Quote:
Originally Posted by kato13
The character biographies from the Last Sub series also mention the Naval Chief of Staff being in the Norfolk area. Given the power the remaining Joint Chiefs have, I certainly see them migrating towards areas where they can find support and infrastructure.
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From
Armies of the Night, Page 3:
"The Characters are members of the US Army 5th Division recently returned to the United States from Europe. Characters from Europe will have crossed the Atlantic by means of Task Force 34, the evacuation fleet discussed in
Going Home. After a long and
mal de mer-ridden voyage, they returned to America and landed in Norfolk, Virginia, on November 25, 2000. There they were organised into a holding company pending further orders, and spent some brief time on garrison duty at the Military Government enclave in eastern Virginia. Finally, early in December, new orders came through from Norfolk."
So this would imply that there are functional docks and infrastructure in the Norfolk area that were able to process thousand of returning American troops from Europe, and that there is also a functional MilGov command structure in the Norfolk area.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Legbreaker
Another reason why multiple warheads are more plausible than a single one. What Soviet commander would leave half of the home port for the Atlantic fleet still intact?
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I would agree that an SLBM and not an ICBM was used against Norfolk, just not a MIRV strike. The SLBM would be an SS-N-6 SLBM with a single 1 Mt warhead which is what is listed in
Howling Wilderness.
Why was Norfolk targeted by a SLBM and not an ICBM such as the SS-18 (R-36M)? For three reasons
1) The Thanksgiving massacre occurred in November 1997. The R-36M ICBM with 8 MIRV's was retired in 1983, that's a gap of 14 years.
2) The replacement for the R-36M (the R-36UTTh and R-36M2) were designed to attack hardened American ICBM silos not soft targets like Norfolk, and their warhead yields do not match the 0.5 Mt used on targets in the region.
3) GDW implies that the Soviets carried out an SLBM strike on targets across the Mid-Atlantic region.
From
Allegheny Uprising...
Page 9: "With less than 10 minutes notice between the rising of sub-launched ballistic missiles from off the Atlantic Coast and their detonation over Washington DC"
Page 16: " Maryland was hit hard during the nuclear exchange, with SLBM strikes against Fort Meade (between Baltimore and Washington DC), Andrews Airforce Base (southeast of Washington), Fort Detrick (at Frederick), and Camp David (north of Frederick)"