Nuke Targets Elsewhere

[Targan]

Remember, it wasn't a general full-scale nuclear exchange like we've all grown up fearing. There was no MAD scenario. It was a slow escalation, with all sides involved pushing things just far enough that they didn't kick off a full-scale, all-out ICBM exchange. Over the couple of years that the tit-for-tat nukings occurred there would have been countless thousands of meetings and discussions and little events and evaluations that would be too numerous for even the most devoted alternate history buffs to flesh out. Unless you're re-writing the timeline of the war and it's nuclear exchanges (and many here have or are in the process of doing just that) there's no point second guessing why some targets were deliberately left off either side's hit lists. Launch failures, targeting problems, detonation failures and the like are a whole other issue though.

It may be that the Soviets nuked major population centres in Canada but not in the US because they judged that nuking major population centres in the US would be likely to kick off a full-scale MAD scenario. There's no risk of that with Canada. They don't have nukes.

[rcaf_777]

Actually a lot of Canada oil production is in the major population centres, also I thinking that when they made twilight the research persons did not have the www so the used books, which I'm guessing are few and far between if your going to a us library

And since Canada and the US have a defence plan for attack since 1940 I'm thinking that attack on Canada is and attack on the US

By late in The Twilight War the US would many assets deployed to Canada

[comped]

Originally Posted by Targan

Remember, it wasn't a general full-scale nuclear exchange like we've all grown up fearing.

I'm a little young to have feared soviet nukes.

Originally Posted by Targan

Unless you're re-writing the timeline of the war and it's nuclear exchanges (and many here have or are in the process of doing just that) there's no point second guessing why some targets were deliberately left off either side's hit lists.

I hope to get around to doing that. Should be for a game I'm running in the next few months.

Originally Posted by Targan

It may be that the Soviets nuked major population centres in Canada but not in the US because they judged that nuking major population centres in the US would be likely to kick off a full-scale MAD scenario. There's no risk of that with Canada. They don't have nukes.

Originally Posted by wikipedia

The warheads were never in the sole possession of Canadian personnel. They were the property of the Government of the United States and were always under the direct supervision of a "Custodial Detachment" from the United States Air Force (or Army, in the case of Honest John warheads).

Through 1984, Canada would deploy four American designed nuclear weapons delivery systems accompanied by hundreds of US-controlled warheads:

56 BOMARC CIM-10 surface-to-air missiles.[19]
4 Honest John rocket systems armed with a total of 16 W31 nuclear warheads the Canadian Army deployed in Germany.[19]
108 nuclear W25 Genie rockets carried by 54 CF-101 VooDoos.[19]
estimates of 90 to 210 tactical (20-60 kiloton) nuclear warheads assigned to 6 CF-104 Starfighter squadrons (about 90 aircraft) based with NATO in Europe (there is a lack of open sources detailing exactly how many warheads were deployed).

So, while they didn't have direct control over them, they did have them on their soil at the time, under some sort of nuclear sharing agreement. Perhaps this could have extended into the T2K era... Or would it have? My timeline's a little rusty.