Quote:
Originally Posted by James1978
Ever heard of Pine Gap? I'd be shocked if it wasn't on the Soviet target list.
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Yeah and that's just
one of the places that were on the target list.
There was also the Harold Holt US Navy submarine communications base near Exmouth in Western Australia that provided naval communications as far afield as the eastern part of the Indian Ocean and the western part of the Pacific Ocean.
There was also the Australian Army communications base in Melbourne that provided direct comms from Australia to Canada, the UK and the USA. One of it's secondary functions was to provide alternate comms for any of those three northern hemisphere nations to any of the other ones should their normal comms go down.
There were some others that aren't common knowledge but in general, there were at least five potential targets for Soviet nukes and two of them were in major Australian cities.
Edit:
A quote from Current Affairs Bulletin, Vol. 59, No. 7, December 1982, pp. 14-26 by Brian Martin titled "The global health effects of nuclear war"
In the main, the section quoted below was lifted from the following source:-
Desmond Ball, 'Target Australia? No 1: Pinpointing the US Installations', Pacific Defence Reporter, Vol. 8, No. 3, September 1981, pp.25-33; D. W. Posener, 'Target Australia? No 3: Planning for Radiological Defence', ibid., pp.42-52; Desmond Ball, 'Limiting Damage from Nuclear Attack', in Desmond Ball and J. O. Langtry (editors), Civil Defence and Australia's Security, Australian National University, Canberra, 1982.
"The prime targets in Australia are the United States military bases at Pine Gap, Nurrungar and North West Cape. Attacks on these bases would kill perhaps a few thousand people. There is a smaller chance of attacks on Cockburn Sound and on Darwin RAAF base, which are hosts for United States strategic nuclear ships, submarines and aircraft. Nuclear bombing of these two facilities, which are close to the population centres of Perth and Darwin respectively, could kill up to one hundred thousand people, depending on the wind direction at the time. Perhaps least likely, but certainly most devastating, would be nuclear attacks on major population centres. For example, the ports of major Australian cities could well be bombed if United States warships carrying strategic nuclear weapons were in harbour. Major population centres might also be hit as a consequence of attacks on associated military or economic facilities. Such attacks could kill from a few hundred thousand to several million people."