City of Angels? (moved from archive)

[Olefin]

I interpret the list of nuke strikes as the only ones that occurred in the US - you arent going to see a lot of battlefield nukes in the US - possibly Canada but only if the Soviets brought them with them - but Division Cuba and the Mexicans wont have any nukes

now on the other hand having a firestorm caused by the nuke strikes on LA - of which there were several - destroy one hell of a lot of the city - yup I will buy that totally

or rioting after the nuclear strikes - I was there for the Rodney King riots - and the citizens of LA did a pretty good job burning up a heck of a lot of buildings without any assistance from nuke strikes to help it along

[Legbreaker]

Originally Posted by Olefin

I interpret the list of nuke strikes as the only ones that occurred in the US

Well that's completely wrong given the R-27U Zyb, R-39 Rif and R29M Shtil, all common Soviet sub launched ballistic missiles, have small warheads of 100-200 kt each.

[mpipes]

Keep in mind for LA; the city is essentially surrounded by hills. Blast waves are going to head outward and then get reflected back in. Also, there are miles and miles of wooden homes built during the housing boom in the 40s through 50s. Those are going to be shattered and all that wood set aflame. At Hiroshima, a LOT of the damage was due to the fire storm started by the thermal pulse. Same would happen in LA, and with the shattered water system, no way to fight the flames. The LA basin would essentially be burned out by the firestorm. Total devastation.

[Olefin]

Originally Posted by Legbreaker

Well that's completely wrong given the R-27U Zyb, R-39 Rif and R29M Shtil, all common Soviet sub launched ballistic missiles, have small warheads of 100-200 kt each.

Actually I have the canon to back me up on what nukes were actually used - i.e. Allegheny Uprising confirming that the only nukes that hit in PA were the ones on the refineries near Philly

So if the Soviets were using all kinds of smaller nukes then why didnt they hit:

BAE Plant York PA - M109, M88, Bradley, M8 Buford plant - only plant making all of those vehicles - yet untouched by nukes

Harley Davidson plant York PA

Harrisburg PA state capital

Mack Trucks Assembly plant Macungie PA - which by 1997 had to be switched to making military trucks for sure

Three Mile Island Harrisburg PA

multiple army and NG bases in PA including the Carlisle Barracks

Pittsburgh and its steel producing factories

Thus its pretty clear that what got hit by nukes - not by riots, forest fires, natural disasters, etc. - but by nukes is what is in the canon only

Need more backup - look at Urban Guerrilla - only nuke attacks are the ones in the canon strikes - same with the Texas module - only nuke attacks are the ones in the canon strikes for the US as a whole

[Legbreaker]

Originally Posted by Olefin

Actually I have the canon to back me up on what nukes were actually used - i.e. Allegheny Uprising confirming that the only nukes that hit in PA were the ones on the refineries near Philly

One state does not detail an entire nation.
Also, Urban Guerrilla is only detailing one relatively small area directly involved in the module. The rest of the state is glossed over.
It also does not rule out other strikes, and actually states "Florida was hit by a series of selective nuclear strikes..."

Want more evidence? How about Howling Wilderness which specifically states "With certain exceptions, only places that received .5 megaton or more are covered here."
Also, "represented by the megaton(Mt) rating of the weapons exploded there (not necessarily as a single weapon)".

Going back to the actual warheads in the missiles most commonly carried by Soviet boomers at the time, their yield is either 100 kt or 200kt. That's a LOT of warheads spread around, even if you just dump them on only those locations which received .5 Mt or greater. As has been discussed many, MANY times in the past, there's loads of potential targets which deserve a nuke, but don't require an ICBM with their correspondingly larger (usually over 250 kt) warheads.

Again, the books only detail the larger strikes and leave the individual Referee the freedom, even duty, to allocate smaller hits as they see fit.
Note that all versions include nuclear craters as a possible random encounter with no restriction on where they can be found. Only France and Australia (according to the scenario "What's Polish for G'day") have not been hit, although that information is really just anecdotal.

Therefore your proposition that all nuclear targets in the US are already listed in the books is clearly and definitively proven wrong.

[kalos72]

I think Leg you are assuming the developers KNEW the size of all the different warheads and the like when they wrote it.

There is almost ZERO documented cases of nuke sites NOT on the cannon list...and with the one exception of Shreveport, they are ALL military/government or oil refining related.

I think its not a reach to say, if its not on the list it didnt happen.

Now of course, its your game, play it how you like as always. But if there were hundreds of other 100kt hits, we would be playing GammA World...

[Legbreaker]

Except warhead yields were known at the time of writing, at least well enough for the purposes of writing the books, and as is stated clearly in black and white in several books, ONLY STRIKES GREATER THAN 0.5 MEGATON ARE LISTED.
Absence of evidence in this case particularly is absolutely not evidence of absence.

[rcaf_777]

Originally Posted by Legbreaker

As has been discussed many, MANY times in the past, there's loads of potential targets which deserve a nuke, but don't require an ICBM with their correspondingly larger (usually over 250 kt) warheads.

Question, after years of war how many booomers and bombers would be left in the US and Soviet inventory? and how many mobile launchers are left?

[Olefin]

"Want more evidence? How about Howling Wilderness which specifically states "With certain exceptions, only places that received .5 megaton or more are covered here."
Also, "represented by the megaton(Mt) rating of the weapons exploded there (not necessarily as a single weapon)".

Yes and those exceptions are noted everywhere in the list - which is why they showed what the mega-tonnage was for those strikes

I am taking the list as being complete - what you see is what you get - and the Urban Guerrilla, Allegheny Uprising and Red Star Lone Star modules match up with the listed attacks - and Urban Guerrilla does a great job of detailing out exactly what HW meant by not necessarily as a single weapon

i.e. the 1 megaton attacks in Florida were actually a series of ten 100 kiloton strikes

thus the canon modules and the HW description match

And one state is very indicative of the rest of the US - the FMC plant in York, the Macungie Mack plant, Three Mile Island, the National Guard bases in PA are all ones that if the Soviets used smaller nukes all would have been big time targets - and yet none of them were hit - not even cities like Harrisburg (i.e. the bridges over the Susquehanna) or Pittsburgh with vital transportation links were hit

so if there were no other strikes at all on those areas then the idea of large or even medium scale use of smaller nukes to hit targets in the US is basically repudiated

if they had done that then most of the targets I mention above would have been radioactive debris and rubble - yet not one of them was hit - the fact that the only plant in the US making SPG, Bradleys, M88's and M8 Bufords is untouched and that the bridges over the Susquehanna are intact alone shows that the Soviets did not engage in the use of smaller weapons outside of the HW canon - and keep in mind the attacks in Maryland which were detailed - i.e. meaning there is no lack of delivery of weapons into that area - and yet the state, outside of Philly, Per Canon, is untouched

[StainlessSteelCynic]

Wasn't there something in one of the books that basically said the writers decided to leave some nukes unaccounted for so that individual Referees could add a few more targets to the hit list if they wanted?