Thinking a bit about the USN...

[TrailerParkJawa]

The bridges around Alameda could also just be permanently raised since they are drawbridges. I even envisioned a make shift wall around the entire perimeter. Yes, it's a lot of resources but if there is oil from Bakersfield then they should be able to being up a concrete plant and make forms for a smallish wall section. Say 10 feet high and a foot or two thick. Just enough to discourage people and enough to stop small rounds.


I also see the main capital ships being the high endurance coast guard cutters. Anything bigger is too expensive in terms of parts and fuel.

As for population I personally se the bay area far less than 3 million. More like a few hundred thousand but That just my vision

[Webstral]

Disclaimer: Nothing of what follows is intended either to initiate or sustain a “canon feud”. Where interpretations of undocumented items, like the number of survivors in California or a specific region of a state, differ I think it’s worthwhile to have a conversation about the thought process leading to the differences of opinion.

Originally Posted by TrailerParkJawa

As for population I personally se the bay area far less than 3 million. More like a few hundred thousand but That just my vision

Certainly, I would not try to shout down your vision. If “a few hundred thousand” means about 300,000 (often, a few is three), then we’re talking a tenfold difference—rather substantial. I do think that the difference in our numbers is the basis for a conversation.

One of the factors I try to bear in mind when I am doing the creative work of assigning population levels is the total number of survivors as given in Howling Wilderness. The total loss of population through July 2000 is 52%, amounting to 135 million people. The surviving 48% amount to about 125 million. The population will drop even further by early 2001, but I want to focus on the July 2000 population for now.

By the end of 1999—certainly by the beginning of 2000—the food situation will have stabilized a good deal. Locally, there will be shortages. However, the pre-war food largely will be gone or will have reached its expiration date by the end of 1998. There will be exceptions, of course—even important exceptions. By and large, though, the population of 2000 will be living off the 1999 harvest and the means of local production put into place since early 1998. The bulk of the dying from starvation will have happened already. The people still alive in 2000 will have been eating post-Exchange food for at least a year. However one divides and organizes the [American] survivors, in July 2000 there are about 125 million of them eating food grown, hunted, or gathered since the Exchange.

The San Francisco Bay Area (hereafter referred to as the Bay Area) has a pre-war population of about 10 million. Southern California has a population of about 15 million, leaving 6-7 million more Californians scattered throughout the rest of the state (by 1997 population estimates).

From a population estimate standpoint, many big cities have taken massive losses in population. Los Angeles was wiped out. We don’t know about San Diego, but the occupation by Mexico and the almost certain loss of water would have a very detrimental effect on the population level. The other nuclear strikes against targets in southern California, coupled with the disruption to water supplies and the movement of refugees, would have killed millions—quite possibly more than 10 million.

Boston is virtually destroyed by civil unrest following the nuke strikes, even though Boston doesn’t get hit. Manhattan loses about 95% of its population by the end of 2000. Philadelphia is destroyed. I could go on and on.

Somewhere in there, the numbers have to add up to 125 million in July 2000 if one is to go with the pre-drought numbers given in Howling Wilderness. I’m inclined to do so. However, I’ve already assigned some numbers to my own work in addition to or replacing the figures given in Howling Wilderness.

According to Howling Wilderness, South Carolina suffered a 30% reduction in population through 1999. We don’t know how many more have died by July 2000. Call it another 10% of the pre-war population, and South Carolina reaches mid-2000 in slightly better shape than the national average.

Also according to Howling Wilderness, the populations of Vermont and New Hampshire have dropped to pre-colonial levels. I presume this means “pre-colonial” as we were all taught in grade school, not the pre-colonial levels that were so dense there was no room for European colonizing until European diseases had run their course. I have chosen to revise the population estimates upward to about 30% in Vermont, 35% in New Hampshire, and 40% in Maine.

The pre-war population of Rhode Island has dropped by 80%, from about a million to 200k. [Howling Wilderness]. We don’t know what the population of Massachusetts is.

In Arizona, the pre-war population of 4.5 million is reduced by 80% to 900,000 [Thunder Empire]. Of these, 500k live in the area controlled by Fort Huachuca, 100k are scattered throughout greater Phoenix (revised upwards from previous estimates), 75k live in greater Flagstaff, 50k live on Navajo lands, 50k live in Yuma, and about 125k are scattered throughout the rest of the state.

In Nevada, the pre-war population of 1.7 million is reduced by 85% to 255k, which is pretty much the pre-war population of Nevada outside of Las Vegas and Reno [Silver Shogunate]. Las Vegas is a ghost town, but Reno struggles on with a fraction of its pre-war population. Almost everybody else lives along the Humboldt River or in the agricultural area in the south central part of the state.

In New Mexico, the pre-war population of about 1.7 million has been reduced by about 80%, leaving about 350k people in the state [Roadrunners]. Albuquerque is gone, and most of the other major population centers are deserted or severely depopulated.

With all of these population reductions taken together, some places have to be less hard-hit than others if the US population is to be 125 million in July 2000. This is one reason I haven’t emptied out the Bay Area. I could see, however, moving more people to the periphery of the Bay Area (thus including them in the count or not depending on where you draw the lines). If 60% of the population of the Bay Area is dead, that leaves 4 million to work with. Move a million to the Central Valley (no mean task), and you’re left with 3 million in the Bay Area. The Delta has an abundance of good farmland and a need for labor with the end of mechanized agriculture. If (big if) the needs of the farming community can be filled by the needs of urbanites to move from the paved-over areas of the Bay Area to the Delta, Napa, west Marin, San Jose and areas south, Pacifica (for fishing) and even southern Sonoma and areas north of Salinas, then a lot of lives can be saved. I know I’m asking for a lot. This is why 60% of the population is dead. Moving hundreds of thousands of people 100 miles is no mean feat. The young, the elderly, and the infirm aren’t going to make it.

So I could see reducing the number of people living in the Bay Area itself to 2 million with the proviso that 2 million refugees have survived to trek to the periphery of the Bay Area or the Central Valley as of July 2000, where they provide labor that once was performed by machines. Along the way, as many as 2 million refugees have perished. This leaves 4 million to die in place in the Bay Area—still a staggering number.

A natural question is how all of this is organized. I’d like to get some opinions on this one. For now, my kids are waking up from their naps and need to be changed and fed.

[HorseSoldier]

I'd think urban populations would tend to be very hard hit -- either in terms of deaths or refugee flow toward places where population density is more in line with available food production with Y2K resources and technology.

If an urban area has nearby agricultural land in quantity that is not dependent on pre-nuke technology/energy to sustain it (i.e. agro-business style irrigation), this would be a mitigating factor (though it certainly doesn't guarantee survival of large populations in and of itself). If the Bay area can remain organized enough (and quite possibly draconian enough) to enforce refugee resettlement policies, I could see it being survivable.

If the area remains organized, however, a big challenge will be the mass flow of refugees from southern California fleeing the Mexican invasion as well as the collapse of food production and water supplies after EMP, fuel shortages, and combat disrupt the flow of water into the area. There's really no direction refugees can go except north -- though how many of them would make it that far is an open question (not much of a drive, but would be pretty rough for most people to do on foot on short or non-existent rations . . .). Of course, refugees from LA and San Diego only have to make it part of the way to collapse food production in communities on the way, creating second order refugees . . .

[Webstral]

Horse, you raise some very legitimate points.

I have dealt with the southern California exodus by killing most of them. The nukes are bad for SoCal: four strikes along the coastal spine of Los Angeles, plus one each at Vandenberg AFB and March AFB. The L.A. strikes and their resulting fire storms pretty much should do it for greater Los Angeles. Northern Orange County probably will get swept up in the firestorm. The hit on March AFB will destroy the Inland Empire. It’s possible that San Bernadino and Fontana will survive the firestorms intact. Vandenberg is pretty isolated from the SoCal metroplex.

San Diego survives, as does Camp Pendleton. Inland Empire municipalities 10 miles or more from March AFB probably won’t be much affected by the firestorm. A lot depends on the topography and moisture. Winter 1997-1998 was an El Nino winter, dumping a lot of rain on California. Therefore, the firestorm might not have been able to jump over the open spaces between densely settled areas.

The effects on SoCal are pretty severe even before the Mexicans invade. One good point is that we might see an effort to move some refugees to the Imperial Valley or the Central Valley before the start of the Second Mexican-American War. I don’t have a good idea how many people we’re talking about, though.

As for draconian measures, I think one option for the government is to offer food for movement. Point out to the folks in the ration line that the stockpiles are going to run out soon. Labor is needed in the Central Valley and elsewhere to grow and bring in more food. Start with volunteers. Once the looting and violence begin, it shouldn’t be hard to find people who are willing to go elsewhere.

All of this leads me to the contingency question. How prepared was the United States for the TDM? In Howling Wilderness, GDW seems to have presumed that the US was basically caught off-guard. I find this unrealistic. As the war escalates, people everywhere are going to start asking what if. Governors are going to ask their Depts of Ag what the effect of an exchange on food production will be. The answer almost always is going to be that production will take a hit without fossil fuels, and distribution will be very difficult. Some of these governors are going to ask whether additional labor can make up for the lack of fossil fuels. From this line of questioning, some are going to think to themselves that it would be best to make some arrangements ahead of time so that there is some idea of how many people are needed where. Obviously, reality is going to overwhelm the best-laid plans.

Now in the best-case scenario, you’re going to get millions of former urban and suburban dwellers living in rural hoovervilles. The effect will be rather similar to the latifundia of late Rome. It’s not hard to see a lot of Americans becoming indentured servants. It’s not hard to see a lot of farm hands overpowering the farmers and redistributing the land. GDW explores this idea in Alleghany Uprising. It’s a bad situation all around. But it may help explain why in mid-2000, 48% of the pre-war population is still alive. Somehow or other, they are growing enough, hunting enough, catching enough, and gathering enough food to keep 125 million people alive, if not in comfort.

[HorseSoldier]

If things are bad enough in southern California, I can see it playing out that refugee outflow from there doesn't manage to constitute a wave, at least not by the time it would be getting to the San Francisco area. Probably spells the doom of intact communities closer in to the LA/San Diego metroplex that might have, left to their own devices, survived.

I think the biggest foundational impediment to resettlement programs that repurpose surplus labor from urban areas into agricultural field hands will be people wrapping their head around that being the extent of government help. Initially, the logic of insisting the government should provide such assistance as is needed for someone to be able to keep their home, some semblance of their lifestyle, etc., will probably keep voluntary enrollment low. As people get hungry this will change. It's probably not a smooth transition at all, even in places where it works -- I'd expect rioting and turmoil, in suburbs as well as the more stereotypical inner city areas. Maybe even more unrest in the suburbs as members of the middle class with completely irrelevant job skills stare at the prospects of being turned into farm field hands at the bottom of the new pecking order.

At the same time, I expect that many will get onboard with the new scheme of things when the alternative is simply starving and watching their families starve. By 2000, in a lot of places, all this drama will have played out a couple years earlier, during the first post-nuke winter and subsequent planting season.

[Rainbow Six]

Originally Posted by Webstral

I just had a thought: Sixth US Army is supposed to have control over the Sacramento-Oakland stretch of land. This leaves room for the Navy to control most of the Bay Area and possibly have ownership of the waterways. It seems to me that there is room here for rivalry between the Army and the Navy.

Out of curiosity (and not having a copy of Howling Wilderness or the US Army Vehicle Guide easily to hand) is Sixth US Army still based in the Presidio of San Francisco in the summer of 2000?

[Webstral]

Originally Posted by Rainbow Six

Out of curiosity (and not having a copy of Howling Wilderness or the US Army Vehicle Guide easily to hand) is Sixth US Army still based in the Presidio of San Francisco in the summer of 2000?

I don't ever recall reading a reference to the location of the headquarters from 2000 onward. If I had to venture a guess, I'd say that the headquarters is in Sacramento.

[Matt Wiser]

Agreed about Sixth Army being in Sacramento. Since neither Mather AFB (320th BW) nor McClellan AFB (Sacramento Air Logistics Depot) are on the canon target list, either location makes sense for Sixth Army to set up shop.

[Olefin]

In my universe the USN has two groupings of basically intact forces with sufficient fuel for operations (at least in the January 2001 time frame) with those being in the Persian Gulf and at Mombasa defending the shipping lanes from the intact oil refineries at Mombasa and Capetown to the Persian Gulf - i.e. one force defends the Gulf and whats left of the oil supplies there, the other defends the two refineries that are still intact and able to process the oil

We know from Frank Frey's RDF sourcebook that the USN has operational forces in the Persian Gulf and his responses to several posters here about Kenya strongly infir a USN force in that area as well for defending the Mombasa refinery. And he meant operational - as in not broken down relics with no ammo - for instance his description of the amphibious attack on Chah Bahar in on June 17th of 2000 clearly depicts the USS Salem providing gunfire support as the US Marines landed. I highly doubt she was firing the last shells she was carrying.

I have most of the rest of the USN that is left is either at Norfolk, Alameda, Australia, near Seattle or in Korea, with many ships low on fuel or weapons or having maintenance issues.

That is why the Persian Gulf and Kenyan ships were so vital in the end - that is how the USN will eventually get its ships home again - with fuel from those areas.

In my opinion I can see that if the game had gone on you may have had a second Omega being a CENTCOM force heading home after the Russians finally pulled out of Iran taking enough oil with them to bring home the US forces in Korea and Yugoslavia and perhaps even the guys left abandoned in northern Poland and Latvia along with their ships so at least they are all brought home.

[Webstral]

First and foremost, I agree 100% with the idea that no resettlement program is going to go smoothly. I would go so far as to say that the programs that basically achieve the stated goal(s) with a low 20% casualty rate will be the exceptions. Plenty will go wrong. Plenty. However, where there is a discernible pattern, something can be salvaged from the wreckage. If something can be salvaged from the wreckage, we have a chance of explaining how 125 million Americans are still alive as of 7/00.

Originally Posted by HorseSoldier

If things are bad enough in southern California, I can see it playing out that refugee outflow from there doesn't manage to constitute a wave, at least not by the time it would be getting to the San Francisco area. Probably spells the doom of intact communities closer in to the LA/San Diego metroplex that might have, left to their own devices, survived.

You ain’t just whistlin’ Dixie. SoCal is largely depopulated by July 2000. Only the Imperial Valley may have something left, because that’s a place worth defending for both the Americans before 6/98 and the Mexicans afterwards. The other cities will have a population ceiling set by the availability of water. The real numbers will almost certainly be somewhat lower.

Originally Posted by HorseSoldier

I think the biggest foundational impediment to resettlement programs that repurpose surplus labor from urban areas into agricultural field hands will be people wrapping their head around that being the extent of government help. Initially, the logic of insisting the government should provide such assistance as is needed for someone to be able to keep their home, some semblance of their lifestyle, etc., will probably keep voluntary enrollment low. As people get hungry this will change.

The government can help this along by bottlenecking the flow of rations. Get people hungry early, and some of them will sign up for relocation. By the same token, tell the farmers that they are going to have to adapt to having a lot of laborers at their farms, or they’ll be replaced by another farmer who will play ball. The farmers will be pissed off, of course. I picture the end of the conversation going something like this:

Farmer: This is my goddamned land! You don’t tell me how to run my farm!

Captain Smith: You have two choices. Get on board or don’t. If you don’t we won’t do anything to you. We’ll stand aside when the inevitable tide of hungry [expletive deleted] rolls through here like a swarm of [expletive deleted] locusts and eats this place down the dirt. We’ll protect your neighbors who play ball and grow food for the survivors. We’ll put up sign posts telling the locusts which way to go to get to your farm. Make your choice.

Originally Posted by HorseSoldier

It's probably not a smooth transition at all, even in places where it works -- I'd expect rioting and turmoil, in suburbs as well as the more stereotypical inner city areas. Maybe even more unrest in the suburbs as members of the middle class with completely irrelevant job skills stare at the prospects of being turned into farm field hands at the bottom of the new pecking order.

Damned skippy.

Some SoCal people may be left alive because there will be an early need to evacuate refugee camps in the region. Before people start moving out of the Bay Area in large numbers, they will be leaving SoCal in large numbers by whatever means are available. It’s not hard to imagine refugee camps springing up in and around all of the cities of the Central Valley from 12/97 onward as survivors from SoCal are trucked closer to the stores of food. From there, redistribution of the available labor to the farms will be much easier. People already uprooted will have far less attachment to their temporary quarters. Someone is liable to notice this fact early on and exploit the readiness of refugees to be moved vis-à-vis folks living in intact homes.

[Webstral]

Getting back to the Navy, I agree that the high-endurance cutters will be preferable to the heavier surface combatants for the purpose of routine patrolling out of SF Bay. A substantial body of warships could be idling quayside at Alameda.

In the Bay Area, the Navy probably will have commandeered a very substantial fleet of smaller ships for routine operations. Some, most, or all of them will be armed with heavy weapons (meaning M2HB or heavier, Mk-17 AGL, 60mm mortars, etc.). The Navy will be very security conscious about the Bay and the Delta. Projecting power very far from the shoreline will be a challenge, but the Navy will want to govern anything that floats. They probably will coordinate closely with the surviving militias and municipal governments for the purpose of attacking bandits, marauders, and warlords.

[Olefin]

I think the weapons will be heavier than you think - 25mm Bushmaster cannons for instance would be a good fit on a high endurance cutter. Or naval weapons up to 3 inches of various types - maybe just one per cutter depending on size.

[Webstral]

By smaller craft, I mean much smaller craft—things the Coast Guard would call boats, not cutters. These ships would be intended for operations throughout the Bay Area, including the Napa River, the Petaluma River, the Delta, the Sacramento River, the San Joaquin River, and other rivers emptying into SF Bay. Some of them would be armored rather like gun trucks.

[Targan]

Originally Posted by Webstral

Some of them would be armored rather like gun trucks.

Weight would be a major limiting factor there. Fibreglass and aluminium-hulled small craft could very easily become top-heavy and quite unstable if too much armour (even sand bags) was added above the waterline.

Another problem could be the bilge pump outlets, they really need to stay above the water, so loading a small craft down with too much armour/weapons/ammo could result in it sinking very easily.

[Raellus]

In my TF Inchon/ "Beach Too Far"/ Marines on the Baltic scenario, I had a couple of destroyers (the U.S.N. Knox class frigate Truett and the West German Hamburg/Type 101 class guided-missile destroyer, Bayern) supporting the landings near Elblag and follow-up operations with 5" gunfire support. They were called away to assist in rescue operations in the wake of the Tarawa's sinking at the hands of a small, mixed Soviet force (a few shore-based aircraft, a couple of missile boats, and a diesel sub), but not before unloading their remaining main gun ammo in support of the besieged Marines.

In my T2KU, the battle which resulted in the sinking of the Tarawa was one of the last "major" naval actions of the war. Both sides, already weak numerically, were hampered by a lack of fuel, spare parts (especially for sensitive electronic equipment like radar and sonar sets) and were operating short-handed, crew-wise. Losses on both sides were significant, if only on a per capita basis. The overworked USN crews with their sketchy radar and sonar sets were overwhelmed by a "combined arms" attack launched during a summer squall. The Soviets managed to sink the Tarawa and damage a couple of escorts but paid a heavy price in doing so.

By the fall of 2000, the USN was a mere skeleton of its once proud self, worn down by a combination of factors already outlined previously in this thread. I like the idea of a bare-bones USN, but agree that the game designer's projections were a bit extreme. Then again, aside from being used as a plot device to shift the game's geographical setting for player groups leaving central Europe, naval warfare was never the focus of Twilight 2000.

[Webstral]

Originally Posted by Targan

Weight would be a major limiting factor there. Fibreglass and aluminium-hulled small craft could very easily become top-heavy and quite unstable if too much armour (even sand bags) was added above the waterline.

Another problem could be the bilge pump outlets, they really need to stay above the water, so loading a small craft down with too much armour/weapons/ammo could result in it sinking very easily.

Agreed completely. For this reason, candidates for upgrading are fewer and further between than it might otherwise seem. Gunboats will be armored with aluminum wherever and whenever possible. Even so, drafts will be affected. The folks with the right know-how in Alameda will have an interesting challenge in front of them. This is one reason I think the weapons aboard these gunboats will tend towards the lightest of the heavy weapons. The really light gunboats probably won't have any armor or will only have armored sections to protect the crew from small arms fire, not armored hulls to protect the entire boat.

The Coast Guard's boatswain's mates will be invaluable as the Navy in San Francisco Bay shifts its operations from capital ships to green and brown water operations. The Coast Guard Auxiliary also has an important role to play in teaching the seamen how to manage light ships with loads that might be pretty substantial. Blue Two will have a lot of learning ahead of it.

[Matt Wiser]

One other location for the USN: Guam. On the old board (and Antenna's) I mention USS Constellation (CV-64) with her carrier group and CVW-2 embarked, and USS Essex (LHD-2) as being at Guam, intact, but with only enough fuel to return to CONUS. The only active ships out of Guam (besides a couple of interisland vessels used in the Marianas) were SSNs rotating in and out from Hawaii. One thing about that island: there's plenty of munitions bunkers there, so torpedoes are still available. Finding targets worth a Mark-48, now, that's another issue.

PACFLT's boomers are still at Bangor, as is Parche (the "special projects" boat).

[Olefin]

Well i can think of several targets for those Mk48's

From the modules

Last Submarine Trilogy

One French ASW DD in Boomer and another in Med Cruise sunk by Mk48's fired by the Corpus Christi - you would think the French would be pretty pissed about losing two fully operational ASW DD's - so they may come looking for payback on any attempt to resupply the Army in Yugoslavia

Gateway to the Spanish Main

At least one US sub and possibly two are still operational in late 2000, one being the Corpus Christi (boy isnt that a continuity error) since two enemy freighters get sunk by submarines

Red Star, Lone Star

Pretty active merchant trade still going on into Texas and possibly Mexico - and the US is at war with Mexico

In my Kenya sourcebook one thing I will have is a rumored pirate submarine that has to be hunted down- still workign on it but looking at either a Soviet, Indian or Pakistani sub that went pirate and now has to be taken down

[HorseSoldier]

I think the weapons will be heavier than you think - 25mm Bushmaster cannons for instance would be a good fit on a high endurance cutter. Or naval weapons up to 3 inches of various types - maybe just one per cutter depending on size.

Resources for doing the retrofit (ordnance, ammo, mounts) are probably going to be extremely limited by the time people start trying to gun up CG vessels.

[Olefin]

Not as scarce as you think - between all the depots, army bases, various vehicles and ships that would be available to scavenge there will be a lot of ammo and guns to arm them with. And even things like RPG's and LAW's would be in pretty good supply. Plus there will machine shops running and the like that can make shells, mortar tubes and gun barrels. You just need power - and not every power station will be offline - there are a lot of ways to generate power on a limited basis - you cant power a city but you can power a small industrial base - similar to what Krakow is doing.

[ArmySGT.]

I continue to severely round down the surviving population.

The power plants are damaged. The power grid is down. The irrigation system for S. California is disrupted. Travel is restricted as fuel is scarce and road intersection nuked.

No power, no water purification, no waste treatment plants, no medicines.......

Disease and famine are going to decimate the population carrying the small children and the aged or those of ill health into an early grave.

Cholera, E. Coli, Influenza, Pneumonia, MRSA, Plague, and a host of infectious diseases when medicines become rare.

The World depends on the US exports of grain in the form of corn, wheat, chickpeas, and soybeans to carry their populations. Those states are smashed by the nuclear exchange, the lack of fuel, and the fallout polluting the fields.

This further diverts people from the USN as power plant specialists are sent out to restart coal plants shuttered by the EPA. Military personnel are sent to assist local governments in decontamination of critical facilities.

This in turn deplete the population to draw upon for new recruits for Military and Governments, explaining in part why their aren't enough soldiers and sailors for combat and where personnel from the Omega Operation were absorbed.

[Olefin]

Even a USN ship that is low on fuel can be incredibly useful - think of a USN repair ship that is docked and using its fuel to provide power to its refrigeration system, its machining centers and for communications only - if the ship isnt moving its fuel would last a long long time - and in the meantime you could be turning scrap steel into parts for windmills for instance

[Tegyrius]

Originally Posted by Matt Wiser

One other location for the USN: Guam. On the old board (and Antenna's) I mention USS Constellation (CV-64) with her carrier group and CVW-2 embarked, and USS Essex (LHD-2) as being at Guam, intact, but with only enough fuel to return to CONUS. The only active ships out of Guam (besides a couple of interisland vessels used in the Marianas) were SSNs rotating in and out from Hawaii. One thing about that island: there's plenty of munitions bunkers there, so torpedoes are still available. Finding targets worth a Mark-48, now, that's another issue.

You don't think Guam would've soaked up a Soviet MIRV, what with that nice dense concentration of bases?

- C.

[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.

[James Langham]

Originally Posted by Olefin

Well i can think of several targets for those Mk48's

From the modules

Last Submarine Trilogy

One French ASW DD in Boomer and another in Med Cruise sunk by Mk48's fired by the Corpus Christi - you would think the French would be pretty pissed about losing two fully operational ASW DD's - so they may come looking for payback on any attempt to resupply the Army in Yugoslavia

Considering the location of one of the attacks (English Channel) I have the French blame the British (gives hard liners a good excuse to support British rebels). Bear in mind you need to consider that there are two US governments at this point as well, do the French blame CIVGOV and interfere with Yugoslavia or MILGOV and maybe retaliate in the Middle East?