Beowulf wrote:Your count is probably off Bean. The TXAF TU-160s would have each hit the UAR with 12 MT, and there was about 3 dozen of them that were mission ready at that time. Comes out to 432 MT of love from TXAF bombers alone. Plus there's the Victoria's fighter wing, Wilkonia's bombers (another 6 MT of love from each of them) which give another 170 MT of love (probably, anyway). Wilkonia's submarine force, which mass launched Tomahawks (another 6 MT of love). TXA Quickstrikes(hypersonic glide vehicles boosted by SRMs) would have added another 48 MT of love, at priority, must be dead now, targets. There's TXN submarines, with more nukes. And TXN surface ships, with more nukes. And the TXN CSGN, with even more nukes. There's not a ship in the TXN fleet that did not have a couple nukes aboard it.
I think you forgot the nuclear-tipped SAMs that were in use by at least one MESS member. And I know that you guys never went for high yield devices; because the majority of your nuclear work was done by the LoneStar Republic, which focused more on smaller devices which could be delivered by tactical aircraft and capable of fitting into VLS tubes for submarine launch, etc. This places an upper limit on how powerful each of your devices is individually.
Let's say for convience's sake you have about 800 MT of firepower; at an average of 300 kilotons each, that's about 2,600~ nuclear warheads which sounds like a lot; but really isn't enough when you consider how spread out they are between different MESS states and launch platforms...it's entirely concievable that MESS nuclear armed units only have a few devices on hand, enough to launch a punishing nuclear first strike, but cannot sustain the nuclear tempo past that opening salvo.
By contrast, the UAR's arsenal was:
Shepnukistani Nuclear Arsenal
170 x Mark Sevens - 50 MT Devices. Due to the cutbacks in the Shepnukistani bomber force; there were enough Mark Sevens for both the primary attack wave and enough to equip the follow up attack waves, taking into account expected losses.
Sure, using TSAR BOMBA as your primary attack weapon is inefficient, but it means one bomb = most of a major urban area = toast; as it can start fires out to 58 km, cause widespread destruction to 26 km, and near total fatalities to 10 km....that's about 300 km2 of land totally blown away from each bomb dropped...
200 x Mark Tens - 10 kt devices. Primarily used in ASW depth bombs, RIM-190 SM-5s for fleet air defense, but mainly in nuclear tipped blackbeards. Majority were not used until the closing stages of the war, as the original planned attack plan for them (mass cruise missile attack on Byzantium) was cancelled by President Sheppard. Later, General O'Leary ordered an attack to expend all remaining warheads.
915 x Mark Elevens - 1 MT Devices.
Unified Strategic Thermonuclear Device. Used for general purpose gravity bombs (the first couple dozen ones); and 70-mile ranged stand-off missiles (SRAM Strategic)
50 x Mark Twelves - 40 kt.
Unified Light Tactical Thermonuclear Device. Planned replacement for the Mark Ten, total production was planned at around 400. Production was repeatedly deferred in favor of the Mark Thirteen.
921 x Mark Thirteens -- 225 kt.
Unified Heavy Tactical Thermonuclear Device. Deployed on 250 mile-stand off missiles (SRAM Tactical)
2,256 deliverable weapons, 9,626 MT of deliverable firepower.
Saddamistan Nuclear Arsenal (talked with Skimmer over this)
40 x Shepnukistani-supplied Mark Sevens, 50 MT each.
25 x Shepnukistani-Supplied Mark Sevens (rebuilt with HEU Jackets) - 100 MT each.
67 x Saddamistani 40 kt Devices (current inventory; undergoing remanufacture into 1 MT devices)
660 x Saddamistani 1 MT Devices.
792 deliverable weapons, 5,162 MT of deliverable firepower.
UAR Total
3,048 deliverable weapons, 14,788 MT of deliverable firepower
By the way, the maximum total megatonnage of nuclear firepower ever achieved was around 23,000 MT in the sixties. So Shepnukistan
ALONE has 41% of the nuclear firepower that everyone in the sixties had.
This was the optimal "doomsday" loadout for a Shepnukistani manned bomber:
1 x Mark Seven (50 MT) as primary urban destruction weapon in forward bomb bay.
6 x SRAM-Strategics (1 MT) as secondary urban destruction weapons in aft bomb bay.
14 x SRAM-Tacticals (225 kt) as Defense Suppression Weapons on external pylons.
As noted, there was a huge surplus of weapons for Shepnukistan broken down as:
Mark Seven: 1.85x of full loadout for all bombers
SRAM-Strat: 1.66x of full loadout for all bombers
SRAM-Tac: 0.72x of full loadout for all bombers
So while the SRAM-Tactical defense suppression missiles were in short supply, the other weapons were more than in enough supply to be dispersed to secondary and even tertiary dispersal sites by SAC munitions crews; allowing for protracted and extended nuclear salvoes, which were put to excellent effect by SAC crews commanded by Acting CINCSAC, Lieutenant General Marina O'Leary.
Additionally, some 37,000 tons of chemical and biological weapons were available to SAC at the outbreak of the war; although most of them were in storage bunkers, and hence only about 2,500 tons were available immediately to SAC loadmasters.