California Nuke Target List.

[Dogger]

Hi guys.

Haven't posted in quite some time, but still lurk. Most of my old T2K source books and modules are in storage at the moment, so I could use a hand.

I'm looking for the nuke target hit locations (and payload yields) for California (and southern Nevada) from V.1

I know Richmond in the Bay area was hit, but a can't recall if there were multiple strikes or not.

Any info would be appreciated.

[kato13]

This should be all the California Strikes (sorry about formatting it is from my database) Kiloton size is in the third column from the left. There are no canon Nevada strikes.

33.91901779 -118.4159699 El Segundo CA United States Oil refining and storage facilities 1750 N T2k
37.9348793 -122.3465118 Richmond CA United States Oil refining and storage facilities 1500 N T2k
33.83160019 -118.2817764 Carson CA United States Oil refining and storage facilities 750 N T2k
38.03290176 -122.0756226 Avon CA United States Oil refining and storage facilities 500 N T2k
33.8360672 -118.3400574 Torrance CA United States Oil refining and storage facilities 500 N T2k
33.78120041 -118.2619019 Wilmington CA United States Oil refining and storage facilities 1250 N T2k
38.05051041 -122.1607361 Benicia CA United States Oil refining and storage facilities 500 N T2k
38.01926804 -122.1314697 Martinez CA United States Oil refining and storage facilities 500 N T2k
34.70376968 -120.5610809 Vandenborg AFB CA United States Recon satellite launch facilities 1000 Y T2k
33.89173889 -117.2721405 March AFB CA United States 15th Air Force Headquarters 1000 N T2k


Here is an excel file with all Canon T2k strikes (plus an sheet with the much more devastating strike from Morrow Project)

970

[Dogger]

Awesome. Thanks Kato!!

[Webstral]

I'll add a non-canon interpretation of the strikes against oil refineries in the SF Bay Area. Note that 4 refineries in the Bay Area get hit. Three get hit with 500kt weapons, while Richmond gets hit a 1.5Mt device. My explanation is that 4 weapons are deployed against these targets--perhaps from a single MIRV launched by a Soviet boomer. One of the MIRVs fails. Soviet BDA (battle damage assessment) reveals the failure of the strike against Richmond. A follow-on attack is launched from a separate platform.

The three .5Mt strikes against Benicia, Martinez, and Avon are probably overkill for these targets. If one uses Alex Wallerstein's Nukemap, one can see that the strike on Martinez probably would start catastrophic fires at Benicia and Avon. Still, the Soviets like to be thorough. It's just blind luck that the one refinery physically separated from the others was missed while the overlapping attacks all succeeded.

Let us imagine that for whatever reason the Soviets follow up the failed attack on Richmond with an ICBM with a single warhead. The launch vehicle selected is less accurate than more modern platforms. Whoever makes the decision to use the ICBM with a single warhead reasons that the higher yield of the warhead will compensate for the greater CEP.

The warhead, set for ground burst, detonates about 750 meters northwest of the intended ground. The actual ground zero is directly to the east of a long ridge that runs along the western edge of Richmond. This ridge is a set of low, joined hills running from Point Richmond to Point San Pablo over a distance of 8-9km. These hills are nothing impressive, as the highest point is less than 250m above the water line. The Richmond Bridge, which links Richmond with San Rafael in Marin County, makes landfall on the Richmond side at a "pass" in the ridge. The refinery is almost entirely on the eastern side of the ridge, though a few storage tanks are on the ridge itself and even on the western side. Also, some of the loading/offloading facilities are on the western side of the ridge.

Ground zero is in the mouth of Castro Creek, almost in the center of the U-shaped bowl formed where the creek meets San Pablo Bay. Until the moment of detonation, this 1km-wide area is defined on the west by the ridge line as it descends to San Pablo Point, on the east by the low shoreline typical of most of San Pablo Bay, and on the south by the dock and refinery facilities.

The fireball of the 1.5Mt explosion overflows the 1km basin of the mouth of Castro Creek and extends into the Bay and onto dry land. All of the water in the basin vaporizes instantly, along with millions of gallons from the creek itself and the adjacent San Pablo Bay proper. The northern parts of the refinery are caught up in the fireball. Lethal radiation and overpressure of 20 psi reach nearly to I-580 where it emerges from the pass on the south and right into the neighborhoods of North Richmond in the east. Virtually everything is destroyed outright. Overpressure of 5 psi, sufficient to destroy most residential structures, reaches the centers of San Pablo and Richmond, almost 6km from the epicenter.

The thermal pulse travels even further. Moving in a straight line to the southeast, the thermal pulse ignites fires and causes severe burns as far away as Albany and Kensington. Directly to the east, every part of Richmond and San Pablo is affected. To the northeast, Pinole and even Hercules are seared by heat intense enough to cause third degree burns in every person caught out in the open.

Towns in southern Marin which are technically within the thermal pulse radius are spared by the effects of topography on the blast. The epicenter is right at the surface of the Bay. The fireball in the mouth of Castro Creek is partially contained by the ridge line on the western boundary of the Richmond refinery. Although huge amounts of soil and rock are vaporized by the fireball, the sheer volume of rock in the low hills repels the air blasts and redirects the pressure wave upwards. Consequently, the effects of the blast on the Richmond Bridge, which is south and west of the ridge, are very much reduced. The mass of the low hills completely blocks the thermal pulse radiating west, southwest, and south below the level of the ridge. Thus San Rafael--and in particular those parts of the city along San Rafael Bay--is spared almost all of the effects of the nuclear blast which might otherwise be expected to cross the San Pablo Bay, make landfall at San Quentin state prison, and continue up the valley to the center of San Rafael. Similarly, Corte Madera and Larkspur, which otherwise would be completely exposed to the pressure wave and thermal pulse, are almost completely spared the effects of the blast. Those parts of Tiburon on the northeast face of the Tiburon Peninsula likewise suffer little ill effect, while those portions of Tiburon on the side of the peninsula and towns further west that are even more sheltered by low peaks in the coastal range are virtually unaffected though theoretically within the overpressure and thermal radiation radii of the 1.5Mt detonation at the Richmond refinery.

The first strikes at Benicia, Martinez, and Avon cause tremendous damage throughout central Contra Contra County and southwestern Solano County. Highly accurate strikes by the first three reentry vehicles wipe out the refineries and associated facilities at these three locations. Firestorms quickly engulf Concord and Walnut Creek to the south, Port Chicago to the east, Port Costa and Crockett to the west, and Vellejo to the northwest. Topography and the very wet El Nino winter of ’97-’98 serve to limit the damage compared to the devastation that reduces greater Los Angeles to ashes and rubble. While towns nearest the strikes suffer tremendous damage, the hills and marshes separating clusters of towns in Contra Costa and Solano Counties serve as effective fire breaks.

The strike at Richmond is particularly devastating due to the high population density of western Contra Costa County. Firestorms rage throughout Richmond, San Pablo, and the adjoining municipalities. By the time they have run their course, everything north of University Avenue in Berkeley has been consumed by fire. A virtually unbroken heap of smoldering ruin characterizes the Contra County shoreline from the western edge of Pittsburg, west through Martinez and inland to include almost the entire urban area in the valleys occupied by Concord, Walnut Creek, and Clayton; through the smaller towns lining the Carquinez Strait, along the southeastern shore of San Pablo Bay, and throughout the entire flat and densely developed area between the hills and the shore of greater San Francisco Bay south to Berkeley. On the Solano side of the Bay, Benicia has been annihilated, while Vallejo has been burned to the ground.

Seen in a larger context, these strikes virtually paralyze the San Francisco Bay Area and its 8.5 million inhabitants. Direct loss of life is significant but not overwhelming—less than 1 million. Loss of fuel for transportation, damage to the electrical grid, and the breakdown of order cause far more casualties over the next 2 years. Interstate 80, linking Sacramento with Oakland and San Francisco, is impassible through sections of Vallejo and virtually all of San Pablo, Richmond, El Cerrito, Albany, and much of Berkeley. By April 2001, the population of the 10 Bay Area counties has dropped to 3 million.

[Dogger]

Great reply and BDA write-up Web thanks.

Funny that you mention it, but the very first thing I did was use NukeMap to chart the California strikes. http://www.nuclearsecrecy.com/nukemap/?t=a1e0b7ec4ab6e8c9dd52cd2f186516a5

I agree that the multiple strikes on the Carquinez Strait locations is mass overkill. i suppose the same can more or less be said for the Torrance/Carson/Wilmington strikes in the south as well.

What are your thoughts on damage to San Fransisco itself? While the thermal blast effects (on the map) only get about as far as Treasure Island...there is nothing save nice flat open water between much of Richmond and The City...I'm thinking shock-wave damage would have been profound. Enough to cause major damage and start fires that would have ravaged a city without power. (At least the North Beach area, perhaps as far west as Columbus Ave?)

Also, given the weather patterns at that time of year, I'm thinking the Fairfield - Sacramento corridor would have been devastated by hard fallout from the Bay hits.

In my scenario, Hunters Point Shipyard has become a viable alternate naval base, however, movement inland to Stockton via the Carquinez Strait is a gauntlet to run due to it still being somewhat of a 'hotzone' to pass thru. Tho, in my game it is into 2003...so perhaps the strait would not be near as dangerous now.

[Webstral]

I think damage to San Francisco from the Richmond strike depends entirely on the altitude of the epicenter of the explosion. An airburst of almost any elevation over Richmond will break a lot of glass in North Beach, the Marina, and downtown. With a surface detonation, though, the shockwave and thermal pulse will run into the low hills on the western edge of Richmond I mentioned above. There will be plenty of turbulence in the air, to be sure. But damage from overpressure should be slight given the distance of northern San Francisco from the epicenter and the deflection of the pressure wave by the hills.

Deflection by the low hills at Point Richmond will not completely eliminate the effects of overpressure on North Beach or adjacent areas. However, we should bear in mind that the pressure drops from 20psi at 2.5km from the epicenter to 5 psi at somewhat less than 6km from the epicenter. It’s another 12km from the edge of that ring to North Beach. Pressure will drop as a function of the expansion of a hemisphere. If the overpressure at 6km (just keeping the math simple) is 5 psi, then the same force will be acting on a much larger surface area when the hemisphere expands to a radius of 18km. The surface area of a hemisphere with a radius of 6000m is slightly less than 118,000m2. The surface area of a hemisphere with a radius of 18,000m is 355,000m2. Keeping the math simple, this should mean a force 1/3 as great as when the hemisphere has a radius of 6km. These are all rounded figures, just for the sake of getting a decent approximation.

Another way of looking at the math (admittedly without my having a really good grasp of the geometry and physics involved) is to observe that the overpressure drops from 20 psi at 2km to 5 psi at 6km. The pressure decreases fourfold as the radius increases by a factor of 3. The radius of the hemisphere increases by just about a factor of 3 from the edge of the 5 psi ring to North Beach. While someone with real subject matter expertise could give precise figures, my back-of-the-envelope sketch shows that pressure drops to about 1.25 psi. This jibes tolerably with the above example, in which pressure drops from 5 psi to about 1.66 psi.

Since this pressure is applied very abruptly to glass facing towards the water in North Beach, one can expect a fair amount of broken glass—especially among the big picture windows facing in exactly the wrong direction.

Accounting for the impact of the Point Richmond hills on the pressure reaching North Beach is tougher. The pressure wave will be distorted as it goes over the hills and at least partially deflected. Once over open water, though, we might expect that portion of the shockwave that went over the hills to descend towards the water. This question addresses fluid mechanics, about which I know very, very little. I can’t say for certain that a ridge 100m high in Richmond would completely block the overpressure from the blast from striking 2 story houses in North Beach. Neither can I say that the pressure would be unaffected as a result of the pressure wave “spreading out”, as it were, to fill the gap below the 100m line and the surface of the water as the pressure wave moves southwest across San Francisco Bay. My guess is that there would be some reduction. I can’t say how much. Even a 50% reduction would very favorably affect survivability of residential structures in North Beach.

The thermal radiation, on the other hand, is much more straightforward. Infrared light moves in a straight line. There is a significant mass between the epicenter of the explosion in Castro Creek and North Beach. The effect of thermal radiation on North Beach should be zero to negligible.

I certainly agree that there would be troublesome fallout from the strikes. How much depends a good deal on how many airbursts versus ground bursts we’re talking about. My interpretation is that the three .5Mt strikes are airbursts, while the 1.5Mt strike is a ground burst. That last strike would put up a lot more irradiated dust than the other three combined. The water at the point of impact is only a couple of feet deep. The surface underneath the water is wet mud. I don’t know how deep that mud goes before one reaches bedrock. In any event, I think one could expect fallout in an arc from Modesto to Sacramento. This is unfortunate, given that there’s a lot of productive farmland everywhere in that arc. How widely dispersed the fallout is and how far inland it reaches depends on the weather, obviously. If everyone was very, very lucky the places most affected by fallout would be those places already burned to a cinder by the first round of strikes or basically uninhabited along the north shore of Suisun Bay. What really sucks is that some very productive and potentially defensible farmland on the islands of the Delta lies directly east of Richmond. The best case scenarios would be either heavy rain such that the fallout from the Richmond strike is knocked out of the air almost immediately and falls in central Contra Costa or high winds scatter the fallout across such a wide area that the agricultural areas of the Central Valley get a light dusting.

I put the major functional military bases on the islands for security purposes. I chose Alameda because the facilities already were there in 1997. The island would be comparatively easy to secure, freeing military manpower for other tasks. People useful to Milgov could be packed onto the island, where they would be manageable and relatively secure.

The hotness of Carquinez Strait is something I haven’t really thought about before. It certainly could be a real problem when it comes to exploiting the inland waterways. I’d be curious to see some numbers on how hot the shoreline would be after 500kt airbursts at the given locations. The lynchpin of Blue Two and of Sixth US Army operations in central California is free movement all along the inland waterways, from Alviso in the South Bay to the Golden Gate to the Petaluma and Napa Rivers, throughout the Delta, and upriver to Sacramento and Stockton. If Carquinez Strait is too hot to move through in 1998, a very serious dent is going to be put in my scheme.

[kalos72]

You folks have any thoughts about San Diego? I dont think Canon has it being hit does it?

My group has talked about, once securing Eastern Texas, clearing a path to reach the West coast and San Diego is the best option...

Especially if the play the group is making to rekindle the Mexican civil war by supporting one faction and propping up a puppet dictator. :baddevil:

[Dogger]

No, according to canon San Diego was never hit. Which of course rekindles the whole GDW targeting debate...refineries or no...I would think the Soviets would have tasked at least one big nuke on SD harbor (North Island NAS, 32nd Street Naval Base, the SSN base at Point Loma, and PacFleet HQ as well as MCRD the Marine Corps Recruit Depot...among others things)...but they didn't.

In my game, in mid 2002 Mexican forces in Texas rallied and began the "second offensive" to 'finished the job'. they pushed north and east out of their containment's. They initially gained ground, but a timely intervention of Federal Mechanized troops aided by some air power out of Colorado and ground troops pushing out of the South Texas Grange capitol of Victoria (bolstered by more then a few of the troops who had returned from Europe) stalled the drive and turned it into a full route after a pitched battle on the outskirts of Victoria itself....Texas is more or less free of organized Mexican forces now.

I'm setting up the California segment of the 'Second Offensive' now. With moderate to strong Sixth Army forces holding most all the southern San Joaquin Valley mountain passes Mexican forces have been stalled for months (years really) they have also been blocked from any coastal advancement at Santa Maria to the west. To the East of Tehachapi its a zillion miles for trackless desert and Central Valley Command cares little about what they might do out there.

LA is a ruined wasteland that has proved the undoing of the Mexican invasion in SoCal...there is no foraging to be had, its 100 miles of ruins a logistic train must traverse from Mexico (if there was one) and it's infested with violent warring gangs who engage anyone and everyone for supplies.

I'm near the point where about 12.000 US troops will be returning from Korea/Okinawa/the Pacific (they made it to Hawaii last game...got sucked up in the natives against whites civil war going to there)....the plan is to have many of them bolster Sixth Army forces around Bakersfield and launch a final offensive to drive Mexican forces deep into the LA wasteland...at the same time, other US forces will depart from Hunters Point San Fransisco and conduct a 'MacArthur style' Inchon invasion landing at San Diego cutting off retreat and resupply...hopefully ending organized Mexican military operations in SoCal at that point.

BTW: in our game, the players were 'stunned' to see the USS-Enterprise laid up in Pearl Harbor (the Pearl nuke missed and landed at sea) Enterprise is badly damaged structurally...results of a near miss with a nuke at sea...she can't launch aircraft, but her reactors are in good shape...she's currently supplying power and fresh water to the Pearl City/MilGov AO on the island.

[unkated]

Correct if I'm wrong, but don't the strikes listed also remove the main train access lines into San Francisco? Meaning that aid cannot move by rail? (Nor can people leave, though I understand that commuter rails run south out of the city.

Does anyone know how much of the city's food supply comes in by rail?

Personally, I suspect that by 2001, the regional population may be more like 1.5 million, with more people having moved away to places with better food supply.

Uncle Ted

[Dogger]

Most passenger train service moves through Martinez: Which would get vaporized...so that would cause issues. However, most fright coming out of the Central Valley moves along the Altamont Pass/Hwy580 corridor further south.

[Webstral]

Correct if I'm wrong, but don't the strikes listed also remove the main train access lines into San Francisco? Meaning that aid cannot move by rail? (Nor can people leave, though I understand that commuter rails run south out of the city.

Does anyone know how much of the city's food supply comes in by rail?

Personally, I suspect that by 2001, the regional population may be more like 1.5 million, with more people having moved away to places with better food supply.

Uncle Ted

There's a rail yard in Richmond adjacent to the refinery. Needless to say, the yard and adjacent rail will be impassable.

I constantly play with the figures for the SF Bay population. I don't think 1.5 million is entirely unreasonable. I believe the surviving government will make an all-out effort to get people out of the cities and into the Central Valley and the Delta where labor will be needed for agriculture. This will be a messy process. Even messier will be the initial outbreak of cholera once the Bay becomes a cesspool because the POTW (publicly owned treatment works) around the Bay stop working. The level of success achieved by efforts to manage people's handling of their wastes will be a major determinant in how many survive to see 1999. When I'm feeling pessimistic, I feel that the ignorance and carelessness of the survivors will lead to massive epidemics. On the other hand, cholera is its own reward. It will kill the people who bring it on themselves. Survivors who organize and get themselves squared away will be much less vulnerable. In this light, the people who survive to see 1999 definitely will self-select by means other than violence.

Howling Wilderness mentions bubonic plague in San Francisco. I wonder about the likelihood of this, but I'm willing to go along with it. Black plague does exist in the American West. Once it becomes pneumonic plague, the rate of spread will explode. This, too, will kill the undesirables at preferential rates because better organized and more lawful clusters of survivors will have better access to the surviving health care (which will find itself drafted by whatever government can get its hands on them).

[By "undesirables" I mean gangs, brigands, marauders, etc. Warlords are vastly preferable to these types because warlords will take measures to protect the lives of their labor.]

[swaghauler]

Any nuclear weapon detonated on a "soft target" (like the ones described above) will ALWAYS be an airburst attack. Ground attack is only used for hardened or underground targets. This is because a ground attack reduces the range of Blast, Thermal, and Fallout damage significantly. The effects of an airburst by effective Nominal Yield are:

Blast Damage Effects By Nominal Yield:
20kt, 400m Airburst: Total devastation from 0 meters to 600 meters. All "soft" (wood or brick) structures are destroyed and moderate damage to reinforced structures from 600 meters to 1700 meters. All "soft" structures moderately damaged and light damage to reinforced structures from 1700 meters to 4700 meters.
500kt, 1800m Airburst: Total devastation from 0 meters to 1.5 kilometers. "Soft" structures are destroyed and reinforced structures suffer moderate damage from 1.5 kilometers to 3.5 kilometers. "Soft" structures suffer moderate damage and reinforced structures suffer light damage from 3.5 kilometers to 10 kilometers.
1.5 mt, 2000 meter Airburst: Total devastation from 0 meters to 4 kilometers. "Soft" structures are destroyed and reinforced structures suffer moderate damage from 4 kilometers to 10 kilometers. "Soft" structures suffer moderate damage and reinforced structures suffer light damage from 10 kilometers to 25 kilometers.

Incendiary Effects by Nominal Yield:[B]
20kt, 400m Airburst: Incineration from 0 meters to 2 kilometers. 3rd degree burns/ignition of all combustibles from 2 kilometers to 2.5 kilometers. 2nd degree burns from 2.5 kilometers to 3.2 kilometers. 1st degree burns from 3.2 kilometers to 4.5 kilometers.
500kt, 1800m Airburst: Incineration from 0 meters to 4 kilometers. 3rd degree burns/ignition of combustibles from 4 kilometers to 6 kilometers. 2nd degree burns from 6 kilometers to 8 kilometers. 1st degree burns from 8 kilometers to 10 kilometers.
1.5mt, 2000m Airburst: Incineration from 0 meters to 15 kilometers. 3rd degree burns/ignition of combustibles from 15 kilometers to 18 kilometers. 2nd degree burns from 18 kilometers to 23 kilometers. 1st degree burns from 23 kilometers to 27 kilometers.

[B]Initial (non-fallout) Radiation Effects by Nominal Yield:
20kt, 400m Airburst: Lethal Radiation Exposure from 0 meters to 1.5 kilometers. Acute Radiation Poisoning from 1.5 kilometers to 2 kilometers.
500kt, 1800m Airburst: Lethal Radiation Exposure from 0 meters to 2 kilometers. Acute Radiation Poisoning from 1.5 kilometers to 2 kilometers.
1.5mt, 2000m Airburst: Lethal Radiation Exposure from 0 meters to 4 kilometers. Acute Radiation Poisoning from 4 kilometers to 5 kilometers.

All of these effects are for Air Burst weapons of the listed Nominal Yield. Ground Bursting will reduce Blast and Incendiary Effects while producing a larger Mushroom Cloud of radioactive fallout debris. Any terrain or structure which could provide cover from a ground burst won't generally provide cover from an air burst (which is why they are more common).

[pmulcahy11b]

BTW: in our game, the players were 'stunned' to see the USS-Enterprise laid up in Pearl Harbor (the Pearl nuke missed and landed at sea) Enterprise is badly damaged structurally...results of a near miss with a nuke at sea...she can't launch aircraft, but her reactors are in good shape...she's currently supplying power and fresh water to the Pearl City/MilGov AO on the island.

It's OK is you call DM spoiler on this and not answer but, do you have any plans to get the Enterprise back into fighting shape?

[Dogger]

It's OK is you call DM spoiler on this and not answer but, do you have any plans to get the Enterprise back into fighting shape?

I didn't go into to much detail about Enterprises condition in the game. But most of the structure damage is repairable. The major concern is the heavy damage to the upper bow of the ship and forward flight deck (basically peeled up).

So my thinking is that her forward catapults are probably unrecoverable, but she could most likely still launch aircraft from her waist cats. I would imagine her various sensors are damaged and probably out of action due to the (relatively) close proximity of the nuke blast that almost got her.

But, yeah, in game terms she could probably get back in action if supplies and enough crew could be found...fuel for the remaining air wing would be the trick...not to mention the people of Pearl City not wanting to give up their readily available source of power and clean water.

[Webstral]

Any nuclear weapon detonated on a "soft target" (like the ones described above) will ALWAYS be an airburst attack.

ALWAYS exists neither on the battlefield nor in Twilight: 2000. This is especially so in operations which exist purely as doctrine since the doctrine was formulated. This is even more so when the stakes are as high as they are in nuclear warfare and very few people are responsible for making decisions.

I’ll offer some genuinely well-intentioned advice, swaghauler, because you seem like someone who has a fighting chance of taking it. There’s a way to go about asserting oneself on this board that differs from most places on the Internet. For instance, one way of addressing a difference of opinion about the likelihood of a 1.5Mt device being used against a soft target would be something like this:

“Doctrinally, soft targets being attacked by nuclear means are hit with airbursts for reasons a, b, and c. Of course, in real life we probably cannot expect 100% adherence to doctrine. I’m genuinely curious about how and why you see an exception being made for this target.”

This approach has two virtues. The first virtue is that you can state your understanding (dare I say, subject matter expertise) without transforming said statement into a win-lose encounter (“This ALWAYS is the case, so you’re wrong if you don’t agree.”), which is really a lose-lose encounter, into an opportunity to learn more about the other party’s thinking. The other party gains the opportunity to absorb your subject matter expertise without appearing to lose face. We value that around here. Also, when the other party explains his thinking, you gain the opportunity to participate in reformulation of his ideas by helping him find solutions to his stated intent.

The other virtue is that by stating what is strictly factual—i.e., by doctrine soft targets are hit by nuclear airburst, not ground burst—versus what is hyperbolic—like the quote above—you don’t have to stake yourself on the indefensible. In this case, the indefensible is making an ALWAYS or NEVER declaration about events which have never occurred in real life. Hiroshima and Nagasaki predate nuclear doctrine. There were some hopes and ideas, but no one really knew enough to formulate doctrine prior to the two uses of fission weapons in combat. In any event, doctrine is based upon extant circumstances. Ideas about what we were going to do with nuclear weapons in the 1950’s would be out of date today, the applicability of certain aspects notwithstanding. And then again, doctrine is modified or ignored as circumstances dictate.

The other information you have posted, swag, is very good stuff. Thanks for including it. While I consider myself well-read on the subject, I usually get something new out of your factual material. I also find value in your opinion--especially when it is given thusly.

[kato13]

Just a note the "Y" in the second to last column denoted a ground burst according to canon.

34.70376968 -120.5610809 Vandenberg AFB CA United States Recon satellite launch facilities 1000 Y T2k

[Webstral]

I appreciate the solid reference to published materials, Kato. Well done. I changed it in my interpretation because I felt this one was one of those things the authors didn't think through to its conclusion. I would say the same for every other airburst over .5Mt against specific soft targets. I believe it is bad politics for either side to be using city-busting nukes against specific economic targets if they want to avoid prompt escalation to a general strategic exchange. The Wilmington strike is of the same character. It's overkill in a manner that suggests the Soviets are playing games and trying to find excuses to kill cities under whatever transparent pretext will serve. It begs retaliation of exactly the same character. One strike like this can be an accident. Multiple strikes like this indicate a pattern and, again, beg retaliation--possibly with interest. If the target genuinely is the petroleum infrastructure, then a 1.5Mt airburst is a highly suspect way to tell the target nation "We're after your petroleum but don't want a city-busting exchange." Again, one can be an accident. Two or more is a pattern.

[Matt Wiser]

Anyone notice that two SAC bomber bases (Castle and Mather) and a third SAC base (Beale, with the U-2 and SR-71) are off the canon target list? Along with Travis (former bomber base, but MAC in the 1970s onward).

[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.

[kato13]

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)

[Webstral]

If the authors' thought process is to be taken into account, the Soviets had good reason to be circumspect. They were trying very hard to avoid a general exchange. I think it's possible that they used lower-yield warheads on every occasion they could.

This idea dovetails with my thinking on Richmond. After BDA, someone realized they were going to have to conduct a follow-up. They ordered the strike. No low-yield nukes were available at the time. Someone at the top said "Now, now, now!" Someone in the middle said, "We can't not hit the target, but we have orders not to engage in a city-busting profile. We only have warheads greater than 1Mt available right now. Make it a ground burst. Maybe we won't get shot in the backs of our heads."

[kato13]

This chart really shows how few low yield devices they have (again comparably).

http://www.johnstonsarchive.net/nuclear/wrjp159r.html

Only the SS-11 Mod 3 Sego with a max number being 630 (a more common estimate is 250). This is out of a number approaching 10000 ICBM/SLBMs.

My guess is that they did not have the Dial a yield concept we used in our Cruise missiles nor that their infrastructure was optimized for smaller missile warheads. From the chart they seem to like the big boys.

edit

I just noticed the SS-N-20 Mod 1 Sturgeon SLBM does give some 200kt options. I don't think this option was on a prior chart I looked at.

SLBM are harder to target accurately so are usually reserved for city busting, but it is another option.

[kato13]

For what it is worth here are the canon ground strikes

49.16437912 -123.9366608 Nanaimo Canada Canada Parliamentary Emergency Facility 500 Y T2k
34.70376968 -120.5610809 Vandenberg AFB CA United States Recon satellite launch facilities 1000 Y T2k
38.74499893 -104.8470001 Cheyenne Mountain CO United States North American Air Defense Command NORAD Headquarters 3000 Y T2k
28.40500069 -80.6043396 Kennedy Space Fight Center Cape Can FL United States Recon satellite launch facilities 1000 Y T2k
38.89522171 -77.03675842 Washington DC United States Presidential shelter at the White House 250 Y T2k
38.81090164 -76.86689758 Andrews AFB MD United States Presidential Emergency Facility 500 Y T2k
39.10498047 -76.74417114 Fort Meade MD United States Presidential Emergency Facility 500 Y T2k
38.99229813 -76.56939697 Camp David MD United States Presidential Emergency Facility 500 Y T2k
38.88953781 -77.08460999 Arlington VA United States The Pentagon 500 Y T2k
38.52209091 -77.29457092 Quantico VA United States Presidential Emergency Facility 500 Y T2k
37.30580139 -80.04405975 Fort A. P. Hill VA United States Presidential Emergency Facility 500 Y T2k
48.04459 30.84987831 Pervomaysk USSR USSR SS-19 ICBM Complex HQ 2000 Y T2k
50.7539711 59.53485107 Dombarovskiy USSR USSR SS-18 ICBM Complex HQ 2000 Y T2k
50.93598938 115.5616608 Olovyanneya USSR USSR SS-26 ICBM Complex HQ 2000 Y T2k
51.39363098 128.1232452 Svobodnyy USSR USSR SS-26 ICBM Complex HQ 2000 Y T2k
52.47362137 82.75791931 Aleysk USSR USSR SS-18 ICBM Complex HQ 2000 Y T2k
53.06156158 158.6224823 Petropavlovsk USSR USSR Submarine base SLBM storage center 2000 Y T2k
53.06576157 60.65378952 Kartaly USSR USSR SS-18 ICBM Complex HQ 2000 Y T2k
55.32117081 89.86235809 Uzhur USSR USSR SS-18 iCBM Complex HQ 2000 Y T2k
56.85504913 40.53266907 Teykovo USSR USSR SS-27 ICBM Complex HQ 2000 Y T2k
57.78073883 40.93669128 Kostroma USSR USSR SS-17 ICBM Complex HQ 2000 Y T2k
57.99000168 55.93000031 Perm USSR USSR helicopter, MiG-31, Il-76 engine plant 2000 Y T2k
56.63750076 47.89149857 Yoshskar-Ola USSR USSR SS-25 ICBM Complex HQ 2000 Y T2k

[Targan]

Fair enough. I guess if they didn't ramp up production of low-yield warheads and appropriate delivery systems in the T2K timeline, there's not much leeway for GMs after all.

[kato13]

Or course they could have changed anything. I change my timeline going back 1976 to allow the USSR to survive, any number of thing could have changed internally.

I just remembered a ton of research I did on this a few years back when I was trying to map out what strikes hit where and when globally.

[LT. Ox]

The north East Bay was at one time the largest oil refinery and storage complex in the world. Starting north of the old WWII LIBERTY ship building yards with Standard oil and continuing all the way to the Carquinez Strait Bridge several major oil companies abutted each other much like the cities with limit signs sharing the same sign post.
I lived at a location named TANK FARM HILL until 1966 and the Army. The storage tanks went from the Bay to interstate 80 and beyond. At least two of the petro chemical plants, Standard and Shell, had developing and manufacturing plants for chemical products such as weed and pest killers this was the early seventies and I worked as a security guard for standard while I went to School.
The Bridge from Richmond to San Rafael would almost certainly fall. This would present a navigation hazard. The Bridge at the straits would in all likelihood fall as well and would constitute a plug until cleared. The Moth ball fleet as it existed at the time was not nearly as large as it had been but a number of transport vessels were still floating. Mare Island was still in use and would be unlikely to survive as a functioning facility (perhaps a good source for scrounged material?)
As far as rail service goes the yards at Richmond were Santa Fe. Oakland and Berkley, Southern Pacific and Western Pacific. Passenger traffic is an interesting topic. My wife and I have used the Amtrak service from Grand Junction Co to Oakland on a number of occasions prior to 2000 and since. No direct rail service to San Francisco from the west, one detrained in Oakland and used the BART system to SF. Rail service form San Francisco to LA and San Diego does or did go on a daily schedule. I suppose you could have used Santa Fe across the southwest into LA and then north to SF. Since the mid to late sixty’s Freight service has had the right of way over passenger service. In situation presented in the game it is debatable if passenger service would be restored to WWII levels or not. Priorities and boarder problems considered my vote is for resumption as troops would not be using the lines all the time.
Well enough of an old Irish Football players rambling

[unkated]

For what it is worth here are the canon ground strikes

When you say 'Canon' nuclear strikes, is there a difference (in nuclear strike targets) between T2K versions? I don't know if it makes a difference...

Again, just in canon targets; we can save a discussion about different target selection thought processes by version and what that mean for another topic.

Uncle Ted

[kato13]

The US strikes come from Howling Wilderness which is V1 and The Big Yellow Book which is version 2/2.2. IIRC there is no difference in yield or location between the two. The BYB may have added one sub 500kt strike for a presidential shelter in DC.

The remainder of my strikes come from the BYB (USSR) and a review of every module and challenge article.

Some European strikes are conjecture due to vague references, the Finnish source-books and the cities listed as rubble in the V1 maps.

[unkated]

As far as rail service goes the yards at Richmond were Santa Fe. Oakland and Berkley, Southern Pacific and Western Pacific. Passenger traffic is an interesting topic. My wife and I have used the Amtrak service from Grand Junction Co to Oakland on a number of occasions prior to 2000 and since. No direct rail service to San Francisco from the west, one detrained in Oakland and used the BART system to SF. Rail service form San Francisco to LA and San Diego does or did go on a daily schedule. I suppose you could have used Santa Fe across the southwest into LA and then north to SF. Since the mid to late sixty’s Freight service has had the right of way over passenger service.

Interesting. When the Mexicans invade - and LA is unusable as a transportation hub (oh, by the way, losing the West Coast it's largest port facility), train traffic loses its link across the SW up to San Francisco.

San Francisco becomes increasingly dependent on barge traffic across from Oakland for bulk supply delivery.

In situation presented in the game it is debatable if passenger service would be restored to WWII levels or not. Priorities and boarder problems considered my vote is for resumption as troops would not be using the lines all the time.

I know that military travel during WW2 (and after) was based on a priority system; depending on your mission or need, you were granted a priority level, and you could bump someone off a plane or train if you had a higher priority rating. I could see civilian passengers being granted a priority level for train (or bus) lower than military, meaning you can go if there is space. Also meaning that you could be detrained in the middle of nowhere if someone needed your seat in the middle of a trip from say Taos, NM to Chicago...

Now, wouldn't that be a different way to start a campaign?

You were selected from among low priority passengers on a military train, and dropped off in some platform in Arizona. your seats were needed by some intelligence types with hot information about the Mexican invasion. You are literally left on the platform with your loaded pack and rifle, with half a dozen equally annoyed-looking, inconvenienced soldiers. And their is some mortar fire in the distance....

There are some pickups in the dusty parking lot. Anyone have Hotwire skill? :-)

Yes, yes, Mechanic will work just fine for that purpose...

Uncle Ted

[Webstral]

The fate of the bridges is a valid concern. The first issue is whether a given bridge will be left standing after a specific nuclear attack. The second is the degree of impact the bridge will have on navigation.

The Benicia-Martinez Bridge will be affected by 500kt airbursts directed against targets in Benicia, Martinez, and Avon. Unless I have put the Martinez epicenter too far south, none of the 20psi rings from the Benicia, Martinez, and Avon blasts overlap the bridge. All of the 5psi rings overlap at least part of the bridge. Assuming for the moment that the Soviet strikes were very accurate (not a reliable assumption, but we’ll deal with one variable at a time), then the bridge is subjected to 3 separate overpressure waves sufficient to cause most residential buildings to collapse. We should bear in mind that residential buildings are very different structures from large bridges. Wood and even brick houses are flimsy compared to steel bridges meant to carry bumper-to-bumper 40-ton tractor trailers, if need be. Bridges are designed to withstand vertical compression, which is what an overpressure wave from an airburst at 2.5km will generate against this target, albeit at roughly a 30 degree angle. The Avon strike places the most horizontal stress on the bridge. However, this strike is the furthest from the bridge. The 5psi ring only covers the southern half of the bridge. Bay Area bridges are designed to withstand earthquakes: i.e., very significant vertical and horizontal stress. So while the cities nearby and the toll plazas might be knocked down, the Benicia-Martinez Bridge probably won’t be destroyed by the canon strikes nearby.

The Richmond Bridge is a different issue. The 20psi ring overlaps the 2km length nearest the Richmond end of the bridge. If the detonation is an airburst roughly over the center of the refinery complex at 2km, the easternmost section of the bridge probably is going into the water. How far west the collapse extends is unknown. If a span of the bridge falls into the middle of the shipping channel while attached on the western side, there’s definitely going to be a navigational hazard. If the bridge stays up over the shipping channel, there shouldn’t be a problem. If the bridge drops a span completely into the shipping channel, the extent of the navigational hazard is hard to forecast. Ocean-going (deep draft) vessels might not be able to get through, but shallow draft barges and smaller craft might be unaffected. It’s hard to say.

While I cannot fault anyone for sticking to the published materials, which state that Richmond is subjected to a 1.5Mt airburst, I remain committed to the idea that an alternative explanation ought to be explored. A 1.5Mt airburst against Richmond is virtually the equivalent of a nuclear attack on Oakland and San Francisco. If the target really is the refinery, then an airburst of this magnitude in this location runs the risk of having the Americans conclude that the exchange has moved into the city-busting phase. There is great room for latitude here, since the Richmond strike clearly is out of step with the other three strikes against Bay Area refineries. Something unusual is happening here, since logically all four targets should be hit at once with warheads of similar yield. A great many explanations may be offered for the distinctiveness of the Richmond attack. I offer the ground burst model mentioned in a previous post as one means of sticking to the idea of a limited exchange focused on important economic and industrial targets but not on flat-out city-busting.

Another possible explanation for the 1.5Mt strike that also gets around the city-busting challenge is an attack that is deliberately off-target. For instance, an airburst centered 7km north-northwest of the center of the refinery complex includes the complex in the 5psi ring as well as the thermal radiation ring. It’s not hard to imagine fires destroying the complex. Richmond and San Pablo are doomed, but Oakland and San Francisco are far enough away that they are not obviously targets of the attack.

Now that I am looking at this model, I like it better than the ground burst. Fallout got mentioned above. I looked at the fallout model again, and it really does look like Fairfield and Sacramento get destroyed by fallout. Since Sixth US Army is listed as controlling an area anchored on Sacramento-Oakland, and since that very area gets hammered really hard in a 1.5Mt ground burst model, I think I’m going to have to abandon the ground burst model. Too bad. I worked hard on that.

[LT. Ox]

Well thought out and written Webstral.
I am not an engineer, my degree is in heavy weapons and small arms and tactics laugh.
I was thinking of the damage done to the Bay Bridge in ’89. While the piers did not let go sections fell. I am not sure if this would be the same with either of the spans we are discussing and if only the road sections let go they would not implead river traffic to a significant degree.

I may have let my Hollywood driven thinking drive my thoughts. Too many movies of explosion and floods taking down the bridge affecting my reasoning. I am unsure of single direction forces being similar to the earthquake type safety features now built into structures in the Bay Area.

It does seem that traffic would be stopped for an unknown period of time across both structures. Looking at the pictures of the equipment and material needed to repair the bay bridge, it would likely be way down the priority list. I am trying to find just how far rerouting of rail traffic would have to go if the river cannot be crossed at the straights.

My other thoughts are just what needs to go up or down that part of the bay after the strikes? Prior, it was almost entirely oil products, a very little Navel activity and some cargo for Sacramento I think. After the ford plant shut down in Richmond the need for container transshipment ended in that part of the bay, the alameda and west bay taking everything.

So, depending on how you run your game, rehab the area is going to be by truck for a long time. Just what salvageable material one could find, what condition and how much, well that is again up to the GM.

[Webstral]

It does seem that traffic would be stopped for an unknown period of time across both structures.

100% agreed. Given the fact that Benicia and Martinez are going to be hot for a while, I think it might be safe to say that there will be no traffic across the Benicia-Martinez Bridge for a long time. Also, the road network feeding onto the bridge is going to be in very poor condition on either side of the bridge.

Vallejo probably is destroyed by a firestorm. I-80 runs down the eastern side of the city, which is the side nearest Benicia. I’m not an engineer, either, so I can’t predict how the fires will affect the surface of the highway given its separation from the nearest combustible structures. There are some unknowns involved. For instance, if the attack occurs at rush hour, there’s going to be a lot more fuel on the road than if the attack occurs at 2:15am. On the other hand, at night one will have more tractor trailers on the road. Some of these tractor trailers will be tanker trucks hauling highly flammable liquids. A 20-ton tank of burning petrochemicals is not good for the road surface. It’s not hard to see one direction or the other being completely blocked by damage to the road wherever this occurs. If we’re very unlucky, a fire like this occurs side-by-side on either side of the highway. Or an overpass is so damaged that it becomes unusable. Also, I-80 runs through San Pablo and Richmond on the south side of the bridge. This is another case of a relatively intact bridge with heavily impacted roads on either side.

I agree, too, that no one is going across the Richmond Bridge anytime soon. Even if the bridge stays up, Richmond is going to be completely destroyed. Burning tanks of fuel will melt the roadway at the eastern end of the bridge and probably damage the concrete. There is no convenient bypass that won’t also have been severely affected by the destruction of Richmond.

My other thoughts are just what needs to go up or down that part of the bay after the strikes?

I imagine the primary products moving through San Pablo Bay and Carquinez Strait are food and security services, in that order. Once the relocation effort gets underway, there probably will be a flurry of human traffic upriver to provide labor in the Delta and in the Central Valley. Barge traffic will assume an even greater importance, given its energy efficiency. Thus the amount of radiation one is exposed to in the Strait becomes pretty important.

I notice that for a 500kt explosion, the 500 rem ring reaches near to the shore for all three explosions. I don’t know how this translates into rads on the ground in January 1998. It would be good to know more about how much, if any, radiation is going to affect someone in the shipping lane passing through the eastern end of the Strait. I imagine the Navy is going to be quite keen to measure that right away.

[LT. Ox]

I went to so many Schools as a Junior Officer. One was a three week CBR class
Good class and we used a lot of real materials including radioactive materials, that took the starch out of you when you looked at the dose meter at the end.
Thank you for the hazard suits.
We also used real mustard gas but a liquid form which we were required to apply to each wrist. We then used a detox agent to one side…. And got one hell of a nasty blister on the other.
Upshot of this stroll down memory lane is; Moving water! Staying away from the hard ( or muddy and ash shore line) I expect traffic could move from San Francisco to Sacrament and points between with relative safety as soon as they came up with a reason to do so.
A fire Boat and sea water spray as a wash down on both ends of trip ( or even as a scheduled safety procedure) would most likely be an idea some timid person ( like me) would like.

[Olefin]

Saw this thread and the discussion of the 1.5 Megaton strike against Richmond versus the .5MT strikes elsewhere - and I dont think we are looking at a different type of weapon there versus the other strikes in the San Francisco area - what I think you are looking at is three 0.5MT strikes on Richmond adding up to a total of 1.5MT - thus they may all have been from the same strike using the same sub and the same type of weapons

If you look at Urban Guerrilla you can see how the strikes in Howling Wilderness dont necessarily mean a single weapon - a combination of weapons adds up to the total yield that HW states

example

HW says Kennedy Spaceflight Center - 1 Megaton ground burst, Eglin is hit by 1 Megaton

Urban Guerrilla - released earlier - states it as follows -

Cape Kennedy is hit by 10 .1MT warheads from a single MIRV that add up to 1 Megaton

Eglin is hit by 10 .1MT warheads airbursts that take out specific targets in the base

Thus the Richmond strike was most likely not a 1.5 Megaton airburst but instead was three 0.5MT airbursts