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by Weimarer Reich » Wed Mar 21, 2018 3:41 pm
Deutsche Welle news, August 1995 broadcast:
Local: After a long vacation, the prime news service of Germany is back on the air. / Citizens are advised to keep outdoors activities to a minimum due to the heatwave affecting western Germany.
International: North Korea makes an official request for humanitarian aid due to mass starvation.
by Gallia- » Wed Mar 21, 2018 3:58 pm
Weimarer Reich wrote:I'd certainly file Hershey's taste as a WMD in terms of atrociousness.
by United Earthlings » Wed Mar 21, 2018 4:39 pm
Taihei Tengoku wrote:Should a thassalocracy disband its entire land army for a professional navy and marine corps?
by Taihei Tengoku » Wed Mar 21, 2018 5:01 pm
United Earthlings wrote:Taihei Tengoku wrote:Should a thassalocracy disband its entire land army for a professional navy and marine corps?
That's a Catch-22 problem there, because with no designated Army service branch your, by the logic that nature abhors a vacuum, Marine Corps would become by default your de facto land army which is pretty much what the U.S. Marine Corps is today, a second land army with a small air force thrown in for good measure.
by Dostanuot Loj » Wed Mar 21, 2018 5:25 pm
Taihei Tengoku wrote:United Earthlings wrote:
That's a Catch-22 problem there, because with no designated Army service branch your, by the logic that nature abhors a vacuum, Marine Corps would become by default your de facto land army which is pretty much what the U.S. Marine Corps is today, a second land army with a small air force thrown in for good measure.
The army is the local gendarme and the fyrd.
by Gallia- » Wed Mar 21, 2018 5:26 pm
by Dostanuot Loj » Wed Mar 21, 2018 5:37 pm
Gallia- wrote:The biggest problem is the loss of a reservoir of mechanized combat experience, unless the marines are so big they need half a dozen Algols to get anywhere I guess.
by Schwere Panzer Abteilung 502 » Wed Mar 21, 2018 6:10 pm
Gallia- wrote:Schwere Panzer Abteilung 502 wrote:The allied bombing campaign of Germany did a number on that nation, but even the greatest industrial power of WWII couldn't produce enough bombers to pound into dust all of Germany's major cities and industrial centers,
They. Literally. Did.
And it doesn't matter since you can make all the steel in the world but if you have no way of moving it it's useless. Which is what actually happens in strategic bombing: vital transportation hubs are destroyed and spokes choke to death.
Schwere Panzer Abteilung 502 wrote:not to mention the fact that the Germans got very good at dispersing their industry to ensure its surviveability.
It didn't help. An all out atomic attack wouldn't destroy all of America's industry either. It would be approximately in the same position as 1945 Germany or Japan in 30 minutes instead of 30 months. Perfectly survivable if you can shake off the psychological shock, conduct BDA, andSchwere Panzer Abteilung 502 wrote:With a first strike
So what. The action needed is the same: assess the damage, distribute stored goods, and rebuild. The Soviet Army was spot on in believing it could survive an atomic first strike by the U.S. and continue to fight.
Whether it could beat the United States in the post-attack armed conflict is another question entirely.
Schwere Panzer Abteilung 502 wrote:and the follow-up damage from the side-effects would dog a country for decades.
Actually it would probably be somewhat beneficial.
Schwere Panzer Abteilung 502 wrote:I'm interested to hear Gallia's explanation for why the KGB duped people into believing a nuclear war is not survivable,
Amazing. If you aren't aware the KGB literally funded nuclear peace campaigns for the purpose of restoring the USSR's conventional balance of power in Europe you need to educate yourself on the most basic facts of the Cold War TBH. This isn't some deep, dank secret pulled out of a hat. It's almost common knowledge. It's rather well documented since the majority of active measures funding went to nuclear peace groups. It didn't hurt the KGB because it was sort of expected for anti-war groups to be funded by the communists, and it had a huge potential payoff in that if the peace groups succeeded in killing Trident in UK or better yet, completely disarming the West, it would make a conventional invasion of Europe much easier for the Soviet Army.
It was most active during the 1940s and 1950s. As time went on it became clear to the Soviet leadership that funding peace movements was a false start to attacking Western democracies, but it gained traction as a means of swaying the fifth column to and fro. The other major "peace offensive" period was the 1980s when the United States deployed the Pershing II and GLCM to Europe.
Looks like we need to bring back GLCM too, perhaps in Aegis Ashore canisters or something. Instead of mobility the nuclear missile it defends itself with a magazine of RV interceptors and carries six dozen Nagasakis.
Anyway you really need to realize that the Soviet Union doesn't want "peace" because they're already at "war". It's a bit like saying Adolf Hitler wanted peace with the United States in November 1941 when he'd been fighting a war against FDR for the past two years or so. The same was true for the USSR 1917-1991. It was in a state of political-economic-moral warfare with the United States and Western civilization as a whole. If you forget this key historical context your entire ability to judge the "Cold War" is severely compromised.
Schwere Panzer Abteilung 502 wrote:because everything I've read points to it being on the level of a large natural disaster,
What have you been reading? "Some dude on the Internet" isn't a real source. Carl Sagan's marijuana fueled 1960s "models" of climatology? The same TTAPS that was heavily predicated on pushing a political viewpoint than doing real, true, proper scientific inquiry? The TTAPS study that predicted mass "nuclear winter-esque" conditions in the Persian Gulf War that subsequently led to...wait for it...a bit of haze and the clouds washing out over the Persian Gulf because the fuel densities imagined were radically high and the plumes never reached (nor perhaps, ever produced enough smoke in the first place to matter if they did) the stratosphere needed to spread across the region. It wasn't just wrong, it was so completely off the target that it's a bit like CNN's coverage of EBOV in America. Hysterical to a fault and absolutely silly. Which is entirely missing the point for an allegedly "scientific" anything.
Here's a real source, the United States Department of Homeland Security: http://hpschapters.org/sections/homelan ... _FINAL.pdf
Better than the Hitler Channel's and other popular science regurgitation of 50 years out-of-date climatology things like TTAPS which were pure propaganda from the start. Since firestorms are pretty unlikely in modern cities in the first place, the entire mechanism of "nuclear winter" (i.e. any and every city over 100,000 people turns into a firestorm in July, among dubious/questionable properties of smoke) falls apart. There won't be a major lofting of smoke into the stratosphere to lower winter temperatures to the point of major frost, choking off agriculture, and starving millions. It didn't happen in Europe in 1944 or 1945 either. The real reason people haven't swatted it down is because it appeals to public consciousness and it is difficult to remove something that is so heavily entrenched in the public mind. It's wrong, but so is "The Wehrmacht were really innocent angels duped by Hitler," and "Reagan won the Cold War," TBH.
It's just blatantly wrong and TBH I'm not sure how to explain it to you except to tell you that smoke is literally a cloud I guess?Schwere Panzer Abteilung 502 wrote:What like a Yellowstone supervolcano eruption or a good-sized asteroid impact.
Literally no one has ever said this. Well except maybe Carl Sagan, who did actually say that a single 100 MT bomb is equivalent to a dinosaur killer (last I checked the USSR was not cloaked in eternal darkness by the Tsar Bomba lmao). But Carl Sagan is about as credible re: nuclear winter as Pierre Sprey is re: F-35 air force being worse than all A-10 and OV-10 air force. The man was an astronomer not a climatologist. And he was a better TV presenter than he was a climatologist. Alarmist publications are generally subjected to greater scrutiny, especially when they involve something actually dramatic like nuclear war, and TTAPS and "nuclear winter" is not really any different. It's nonsense based on a 1950s understanding of climate science.
So good job you don't bother researching your knowledge I guess?
Here's what happens:
1) Stuff in cities gets exploded by atomic bombs.
2) Ashes of dead orphans goes really high into sky.
3) Ashes of dead orphans rains out because of accumulated water vapor of said orphans.
4) Literally raining men because water vapor comes from atomized human beings.
5) A week later everything is mostly fine re: growing stuff and not at all covered in an inch of frost in August.
Basically it. Thanks Dr. Emanuel. The real danger is that the rainout occurs over farmland or fields which are downwind of atomic targets, but it cannot cover all the farmland, and the vast majority will probably rain out over worthless unsued fields or something. If it occurs over a growing field you need to evacuate the first few inches of topsoil (which is to say, the topsoil) because it's contaminated by radioactive particles and will make growing plants look funny/stunted and not produce much useful crop yield.
That's a very remote threat but it will probably happen in some places and some people will starve in winter. Starvation occurred in Europe too when their rail and road infrastructure was captured by Hitler or bombed by the Eighth Air Force.
The Strategic Rocket Troops or 2nd Artillery Corps would be able to cut off transportation for a large area of the United States, if not all of it, by destroying key rail hubs and transportation links. Since large cities tend to coalesce around transportation infrastructure and good hubs of movement (not the other way around!) then it would probably be pretty scummy for survivors since people would be living in shanties and "improvised housing" for a few years without running water or whatever. This is to be expected. And TBH it will probably happen without nuclear war.
A robust civil defense network would be able to counteract it, but planning by itself would be needed after the attack due to the relative randomness of attack distribution. But training to the population for what to do before, during, and immediately after an attack (mostly: don't panic, duck and cover, and stay put) and a civil defense force that can reinforce the probably dead or dying emergency services crews who are trapped under rubble or something is a must. Without that you're left dying but that has nothing to do with bombs and everything to do with an inability to plan for and properly react in a massive attack scenario.
by Taihei Tengoku » Wed Mar 21, 2018 6:20 pm
Gallia- wrote:The biggest problem is the loss of a reservoir of mechanized combat experience, unless the marines are so big they need half a dozen Algols to get anywhere I guess.
by Tule » Wed Mar 21, 2018 6:31 pm
So according to what you're saying, nuclear war is actually pretty survivable? Not if you're living in NYC or Pittsburgh, maybe, but in someplace like northern Pennsylvania or anywhere in Idaho you might do relatively well? Maybe I've watched The Day After one too many times.
by Gallia- » Wed Mar 21, 2018 6:32 pm
Schwere Panzer Abteilung 502 wrote:I meant that the bombing campaign did not have nearly the effect that it was thought to have, psychologically or physically, on Germany's war effort
Schwere Panzer Abteilung 502 wrote:it's well documented how little effect the Blitz really had on Britain's determination to fight to the end.
Schwere Panzer Abteilung 502 wrote:But more to my point, was that nuclear weapons allow the same kind of destruction that thousand-bomber raids cause without the need to assemble, well, a thousand bombers to attack one target.
Schwere Panzer Abteilung 502 wrote:Won't a single warhead detonated over a city produce far more devastation than massed bomber raids, thanks to the far greater heat and shock put out at the point of detonation over a far shorter amount of time?
Schwere Panzer Abteilung 502 wrote:It would still have a massive wrench thrown into it. If we assume the nuclear war occurs during/at the start of a conventional war in Europe,
Schwere Panzer Abteilung 502 wrote:then the US would have to support its own forces in Europe and the rest of NATO, which would presumably be a strain far greater than WWI and/or II, given the fact that the country was just smacked with several thousand warheads.
Schwere Panzer Abteilung 502 wrote:I think it's just slightly optimistic to say that the US could continue just as Germany or Japan continued while being bombed.
Schwere Panzer Abteilung 502 wrote:How so?
Schwere Panzer Abteilung 502 wrote:So according to what you're saying, nuclear war is actually pretty survivable?
Schwere Panzer Abteilung 502 wrote:Not if you're living in NYC or Pittsburgh, maybe, but in someplace like northern Pennsylvania or anywhere in Idaho you might do relatively well?
Tule wrote:once priority military targets have been destroyed, leaving the civilian infrastructure in the two countries mostly intact.
by Tule » Wed Mar 21, 2018 6:55 pm
by Gallia- » Wed Mar 21, 2018 7:02 pm
Tule wrote:From what I have read lately the Russians have been focusing on more high precision and lower yield warheads,
Tule wrote:going as far as deploying warheads in the hundred ton range on their SLBM's.
Tule wrote:Then again, given the age of the bulk of the Strategic Rocket Forces a countervalue strategy does seem more logical.
by Tule » Wed Mar 21, 2018 7:07 pm
Gallia- wrote:
You mean "hundred kiloton" surely.
This is similar to the UK's use of small yield warheads on the Trident. It's a battlefield weapon not a strategic one. It's entirely pointless IMO since it would be better to put it on a cruise missile or something but the Russians lack new rockets and the UK only has Trident to begin with. Only the USA has cruise missiles and Aegis Ashore isn't going to be packing W-80s anytime soon, although it should TBH. The Cold War system would be either a Standard missile or a Tomahawk with a low yield warhead.
by Gallia- » Wed Mar 21, 2018 7:13 pm
by Kazarogkai » Thu Mar 22, 2018 1:03 pm
Kampala- wrote:Kazarogkai wrote:It makes it so that the small no longer
North Korea's half dozen missiles might be able to damage like...one large American city. The U.S. Air Force alone could wipe the entire Korean peninsula free of human life, let alone North Korea. The entire U.S. nuclear arsenal could dismantle the majority economic-population centers of Russia, PRC, and North Korea with room left over. Granted it's no longer the gigaton hyper force of the Cold War, but the U.S. Navy alone has something like 300 megatons of firepower in the Ohios. The USAF packs another 100-ish megatons.
And more importantly, the USA could rebuild its nuclear arsenal in about as much time as it'll take North Korea to just acquire one. If the USA were committed to massive retaliation or even attempting to counter its enemies it would have double its current investments and placing missile interceptors in Hawaii or something to shoot down DPRK missiles, enlarging the missile force, and procuring more Peacekeepers with a dozen warheads a pop, along with re-arming the Trident with W88 and the Mark 5 RV.
What nukes actually do is restore North Korea's ability to hold the South hostage to its whims, which it hasn't had since the mid-1990s famine.
by Gallia- » Thu Mar 22, 2018 1:16 pm
Kazarogkai wrote:Emphasis on could
Kazarogkai wrote:many especially in the west
by Gallia- » Thu Mar 22, 2018 8:04 pm
Zhouran wrote:words
by Tule » Thu Mar 22, 2018 9:22 pm
Moscow and Leningrad were priority one and two respectively. Moscow included 179 Designated Ground Zeros (DGZs) while Leningrad had 145
by Gallia- » Thu Mar 22, 2018 9:32 pm
by Zhouran » Thu Mar 22, 2018 11:31 pm
by Gallia- » Fri Mar 23, 2018 12:05 am
Zhouran wrote:Yeah, China will definitely be numbah one
Zhouran wrote:let's just kindly ignore their demographic issues and their current economic shape, or how their little miracle has ended
Zhouran wrote:Also, can't get forget that diversity is strength for America
by Austrasien » Fri Mar 23, 2018 8:28 am
by Gallia- » Fri Mar 23, 2018 8:45 am
Austrasien wrote:(some delusional Frenchmen and Germans still do)
by Tule » Fri Mar 23, 2018 9:34 am
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