Pentagon: China Preparing Taiwan Attack

CaptainChewbacca · Post by **CaptainChewbacca** » 2003-08-06 08:06pm

So, in order to rebuild we would have to turn all of America's production capability inwards, not producing or exporting anything for 15-20 years.

P.S. Your rail lines got slagged by nukes. Now how do you move heavy equipment? The Navy only has a few dozen LSTs.

Hasler · Post by **Hasler** » 2003-08-06 10:27pm

CaptainChewbacca wrote:So, in order to rebuild we would have to turn all of America's production capability inwards, not producing or exporting anything for 15-20 years.

P.S. Your rail lines got slagged by nukes. Now how do you move heavy equipment? The Navy only has a few dozen LSTs.

First of all did i say all the production capability will be turned inward. Did i say other industries will quit exporting. Right now the US is only running at about 70% production capability that is alot that can be called on.

Next you still have rail lines up to the blast sites. Rail lines are vey easy to fix. You only need a few dozen LSTs to transport what cant get there by other means and lots of equipment can be transported by air. C130s are excellent at getting equipment to short and or unimproved feilds. Now make a decent point or dont bother replying

MKSheppard · Post by **MKSheppard** » 2003-08-06 10:59pm

CaptainChewbacca wrote: P.S. Your rail lines got slagged by nukes.

Unless they were very very close to the nuke blast, they'll be fine...
nice job trying to compare something with a very fucking large surface
area (a building) to something only a few inches off the ground

Post by **Darth Wong** » 2003-08-06 11:02pm

CaptainChewbacca wrote:So, in order to rebuild we would have to turn all of America's production capability inwards, not producing or exporting anything for 15-20 years.

P.S. Your rail lines got slagged by nukes. Now how do you move heavy equipment? The Navy only has a few dozen LSTs.

To follow up on what Shep said, in order to hit the US with enough nuclear firepower to slag all of the rail lines, we would need many millions of megaton-class nukes. Go to my BDZ debate with Lord Edam and you'll see pictures of homemade bomb shelters whose exposed wooden doorway beams survived extreme close proximity to the WW2 nuke blasts over Japan.

MKSheppard · Post by **MKSheppard** » 2003-08-06 11:12pm

Darth Wong wrote: To follow up on what Shep said.

For god's sake, even fucking COMMAND AND CONQUER got this
right - nukes toasted infantry out in the open and large buildings, but
tanks remained alive.

Dark Hellion · Post by **Dark Hellion** » 2003-08-06 11:18pm

And medium tanks are M1 Abrams.
Won't china be suprised when we land a couple dozen mammoth tanks on their shore using our hovecraft transports. And if our engineers steal russias iron curtain we'll be invincible. MWUHAHAHAHA!
But honestly, you don't nuke the U.S. Like the incredible hulk, it just makes us angry(sorry I had to make one last poke at Jonethanos). Nuking the U.S. would probably spurn us into military production in order to get back at the "bastard sons of bitches" who nuked us. AKA america churning out tanks, planes, and nukes like no ones business and flinging them around with utter impunity. Pissing off a superpower with the ability to make your country a parking lot, and then make enough tanks to fill that parking lot, is never, ever a good idea.

Bob McDob · Post by **Bob McDob** » 2003-08-06 11:34pm

MKSheppard wrote: For god's sake, even fucking COMMAND AND CONQUER got this
right - nukes toasted infantry out in the open and large buildings, but
tanks remained alive.

Going off-topic, I always thought it was sort of funny how small the blast radius of C&C nukes were - you couldn't even take out a building with one, you had to follow up IMMEDIETLY with an airstrike or bombardment.

MKSheppard · Post by **MKSheppard** » 2003-08-06 11:36pm

Bob McDob wrote: Going off-topic, I always thought it was sort of funny how small the blast radius of C&C nukes were - you couldn't even take out a building with one, you had to follow up IMMEDIETLY with an airstrike or bombardment.

They sound more in the vein of small 5kt or below tactical nukes which
would directly be under the theater commander's control, IE you.

Grand Admiral Thrawn · Post by **Grand Admiral Thrawn** » 2003-08-07 11:55am

China has 24 ICBMs with 2 megaton warheads. It also has 24 SLBMs with 200-300 KT warheads and a 1700 km range, and there's only one SSBN and it only carries 12 missles.

Post by **Vympel** » 2003-08-07 11:58am

Grand Admiral Thrawn wrote:China has 24 ICBMs with 2 megaton warheads. It also has 24 SLBMs with 200-300 KT warheads and a 1700 km range, and there's only one SSBN and it only carries 12 missles.

Rub the SSBN off the list. It's as good as dead.

Grand Admiral Thrawn · Post by **Grand Admiral Thrawn** » 2003-08-07 12:03pm

Vympel wrote:
Grand Admiral Thrawn wrote:China has 24 ICBMs with 2 megaton warheads. It also has 24 SLBMs with 200-300 KT warheads and a 1700 km range, and there's only one SSBN and it only carries 12 missles.
Rub the SSBN off the list. It's as good as dead.

Okay, China has 24 2-megaton ICBMs.

CaptainChewbacca · Post by **CaptainChewbacca** » 2003-08-07 01:53pm

Of course the rail lines would still be there, but every transportation hub from Reno to LA would be a big puddle and he's planning on shipping stuff through them. I'm just saying that it would take a while for that to be possible.

Pu-239 · Post by **Pu-239** » 2003-08-07 03:43pm

What about highway system?

CaptainChewbacca · Post by **CaptainChewbacca** » 2003-08-07 04:09pm

What about highway system?

Same problem you have with trains. They're mostly intact, but you're going to have some big gaping holes to fix and roads to clear. Plus, that much humanitarian aid would require a LOT of trucks to ship it, and there won't be a working infrastructure to gas-up the trucks for the return trip.

I'm not saying rebuilding in such a circumstance is impossible, but there are some pretty serious logistical problems that can't be solved by air-lifting food and rolling bulldozers off of LSTs in a rubbled city. You would have to work from the outside in, patching up the infrastructure as you went, so that you COULD fix the cities when you got to them.

It would take a lot of time and a LOT of resources, but we could probably bring ourselves up to where we were in twenty years.

Hasler · Post by **Hasler** » 2003-08-07 04:11pm

CaptainChewbacca wrote:Of course the rail lines would still be there, but every transportation hub from Reno to LA would be a big puddle and he's planning on shipping stuff through them. I'm just saying that it would take a while for that to be possible.

You still have absolutely no concept what a nuclear weapon will do. The roads will survive bridges will be knocked out close to the blast zone but once again they are easy to temorarily fix. If it is an air burst which it most likely will be there wont even be a crater. transport lines will survive.

Hasler · Post by **Hasler** » 2003-08-07 04:15pm

Forgot to put the tidbit in about the infrastructure. You would move gas and supplies the same way the army does. By truck and rail and set up depots at regular intervals.

CaptainChewbacca · Post by **CaptainChewbacca** » 2003-08-07 06:12pm

I agree. I'm saying that doing this would take a long time and be pretty costly. There's no economic boom when you have to deploy the US army to ship humanitarian aid to Fresno. It would be a nightmare, with food riots and looting and quite a bit of lawlessness.

Remember, an airburst still has an EMP, so you'd have to actually rebuild the power grid one transformer at a time in the affected areas. Or bypass them for a temporary measure.