Chicago
 

I never understood how Chicago could be ignored to such a large degree in the canon games. Given the fact that the game was published out of Bloomington Il (only 100 miles away) I cannot blame it entirely on "coastal thinking".

The charred thread is what made me think of this. After the Great Chicago fire a very conscious effort was made to make Chicago as conflagration resistant as possible. Mandatory firebreaks, long stretches of parks, river/canal and highway barriers, strict building codes and low population density all support Chicago being more fire resistant than most cities.

Chicago IMHO should have been the new capital post TDM. It has fantastic river and great lake access. It had the strongest Military unit in the continental United States in the 49th Armored Division. It was the railway center of the US, is near massive coal reserves, near productive oil fields, at the edge of the most productive agricultural lands in the world as well as bordering the largest freshwater reserve in the world. Illinois also has the highest percentage of electrical power generated by nuclear energy of any state at 50%.

We had a nice Chicago based thread on the old board (started by DeaconR I believe) so I thought it might be time to start another.

What are your thoughts on Chicago's status in the T2k world.

I don't know how Chicago would survive a nuclear exchange. They HAVE to be on the target list multiple times. As stated they are a communications hub for rail, a manufacturing center, there are refineries in East Chicago, it has a major military HQ (think civil defense and training at least in Soviet minds) and being the third largest population center at the time.

However, I think that being as spread out as the Chicago metropolitan area is, it would not all be destroyed. Firstly, the strikes on Chicago would problably be (or at least they should be to any planner worth their salt) air burst detonations, where there is nothing more than residual fallout from the bomb fragments proper as the fireball does not strike the earth surface. The targets for the area are 'soft' targets not needing ground bursts. You get more bang for the buck from air bursts against soft targets. That aside, there might be ONE ground burst to deny the reconstruction and salvage of the rail infastructure. There WOULD be fires and more fires. The radiant heat from a nucdet is immense and figure a 1 MT burst alone, the radius is quite a ways. from GZ.

The time of year however might affect the airburst i f not taken into consideration. IF there is snow cover and/or overcast conditions at time of burst, the reflective qualities these conditions would lessen the thermal effects of the burst.

So one if there is only one burst, say over the Belt Railway which is the largest of half dozen or more yards in Chicago during this era. I will say, contrary to any lasting physical damage is the chaos amoung the population. With over three million refugees into the surrounding country. Trying to get them back will be difficult to say the least (look at the aftermath of Katrina as a SMALL example).

This same scenario would follow in MOST cities targeted: Air burst.

(from someone who grew up during the cold war and lived in the midsts ot the largest concentration of the US nuclear arsenal. Joke of the time: If North Dakota left the Union, they would be the third largest nuclear power in the world. (and that still holds))
Grae

According to canon there were only two bursts within 40 miles of Chicago. Both were either south and east of the city reducing fallout. The Whiting IN strike being a 1.75 MT one would be the closest at 15 miles. I remember in the previous thread the closest fallout source (strike to the west) was well over 100 miles away.

The Whiting strike would cause serious problems with the southern industrial portion of the city. The northern and western portions of the city and quite a few Military installations (Great lakes Naval Station, Fort Sheridan, Glenview Naval Air Station) would not have been hit seriously by primary effects of the weapons. Post the TDM strikes the 49th Armored did not leave for 2 months so I am assuming that things were not too bad.

By Canon, I agree. Though I wonder how many people flee from the Urban area, or try to when nukes go off next door. Ensuing chaos.

It will be interesting to see what the DC Working Group has to say about Chicago, and whether or not they have added more strikes in the Chicago area in their updated target list.

We're still fleshing that out. One change we've implemented is replace 49th AD with 46th ID. We figured that it would make more sense to deploy an existing heavy division to Europe than one formed from three separate brigades from all over the US. Along this line, Fort Hood had a peacetime capacity for 3 heavy divisions (1st Cav, 2nd Armored and 49th Armored at North Fort) and a corps headquarters - it is the physically largest post in the US Army and in our opinion a great place to have 46th ID form. Coincidentally, that also positions the division to fall into the canon history of the 49th...

nukes
 

Chicago is a significant economical and strategical location -as well as having a big population . The Soviets would have had allocated several weapons to cripple it .One aspect of nuclear war in addition to hitting the military targets is flooding the relief systems and recovery systems with an abundance of casualties and problems .Hitting Chicago with multiple warheads would further this end.

I include someones list of nuclear targets in the US for what its worth .

http://www.survivalring.org/cd-targets.php

That looks like they lifted the list from Life After Doomsday by Dr. Bruce Clayton. (I'm into my THIRD copy of that particular book) It IS one of the best written IMO. His target list, along with the lists from several others I HAD plotted in a US atlas, which over the course of years pisadeared. Time to renew it I guess. Very good list though.

I still have the book. Do you want me to scan in the list?

Chuck M.

I wiped out Chicago with 2 MIRV (1.1Mt). So, Milwaukee is the new capital city in my game for CivGov and Milgov rules from Seattle. Actually, both Omaha and Colorado Springs were leveled.:D Each location was hit by a SS-18 Satan (20Mt) as they were among the 5-6 main strategic targets to the Russians.

Don't forget my game takes place today and targets have changed slightly.;)

Thanks Chuck, If you want to email me a list at yahoo, that would be cool too.

Grae