Nuclear Bomb Question

[sapper66]

I think many peopel in the public do not understand the real capability of a nuclear weapon.

The first order effect (initial blast and following shockwave-airburst))
The second order effect (radiation and fallout)

The initial blast and shockwave are devestating for above ground structures in the imediate area of the blast. but say a terriroty in HOI3 of what say 50min +/-(i am not sure) the inital blast may only damage a very small portion of the structures in overall territoy.... however the IC as it realtes to industry are typically lumped together..... you can assume that the bomb woudl target such an area,,,, and reduce the IC capicity to rubble in the area targeted....

however

infrastructure is another matter all together.... the bomb woudl only destroy roads/bridges/rail in the imediate area...... a few miles from teh blast... the roads adn bridges woudl all remain virtually intact and very capabile of transportation........

the bombs while very powerful... and very devastating at the initial blast.... still really only have a limited range that they will casue catistrophic damage...... most areas in and around the blast woudl remain unscathed........ in addition..... terrain is a huge factor in what the bomb can do... hills and mountains act as natural barries that severly limit the blast potential of the bomb...... if you are on teh other side of teh hill where the bomb went off.... monst liek you are gonna survive.....

teh bad news... adn longerterm effects are radiationad nad fallout......
the radiationa and fallout will affect a larger area than the blast....... (bad news is that this effect was not known at the time..... for game purposes thsi effect could be ignored imho.... when it comes to transporation and IC.... as peopel will go back to work in teh areas factories that were not damages etc.....

what you acn do.. is reduce the manpowerpool effect from the terriory though to simulate people initially killed in teh balst and the second order effct of radiation poisioning.......

IN any case... it is actually relatively easy to survive a nucler blast and associated fallout...... i think people watch to much tv, read to many stories and believe the hype of the nuclear demeon weapon......... while very very powerful and very devestating in the imediate area.... it serves a purpose more to scare people the what the actual facts dictate.......

although don;t be with 10-20 miles of one goign off(not recommended)

while that blast radius is very large... and very devestating.... it is very small in comparision say teh terrirories in HOI3.... or to states/countries....(well except for lux(sorry lux)

 

[vertinox]

I can't believe everyone was so unaware of radiation. Maybe at first, but I can't believe people wouldn't figure that one out.

Eh... It took several years before anyone realized the affects of radiation from the a-bombs on Japan.

Hell... The Americans tested it on their own troops in the 1950's thinking it wasn't that bad.

Not to mention the French made a lot of native islanders sick testing in the Pacific.

 

[Meadhros]

So the best way to depict a nuclear weapon would be?

I'd say massive IC damage, but repairable, like normal stratbombing, so no more permanent IC damage.. Hiroshima and Nagasaki eventually returned to normal order of business after the bombs, flattening a factory with conventional bombs is no different then with a nuke.
It should however take far longer to repair IC, and to counter that stratbombing should do far LESS damage, so Germany isn't down to 0 IC by 1943.
This should also repressent the fact that Europe (especcially Germany) took far longer to revive its factories after the war then in HoI2.
(BTW, imo "building" IC in a HoI game is totally unrealistic, as it represents the economic production strenght of a country, and not a number of state-owned factories. I think this option should be removed, and IC can only repair or slowly increase automatically or by event.)

Infrastructure, same thing. Except that the temporary infra damage should be way lower, as sapper66 mentioned.

Manpower I think should not decline, we could not decrease manpower via stratbombing, so why would nuking. Perhaps for both stratbombing and nuking we could place a cost on the MP pool, representing losses in potential soldiers, that would however be replaced eventually.

Radiation I think can be ignored, as it wouldn't effect any aspect of HoI gameplay.

The effect on divisions in the province (damage to strength and org, but not whiping them out) seems fine in HoI2. But one could argue, again because a nuke wouldn't wipe out an area as big as a province, most troops would be spared. Perhaps we could have 2 nuke missions: Tactical nukes and strategic nukes.
More modern, more powerfull nukes, like Hydrogen bombs etc. Would ofcours just have increased value as strategic weapons, as I don't see a tactical use for them.

The main effect of nuking would be a massive penalty on national unity, thus forcing the country to surrender more quickly (already implemented).

Now all of this would not accurately represent a future Cold War or World War 3 mod (featuring large scale nuclear warfare), so we would need a new mechanic for that.

 

[unmerged(144107)]

Eh... It took several years before anyone realized the affects of radiation from the a-bombs on Japan.

Hell... The Americans tested it on their own troops in the 1950's thinking it wasn't that bad.

Not to mention the French made a lot of native islanders sick testing in the Pacific.

Maybe i am wrong but i just don't buy it. It sounds like a "plan" to not be demonetised to me.
I find it very hard to believe that the people behind the NB know nothing about the "silent death"
The common man yes but the ones behind it all no.

 

[Meadhros]

Well, obviously they knew about radiation, and they knew this could be deadly.
They did not know however exactly which effects this would have when detonating a bomb over a populated area. This can only be found out after detonating it, taking radiation readings and monitoring the results from fallout.

There are horror stories about Soviets and even Americans luring civilians to come watch a nuclear test, then testing how much damage they suffered from radiation.

 

[unmerged(144107)]

Well, obviously they knew about radiation, and they knew this could be deadly.
They did not know however exactly which effects this would have when detonating a bomb over a populated area. This can only be found out after detonating it, taking radiation readings and monitoring the results from fallout.

There are horror stories about Soviets and even Americans luring civilians to come watch a nuclear test, then testing how much damage they suffered from radiation.

Well you more or less say what i say so..

 

[Sirveri]

Well, there is ofcours imidiate radiation, emitted when the bomb goes off. But say if you enter the area 5 days after zero hour, would you still be at risk from radiation poisoning, safe from the Fallout dust?

It all depends on what the fallout is composed of. Also to a lesser extent the type of bomb. Also if they cobalt loaded the bomb. Not all fallout is alpha and beta emiters, you also have some portion that will be composed of high and low energy gamma emmitters. I however am more versed in nuclear power plant operations than nuclear weapons cleanup. So, would it be 'safe' to pass through the area? A gas mask would filter the particulates, iodine tablets would preload the thyroid to prevent radioiodine absorbtion. If you're just passing through or doing quick forays into the area you'll probably be OK. Then again at the time the federal limits of 5 R/yr and 3 R/Qtr were not yet established. I also doubt they fully understood the cancer causing effects of radiation. However if you were conducting extended combat ops in the area a few days after the blast without any sort of protection you might see some sort of radiation poisoning. But once again it depends on the size and style of the bomb.

For better or worse we don't have any historical precedent for how combat troops would perform in an area where a signifigant nuclear event had occured. Though I'm sure they ran theoretical studies on it. Unfortuantly I've never seen those studies. But I could give you a step by step account for what occured at the Three Mile Island nuclear power station! I could make some educated guesses if I managed to recall some of my previous training on the subject dealing with airborne limits and calculating manrem caused by exposure to airborne contaminants. But I don't really have the base numbers to even run the calcs, I don't know how many curies were released to the environment, what proportion of those were gasses, the half life breakdowns (they generally group them into six differant groups for nuclear reactor operations) Dust spread and airborne particulation (a fire in radioactive material is considered to have 10% of the source go airborne, a steam leak 1%, a cold SPRAY .1%, a cold pool .01%). But like I said, my background is nuclear power plant operations, not weapons fallout and contamination control. I had to know something about it to not be stupid about radiation, but that's as far as I go, everything else on my part would be theory and educated guessing.

 

[sapper66]

Combat raining has been conducted in a 'hot zone' after a nuclear blast. Unfortunately you will most likely not get your hands on teh data from that training.

I can say that combat can occur in and through hot zones. In the 80's there was a definate plan to do just that. The thought process was that the use of nuclear devices woudl do two things 1) destroy troop concentrations prior to war and 2) use nuclear devices as terriroty deterrents. The bad news evntually became that using a nuclear device as a territory deterrant became nullified as both sides appeared prepared or at least willing to move through the 'hot zone' after detonation. Of course both sides were prepared to take significant longterm casualties due to rediation poinsioning etc. Although there is . well no sense in getting into those details to mitigate that as during the game period it was not known yet.



One thing this is unclassified is the results of detonating a blast on a fleet. It was surprising to see that that large ships basically at ground zero didn;t take enough damage to sink very fast. In that a crew coudl most likely save a large capital ship in a groud zero blast(if the crew survived that is) (ie BB and CV) where as in amost all cases smaller ships(Smaller than BB and CV) the ships sank at ground zero out to quite a distance. This testing concluding that using NB for fleet attacks was useful against fleets composed of smaller ships but was not very effective at destroying the larger ships. However the destrucrtion of the smaller ships and some damage to teh larger ships coudl cripple an enemy navy/fleet considerably and leave them open as easy prey after a blast.....

 

[ForzaA]

try years in some cases. lawsuits are still flying even today... a few years back a local family where i live tried to sue the government due to exposure during the manhattan project. the basis of the lawsuit was for radiation exposure, and the fact that MOST of the people employed in the manhattan project had NO STINKIN IDEA what they were doing or what they were working on...as national security was more important then people's health:

http://www.redorbit.com/news/science/1370116/manhattan_project_blamed_for_cancer/

news article regarding a lawsuit in 2008!!!

...However, thyroid cancer in 10 years, your children being born with major birth defects etc.etc. have no effect whatsoever on combat efficiency.

 

[Kuciwalker]

The thing about the tests on fleets is that even if the physical ship survives, I expect the crew of a battleship would be in no position to fight after being hit by a nuclear bomb, if they were even alive.

 

[Baneslave]

The thing about the tests on fleets is that even if the physical ship survives, I expect the crew of a battleship would be in no position to fight after being hit by a nuclear bomb, if they were even alive.

Depends how close they were, how powerful the bomb was and where the bomb exploded.

 

[dertechie]

The thing about the tests on fleets is that even if the physical ship survives, I expect the crew of a battleship would be in no position to fight after being hit by a nuclear bomb, if they were even alive.

They'd survive the immediate blast, 14 inches of steel is an excellent barrier. Fortunately for us, the US tested this in 1946. Two bombs, one air burst and one underwater, and a lot of goats and rats.

Nagato survived 800 yards from ground zero of a blast with only moderate damage (and it wasn't in good shape to start with). The lingering effects would likely do them in, and fairly quickly too. Even some test animals protected by the very thick turret armor on Nevada at 600 yards ended up dying of radiation poisoning after a few days.

Particularly with a subsurface blast, the ships get irradiated pretty nastily. Prinz Eugen ended up sinking not due to catastrophic damage, but because the US Navy couldn't get the thing decontaminated well enough to safely fix several slow leaks. Nothing short of literally sand-blasting off the surfaces of the ship worked.

 

[Taeryc]

Its not particuarly easy, but once the whole radiation thing was "latched onto" the concept of clean-up crews and shuttling all your infantry through in APC's (sealed, for obvious reasons) came up.

Obviously this is outside of the realm of what HoI-3 operates in, A Nuclear Bomb of sufficient yield should level the majority of what a province contains, depending on the type. (Nagasaki for example was spared alot of damage by its mountainous terrain, etc.)

It should be rebuildable (with the appropriate costs therein) but it should not regenerate of its own free will.

 

[Joppos]

Nuclear bombs in HoI2 are ridicolously overpowered. Sure, probably a large portion of infrastructure would be lost if aimed at a a communications hub, or a large portion of IC if aimed at industrial centers but it wouldn't be any way near the province eraser that it currently is. At least not at it's infant stages.

Only time can tell how they are portrayed in the third installment though.

 

[Baneslave]

Nuclear bombs in HoI2 are ridicolously overpowered. Sure, probably a large portion of infrastructure would be lost if aimed at a a communications hub, or a large portion of IC if aimed at industrial centers but it wouldn't be any way near the province eraser that it currently is. At least not at it's infant stages.

Well, in HoI3 province eraser effect sounds little bit more realistic, as provinces are smaller.

 

[Joppos]

Not really, since a ~15kt blast would still be no way near the size of a province. Granted a strike is aimed at the main city of the province, a nuclear device of that size would still as far as i know, have to be targeted at specific locations as to achieve certain goals to a larger extent. Exept for lowering national unity. I really like that variable.

 

[oribiasi]

Not really, since a ~15kt blast would still be no way near the size of a province. Granted a strike is aimed at the main city of the province, a nuclear device of that size would still as far as i know, have to be targeted at specific locations as to achieve certain goals to a larger extent. Exept for lowering national unity. I really like that variable.

But we have to remember that a lot of this is abstracted in the game, so I think working under the assumption that each province is a city and that a bomb dropped there (a nuclear one) would destroy the entire province it logical. It clearly destroys any units stationed there, as it should. I agree with you, though, that a nuclear bomb should lower national unity in the target nation -- anyone here believe it should also make some dissent in the nation that fires it?

 

[Sirveri]

But we have to remember that a lot of this is abstracted in the game, so I think working under the assumption that each province is a city and that a bomb dropped there (a nuclear one) would destroy the entire province it logical. It clearly destroys any units stationed there, as it should. I agree with you, though, that a nuclear bomb should lower national unity in the target nation -- anyone here believe it should also make some dissent in the nation that fires it?

Why would it increase home dissent? It didn't increase dissent IRL.

If anything dissent went down after the fact due to the surrender. But the bomb dropping and the surrender are another subject, so lets not go there.

 

[Joppos]

But we have to remember that a lot of this is abstracted in the game, so I think working under the assumption that each province is a city and that a bomb dropped there (a nuclear one) would destroy the entire province it logical.

I don't really see how this has to do with abstraction. A province most probably contains several cities with some infrastructure and industries. I am simply advocating a to me more reasonable take on nuclear strikes; making them mission specific and somewhat less powerful. Of course, i know HoI3 is practically done, and little has been said about nuclear strikes. I am mearly discussing my thoughts on the subject.

It clearly destroys any units stationed there, as it should. I agree with you, though, that a nuclear bomb should lower national unity in the target nation -- anyone here believe it should also make some dissent in the nation that fires it?

This is another thing. Unless aimed at military concentrations, utterly destroying units in general seems a bit unreasonable. Destroying large parts of land forces in a province; sure, if aimed at large military bases. Destroying large portions of naval forces; sure, if aimed at military ports.

Giving a player the benefit of destroying everything in a province seems a bit unrealistic, but will probably be somewhat easy to mod for those who care.