What happens in a nuclear war.

[ModForIt]

Well, I thought I might interest you in some boring stories.

For my work im an emergency planner, that means I work for the local government drafting plans for worst-case scenarios. Most of these are things like floods or civil unrest, or business continuity in case of fire or anything like that, nothing too amazing.

However, it of course encompasses nuclear war (Although to a much lesser extent then it was say 30 years ago).

So let me detail you with what happens in a nuclear war Civil Defence wise.

Alright, lets imagine a scenario (all be it far fetched). The middle east decends into chaos, lets say Iran makes good on its threat and invades Israel and after a period of conventional war Iran uses a tactical device of say 2kt on fortified military posistions. Israel responds with a nuclear strike on Irans infrastructure.

Of course the world is utterly outraged, the united nations totally collapses due to an unprecidented war of this nature, diplomacy breaks down and NATO is put on full alert. NATO responds by sending troops to the borders of Egypt to secure the Suez canal, Russia gets twitchy and starts threatening to attack unless Nato forces move back away from such a strategic location.

They dont.

Fighting ensues, which gradually escalates to Russian forces invading West Germany in an effort to stranglehold Europe and cut off NATO forces to the south. Germany is overrun, France surrenders (couldnt resist), the UK's only viable tactic to stop invasion is to launch several of its SLBM's at large military divisions. Russia responds by targeting the UK's energy production and communication with IRBM's, the US retaliates on Russia with a full strategic strike and Russia returns the favour.

Boom. World War III.

Ok, so the governments alreaedy in their bunker, the civil population has all received a copy of 'Protect and Survive' (a very basic survival guide booklet, you can download it somewhere online) and the bombs have started to drop.

We know first off that most major cities are going to be hit HARD, mostly due to the main production facilities being so close to urban centures, you could expect several air bursts of 1mt or more over most cities, with surface bursts targetting all the major airports and runways over 2000ft long as to stop bombers returning and landing.

It quickly decends into chaos, the entire health service is destroyed instantly, every social fibre broken leaving nothing left of any real use.

the Royal Observer Corp (recently reactivated due to the middle east crisis) monitors blasts from their small little bunkers (2 man size, look like little pillboxes). They map blast shape, intensity and distance, which is then forwarded onto the relevent ROC bunkers (big command bunkers, theres quite a few in the UK). The scientists in the bunker start plotting fallout shape, wind strength and all that rigmarole.

But how does all this effect the general population?

Well first of all, its a horrible fact that to co-ordinate any type of rescue operation you have to know who has a chance and who doesnt. When the fallout is mapped, the people downwind of the explosion have no chance, which means no rescue attempt is planned. Your probably asking 'who can go rescue them anyway?', well before the attacks most construction/emergency vehicles would have been confiscated by the MoD and moved to a secure location away from urban centres (if there's anyone to drive them or not is a different matter) for exactly this reason.

Once we know how the fallout is going to behave, its then a case of partly watchful waiting, its pointless trying to even go outside for the first 48 hours as you would die, pretty fast too. Most fallout takes a good 14 days to disintegrate (not thousands of years apart from right at ground zero). After that you can start assessing the situation properly, going outside for maybe an hour at a time.

The first thing that would be done is beginning to get food out to the survivors, most medical issues will be in two catagorys.

Fatal/Not fatal.

Fatal could be anything, you might even be dead yet, maybe missing an arm or a leg. However, without any medical aid, it will kill you. The survivors that are psyically able receive more food then the ones that cant, incredibly callous but when something is so limited you can only give it to the people worth the most.

Then you have rehousing, and emergency powers do allow you to order people with shelter to take in refugees, fitting more into a house thats relativly intact. Martial Law would be the norm, looters and anyone trying to take advantage of the situation would be shot, for their are no prisons or courtrooms left and establishing a control system is critical to surving.

The single most important focus after the food is distributed and shelter provided, is agriculture. Granted if theirs a nuclear winter that goes out of the window along with most other things, but if not then the first thing is getting the majority of people split up into reconstruction and farming. Usually the men would be doing the reconstruction, and the women working the land. Not for any sexist reason other then men are psyically stronger, and after a period of injuries and horror, the strongest are the ones that are needed.

Thats a VERY basic run down of it, there is a hell of a lot more but it would take a long time to get it up on here.

Needless to say if worst does come to the worst, humanity would never be the same as it once was, more like a small population desperatly trying to survive in the wreckage of what once was.

You cant plan for the apocalypse. You can only prepare for it.

[Tookie]

Somthing I posted in a previous post.

http://www.fas.org/main/content.jsp?for ... tentId=367

http://www.johnstonsarchive.net/nuclear/

[ander75it]

lets say Iran makes good on its threat and invades Israel

Uhm... Israel doesn't share any border with Iran.

Apart from that, very informative post, you just have to change the casus belli

[Daxx]

lets say Iran makes good on its threat and invades Israel

Uhm... Israel doesn't share any border with Iran.

Apart from that, very informative post, you just have to change the casus belli

The US doesn't share a common border with Iraq. Oh, sorry guys, cancel the invasion. Let's leave Saddam in peace.

[NeoThermic]

lets say Iran makes good on its threat and invades Israel

Uhm... Israel doesn't share any border with Iran.

Apart from that, very informative post, you just have to change the casus belli

That and I highly doubt Russia would get paranoid from having NATO troops that close. However, the account given here is a suggestion on how things could happen, and is really scary to think that if the world climate was correct, it could just happen (imagine this turn of events happning during the cold war)

NeoThermic

[Katanaa]

interesting reading

[Zarkow]

lets say Iran makes good on its threat and invades Israel

Uhm... Israel doesn't share any border with Iran.

Apart from that, very informative post, you just have to change the casus belli

Well, neither the US, Italy, GB nor Japan shares any borders with Iraq, and yet...

[Dachannien]

I don't see how Iran could possibly mobilize an invasion force to Israel without being seen and opposed by superior forces. They don't have a land route, because their choices would be to go through Turkey or Iraq on their way to Syria. Southeastern Turkey is some very hilly country, and the Turks wouldn't stand for an Iranian force moving through their territory. While they probably wouldn't be able to hold off the Iranians, it would be a fight all the way, which would give the US time to deploy land forces from Iraq (Turkey has been a NATO member since 1952). If they go through Iraq directly, they would have to contend with the US presence that's already there.

If they went by sea, they'd have an even rougher time of it. The voyage would involve going through the Persian Gulf and the Red and Mediterranean Seas, all of which receive substantial attention from the US navy. Furthermore, the eastern Med is patrolled by the Israeli navy as well.

Any (non-guerrilla) threat from Iran against Israel will come not in the form of conventional war, but in a first-strike nuclear attack. I wouldn't be surprised if such an action created the political pressure necessary to cause Russia to drop their support for Iran altogether.

[Studders]

slightly changin subject here but anyone else think it was a bad idea to go after saddam, yeah taken he was a ****** but he kept all the terrorists, rebels and any other hostile factions at bay, now hes gone its just all let lose.

[ModForIt]

I don't see how Iran could possibly mobilize an invasion force to Israel without being seen and opposed by superior forces. They don't have a land route, because their choices would be to go through Turkey or Iraq on their way to Syria. Southeastern Turkey is some very hilly country, and the Turks wouldn't stand for an Iranian force moving through their territory. While they probably wouldn't be able to hold off the Iranians, it would be a fight all the way, which would give the US time to deploy land forces from Iraq (Turkey has been a NATO member since 1952). If they go through Iraq directly, they would have to contend with the US presence that's already there.

If they went by sea, they'd have an even rougher time of it. The voyage would involve going through the Persian Gulf and the Red and Mediterranean Seas, all of which receive substantial attention from the US navy. Furthermore, the eastern Med is patrolled by the Israeli navy as well.

Any (non-guerrilla) threat from Iran against Israel will come not in the form of conventional war, but in a first-strike nuclear attack. I wouldn't be surprised if such an action created the political pressure necessary to cause Russia to drop their support for Iran altogether.

Well like I said its just a far-fetched scenario.

Although as someone said, world climate can shift easily.

I honestly beleive that India and Pakistan are the ones to watch for though, they are a bit too happy to say how wonderful nukes are to each other.

[nuk-a-bazooka]

slightly changin subject here but anyone else think it was a bad idea to go after saddam, yeah taken he was a ****** but he kept all the terrorists, rebels and any other hostile factions at bay, now hes gone its just all let lose.

Going gun-ho into the middle east was generally a bad idea... The USA and its allies are now entangled in a chaotic war with no definitive enemy. They were going prepared for an epic crusade, instead they got themselves into a guerrilla conflict that's gonna last for a long, long time...

And yes, I'd have to agree about Saddam. He, for sure, was a lesser threat (with his invisible weapons of mass destruction) to that of the terrorist. Since the start of the crusade the USA have done more damage than good, especially with their generalization of every terrorist group in the middle east region. This way groups that didn't even share the same goals, agendas and enemies now stand (more or less) united against coalition forces and its Zionist allies.

*******************************************

And now back on topic.

I believe that in this day and time a nuclear conflict is highly implausible. The only major superpower left are the USA withChina slowly cathcing up. Russia would hardly pose a threat in its current pathetic state, the same goes for North Korea. Iran still doesn't have means to produce the bomb (but if they continue to apply Pakistan's tactic sooner or later will...). The Israeli administration won't do rats without Americas blessing. The only major contenders left (at least in my eyes) are Pakistan and India, but they have been holding that silly little grudge match of theirs for years with signs of pacification in recent times.

And anyway, whose stupid enough to trigger a nuclear war (idiotic question, I know)? We all agree that most politicians aren't exactly what we would call sane, but even they admit that the prospect of a nuclear holocaust ain't nice. Then again, they have been doing a wonderful job in raising religious tensions across the globe...