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Old 10-07-2009, 10:52 PM
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Legbreaker Legbreaker is offline
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Before we head too far down the path of what was and was not nuked, the subject of Australian (and New Zealand) involvement in the war needs to be addressed.

Nowhere in canon that I can see are Australia and New Zealand shown to be directly involved in any theatre of war other than against Indonesia - a totally seperate conflict to that occuring between Nato and the Pact. Non-canon backgrounds such as Mo's are another matter of course.

Canada on the other hand has forces directly in contact with Pact forces - they are a member of the beligerant nations.

Australia and New Zealands only involvement is the possible supply of raw materials and limited finished goods to Nato countries (and in my mind at least a probable involvement in Korea as part of the UN against the North Koreans). The only US facility in Australia is Pine Gap located hundreds of miles from virtually anywhere and barely worth dropping conventional weapons on let alone a low yield nuke.

New Zealand, as far as I am aware, has no US facilities located within it's borders (and the population get VERY stroppy when a nuclear powered vessel even comes close regardless if the US are allies or not!)

So, what are we left with then? A small facility located in the middle of nowhere plus the possibility of strikes against industrial capacity (likely) and the (unlikely) possibility of strikes against military bases which are spread wide across the country (taking one out with a nuke might cause a few problems, but give it a week or two and we're back, ready to go again). There's a lot to be said for decentralisation....

Something else to keep in mind is that as Australia was not directly involved as a combatant, nor had war been declared, there is a strong chance Australia (and possibly NZ) would join the war on Nato's side. Troops and war material would be sent to the middle east, or if Korea could be politically linked in the eyes of the populace, to Russia, by an increased commitment there (maybe lifting from a battalion plus supporting elements to a full brigade). Numbers might not be a lot considering what's also happening with Indonesia, but it would certainly be a consideration for the planning of any nuclear attack.

Therefore, I would suggest that the only target nuked in the first exchange would be Pine Gap to cripple the US early warning and electronic surveillance capacity (plus whatever else they do there).

The second exchange might be targeted at the naval facilities at Perth and Sydney and the industrial cities of Newcastle and Woolongong (last three on the east coast all within about 400km). This is provided the Soviets still had anything even capable of attacking across such a vast distance - ie they'd either need a couple of subs, or use ballistic missiles which I believe barely reach across the Artic to attack continental USA. Note also that missiles wouldn't necessarily have the earths rotation to assist them either....

Attacking other cities would achieve little more than inflicting civilian casualties.
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