Hi guys!
Was out of town for a few days and am just now getting back to the board.
First: Thanks for the responses, lots of good information and good conjecture as well.
I tend to agree with Webstral that Oz would suffer some kind of nuclear strike. T2K v1 (which is what I'm working off of) clearly shows that the Soviets were targeting neutral countries to deny those resources to NATO.
In my game Australia was a Western combatant activly fighting the Soviets in the Middleeast and in N. Korea, as well as in the Pacific ocean.
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Here's the back story I developed based on a lot of the info I got here:
Austraila was involved in combat against the Soviets & their allies and had deployed troops and equipment to the Middle East and Korea. It also acted as a resupply base for Allied shipping in the South Pacific.
Australia was not hit in the initial nuclear exchanges or late '97. But there was some limited civil panic and disruptions in the immediate aftermath (mostly in the bigger cities.)
By early 1998 the USSR realized the growing logistics and support roll Austraila had become to US/NATO forces in the ME and Korea and dispatched one of it's few remaining Boomers to take Oz out of the war. The Boomer in question only had 6 SLBM's remaining on board.
The Soviet boomer made it into the Coral Sea and began launching it missles when it was attacked and destroyed by a US 688 class attack sub that had been tracking it for weeks.
Four of the six SLBMs were launched before the boomer was destroyed.
Melbourne, Canberra, and Brisbane were destroyed/badly damaged by 3 of the SLBM strikes. the fourth missle targeted for Sydney malfunctioned and failed to detonate but did contaminate a three kilometer area of downtown Sydney with radiation for a short time.
The missles targeted for Perth and Darwin went down with the Soviet sub.
Chaos reigned for a time in the aftermath of the strikes mostly in the cities, in the vast rural areas of the country people mostly hunkered down and waited to see if more strikes were on the way.
Vital services and supplies were disrupted for a time, but the central government having relocated from Canberra at the start of the Soviet nuke strikes on NATO in '97 had survived the attack largely intact.
More devastating to Australia was the pandemic of plagues which swept over the country in the fall & winter of 1998 and into 1999.
While the government maintains control in most coastal areas, much of the interior of the country has become a lawless land ruled by bandits & local warlords. Though it should be noted these groups are few and hold little power.
From mid 1999 into 2000 a running conflict was fought with Indonesia for control of New Guinea, the Australian Forces have been largely victorious but some limited fighting continues.
Currently Australia is a vital link in the tenuous supply chain between US forces in the Middle East and the continental United States. The Australian government does not recognize either of the two American governments; CivGov & MilGov, but is in limited communication with both though has more dealings with MilGov via it's forces in the Middle East.
Though heavily damaged by EMP, Australia with much of its industrial base intact is in the beginnings of a recovery both domestically and as a world power.
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I think I'll run with that.
Thanks again for all the info.
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