle of nowhere, nuke placed on the east side of the population area) while similarly sized communities all across rural Utah are untouched. Including the larger community 30 miles away, and Washington county, which had 40k at the time (and now has 160k, remember what I said about population centers). I can only figure its centered on the now-defunct oil refinery.



But good find, and don't be scared of using the PDF's. They're actually easy to use.
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Old 10-22-2018, 03:26 PM   #12
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Default Re: Post nuke Alaska

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Originally Posted by WaterAndWindSpirit View Post
Hello everyone!

I'm making a campaign in Alaska after WWIII and I'm looking at a few things that I could use for it.

So basically, aside from the fuel production facilities,
.
There aren't any such facilities in operation. Not since the Agrium plant in Kenai shuttered. All the oil goes out of state for refining.

The primary target zones are JBER - Elmendorf AFB, Ft. Richardson, and the Fairbanks area bases, Eilson AFB, Ft Greely, and Ft Wainright.

It's worth noting that the Anchorage bowl alone is about 50% of the state population - over 350k people in the Muni.

Also note: There are no counties and no sherrifs. The boroughs are not counties specifically to avoid giving them the powers normally assumed for counties. Boroughs have mayors. Fairbanks, Juneau, and Anchorage all are municipalities - the major city is also the borough government.

Also: Schools are not independent; they are budgeted from the boroughs, have no tax authority, and the boroughs can fire the school board members for cause, even tho' they're elected.

Last edited by ak_aramis; 10-22-2018 at 03:33 PM.
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Old 10-22-2018, 03:28 PM   #13
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Default Re: Post nuke Alaska

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Originally Posted by Anaraxes View Post
Fairbanks has an air force base (a fighter squadron and tanker squadron) and two army bases (an infantry division and an ABM launch site).
One of the two is no longer a separate operational base (IIRC, Greely); its used as training grounds, but now part of Wainright for administration and maintenance purposes.
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Old 10-22-2018, 04:13 PM   #14
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Default Re: Post nuke Alaska

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I understand that the Amerindian tribes are still pretty cohesive up there - presumably they would form a significant part of any post collapse society.
Calling the natives amerindian can start fights. It's considered offensive by most of my Native friends.

The major ethnic groups of Alaska Natives:

Yupiq Eskimo
Inupiaq Eskimo
Aleut
The "indians" Tlingit, Tsimshian, Haida, Athabanscan, Metlakatla
Aluutiq

Also, don't use "inuit" for the Alaskan Eskimos, Aluutiq nor Aleut. My eskimo aquaintances point out that the Inuit are the east coast of Canada's Eskimo.

Also, they're under 20% of the population of the state; a quick lookup shows 16%, and about half live in the cities.

Alaska current population estimate is about 740K.
Anchorage Metro Area/Municipality (Anchorage, JBER, Girdwood, Indian, Eagle River, Birchwood, Chugiak, Thunderbird Falls, and Eklutna) is about 385K
Fairbanks/North Star Borough: about 100K
Juneau-Douglas Municipality: 32K
Kenai: about 8K
Soldotna: 5K (contiguous to Kenai)
Homer: about 6K
Seward: about 3K
Palmer: about 7K
Wasilla: About 10K
Houston: 2K
Big Lake: 3K

The Mat-Su borough is about 100K, and mostly suburban, but it includes the cities/towns of Palmer, Wasilla, Houston and Big Lake (and a few more I can't remember)

The Fairbanks Borough is about 100K total, counting one or both of Wainright and Eilson.

Juneau and Douglass are over 95% of the Juneau borough.

That's about 560K people (without the rounding for above), or 75% of the state in just those cities/towns.

A nuke at JBER will also hit most of Anchorage, JBER, and parts of Eagle River, Chugiak, and Birchwood. If big enough, it will also hit Palmer-Wasilla-Houston-Big Lake.

Put the nuke under the water of the arm, and you can tsunami both the Anchorage & JBER area, and the suburban sprawl of Mat-Su Borough.

Likewise, a big bomb underwater in the Gastineau Channel, and you tsunami Juneau & Douglas, and also potentially hit many of the smaller villages in the panhandle.


It should only take about 2 big nukes for the Fairbanks area. that will also poison the water for Nome... and it will also destroy the pipeline.

Valdez gets one - it's the pipeline terminus - unless you want to take the oil. But then you cannot hit Fairbanks area with anything bigger than tacnukes at Eilson, Wainright, and Greely.

Major ports: Anchorage, Whittier, Homer, Valdez, Seward, Kenai/Soldotna, Juneau, and Nome. Each needs to be hit. Anchorage, Juneau, and Kenai get big ones;

Note that Alaska has almost no manufacturing capabilities, too. Take out the major metros and ports, and the economy instantly collapses.

Most of the natives are not capable of self-support by traditional means - you can also write off about half of them as they live in the cities that get nuked.

Note that a nuke in Fairbanks will have almost no effect on Mat-Su nor Anchorage, and vice-versa - the mountains will pretty much hide even the cloud. A nuke in Juneau will have almost no effect on Anchorage, and none at all on fairbanks.
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Old 10-22-2018, 04:46 PM   #15
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Default Re: Post nuke Alaska

One more thought: Why Amerind/amerindian/American Indian is a dirty word...

Alaska Natives did not have universal citizenship until 1974, with the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act. Amerindian is a collective label for the lower 48's natives, who were, by the 1960's, universally US Citizens. Decisions that protected the Amerind population didn't apply to the natives in the territories of Alaska, Hawaii, or American Samoa. When Alaska became a state, it still took over a decade to get the native minority civil rights from the federal government.

Only one tribe has a reservation - the Metlakatla. (Ethnically, they're Athabascan; socioculturally, they've diverged due to being on a reservation that the BIA basically stays out of.)

The Athabascans, Tlingit, Tsimshian, Haida, and a few others accept the term indian; each of these groups is provably related to some lower-48 tribes by language and genetics.
The Aleut are most closely related to the Ainu. The Eskimo to the Yuit and Inuit and each other.
The Aluutic are a hybrid of Aleut and Eskimo, in both language, culture, and genetics, but are a large regional group.

Also, during the 19-teens to 1940's, a strong program of destruction of the native culture was engaged in by the Bureau of Indian Affairs. A full on cultural annihilation. Teens kidnapped by the government at gunpoint, forced into residential schools, punished harshly for using their native languages and/or music, even beaten and/or forced to lick and/or ingest lye. (yes, I HAVE seen documentation on this by the school staff who did it).

(When I worked at the National Archives branch in Anchorage, I did holdings maintenance on the school records from Mt. Edgecombe Residential High School. It was a concentration camp in all but name. I was nauseated by the abuse listed in school files under "disciplinary actions.")
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Old 10-22-2018, 10:56 PM   #16
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Default Re: Post nuke Alaska

I'm unfamiliar with the FEMA plan, but when I was working on the SIOP, the assumption was that the Soviets were targeting strategic-war bases and attack-detection capabilities in the first strike. With the budget cutbacks since then, it looked on a quick glance like the only base currently capable of deploying nuclear weapons in Alaska is Elmendorf; a couple of large nukes would take care of both bases, and destroy the city of Anchorage as a bonus. (We assumed the only population centers targeted just for being population centers were New York and the LA basin; every other target was selected for its military or governmental importance. The aim, after all, was supposed to be to destroy our ability to resist the "inevitable" expansion of the Soviet Union, and wiping out cities unnecessarily wouldn't accomplish that goal.)
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Old 10-23-2018, 07:56 AM   #17
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Default Re: Post nuke Alaska

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Originally Posted by ericthered View Post
These assume a 1990 attack, which you should keep in mind: some population centers have shifted.
Quite true, and 1990 is starting to be a long time ago now. I didn't find an updated version on the FEMA web site -- but they might well have changed the name. (Or just stopped doing them thanks to reduced tensions.)

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Originally Posted by ak_aramis View Post
One of the two is no longer a separate operational base (IIRC, Greely); its used as training grounds, but now part of Wainright for administration and maintenance purposes.
I did check Greely's web site, which still exists. On the other hand, the date for "last updated" is in 2015, and it's slow and pokey. Their Facebook page is still active as of a few days ago, though. It's a small facility, mostly closed down back in the 90's, with under 500 residents and under 1000 workers (military and civilians).

Greely also has a nuclear power plant (I think the only one in Alaska), if that's worth targeting. It's scheduled to be decomissioned starting in 2022, and is/was only a 20 MW plant in the first place, so it's probably not an economic target. (Though it might still make an interesting adventure hook, if un-nuked. Maybe the PCs want some old buildings complete with an electrical plant for a base -- or perhaps the Lord Humongous beat them to it and they track him down.)


Quote:
Originally Posted by Irish Wolf View Post
the SIOP, the assumption was that the Soviets were targeting strategic-war bases and attack-detection capabilities in the first strike... The aim, after all, was supposed to be to destroy our ability to resist the "inevitable" expansion of the Soviet Union, and wiping out cities unnecessarily wouldn't accomplish that goal.)
An important point for the GM's world-building. What was the purpose of the nukes? Elsewhere, I've run across assumed plans for Soviet attacks assuming 500 warheads, or 2000 warheads, and thus someone's estimate of the top 500 or 2000 targets worth hitting. There's certainly a lot of leeway to revise any plan based on setting assumptions about the attacker's purpose. (Perhaps the New Russian Empire wants to reclaim their old territory intact, with fighting currently south of Mendocino as they try to reclaim the site of Fort Ross to match their previous southerly extent, and so save the nukes for the East Coast and only urgent tactical targets on the West.)

If you do want to make your own nuclear disaster map, one fun site for getting your name added to FBI and Homeland Security watch lists is Nukemap. (It tells me that an 800 kt airburst over Fort Greely produces an estimated 30 fatalities and 480 injuries, with a 0.88 km fireball radius.)
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Old 10-23-2018, 09:58 AM   #18
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Default Re: Post nuke Alaska

The nukes were meant to hit major military targets and the gas and petroleum production sites. Tensions were growing to nations hostile to the US getting success in nuclear programs, but in the end the early warning systems of said nations glitched and detected a (non existent) nuclear strike coming from the US, and retaliated against US and allies. The US and their allies retaliated against this first strike, there was a short grunt war in the ruined world that stopped quickly when the armed forces ran out of supplies for their surviving divisions.
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