Quote:
Originally Posted by Targan
Important targets not on the canon target list weren't necessarily overlooked for nuking... they may have been hit with warheads smaller than the target list's threshold. It leaves lots of leeway for GMs without necessarily being in conflict with canon.
|
One note, the USSR as of 1989 had very few (relatively) ICBMs or SLBMs either deployed or in the planning stages that were armed with warheads under 500kt. IIRC only one version of one type of missile capable of hitting the US carried 350kt warheads (3XMIRV). Say one thing about them the USSR was not about being subtle.
You still do have leeway as there were hundreds of these 350kt warheads but as a percent of the total of Soviet forces they represented a small fraction of available warheads. If you say 3% of their total missiles had them and maybe 6% max of the missiles targeting the US were them you get on the highest end somewhere between 18 and 27 additional hits. Of course there could be none and that would also fit history and canon.
Maybe someday I will look for some nice 3 target clusters (within 300 miles) which were missed. (Pulling form the massive number of Morrow project targets I already have data-based).
Cruise missiles are another option, but that IMO would have been more likely to have triggered MAD (as detection is harder)