[Legbreaker]

Everything seems to indicate it only happened in PNG. When is open for debate, but it would seem logical for Indonesia to wait until Australia was involved heavily in Korea and none of our allies could help due to entanglements in Europe and elsewhere.
So, shall we say no sooner than mid 1997?

Whenever it was, it would appear to have been rather short and sharp, at least as far as naval and air operations go anyway. The ground conflict could be one that grinds on for years, or barely happens at all.

I'm of the opinion a force of around Brigade strength were sent in to reinforce the local PNG military, there's a Brigade or so in Korea and the rest are back home either carrying out disaster relief missions, assisting the police, securing vital facilities or training for deployment to PNG (not much of the latter). Most of the major population centres are nuked to some degree or another with Brisbane, Newcastle, Sydney, Wollongong, Melbourne, Adelaide and Perth almost certainly receiving at least a warhead each (probably 3-4 for Sydney) and Townsville, Cairns and Darwin being possible secondary targets. Pine Gap may have suffered a small warhead. Canberra, the national capital, seems an unlikely target as there's not much in the way of military, industrial or other targets of worth - just a lot of politicians which are easily replaced.

Even with only those primary targets I've listed being hit with small yield warheads, the effects are going to be huge. Roughly 30-40% of the countries population are going to be killed either in the initial strikes or the aftermath. Medical facilities will be completely overwhelmed, especially as most of the specialists and advanced facilities are located in the strike zones. Survivors aren't going to be hanging around for radiation, starvation, etc to kill them, so there's going to be a few million people heading into the countryside looking for food and shelter. By the time things settle down a bit, about 50%, or ten million people will be dead.

Meanwhile, there's upwards of 5,000 troops deployed in Korea, and about the same in PNG. Reserves will be called up (probably the moment Indonesia invades PNG) but are unlikely to have completed training by late 1997. They, and every other available unit, will be rushed into action trying to control the refugees and provide for their basic needs - they'll make only a small difference and be completely overwhelmed. What's left of the government will be desperately trying to get the troops home from Korea, but with the destruction the RAN suffers fighting the Indonesians, there'll be few or even no ships available for escort duties. The destruction wreaked on the oil processing facilities will also rule out using civilian shipping as troop carriers as what small amounts are available will be desperately needed by the troops still at home.

Some additional recruitment will occur post nuke, but most of these troops will be rushed through training and are likely to be used in humanitarian tasks rather than military. As previously posted, small arms will be available (in quantity given the stockpiles we've got tucked away here and there), but heavy weapons and military vehicles will be scarce. Most of these units will have to either walk, or use requisitioned civilian transport.

With the lack of fuel, many of the old steam engines will be pulled from their museums and used for longer distance transport of troops and supplies, however the mere rumour of a train carrying food is likely to result in ambushes, derailments and the loss of these valuable resources. While Australia does have a fairly extensive rail network, outside the major cities they're usually single lines and in poor shape due to insufficient maintenance (even today). Sabotaging them in the hope of capturing a container or two of flour isn't going to be all that difficult and once the line is cut, re-routing will require going hundreds of miles out of the way.

South east Queensland is likely to be the best place to be after around 2000 due to the availability of sugar cane for fuel and the ability to grow crops year round. Sugar mills are scattered about the countryside and breweries and distilleries are relatively common.