I'm working on running a Gamma-world type game using Modern Path and 20 Gamma World (circa 2002). I've decided I want the PCs to be just a few generations out from an atomic war.
The reason I use the term "atomic" is that I want the war to begin in 1954. I've looked into the history a bit, as well as the development of early nuclear weapons, but I'm a little stuck as to how this might play out.
It seems that even the early hydrogen bombs of the mid 50s weren't anywhere near as destructive as modern nuclear weapons, especially since not very many would have been built before my war starts. So, assuming one side or the other starts and both start tossing H-bombs (and any left over A-bombs) at major cities, what would be the next actions? About how many people would be left, and where?
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Um tzar bomba, which was and still is the most powerful nuclear weapon to date yielded 50 megatons (only because the chief scientist convinced Nikita Khrushchev that a 100 megaton blast would produce too much fallout). The bomb was dropped from an airplane in 1961.
50 megatons.
I believe that they had pretty deadly nukes in 1954.
Addition. Googling 'most powerful nuke in 1954' provided me with Castle Bravo. The nuke activated on Bikini atoll.
It was supposed to have a yield of 4 to 6 megatons. But because scientists screwed up with fuel (adding a supposedly inert material which, when irradiated becomes very active), the yield was 15 megatons.
Here is part one of a documentary on most powerful nukes
Here is part 2
Here is part 3
I hope that this helps in some way.
From fragmented information I recall important part of modern nuclear weapon destructive potential is not the yield of individual warhead but making missiles with multiple lower-yield warheads that can be spread over an area in a pattern maximizing the destruction (Multiple Independent-targetable Reentry Vehicles).
According to wiki the first MIRV missile was introduced in 1970.
Yeah, I read about Castle Bravo. But how MANY of them were there, at that point. Since the test was in march (I'm calling my war beginning in June), I can't imagine there were more than a few dozen equivalents. All the others extant at the time would have been lower yield. So, assuming even a lower yield bomb wipes out roughly one city, we can assume most of the cities in the competing countries (and possibly their allies) are wiped out. This would happen pretty quickly.
Then what? 15 megatons wouldn't wipe out rural areas in the same states as the cities, just the areas immediately near. I'm guessing radiation poisoning would be pretty extensive, considering videos I've watched on drift and such, but that still means that a lot lot of people are still alive. And they don't just go "oh, war is over," they try to find ways to continue the conflict.
Also, I'm guessing some opportunists from nations not directly affected by the nukes would go for a land grab against lands no longer well defended.
More suggestions/extrapolations? This is helping!
I'll do some research, and see what I can find.
Grrr. The only numbers I can find on missiles are Titan or Minuteman missiles, neither of which were built prior to 1955. So I guess I'm going to have to just pick an estimate to how many bombs either side could get off. The number of bombs launched greatly affects what comes after, including potential for/severity of nuclear winter, how bad and how wide-spread is radiation, and how many people are left to react.
I'm going to go with a mild nuclear winter resulting from the destruction of most major cities in the US, Europe, and the Soviet Union.
So year 1 of the war could see maybe 900,000,000 dead based very loosely on the total population in 1954 (2.7 billion) and assuming 30% loss (US and USSR would have much higher percentage of urbanization by then, but other affected areas might have less. The 900 million is just casualties of bombs, nothing else.
I guess we can assume about another 450 million lost from sickness and lack of services based on the war. That least me down to about to about 1.3 billion residents.
Now, how are those residents going to react? How many of the remaining population are soldiers, and where are they located?
The power up in nuclear weapons occurred in the early 50s when the first fusion bombs were tested. From that point on the design of weapons was mostly about reducing their size and controlling their yield so that they didn't do more damage than needed.
By the late 50s each side had thousands of deployable bombs, both by bomber and by missile.
You can pretty much come up with any number you want. By 1960 there were enough bombs to wipe out every major city in the world several times over.
Okay, I can probably work from the numbers I have. I'm going to assume 1.3 billion left on earth, but the US and Soviet numbers will be much harder hit. Let's say 80 million remaining in the US, about 60 million in the USSR, leaving about 1.2 billion for the rest of the world. From here, it gets worse with more deaths due to radiation, disease, and poor infrastructure, and then lesser wars and land grabs.
If you really want some insight, go read the novel "On The Beach" by Neville Chute.
Thanks, I'll look into it.
First of all, you need to decide, WHO struck first?
-The second strike capability of the USSR would be seriously reduced in the 50's, as attacks on Moscow, Lenningrad, and European Russia would seriously decimate both C&C and actual stocks of weapons.
-The profound lack of Second Strike is what led to Krushev placing his missiles in Cuba, a way to 'change the game'.
-If indeed the US started the war, it is possible that the USSR would have only gotten off a few bombs, and the majority of the US would be safe
-For true, apocalyptic nuclear war, you are going to need to go into the ICBM era, early space race.
-The fallout series of games, get around this by alternative history, having robots, and nuclear powered cars, by 50's fashion sense.
-Honestly, I don't think you should worry about hard math and facts here. However, according to these documents
documentsThe US was highly unlikley to ever engage in a first strike.
-As mentioned the nucler submarine, and MIRV became game changers, effectivly guaranteing, both sides, second strike capability.
Anotherthing you may want to consider is the Metro 2033, for life in a russian metro fall out shelter.
Harbin, both the USA and the USSR in the mid-50s had fleets of bombers carrying nuclear bombs around the clock with targets set and bombs ready to drop. My dad was a B-36 tailgunner at that time and if war had started, both sides would have paid a heavy price regardless of who started it.
Heavy, yes. However, the advantage was always in favor of the US, since we had airbases in germany and the UK. Soviet Planes would have to fly across Canada. According to most of what I read, the Cuban Missile Crisis was a bold, brave move to equal the geography of the Matter.
-What I'm suggesting is that a few nukes in NYC, Washington, and the Pacific Coast, would have not crippled the US as much as the sea of fire that Moscow would turn into.
Heavy, yes. However, the advantage was always in favor of the US, since we had airbases in germany and the UK. Soviet Planes would have to fly across Canada. According to most of what I read, the Cuban Missile Crisis was a bold, brave move to equal the geography of the Matter.
-What I'm suggesting is that a few nukes in NYC, Washington, and the Pacific Coast, would have not crippled the US as much as the sea of fire that Moscow would turn into.
Heh, this is one of my areas of interest, so I apologize for not being able to just let this go...
The Cuban Missile Crisis was a reaction to the US locating missiles in Turkey that would have reached Soviet targets faster than the existing Soviet response would have allowed for a massive response, putting the USA in the position of being able to launch a preemptive strike and the Soviets not being able to respond. Kruschev demanded that they be removed and when they were not, he moved missiles into Cuba.
The real resolution to the Cuban Missile Crisis was that those missiles were quietly removed from Turkey and the balance of power was restored.
A footnote of the Crisis is that it revealed that missiles had replaced bombers as the primary nuclear bomb delivery system. But that was in 1962. In the mid 50s bombers still were the primary delivery mechanism.
An interesting irony is that if the Germans had actually developed our Hiroshima weapon before we did, they still would have lost the war, and atomic weapons would be seen as the tools of criminals instead of the proper tools of a superpower.
This is a rather bold statement that assumes the USA would have continued to fight on in the face of millions of civilian deaths in major cities across the USA and England.
The historic record shows clearly that Japan had planned on fighting the US invasion on every island and on their home island. Projections of the death toll of invading Japan ran into the hundreds of thousands of allied casualties and millions of Japanese civilian casualties. The reason the bomb was approved to be dropped was that the Allied brass believed that the shock value would finally convince Japan's leaders to surrender.
There is no real reason to believe that the same calculus would not have applied to the Allies if Hitler started annihilating cities.
LazarX.
Seriously? You actually believe that "one of the big worries of the atom bomb program was that Japan was going to surrender before we got to try our big toy?"
This and other wild-eyed late-night conspiracy nonsense in your comment convinces me that further conversation with you is fruitless.
Go ahead and believe what you want LazarX. I learned a long time ago that when people glom onto these sorts of conspiracy theories there's a deeper underlying reason for their need to do so.
Hong Kong firestorms,
Probably a brainfart, but I think you mean the Tokyo firestorms.
Too much Edward Snowden on the brain, methinks.
LazarX.
Seriously? You actually believe that "one of the big worries of the atom bomb program was that Japan was going to surrender before we got to try our big toy?"
This and other wild-eyed late-night conspiracy nonsense in your comment convinces me that further conversation with you is fruitless.
Go ahead and believe what you want LazarX. I learned a long time ago that when people glom onto these sorts of conspiracy theories there's a deeper underlying reason for their need to do so.
I've actually probably studied more of it than most people. Including the politics of actually selecting which cities were going to be targeted. (the first choice had been Kyoto, but was vetoed by Stimson who had visited the city in the past and was aware that nuking the spiritual center of Japan would not have been fruitful in turning the nation into our eventual ally.) There was a lot of post-war planning going on in those days and a key element to the United States post war strategy was set in turning a defeated Japan into a functioning ally in the Pacific theater as a bulwark against Communism. The U.S. would try to make a big deal of it's nuclear monopoly, going as far as to threathen Krushchev at Potsdam, unaware that Russian agents had already penetrated the security of and had made off with most of the goodies in Oppenheimer's heavily guarded store.
The conventional stories told to the bulk of us make history rather convenient in the justification of our actions there. The actual facts always tend to be a bit messy for public consumption.
LazarX, I seriously doubt you have studied it more than I have. Your basic facts are correct, it's your conclusions that I find questionable. And your willingness to believe that allied leaders were so cynical as to be fully willing to sacrifice hundreds of thousands of innocent lives as a means to send a message to Kruschev.
The truth is that the bomb was highly secret at that time, so secret that even Truman was not aware of it's existence when he took over as President. The choice to use it was his and his alone. Sure there may well have been a few people advocating what you are suggesting, they had no real input into the decision. The decision was made by Truman and has been well documented historically as a decision made primarily to avoid the tremendous casualties predicted for a land invasion of Japan.
That's just the truth of the matter. Sure, it doesn't play well with people who need secret agendas.
My wife's father was a soldier in the Pacific theater at that time. If Truman had not dropped the bomb, he was fully convinced that his chance of surviving the war was practically nil. It is quite likely that if Truman had not approved that event, my wife would never have been born.
I don't think Khrushchev was even at Potsdam; he was back home in the Ukraine.
I don't think Khrushchev was even at Potsdam; he was back home in the Ukraine.
Heh, true, it was still Stalin until 1953... I was conflating mid-50s timeline with end of WW2.
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A little more back on topic to our mid 50's Apocalypse: does the end have to come solely from atomic weapons, or can there be a mix of BC in addition to the N? With more emphasis on the B - maybe have the two major powers run a 1-to-1 exchange as the primary assault, with some smaller secondary exchanges and the release of a biological agent - one that ends up wiping out 98% of the human population on the planet?
I'm assuming you are looking for a way to achieve total destruction with a limited range/amount of weapons?
Well, instead of just focusing on atomic or hydrogen, you can throw in some biological. And the beauty of bio-type apocalypse is that it pretty much gets everyone exposed (unless they are isolated/removed from civilization). All the while those not directly exposed still die - food is not brought to market, fires burn down entire cities since there is no one around to put them out, looting and chaos continue as scientist and governments who survived the initial volley race to find a cure - which they never do. While this is going on, old grudges are fought out in the less affected countries (before the plague hits), so conventional warfare destroys many metropolitan areas, before the infrastructure is wiped out by the disease.
If you are running mutations (as per GW), you could use this radiation coupled with the mutation of the original virus to explain the mutational changes and defects in characters and NPCs.
So you don't just need the N in NBC warfare to destroy the planet, throw in a couple of variables after a few bombs drop and you can see society spiral out of control if you remove access to the resources that would lead to restoring stability.
First of all, you need to decide, WHO struck first?
Fortunately, I had Russia strike first due to a misunderstanding with a US nuclear sub in the Arctic. What you say makes sense, so it does fit in.
For true, apocalyptic nuclear war, you are going to need to go into the ICBM era
I went more with the initial war being the beginning of the end, so to speak. The history I worked up last night after reading this threat got much more detailed, including much death from radiation, starvation, illness, and secondary wars. China, having way more people than anyone else after the US and USSR went at it, went on the offensive.
Honestly, I don't think you should worry about hard math and facts here.
Not too worried about it, I just wanted to get some baseline opinions so I wasn't pulling things totally out of my butt. These posts have helped a lot. Thanks!
does the end have to come solely from atomic weapons, or can there be a mix of BC in addition to the N? With more emphasis on the B - maybe have the two major powers run a 1-to-1 exchange as the primary assault, with some smaller secondary exchanges and the release of a biological agent - one that ends up wiping out 98% of the human population on the planet?
Yeah, I kind of went this route. The bombs were just the kicker to get rid of some population and get everything started. I did do some stuff with disease, too, though I didn't make it bio-warfare. I had SARS kick in a few decades early in China in order to limit the Chinese aggression once I'd started it.
By the end of my timeline, the most populace areas were the least industrialized countries, so tech will have been kicked down quite a bit; for example, even though cars are still there, gasoline is difficult to find; virtually no one is running oil wells, and international trade is in complete disarray. The population of the US has dropped real low. I plan to start the campaign in the middle of Illinois, in a low-radiation "island"; so I have a pretty good handle on the culture and situation the world is currently in now.
Thanks for all the ideas, you guys have been great.
The Cuban Missile Crisis was a reaction to the US locating missiles in Turkey that would have reached Soviet targets faster than the existing Soviet response would have allowed for a massive response, putting the USA in the position of being able to launch a preemptive strike and the Soviets not being able to respond. Kruschev demanded that they be removed and when they were not, he moved missiles into Cuba.
Yeah, that's pretty much what I meant. However, the Politboro was rather pissed at Khruschev, one for brining the world to the brink of nuclear war, and two, for backing down. Or at least that is what was said. Khruschev became the only leader of the soviet union not to die in office, well except for Gorbi...
-There was a recent article in Foreign Policy which suggested the main reason the atomic bomb was used in Japan, was to stop the soviet advance in Asia. Soviet Troops looked set to occupy all of Korea and Much of China.So its not that far out a theory. The fact is the Stalin-Mao-Kim trifecta was a powerful bloc, one that thankfully fell apart with the death of Stalin. I still think Stalin was insane, and regretted not starting world war III.
Well, a no-first-use policy is actually rather difficult to enforce...The US wanted to have all options on the table, should a massive Soviet Attack into Europe ever have taken place. There weren't enough conventional arms to stop an occupation of say, germany or turkey.
LazarX it was the British and french who invented Tanks independently at the same time in the first world war.
Air Commodore Sir Frank Whittle, OM, KBE, CB, FRS, was a British Royal Air Force (RAF) engineer air officer. He is credited with single handedly inventing the turbojet engine. Whittle's engines were developed some years earlier than those of Germany's Dr. Hans von Ohain who was the designer of the first operational jet engine.
It was also the Tokyo firestorms.
As for worries about the Japanese surrendering I suggest you look up operation downfall.
You may need to do some fact checking.
June 1954 is a really bad time for the Soviets to launch an atomic war with the USA. Looking around the web, I found the following:
The USSR had, at most, a hand-full, and I do mean <5, M4 Bison bombers with the range to reach the continental US, but they did not have the range to return to the USSR.
Hard numbers of Soviet atomic weapons are hard to find, but going on a reported 75 as off 1 Jan 1953, and known production rates, 200 is a high end figure. Production weapons are a mix of RDS-2s, RDS-3s and maybe the first RDS-4s, all with yield in the 40KT range. If the Soviets are not first striking, ALL of them are stored in bunkers at Arzamas-16/Sarov and Sverdlovsk-45/Niznhyaya Tura, so if the Americans know about these places the Soviets are in deep trouble.
Meanwhile the US was planning (mid 54 report) to hit the Soviet Union with about 150 atomics in the first couple of hours of a war, killing an estimated 60 million Soviets. Yefim Gordon admits the PVO (Soviet air dence) had zero ability to intercept high-flying US B-47s and UK Canberras through 1954.
In June 54 the US had, probably, 5 each of EC14 and EC17 fusion weapons with 7 and 11 MT yields and 10 EC24s with 13.5 MT yields. They had already retired 5 EC17 devices, but they where only in the inventory for a month or so there might be something wrong with them. The US also had in the low thousands of atomic weapons.
Unless the Soviets spend a long time planning to smuggle aircraft and weapons much closer to the USA, the States will emerge virtually unscathed while the USSR (and Western Europe if the Soviets first strike) will be smeared.
Also the first SSN, USS Nautilus, did not put to sea until Jan 1955.
Unless the Soviets spend a long time planning to smuggle aircraft and weapons much closer to the USA...
Excellent suggestion. It's backstory, of course, but if anyone asks I'll use this as an excuse.
Also the first SSN, USS Nautilus, did not put to sea until Jan 1955.
Yeah, I fudged that slightly. My info says the vessel was christened in 1954, commissioned in September of same, and officially put into duty in 1955. My excuse is a shakedown exercise. Not likely, sure, but I've heard worse plot devices.
Since you're doing a Gamma World game and chucking reality from the get-go have the Antarctic Space Nazis trigger the war, then use their own stockpile of nukes to make good the existing missile gap between the superpowers.
Also, though for obvious reasons there aren't any confirmed numbers, don't forget to take into account that any truly realistic simulation of a nuclear attack assumes that there will be some number of misses and outright duds. So it would be fine to have, say, Lansing, Michigan be relatively fine except for a concrete plug over the unexploded nuke and a big hole in the ground where Eaton Rapids used to be.