Nuke Targets Elsewhere

[pmulcahy11b]

Has anyone done up a list of Nuke targets other than in Europe, Russia, and North America?

[Rainbow Six]

There's a listing for China compiled by Kota1342000 on page three of this thread:

http://forum.juhlin.com/showthread.php?t=3154&highlight=China

There's also a lot of discussion about potential targets in Australia (including a couple of suggested target lists) on this thread:

http://forum.juhlin.com/showthread.php?t=1254&highlight=Australia

At the risk of stating the obvious, the lists in both threads are speculative though - whilst specific locations may be mentioned in modules or Challenge articles, I'm not aware of any "official" listings ever having been published for anywhere except the UK, the USA, Canada, and the USSR.

[Matt Wiser]

RDF Sourcebook mentions a few mideast targets-Riyadh, for one.

[Olefin]

Put together a list for Africa - mostly refineries and oilfields and cities nearby

Will post it tonight

[Schone23666]

I'm guessing that most of the south/east coast of China in T2k is glowing like Chernobyl...

[Olefin]

From what I have been putting together on my Kenya module (which may actually be done soon) as to nuclear targets in Africa

Keep in mind that this isnt canon but is my best guess given canon attacks on refineries and oil facilities worldwide in neutral nations and giving an explanation as to why the Nigerian, Moroccan and Egyptian refineries arent there to support the US war effort, let alone Nigerian oil production. The miss at Capetown is to back up the events of the Spanish Main module, which has the Constitution stopping there to pick up electronic supplies and the attack on Casablanca comes from the lack of that port being mentioned in descriptions of the Gib attack from Med Cruise - i.e. that port being nuked takes away that base from the US and NATO.

The South African nukes and Soviet presence at Conakry are both extrapolated from the fact that in the original timeline the Cold War continued right into the 1990's. Thus the South Africans here did not destroy the small stockpile of nukes they built but instead continued producing them.

Basically its one short spasm of nuclear strikes - but the results leave the Kenyan refinery as about the only game in town for the US (as the South Africans need their one last surviving refinery for themselves) and devastates the entire continent in the process, either physically or economically.

So here goes

December 6, 1997

Africa had watched in horror as first China, then much of Europe and North America experienced nuclear warfare, seeing city after city die. They thought that they would be spared the horror of nuclear warfare, that the warring powers would not visit the same horror on them. Unfortunately, they were wrong.

Two Soviet nuclear ballistic submarines attack multiple targets throughout Africa, destroying refineries, oil fields and oil terminals in Nigeria, Morocco, Senegal, Egypt, Tunisia and South Africa.

In Egypt, Cairo, Suez and Alexandria are left in ruins by multiple strikes against the major refineries in those cities. While the Suez Canal is not directly targeted in the attack, the nuclear strikes on the refineries at Suez effectively block the southern end of the Canal with the wrecks of several merchant ships and tankers. Over three million Egyptians die in the attacks and another two million are severely wounded. In Nigeria every major refinery and oil terminal, in addition to her oil fields, are targeted by the Soviets, killing or wounding over two million Nigerians in minutes and covering much of the country in smoke from the burning oil fields and oil storage tanks.

The attacks on Morocco destroy both of its refineries along with the city of Mohammédia (Fédala). The city and harbor of Casablanca is hit by two 250kt warheads as well, destroying the city and sinking over half the Royal Moroccan Navy as well, denying the use of the port to NATO for the rest of the war.

Within days, as a result, the countries of Nigeria, Morocco and Egypt slide into anarchy.

The attack on Tunisia heavily damages their main field at El Borma but kills relatively few people as it is so remote. In South Africa the refineries at Durban and Sasolburg are destroyed, along with both cities, with huge loss of life in both cities.

The refineries and ports at Mombasa and Cape Town were on the target list as well but they are spared when the Soviet SSBN assigned to destroy them, in the act of launching the attack on those cities, suffers a massive malfunction. The hatch on the missile tube does not fully open and the missile strikes it, causing the missile to explode inside the submarine, utterly destroying it and its remaining missiles before they can be launched.

The attack on the Dakar Refinery in Senegal destroys the refinery and kills or wounds over 60,000 native Senegalese as well as 3500 French military and civilians who guard and work at the refinery. Casualties would have been much larger but the warhead fizzles and only detonates with 38kt instead of 250kt, thus sparing most of the city of Dakar from blast effects. Even though the attack was an airburst, considerable fallout does affect the city, adding another fifty thousand casualties eventually to the toll . The destruction of this refinery further complicates the oil supplies for the French, who have lost most of their refinery capacity in France already to Soviet nuclear and conventional attacks.

By days end South Africa officially becomes a co-belligerent with the US, declaring war on the Soviets, their Warsaw Pact allies, Mozambique, Angola and Cuba. South Africa mobilizes quickly to re-establish public order, calling up reservists across the country. In Johannesburg, panicked riots break out as survivors from the nuclear strike at Sasolburg stream into the city.

December 9, 1997

Taking advantage of the chaos gripping Egypt, Libya launches an attack by 10 Tu-22 bombers against the Aswan Dam, hitting it repeatedly until the center of the dam collapses, sending a wall of water down the Nile, drowning tens of thousands and displacing thousands more. The attack destroys most of what electrical power was still being generated in Egypt after the nuclear attacks. Libyan tank formations cross into Egypt and head east against pitiful resistance.

December 10, 1997

Due to the disruptions in both the US and South Africa it takes several days to retaliate for the Soviet attacks in Africa. When the attacks come they devastate large areas of Africa.

Conakry, the capital of Guinea, is devastated by three 250kt warheads that destroy the extensive Soviet air and naval bases there. Nearly half a million people die in the attack which annihilates most of the remaining Soviet forces in Africa as well as the government and most of the military of the Republic of Guinea.

US nuclear attacks destroy refineries, oil fields and ports in pro-Soviet Algeria and Libya, causing over four million casualties in strikes against both nations and cutting off all oil production. What is left of the Soviet Med fleet that is in port in the two countries is destroyed as well.

The Libyan armored formations that crossed the Egyptian border are devastated by three tactical nuclear warheads, knocking out over 80 percent of the tanks and APC’s and sending the survivors fleeing back into Libya.

The cities of Tripoli, Skikda (Philippeville) Algiers, Arzew, Ra's Lanuf, Zawiya, Benghazi and Oran have all been targeted in the attacks. The attacks on Algeria incense the French government and many of its people, who see Algeria as still being part of France.

In the Indian Ocean, a single TLAM-A 100kt nuclear cruise missile detonates over the harbor and capital of Victoria, destroying the city and killing over 20,000 people. Ten Soviet merchantmen and six Indian Ocean Squadron auxiliaries who were “interned” in the port are sunk and the 300 man Soviet Marine detachment there is wiped out.

South Africa, in coordination with the US strikes, launches most of its small nuclear arsenal in reprisal against the capital cities of the Soviet client states of Angola and Mozambique. The strikes against Mozambique and Angola send both countries into chaos as their governments are destroyed along with their capital cities.

Three South African 38kt weapons delivered by missiles detonate over Angola’s capital of Luanda, destroying most of the city including the refinery there. The third warhead detonates almost directly over the airbase that harbors most of the Cuban air power in Africa, destroying almost 75 percent of their fighters and attack aircraft in Africa in seconds.

In Mozambique, the capital of Maputo is hit with another four South African weapons, this time being 38kt nuclear bombs delivered by Canberra and Buccaneer bombers, two over the city and two over the harbor, sinking dozens of Soviet and Warsaw Pact merchants interned there as well as three Soviet nuclear attack subs and their resupply ships that were using the port, clandestinely, as a supply base. In a huge air battle two dozen Mozambique Air Force MiG’s are shot down by escorting South African fighters, who lose seven fighters of their own, as well as one of the Canberra bombers, lost on the way out after the strike.

[Olefin]

Nuclear strikes against Venezuela are mentioned in the canon - the most likely targets would be the following

Punto Fijo, Venezuela

Punto Cardon, Venezuela

Bajo Grande Refinery - south of Maracaibo

Curacao - Isla Refinery in Willemstad harbor - which serves as a refinery for Venezuelan oil - also taking out the Netherlands naval base at Curacao and the Marines barracks there as well

The nearby refinery at Aruba, while also a likely target, apparently is overlooked - as is stated in Gateway to the Spanish Main - i.e. it says the pirates target would be the oil rich island of Aruba - the only oil on that island would be at the refinery and its storage tanks - if it was nuked there wouldnt be any more oil there to obtain

[Olefin]

A question - has anyone ever put together a list of likely nuclear targets in France that the Russians hit - according to the game they did get hit but either didnt retaliate or did retaliate but then decided tit for tat was enough and didnt join the war

You have to figure at the least the Petit-Couronne plant outside Rouen and the Donges refineries at Saint-Nazaire would have been definite targets for nukes

[raketenjagdpanzer]

le Harvre would almost certainly get hit; first an airburst to pin-down, then probably a spread of ground bursts, something in the 100kt range from an SS-18 or two, to put a major harbor out of commission.

[kalos72]

Awesome information here guys! Thank you for sharing...

[Olefin]

I am in the process of trying to put together a list of targets in Spain and Portugal - while Spain was (barely) touched up in Med Cruise it would make for an interesting area to campaign in for Twilight 2000 - especially as Med Cruise does say that British and American servicemen - most likely survivors from Gibraltar or sunken ships in the Med and Atlantic who made it to Spain - may be in Spain still in 2000/2001

[kalos72]

I'd love the Spain/Portugal lists...could really open some doors in my campaign for adventure! :)

[comped]

What about alternative nuke targets? Having looked at the CONUS nuke map from Kato, it really surprises me what did/did not get hit: IE Fort Devens, Detroit, NYC, certain secretive facilities in the Nevada desert, Washington/Oregon... Hell, many states didn't get a nuke anywhere near them (ex: New England).

Would there be any interest in an alternative list of targets for the US, say one for the regular timeline, and one for now?

EDIT: And could anyone give the rationale why most of Canada's populous cities were hit, when not even most of the US' were?

[Targan]

Remember, it wasn't a general full-scale nuclear exchange like we've all grown up fearing. There was no MAD scenario. It was a slow escalation, with all sides involved pushing things just far enough that they didn't kick off a full-scale, all-out ICBM exchange. Over the couple of years that the tit-for-tat nukings occurred there would have been countless thousands of meetings and discussions and little events and evaluations that would be too numerous for even the most devoted alternate history buffs to flesh out. Unless you're re-writing the timeline of the war and it's nuclear exchanges (and many here have or are in the process of doing just that) there's no point second guessing why some targets were deliberately left off either side's hit lists. Launch failures, targeting problems, detonation failures and the like are a whole other issue though.

It may be that the Soviets nuked major population centres in Canada but not in the US because they judged that nuking major population centres in the US would be likely to kick off a full-scale MAD scenario. There's no risk of that with Canada. They don't have nukes.

[rcaf_777]

Actually a lot of Canada oil production is in the major population centres, also I thinking that when they made twilight the research persons did not have the www so the used books, which I'm guessing are few and far between if your going to a us library

And since Canada and the US have a defence plan for attack since 1940 I'm thinking that attack on Canada is and attack on the US

By late in The Twilight War the US would many assets deployed to Canada

[comped]

Remember, it wasn't a general full-scale nuclear exchange like we've all grown up fearing.


I'm a little young to have feared soviet nukes. :)


Unless you're re-writing the timeline of the war and it's nuclear exchanges (and many here have or are in the process of doing just that) there's no point second guessing why some targets were deliberately left off either side's hit lists.

I hope to get around to doing that. Should be for a game I'm running in the next few months.

It may be that the Soviets nuked major population centres in Canada but not in the US because they judged that nuking major population centres in the US would be likely to kick off a full-scale MAD scenario. There's no risk of that with Canada. They don't have nukes.



The warheads were never in the sole possession of Canadian personnel. They were the property of the Government of the United States and were always under the direct supervision of a "Custodial Detachment" from the United States Air Force (or Army, in the case of Honest John warheads).

Through 1984, Canada would deploy four American designed nuclear weapons delivery systems accompanied by hundreds of US-controlled warheads:

56 BOMARC CIM-10 surface-to-air missiles.[19]
4 Honest John rocket systems armed with a total of 16 W31 nuclear warheads the Canadian Army deployed in Germany.[19]
108 nuclear W25 Genie rockets carried by 54 CF-101 VooDoos.[19]
estimates of 90 to 210 tactical (20-60 kiloton) nuclear warheads assigned to 6 CF-104 Starfighter squadrons (about 90 aircraft) based with NATO in Europe (there is a lack of open sources detailing exactly how many warheads were deployed).

So, while they didn't have direct control over them, they did have them on their soil at the time, under some sort of nuclear sharing agreement. Perhaps this could have extended into the T2K era... Or would it have? My timeline's a little rusty.

[Targan]

EDIT: And could anyone give the rationale why most of Canada's populous cities were hit, when not even most of the US' were?

You have my rationale, which it seems wasn't sufficient. I'm interested to hear other opinions (that's not sarcasm, I'm genuinely interested; rationalizing why things turned out the way they did in the published material is an interesting exercise to me).

[kato13]

My view

There were 40,000 plus nuclear warheads in 1989 yet the game only mentions 322 of them (IIRC). Yes mostly strategic nukes were mentioned but they were nearly half of the 40k total so you are talking about 2%.

Everything reasonable to be thought as an explanation for the discrepancy probably did have an effect.

Fizzles
Missile Failures
Warhead Failures
Targeting Failures
Destruction of C3I Facilities
ABM systems
Lack of control codes
Destruction of Launch facilities from enemy action, entropy, or accidents
Lack of Intelligence on what actually was hit (or missed and deserves a second strike)

As normal from the Russian perspective any quality issues would normally have been addressed with quantity. This was not an option here. When looking at strikes in the US, lets say they wanted 300 targets, normally they would launch say 1000 warheads for those 300 targets. That would have probably triggered full blown MAD.

So they launch 40 at a time over a couple of days with lets say a 25-33% success rate for the first go (remember they have been a Tac nuke target for months). They get hit in retaliation and then strike again. Each time their C3I and launch capabilities are degraded even further.

In the end they have 84 successful strikes in the US at the cost of 59 known strikes back. In the USSR i assume that the count is a little low as the US had far more warheads that were under GDWs 500kt threshold. I expect it was a very tit for tat.

Canada gets 30 strategic hits, my assumption is that the US responded with 30 strikes outside the USSR (Vietnam? Bulgaria? North Korea? Iraq?). I believe these strikes were earlier in the war and were that natural extension of the existing tactical strikes and not considered a threat to escalate to MAD. Being earlier there might have been better C3I and post strike analysis. That might explain why proportionally they were hit "harder".

[FPSlover]

I think i got some answers :)


So, while they didn't have direct control over them, they did have them on their soil at the time, under some sort of nuclear sharing agreement. Perhaps this could have extended into the T2K era... Or would it have? My timeline's a little rusty.
Maybe attempt to make up a moduel about having to rescue the nukes from falling into Warsaw Pact hands (if deployed in Europe) or American hands (if deployed within a few hundred miles of the border)?


You have my rationale, which it seems wasn't sufficient. I'm interested to hear other opinions (that's not sarcasm, I'm genuinely interested; rationalizing why things turned out the way they did in the published material is an interesting exercise to me).

The most probable explanation is that the strikes that hit Canada were meant to cripple her population and oil/manufacturing production.

[comped]

The most probable explanation is that the strikes that hit Canada were meant to cripple her population and oil/manufacturing production.

Did they ever say, in cannon, what military bases were hit? (don't recall it being so...) Or anything about what parts of the goverment were left over? I don't presume much, since a nuke hit Ottawa, which would most likely kill a large chunk of the Parliament (if they're in session), and the PM, along with their cabinet. Given that not even much fan material was written on the Canada, and I can't seem to find much even in the books about what happened (Am I wrong? Were things mentioned?), perhaps there may be some pertinacity for someone to write this.

[Rainbow Six]

Did they ever say, in cannon, what military bases were hit? (don't recall it being so...) Or anything about what parts of the goverment were left over? I don't presume much, since a nuke hit Ottawa, which would most likely kill a large chunk of the Parliament (if they're in session), and the PM, along with their cabinet. Given that not even much fan material was written on the Canada, and I can't seem to find much even in the books about what happened (Am I wrong? Were things mentioned?), perhaps there may be some pertinacity for someone to write this.

There was a reasonably comprehensive write up on Canada in one of the first editions of Challenge magazine to come out after Twilight 2000 was launched in the 80's which I think mentioned some of the bases that were nuked. I can't recall the issue number off hand, but someone may be able to assist - my soft copy is on my now defunct previous laptop.

[Olefin]

Some of the nuke targets in the Caribbean would have been basically country/island killers considering what a nuke could do to someplace like St. Croix which had to have been hit or Trinidad's refineries or Curacao

a single 250kt airburst over St. Croix's refinery would basically wipe out most of the population of that island, same with Curacao - and Trinidad has three nuclear targets that would destroy the central and southern parts of that island

really goes to show how the game's idea of just hitting petroleum targets in neutrals really doesnt cut down the amount of casualties that much as compared to going city buster - and applied to France for instance or Japan how much the "neutrals" may have lost as to population and industrial base - not if the Soviets idea of a surgical strike is a 250kt nuke

[John Farson]

Some of the nuke targets in the Caribbean would have been basically country/island killers considering what a nuke could do to someplace like St. Croix which had to have been hit or Trinidad's refineries or Curacao

a single 250kt airburst over St. Croix's refinery would basically wipe out most of the population of that island, same with Curacao - and Trinidad has three nuclear targets that would destroy the central and southern parts of that island

really goes to show how the game's idea of just hitting petroleum targets in neutrals really doesnt cut down the amount of casualties that much as compared to going city buster - and applied to France for instance or Japan how much the "neutrals" may have lost as to population and industrial base - not if the Soviets idea of a surgical strike is a 250kt nuke

Well, when all you've got is a hammer...

Though I wonder how different T2k would be in a total exchange scenario, considering that T2k13 has 90% of the world dead a few years after its limited nuclear war. That game at least seemed to posit that having 9 out of 10 people dead was no impediment to T2k-style role-playing...

[Olefin]

Well there are smaller weapons in their arsenal - it may come down to how inaccurate your missiles are

if you can hit within a very small radius then a 30-40kt weapon will do nicely without busting the city in the process

on the other hand if +/- a half mile is the best you can do then I can see using a 250kt weapon

[kalos72]

Hate to resurrect such an old thread but I dont suppose anyone has made a KML for Google Earth for a world wide target list?

[ArmySGT.]

I am in the process of trying to put together a list of targets in Spain and Portugal - while Spain was (barely) touched up in Med Cruise it would make for an interesting area to campaign in for Twilight 2000 - especially as Med Cruise does say that British and American servicemen - most likely survivors from Gibraltar or sunken ships in the Med and Atlantic who made it to Spain - may be in Spain still in 2000/2001

Moron (USAF, NASA)
Madrid (USAF)
Gibraltar (UKN)
Cadiz (USN)

[ArmySGT.]

You have my rationale, which it seems wasn't sufficient. I'm interested to hear other opinions (that's not sarcasm, I'm genuinely interested; rationalizing why things turned out the way they did in the published material is an interesting exercise to me).

Push the population of Canada into the Continental United States to overburden the infrastructure and further destabilize the U.S. split government.

[Olefin]

You can add the following nuke targets officially now with the new canon material

Africa -

Soviet nukes

Egypt - Cairo, Suez, Alexandria - refineries

Morocco - Casablanca, Mohammedia and Sidi Kacem - port being used by NATO, refineries

Tunisia - El Borma oilfield

Nigeria - every refinery and oil shipping terminal hit by nukes

South Africa - Durban, Sasolburg - refineries

Diego Garcia - US bases

Ivory Coast - Abidjan - refinery & port

US Nuclear strikes

Guinea - Conakry - Soviet air and naval bases

Algeria - Skikda, Algiers, Arzew, Oran - refineries

Libya - Ra's Lanuf, Tripoli, Benghazi, Zawiya - refineries

Egyptian desert - multiple tactical nukes - Libyan armored formations

Seychelles - Victoria - Soviet naval shipping

South African nukes

Angola - Luanda - government, refinery, Cuban bases

Mozambique - Maputo - Soviet shipping, government buildings, air and army bases