What would've happened if the Cuban Missile Crisis had actually gone nuclear? How would the American government have responded/rebuilt in the immediate aftermath?
What would've happened if the Cuban Missile Crisis had actually gone nuclear...
Ayden Miller
Hunter Perry
Whatever happened, we'd still be dealing with the fallout today.
Christopher Turner
The American government wouldn't even exist
Christopher Russell
>The American government wouldn't even exist
??? Kruschev had limited ICBM stocks to hit the U.S. and the U.S. had a forward position nuclear arsenal. Had it gone nuclear, the Soviet were in a far worse position and they knew it which is why they tried to put missiles in Cuba in the first place AND why they backed down.
Jason Walker
Exactly. But let's say that even if the Soviets were able to score a critical hit on Washington, the Eisenhower Ten (basically a secret cabinet full of government committee leaders and business executives tasked with organizing the response to this exact scenario) had convened to try and sort out the post-strike mess. How do you rebuild a nation that just got fucked by all kinds of nuclear armament?
Elijah Ramirez
>The Soviet Union had approximately 42 ICBMs capable of reaching the United States, no SLBMs, and a long range bomber force of 160 bear nad bison bombers that would have had to face a formidable U.S.-Canadian air defense system of fighter interceptors with nuclear air-to-air missiles, BOMARC and Nike Hercules surface-to-air missiles. General Gribkov stated that Krushcev and his military advisers "knew... that U.S. strategic nuclear forces outnumbered ours by approximately 17 to 1 in 1962"
That's not going to knock out the U.S. government, not even close.
Andrew Harris
>How do you rebuild a nation that just got fucked by all kinds of nuclear armament
See They wouldn't get fucked all that hard. Made love to gently at most. Soyuz on the other hand would see every important military facility and most major cities turned to ashes in the course of an hour or less.
Daniel Russell
>Soyuz on the other hand would see every important military facility and most major cities turned to ashes in the course of an hour or less.
Guy who posted the aritcle; that isn't quite true either. Most nuclear weapons aren't in tip-top readieness all the time, and a nuclear exchange between the U.S. and the Soviet Union wouldn't be over in an hour; it would probably take a week or so, assuming that both sides stick it out.
That actually favors the U.S. even more, given that they have a large missile advantage to start with; they'll have more of a chance (assuming intelligence is on the ball) of striking at Soviet missiles that are not in full readiness before they're launched than the reverse.
Carter Ortiz
SAC was fully prepared to hit all of their primary targets in an hour or less so that's not true.
Wyatt Smith
The world would be a better place.
Sebastian Sullivan
Only in the 1980s did the nuclear stocks achieve apocalyptic proportions. A nuclear exchange in the 1960s wouldn't even lead to nuclear winter, both governments would be still standing and fighting it out in conventional warfare once the dust settles.
Dylan Garcia
>A nuclear exchange in the 1960s wouldn't even lead to nuclear winter
You're not wrong, but only because no nuclear exchange would lead to a nuclear winter because that's entirely a myth.
Isaac Diaz
>The world would be more fun to LARP in.
FTFY
Noah Rodriguez
I see, thanks. I guess what I'm wondering is closer to "what would the response/relief efforts be to a national nuclear strike, esp. considering issues like irradiated food sources, damaged infrastructure, economic turmoil, fracture between local and federal governments, displaced populations, and large amounts of people dealing with fallout without access to proper medical care."
There are a lot of resources out there in terms of how the US would actually wage a nuclear war, but very few in the way of dealing with the aftermath of one, which is strange- you'd think that if the American arsenal really outclassed the Soviet one (especially at 17 to 1, lol), they'd have some kind of plans for a damaged but surviving nation.
Jeremiah Richardson
Wyatt Garcia
All of those studies show a continuous large stream of smoke instead of the reality that the smoke would not be continuously large or even realistically continuous. Hiroshima and Nagasaki stopped burning the same day.
Dylan Garcia
There were over 60 thousand warheads by 1983 you stupid fuck, and half of them were ready to fly. That's 30 thousand Hiroshimas, and with more powerful nukes that those detonated in WW2.
We are talking massive fallout, forest fires, soot and dust thrown into the atmosphere causing crop failures, etc.
Justin Ortiz
>We are talking massive fallout
Airburst means minimal fallout.
>forest fires
Unlikely
>soot
Again, the fires would be out quickly
>dust
See my comment on fallout
It's a shoddy simulation dependent upon continuously burning cities which is extremely unrealistic (as it was in Hiroshima and Nagasaki which were cities made of paper and fucking wood).
Samuel Brooks
>Airburst means minimal fallout.
you're assuming many things about the capabilities of Russian ICBMs with that one statement
>Unlikely
nice argument retard
>Again, the fires would be out quickly
based on what evidence?
>See my comment on fallout
see my comment on russian ICBMs
you don't really have anything, do you? You just played civilization as a kid and thought nuking shit was the coolest thing, right?
Tyler Diaz
>you're assuming many things about the capabilities of Russian ICBMs with that one statement
>implying your "studies" don't assume many things and even state as much
You really should have actually read the studies. They state that there are so many variables that it's guesswork at best.
>based on what evidence?
The evidence of nuclear testing and the instances in which nukes were actually fucking used?
>you don't really have anything, do you?
More than you, which really isn't saying much.
Parker Perez
We see massive migration to the west coast.
The world would be more volatile then our timeline.
Charles Garcia
Doesn't mean they would have. Bombing was not pinpoint accurate. It was a lot of guess work. They would have probably tried multiple times to take out some of the targets.
That being the case, it wouldn't be pretty. Russian would have been stomped on, but would have taken Europse (mispelling appropriate as all that would be left of Europe is a corpse). Still the Russians could not have gotten their vast manpower to the United States. And our vast economic power would have allowed us to keep producing more bombs over time then they could have. Their nukes would either have to be wasted trying to take out our Navy, or used on industry. As long as the navy existed, the Russians could use their greatest asset. As long as the industry existed, we had our greatest asset building bombs and missiles to hit their weak point, their industry. Since their Navy was balls ass pathetic we would have never been challenged there. Eventually the U.S.S.R. would have plead for peace after we could keep bombing them and their industry was in ashes.
But that first couple of days would have rocked us hard and there would still be places we probably couldn't go safely.
Jackson Ortiz
>but would have taken Europse
Everyone always states this which confuses me as even the Czechs stated at the time it was a serious gamble unlikely to succeed and current theorists and analysts have come to the same conclusion. Too much was contingent on the Soviets making it through the Fulda gap and everyone knew it.
Gabriel Foster
What every happens Europe lose gigantic time.