The Big One

[RedImperator]

I am completely screwed. Not too far from me is a major international airport with large runways & hanger facilities, a former military airbase, a coal-fired powerplant, several large electrical distribution stations, several large water pumping stations, a major phone switching station, a railyard, and that's just the ones I know of. On the bright side I'm pretty much assured of an instant death.

funny, i remember thining to myself, "what could possibly be of enough value in Rhode Island to warrant the attention of soviet nukes?". Then i saw a map of where the Russkies had their missiles targeted, and it blew my mind. Two nukes for the NUWC in Newport, Two for the sub yards at Quonsett Point, Two for the State Capitol port gas and oil tanks in Providence and two that were apparantly targeted at parks and neighborhoods in Bristol County And one for the airport that i lived a mile from as a kid.

Targeteering your own region is always fun if you don't feel like sleeping for a week. I stopped when I got to the oil pipeline junction and tank farm a mile and a half from my house. New Jersey is utterly and completely fucked save maybe for parts of the Pine Barrens and the hills in the far northwest.

[Crayz9000]

Let's see, what's in the local area...

Closest possible target: a local hardened telco building. As far as they go, this one is small. And about two miles southwest.

Next closest targets: the communications towers on Mt. Lukens (three miles or so northeast, 3000 feet up) and in the Verdugo Mountains (other side of the Crescenta Valley, about four-five miles away and maybe 1000 feet up).

Everything else in the area is ridiculously spread out. The nearest police station is fifteen miles away. Nearest National Guard base is about eighteen. Power and water facilities are roughly the same distance; JPL is about eleven miles to the east and on the other side of a range of hills.

So I don't think this area would be a hotspot so to speak, but it'd be a mess at least.

[Stravo]

Until you live in an area that in every single movie about nuclear war tops the target list (NYC) then talk to me about Nuke chills.

[Ace Pace]

How about living in a dense capital? Godly damage, we have our own Trinty of Death, 5 ministries, the Presidents house, Prime Ministers house, Supream Court, all within 10 minutes car ride.

[darthdavid]

Lessee...
Seneca Army Depot is about 2 miles away from me and they had a metric buttload of nukes targeted at that...
Local school has telecommunications lab that could aid in coordination so it might get a nuke. Aw fuck that's like 500 feet away from me. Well atleast I'd die quick.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

Until you live in an area that in every single movie about nuclear war tops the target list (NYC) then talk to me about Nuke chills.

You can be proud, Stravo, that your city would absorb perhaps on the order of three dozen nuclear devices in a nuclear war. Biggest nuclear target in America! -- With the added bonus that you most assuredly will die to quickly to suffer any pain!

[Illuminatus Primus]

Tampa Bay sucks. We had that DoE plant where they made beryllium triggers for warheads. That place is fucking gone.

I figure the massive shipping port hauls a good shitload of phosphates and other goods, and is good as dead. There's enough people here to justify a population nuke.

There are two international airports in the region, and CENTCOM at McDill. The I-275/I-4 junction will probably be wiped out to cut infrastructural lines.

[RedImperator]

Tampa Bay sucks. We had that DoE plant where they made beryllium triggers for warheads. That place is fucking gone.

I figure the massive shipping port hauls a good shitload of phosphates and other goods, and is good as dead. There's enough people here to justify a population nuke.

There are two international airports in the region, and CENTCOM at McDill. The I-275/I-4 junction will probably be wiped out to cut infrastructural lines.

On of the most memorable scenes in Alas, Babylon was the destruction of Tampa Bay, viewed from 75 miles away.

[Illuminatus Primus]

As I understand it, airports get groundbursts to wreck the runways. So it'll be ridiculously hot here. Oh, and Crystal River, 40-50 miles north, is a nuclear power plant.

Its toast.

[MKSheppard]

As I understand it, airports get groundbursts to wreck the runways.

IIRC no, an airburst is sufficient to suck the moisture out of the concrete itself, rendering it unable to support sufficient loads for aircraft

[Illuminatus Primus]

And the uber interstate junction?

[Howedar]

Albany Research Center, DoE. Also titanium, zirconium, magnesium refinement/production. Hometown is fucked.

The entire Phoenix metropolitan area. Fucked at school too.

[phongn]

And the uber interstate junction?

I'd think an airburst could take it out, if anything the massive thermal pulse will do bad thing to the strength of the steel. It doesn't really look that strong -- and I travel through it all the time on the way to USF.

The shipyard also produces minesweepers for the USN -- they make some of the largest non-metal ships around, AFAIK. There's also the steel plant (unless it has been closed) and probably quite a bit of telecom gear around that would be wiped out.

[Stuart]

IIRC no, an airburst is sufficient to suck the moisture out of the concrete itself, rendering it unable to support sufficient loads for aircraft

It doesn't so much as suck the water out as cause the water bound to the physical structure of the cement to flash-vapourize and the structure to explode. That's a close-in effect and just adds to the general mayhem.

While not wishing to do anything to lessen the general air of gloom and despondancy that has been generated, its important to note that there are many, many more nuclear targets than there are devices to eliminate them. This is basically how we got into the game in the 1950s (and, in TBO how the targeteers got into the game sometime earlier). Back then, the USAF had a target list that included some 40,000 plus targets scattered across the USSR. Obviously, a target list that big virtually dictated the use of mass fleets of long-range bombers because only they could carry the number of weapons needed . The same consideration also precluded the diversion of fissile to the production of tactical warheads or nuclear power. The need for strategic warheads was simply too great. Obviously, this was very convenient for the USAF.

In the event Eisenhower (a grossly under-rated President) cracked the problem. He noted that the USAF had allocated one nuclear device to taking out the Soviet Rail Transport Administration (thus crippling their ability to use their rail network) and another equally large device to take out the Railway Equipment Production Secretariat (thus crippling their ability to make replacement railway locomotives and rolling stock).

The two administrations were in the same building.

Eisenhower insisted that an outside group go over the targeting plans and come up with somethinga bit more realistic. The job went to RAND who took a look at the targets, whimpered, and got to work. By the time they had finished they had reduced the number of potential uses of nuclear devices by about an order of magnitude (not by reducing the number of targets, simply by working out which targets would be taken down by a single laydown). This was the real birth of targeteering. RAND came up with another idea, which was that the AF had always aimed devices at a target; RAND showed that really the initiation point should be selected so that it encompassed as many targets as possible. So, a device may initiate over a specific point, not because it is a target itself but because it allows the neutralization of others.

Then, of course, people started to ask the (Obvious question but one which people never seem to ask) "what exactly are we trying to do. The Air Force answer was more or less "blow things up" which, from their point of view was quite reasonable.

Shep and Her Grace will confirm that one of my many irritating habits is, when somebody asks "how many armored divisions should the US have?" or "How many F-22s should we buy" is to ask a counter question "what do you intend to do with them? Why are we buying them at all?" Its incredible how rarely one gets a sensible answer. This isn't unique. When my company does a study contract its always the first question we ask and we never get a sensible answer. A company or a government agency has a product or a project and they want to know its commecrial or technical viability. We ask why they want it at all, and they look confused. Nine times out of ten, they've developed a product or project because they could develop it and never really thought about its application. Or. rather, they'd assumed because they'd developed it people would use it regardless of the availability of better, cheaper alternatives.

For an internet forum example, on another board, there was once a debate on the ideal structure of the US Army. There were the usual "proposals" X number of armored divisions, Y number of mechanized infantry divisions, Z number of paratroop divisions etc etc, all marking a great increase in the existing ToE. Then my question "Before you can say any of that, answer this. What do you want the US Army to do?" I got the usual response (straight from the book). "Close with and destroy the enemy" and had to point out that's a means not an objective and anyway, which enemy?

So, the next question is "What is the nuclear strike intended to achieve." And that is by no means as simple as it sounds. Blowing up the enemy isn't an end in itself, its a means to an end. That's one of the subtle errors made by the planners in TBO by the way, one that became much more obvious in TGG. They were so intent on planning the destruction of Germany, they forgot that the destruction of Germany wasn't an end in itself, it was a means to an end. That objective was to bring about an end to WW2. By totally destroying Germany while leaving its armies abroad intact, that end was missed. Germany was destroyed and what was left surrendered but their armies abroad kept going and it took another ten years to finish them off.

Now, it might be decided that the desired objective is to (for example) cripple the American military forces (counter-force strategy). Thus, even really juicy transport, political and infrastructure targets might be left untouched while relatively insignificant military targets get fried. Or the target may be the political leadership (that's a very bad idea by the way) and the attacks may be concentrated there, leaving the military structure untouched. It all depends on what the other guys want to achieve. There simply are not enough devices to go around if the objective is to destroy everything.

So. immediately when targeteering, after selecting what strategy to use, the next question is the relative priority of the targets. Now, here's a nasty thing. Those ICBMs and SLBMs are not that reliable; a lot of them (one source suggests about 40 percent - cannot confirm or deny) won't fire when somebody lights the blue touchpaper and retires to a safe distance. Now, in any attack plan there are a lot of targets that are must-kill. In other words, targets so important that the strategy fails if they survive. To make sure those targets die, they have to have multiple devices assigned to them (by the way, ICBMs and SLBMs can be neither retargeted nor aborted once launched).

The same unreliability puts the kybosh on elaborate schemes like using high altitude initiation to blind defenses or early warning systems (it doesn't work anyway by the way; that was a problem we despatched in the early 1970s without any great difficulty) . It would be a bit sad if one's entire attack plan depended on a single missile initiating at point X and, come the great day of Universal Bereavement, it sits in its silo going whirrr-click, whirrr-click.

So, onto the next stage guys. You've located the target list in your areas, now pick the people likely to launch an attack and ask what they wish to acheive - and which of the targets you've identified would be appropriate to that aim. The next stage is to decide on a particular strategy that your selected enemy might wish to adopt and then work out which of those targets is appropriate to that strategy

[buzz_knox]

Stuart, my respect for those who handle this incredible (and disturbing) task.

I began taking a look at my home area, cataloging the targets available. We have: various nuclear and defense related production and research facilities; at least three major transportation hubs/bottlenecks (including the intersection of two interstates on both sides of the city that results in a level of traffic disproportionate to the population base due to these interstates); the headquarters of an agency that handles power and navigation for the entire region; and key power production facilities for the area. All this within 60 miles of the center of town.
Distance alone would call for at least a few warheads, but it's complicated by the geography of the area. The (often steep) hills and valleys would shield targets separated by only a few miles, reducing the ability to get multiple kills with one warhead. So, what would seem to be a fairly typical area with no major military bases, seaports, or cities would be subject to multiple strikes.

[Zed Snardbody]

I'm at a bit of a loss seeing what targets of value there are in Las Vegas. THe only ones that I can think of are the following.

1. Interstate 15 passes through the center of the city.

2. Nellis Air Force base, that one's a bit of a given.

3. There are chemical production, and major manufacturing and refining plants in Henderson.

4. Macaran International Airport.

Maybe those of you a bit more well versed can help me see what will seal the fate of my fair city.

[Stuart]

I'm at a bit of a loss seeing what targets of value there are in Las Vegas. THe only ones that I can think of are the following.

The BIG obvious one is the Hoover Dam. That's some distance out but its a ground burst and a big one - possibly one of the very few 5-megaton initiations. If the wind is the wrong way, the casino owners won't need electricity to make the Strip glow.

Not just Nellis, there's quite a few things a bit further north that are likely to get clobbered in a counter-force strike.

What makes Las Vegas a likely target is that its Las Vegas. If we take the most likely deliberate attackers on the USA, it's North Korea or terrorists. North Korea (those aren't mutually exclusive). If its North Korea, we are looking at five or six missile-delivered warheads to targets in the Western USA. Its very dangerous to plan on intentions rather than capability but with an arsenal that small we can make a fair guess at the way the North Koreans would think.

The NKs are likely to make a counter-population strike with a primary intention of creating widespread shock. That means big, well-known targets and city centers. Probable list Los Angeles, San Francisco, San Diego, Las Vegas and the Hoover Dam. The Dam is in there because the downstream effects of destroying it are gruesome in the extreme.

Terrorists would have a single device (probably one assembled inside the USA - I don't believe smuggling one in from outside is likely) and they'll be shooting for the hit that'll get the widest publicity, affect the greatest geographical spread of victims and of the most economic damage. Las Vegas fits beautifully on all counts (given the city's reputation , rubbing it out will also appeal to the terrorists on a religious level).

More I think about it, the more likely Las Vegas is to be fairly high on the Ungodly's target list .

[Howedar]

I would also expect a couple of dams in Arizona to be high on the target list. Offhand I think there are three dams that control the entirity of Phoenix's water supply. If those are gone, then three million people are without water. Phoenix also has no real gasoline supply, so those three million people can't leave all at once.

[CaptainChewbacca]

The NKs are likely to make a counter-population strike with a primary intention of creating widespread shock. That means big, well-known targets and city centers. Probable list Los Angeles, San Francisco, San Diego, Las Vegas and the Hoover Dam. The Dam is in there because the downstream effects of destroying it are gruesome in the extreme.

More I think about it, the more likely Las Vegas is to be fairly high on the Ungodly's target list .

Don't forget Seattle, Portland, and my hometown of Fresno. It may not sound important, but it houses the largest ANG base in California as well as its in the center of America's most productive agricultural region. A groundburst in southeast Fresno for the base and an airburst somewhere nearby, probably on the Madera river, to spread fallout as widely as possible. Plus, Fresno is more ethnically diverse than San Fransisco or LA, if it's loss-of-life you want.

[Zed Snardbody]

The dam is a must, though luckily, for me anyway, its destruction would have an immediate impact on the city, save power disruption.

Ideologicaly its a prime target, it wasn't a big surprise here to anyone save the mayor that alqueda had scouted and video taped portions of the strip. If anyone brings down the eyesore that is the stratosphere, its going to cause alot of devistation.

Population wise though, anywhere outside side Nevada you'll be able to take out more people in a one hit wonder. Vegas has a relativly small population well spread out, though if they take out Henderson they will destroy the country's supply of marshmallows.

[Stuart]

Don't forget Seattle, Portland, and my hometown of Fresno. It may not sound important, but it houses the largest ANG base in California as well as its in the center of America's most productive agricultural region. A groundburst in southeast Fresno for the base and an airburst somewhere nearby, probably on the Madera river, to spread fallout as widely as possible. Plus, Fresno is more ethnically diverse than San Fransisco or LA, if it's loss-of-life you want.

That's true but I was thinking of immediate public impact. Los Angeles, San Francisco and Las Vegas are all names that are immediately recognizable and which bring an instant image to mind. In contrast, most people think a seattle is something one sits on, portland is a kind of cement and a fresno is something half-naked girls throw to eachother on a beach. Its a very good example of how the perceived strategy affects targeteering. If we were planning a strike that would really hurt the USA, all your suggestions are very sound ones (add Sacramento to the list as well) . However, a North Korean (and even more, a terrorist strike) are more likely to want to give an illusion of great harm even if they have to sacrifice real harm to get it. That's why Las Vegas is such a good target; its a name everybody recognizes and has an instant mental picture of. In many ways, its more immediately recognizable than any other US City. Los Angeles is the same - except the target would probably be Hollywood.

Population wise though, anywhere outside Nevada you'll be able to take out more people in a one hit wonder. Vegas has a relativly small population well spread out, though if they take out Henderson they will destroy the country's supply of marshmallows.

I agree although the poor construction standard of American houses means that a little blast goes a long way (and destroying the supply of marshmallows will cause permanent morale failure in the Boy Scouts). The effect would be the illusion of loss though rather than the real thing (except anytime between friday night and sunday night). I always remember looking down and seeing the solid stream of white headlights on fridays and the equally solid stream of red taillights on Sundays, We didn't need a navigator to get from Nellis to LA; just followed the lights....

Take Las Vegas from the map and a large percentage of the US population will feel like they've lost people they know even if they haven't. If one has a very small number of devices and needs to make a major impact, that's probably the best way to do it.

[CaptainChewbacca]

I agree about Las Vegas. Its one of those "everycities" that people can Identify with. I'd say there aren't many of those, possibly adding Chicago, Atlanta, and New York to the list as "identity" cities. Vegas is also a good target if you're crusading against godless infidels.

edit: I would also say that Japan learned the hard way what inflicting an "illusion of loss" would do to the American psyche.

[Zed Snardbody]

While we're on the subject, and I'm thoughly assured that Vegas is a target, is nuclear ordinance truly the end all be all of containment solutions for disease as it appears to be in movies and what not?

[Sea Skimmer]

While we're on the subject, and I'm thoughly assured that Vegas is a target, is nuclear ordinance truly the end all be all of containment solutions for disease as it appears to be in movies and what not?

It depends on how many warheads and of what yield your prepared to use. Certainly nothing is going to survive being incinerator inside a nuclear fireball, but you'd need to carpet a city to kill everyone reliably. Just setting off one bomb, which is what tends to happen in books and movies, wouldn't work that well at all.

[MKSheppard]

High Frontier 13