Shreveport? Why?

[kalos72]

For industrial production or something? Its the ONLY city in the US to get hit for anything other then being a major oil refinery/storage or military base/command.

Sure there is a small refinery outside of town but there are a dozen in Texas that never got hit...why this one?

Just never understood it myself...

[kato13]

Originally Posted by kalos72

For industrial production or something? Its the ONLY city in the US to get hit for anything other then being a major oil refinery/storage or military base/command.

Sure there is a small refinery outside of town but there are a dozen in Texas that never got hit...why this one?

Just never understood it myself...

I think you missed Barksdale Air Force Base. It is only 6 miles away from the center of Shreveport. I believe it was a SAC B-52 home during the cold war.

[kalos72]

Ok, that would make sense...but all the canon material doesn't say the strike was for the base...or the refinery but manufacturing.

In your campaign does it get hit for the afb?

[kato13]

I honestly never really thought about it. Never got there gamewise.

My notes have the following

35,000 bpd refinery is near there.
Louisiana Army Ammunition Plant is 35 km away
Nearby chemical plants make Pharmaceuticals and Catalysts
As far as NBC facilities go Barksdale is Nuclear Weapon Storage Facility
There is a Rhenium processing facility 24 km away. (it is a strategic metal used for turbine blades and such)

I think earlier I mentioned that at .25MT it could be a fizzle. Where is the canon reference? I have it in my data. I went through every module line by line to find all of them, but i did not footnote my data (doh!). I am assuming it is not in the BYB as it is under .5MT

PS a small reminder to new users. If you want to add a link to wikipedia you can use a simple code like the one i used above.
Here is how I made it
[wiki]Rhenium[/wiki]

Here are the instructions
http://forum.juhlin.com/misc.php?do=bbcode#wiki

[mpipes]

Barksdale AFB is actually in Bossier City. While it is possible to get overpressure effects over Barksdale AFB with a megaton range weapon hitting Shreveport, I've always assumed the hit was further west in the city's industrial area including the auto plant. I've always assumed the hit on Shreveport was from an errant missile targeting 8th Air Force and the weapons storage area.

Also, by 1997, and especially after nukes had been flying for at least month, all the B-52s would have been flushed to dispersal airfields, mostly civilian airports, and the base essentially stripped of all B-52s. Most of the airmen would be gone as well. However, 8th Air Force would likely have still been located at the base. Very few, if any, B-52s would be at their assigned base; probably limited to the alert force. That makes the most likely target of the Shreveport nuke was 8th Air Force, but a hit in west Shreveport would not have destroyed the 8th Air Force building. The weapon storage area would likely have been be untouched except for maybe the thermal pulse. However, generally a .25mt (250kt) weapon hitting Shreveport can't effect the base.

As far as alert B-52 and tankers, the aircrews were trained to get airborne within 15 minutes of a launch order, taking off at about 15 second intervals. A SAC unit could get the alert force, about 8 bombers and 8 tankers, airborne in as little as 10 minutes.

Some Soviet missiles possibly used .25mt MIRV warheads. The SS-N-18 for example carried MIRV warheads estimated at .2mt. The SS-N-20 warheads have about the same estimated yield.

[kato13]

Welcome Mpipes. Thanks for the useful information.

I never thought of tracking Auto plants. I will add that to my data sources.

[kalos72]

Canon had it listed in Howling Wilderness and the Core Rules as a 250kt warhead.

Nice data on the things in the area, I didnt find that much myself. But your "googlefu" has always been better then mine. :P