Thinking a bit about the USN...

[Matt Wiser]

The Soviet SSBN assigned to do the job ate a Mark-48.....There's a piece on the Soviet Naval War that Chico did (it's on his site) and it mentions USS Houston (SSN-713) slipping into the Sea of Ohktosk and sinking a number of missile boats, a couple of attack subs, and even a sub tender (carrying missile reloads). Problem of Guam's survival solved.

[Legbreaker]

So the Soviets wouldn't have assigned a follow up strike when the first failed?
Seems a bit far fetched to me given the value of the target...

[Targan]

Originally Posted by Legbreaker

So the Soviets wouldn't have assigned a follow up strike when the first failed?

Maybe USS Houston killed that too?

[Legbreaker]

Nukes tend to have a decent range so a shot could be launched from (figuratively) anywhere. The Houston can't be everywhere at once....

[Matt Wiser]

By the time the boomer had been sunk, the Soviet C3 system-like that of the U.S.'s, had been so badly degraded, that even if they knew the strike had not gone off, they may not have been able to contact a unit to retarget and strike. And probably pre-TDM, there were boomer hunts going on-on both sides.....and guess what's available TTL to kill boomers if you can't get in range for a Mark-48 shot? Sea Lance with the W90 Depth Bomb (up to 200 KT....).

[dragoon500ly]

One of the tends in the USN, since 9/11 and especially in the aftermath of the USS Cole is the refitting of surface warships with at least two 25mm Bushmaster as well as 4-8 .50-calibers for use in the anti-small boat role.

[schnickelfritz]

Originally Posted by Legbreaker

So the Soviets wouldn't have assigned a follow up strike when the first failed?
Seems a bit far fetched to me given the value of the target...

I have to ask...and not to be inflammatory/confrontational...is there anything mentioned in anything official enough in print to be considered "canon" that Guam was hit and to what extent?

I agree that Andersen AFB most certainly would have had a target on it, but in my book, if it wasn't stated that it was hit, it wasn't hit. Any number of factors could have resulted in whatever subs or missiles not making it to Guam.

If there is some canon materal out there addressing Guam, could someone point me in the right direction?

Vielen Dank!
Dave

[pmulcahy11b]

Despite the fact that San Antonio is my home, I agree that San Antonio would have been nuked (during the Cold war, San Antonio was in fact a secondary target). On the north side is Randolph AFB, which is where most USAF and several other countries' air forces do their initial jet and advanced jet training. In the T2K timeline, there was also a squadron of Air force Reserve F-15s.

On the east side, there was at the time Kelly AFB. (It's now been given over to San Antonio, and several airlines do maintenance and repair at "Kelly City Base.") In the T2K timeline, both Randolph and Kelly were dispersal bases for B-52s and B-1s. Kelly also had depot-level maintenance facilities for the USAF's largest aircraft, and it was a sort of way-station for various USAF aircraft. It also had two squadrons of Air National Guard F-16s.

Kind of on the line between the north side and northeast side is Ft Sam Houston. T2K-wise, it's 8th Army HQ and MEDDAC HQ, and almost all Army medical personnel will either train or or be stationed there at some point, including SF medics (who start their medical training there). It's also home to Brooke Army Medical Center, which was even then one the country's largest hospitals.

Lackland AFB, to the south of Kelly, is where all AF Basic Training starts. Training for CCTs and Pararescue begin there. Virtually all military handlers as well as their dogs are trained there. Again, T2K-wise, AF security police are trained at Lackland, and USMC MP training started there. USAF OTS was there until the early 2000s. There's a large detachment of AFOSI at Lackland. Lackland has always had a reputation for having a number of nondescript buildings on base that are more than what they seem.

Brooks AFB was home to a lot of the scientific end of being a pilot in the T2K timeline. (It belongs to UT Health Science Center.)

Going around Loop 410 from Lackland, you'll pass the South Texas Research Center. In the T2K there was a large habitat there for monkeys, baboons, and chimpanzees; however, as long back as I can remember, there were rumors that biowarfare research was being done there. It definitely had at that time labs ranking just below the standards of the CDC's labs.

Go further around the Loop, get off at Babcock and head outside the Loop, and you will come to the Medical Center area, called that because the UT Health Science Center, Audie Murphy VMC, Methodist Regional Transplant Center, one branch of Santa Rosa Hospital, and a couple of hospitals which for the life of me I can't remember the name of right now are in that area. (Santa Rosa actually has five hospitals, each with a different specialty, in San Antonio.)

IIRC, during the T2K timeline, there were four AF Reserve and two ANG units, ten Army NG units, four Army Reserve units, a Navy Reserve unit, and even a reserve Marine Recon unit. Might be worth shooting at SA just for the blow to morale to US units.

Although when I used to run a campaign, San Antonio got totally missed (bad intelligence in Russia, bad launch computers, overshots, etc), it would in truth have been a very juicy target. Then again, an intact SA might make a good home base for invading Mexican and Russian units.

[stilleto69]

I've kept both Guam (the Soviet SSBN was sank shortly before the missile was ready to launch) and San Antonio (the sight of the 2nd Alamo in T2K). I always thought it would fun to leave San Antonio intact and run characters in it as sort of a Texas version of 'Red Dawn'.

[HorseSoldier]

Guam, I think, would have been hit -- unless, as noted, the missile missed.

San Antonio might have drawn a strike, if only to get at the army level HQ there in support of the Mexicans. But maybe by the time the Mexicans were across the border they were moving faster than expected or the Soviet command and control were too disrupted to get that order to a launching unit.

[Webstral]

Originally Posted by pmulcahy11b

Although when I used to run a campaign, San Antonio got totally missed (bad intelligence in Russia, bad launch computers, overshots, etc), it would in truth have been a very juicy target.

How about this: the first shot is a miss; the warhead fails to detonate. However, the American reply that goes up even while the Soviet ICBM is in flight is not a dud. 0-1. The Soviets decide that it's worthwhile to have another go at it. However, as fortune would have it the boomer that receives the orders is being stalked by a British attack boat. The Soviet boomer takes a torpedo after acknowledging receipt of orders but before launching. The third try has a technical failure coming out of the silo. The Soviets put San Antonio on the back burner to see if their luck will change a bit. Lo and behold, the invasion of the US starts, and their luck does change.

[Targan]

Originally Posted by schnickelfritz

I have to ask...and not to be inflammatory/confrontational...is there anything mentioned in anything official enough in print to be considered "canon" that Guam was hit and to what extent?

Guam isn't mentioned in any canon material that I'm aware of but even if that part of the world was covered in any of the canon strike lists and Guam wasn't mentioned, it still doesn't necessarily mean Guam wasn't nuked. It just means that it wasn't nuked by a strike of 500kt or bigger.

So Guam is an open slate for each individual GM. There are plausible reasons for and against it being nuked. Therein lies one of the great values of this forum, that it is an excellent place to read the opinions and rationales of a variety of T2Kers. Many of my preconceived views on the T2K universe have been modified in that way.

Is it possible that the Soviets made a conscious decision not to nuke Guam? For instance, is it in any way plausible that the Soviets had a plan at some stage during the war to try and neutralise US forces there by some other means (non-persistant chemical weapons for instance) with the aim of securing materiel or assets there for their own use? If such a plan existed but for whatever reason was never carried out, it might have been too late for the Soviets to fall back to plan B (a nuclear strike).

Perhaps Guam isn't a very plausible location for such a scenario but other isolated, high value targets that inexplicably avoided nuclear destruction could be.

[HorseSoldier]

Guam was probably logistically involved as a staging base for US/NATO aid going to China to some extent (how significant probably relating to what the US/Filipino relationship looked like in any given T2K timeline -- if Subic Bay and Clark AFB were still in operation it might change things).

Shutting it down to neutralize that aid (or at least complicate it) to the PRC would be a pretty big objective during the war, though once the war goes nuclear and the megatonnage lollapalooza starts erasing most of the Chinese Army, it may have dropped down in priority.

[Olefin]

"megatonnage lollapalooza"

Love that phrase!!