Nuclear Weapons and maintaining air superiority

[svennnnnnnnnnnn]

If I understood the Nuke-system correctly you need 75% air superiority to be able to use them. Will you need to maintain 75% or more for a certain amount of time, or can you nuke as soon as you hit 75%? If it's the latter it could be very hard to counter nukes, especially if human vs human. Imagine UK gets nukes, even if they have roughly 1-1 air strength compared to Germany they could concentrate all their fighters on the area they want to bomb, and before the other player can reassign fighters from other areas to counter, boom goes the dynamite.

Also, on a side note, will it be at all possible to shot down nuke-bombers and salvage the bombs to accelerate your own nuclear program?

 

[agentgb]

another question worth asking, is if it's still possible to latch a nuke onto a V2 and fire it at a region like hoi3? if so, god help us all.

 

[LordOfWar16]

another question worth asking, is if it's still possible to latch a nuke onto a V2 and fire it at a region like hoi3? if so, god help us all.

atleast during an earlier WWW johan said you could use strategic bombers or rockets. I hope they changed that in the meantime to only be able to use strategic bombers, if not for realism sake then for balance sake.

I personally think it shouldnt be possible to use rockets to deliver nuclear bombs. The Nukes of that time were way too big and way too heavy to fit on an rocket. Other than that it would be extremely hard if not impossible to counter them and requiring air supperiority for an intercontinenal rocket doesnt really make sense either (if we are talking V2 and such).

 

[agentgb]

atleast during an earlier WWW johan said you could use strategic bombers or rockets. I hope they changed that in the meantime to only be able to use strategic bombers, if not for realism sake then for balance sake.

I personally think it shouldnt be possible to use rockets to deliver nuclear bombs. The Nukes of that time were way too big and way too heavy to fit on an rocket. Other than that it would be extremely hard if not impossible to counter them and requiring air supperiority for an intercontinenal rocket doesnt really make sense either (if we are talking V2 and such).

yeah, i actually did remember him saying that too, just didn't wanna say for sure, so presented it in a form of a question least someone come in here and prove me wrong, and i hate being proved wrong

politics 101

I agree!

i "think" during the early post war/cold war, bombers were still a preferred traditional method of delivering nukes for quite a while & obviously with good reason as you stated, until they could be easily countered, from which they changed to icbm,

Although saying that, for the sake of a cold war mod, i hope they leave the mechanic hidden there somewhere in the files, if you catch my gist. Should they change it in the base game.

 

[eddyill]

atleast during an earlier WWW johan said you could use strategic bombers or rockets. I hope they changed that in the meantime to only be able to use strategic bombers, if not for realism sake then for balance sake.

I personally think it shouldnt be possible to use rockets to deliver nuclear bombs. The Nukes of that time were way too big and way too heavy to fit on an rocket. Other than that it would be extremely hard if not impossible to counter them and requiring air supperiority for an intercontinenal rocket doesnt really make sense either (if we are talking V2 and such).

Now whilst its not a WW2 nuclear bomb the Mark 5 from 1952 had a weight of 1,372.1 kg to 1,440.2 kg (including casing), a V2 rocket had a 1,000 kg warhead. It's not inconceivable that if the war is still on in 1948 that a nuclear tipped rocket could have been developed. In reality the SM-62 Snark began development in 1946 but post war budget cut delayed progress significantly and it wasn't till 1958 that the project was delivered.

 

[neusaap]

I personally think it should be in, for it takes 1. A lot of time (and research slots) to research both nukes and the rockets and that should be rewarded and 2. it would undoubtedly be quite rare that a nation manages to do that if they are not going overtime, (and if they do go overtime, the realism demands it to be possible in the 50's)

 

[adam_grif]

Now whilst its not a WW2 nuclear bomb the Mark 5 from 1952 had a weight of 1,372.1 kg to 1,440.2 kg (including casing), a V2 rocket had a 1,000 kg warhead. It's not inconceivable that if the war is still on in 1948 that a nuclear tipped rocket could have been developed. In reality the SM-62 Snark began development in 1946 but post war budget cut delayed progress significantly and it wasn't till 1958 that the project was delivered.

I would consider it plausible if it was still wartime to have a nuclear capable short range missile at about 1950, probably. That would assume ahead of time nuclear capabilities by several years though. Not sure it would be worth modelling in the game. Mods and stuff could include it.

 

[Alex_brunius]

I would consider it plausible if it was still wartime to have a nuclear capable short range missile at about 1950, probably. That would assume ahead of time nuclear capabilities by several years though. Not sure it would be worth modelling in the game. Mods and stuff could include it.

If German had a nuke ( with similar weight as the US ones ) to put onto their rockets I don't think it's impossible for them to develop a rocket with enough range to hop the channel and hit London in the time of say two years ( after the V2 was developed in 1944 ).

That assumes they are not losing the war badly though.

All they need to do is basically make the rocket bigger.

They were ahead with rockets in Germany and even sketching on rockets to put small stuff in orbit (A-11) or 17 ton rockets that could deliver 1000kg + pilot payload to the US east coast (A-9/A-10) with projected first flights set to 1946.

 

[FOARP]

There's nothing broken about V2's delivering nuclear weapons. Hell, the Soviets ended up fielding a tactical nuclear weapon that was launched on what was effectively a V1 (these were the ones that targeted Guantanamo during the Cuban Missile Crisis and would have completely destroyed the base had war broken out).

Much more broken was the way you devastate infra with rockets in HOI3. Even hitting a single bridge with V2s would have been impossible with any reasonable number of rockets, much less devastating the infra of an entire province.

 

[eddyill]

Even hitting a single bridge with V2s would have been impossible with any reasonable number of rockets, much less devastating the infra of an entire province.

But it was tried, during the Battle of Remagen the Germans fired 11 V2s at Ludendorff Bridge all of which missed, one missed by 64km just to give you an idea of how inaccurate they could be.

 

[agentgb]

If German had a nuke ( with similar weight as the US ones ) to put onto their rockets I don't think it's impossible for them to develop a rocket with enough range to hop the channel and hit London in the time of say two years ( after the V2 was developed in 1944 ).

That assumes they are not losing the war badly though.

All they need to do is basically make the rocket bigger.

They were ahead with rockets in Germany and even sketching on rockets to put small stuff in orbit (A-11) or 17 ton rockets that could deliver 1000kg + pilot payload to the US east coast (A-9/A-10) with projected first flights set to 1946.

Had the germans used tactical nuclear rockets on britain, especially strategically, there is no doubt that churchill would have responded in kind with another devastating weapon that could be strategically dropped from here to timbuktu, but that is not modelled in game, but it was certainly being considered as a last resort, the japanese used it in china.

 

[Secret Master]

There's nothing broken about V2's delivering nuclear weapons. Hell, the Soviets ended up fielding a tactical nuclear weapon that was launched on what was effectively a V1 (these were the ones that targeted Guantanamo during the Cuban Missile Crisis and would have completely destroyed the base had war broken out).

Much more broken was the way you devastate infra with rockets in HOI3. Even hitting a single bridge with V2s would have been impossible with any reasonable number of rockets, much less devastating the infra of an entire province.

They weren't even accurate enough to wipe out rail hubs, were they?

 

[FOARP]

They weren't even accurate enough to wipe out rail hubs, were they?

Nope. A long time ago I did the maths on how many rockets it would take to land even a single hit on the Golden Gate Bridge and (from memory) is was on the order of several thousand. A marshalling yard wouldn't make that much better a target.

 

[krieger11b]

Had the germans used tactical nuclear rockets on britain, especially strategically, there is no doubt that churchill would have responded in kind with another devastating weapon that could be strategically dropped from here to timbuktu, but that is not modelled in game, but it was certainly being considered as a last resort, the japanese used it in china.

Along with the fact Germany would have had a huge problem with nuclear testing to begin with, they didn't have a lot of isolated atolls in the Pacific or vast areas of desert to test them on. I think they would be limited to an isolated part of Norway or some large patch of land in the USSR they controlled, assuming they still had it by then.

 

[nkibilko]

Won't using Nukes make any target provinces completely worthless?

 

[krieger11b]

Won't using Nukes make any target provinces completely worthless?

Yes it did, put the infrastructure to almost zero, all units got zero org and destroyed like 90% of the industry.

Which for a 10-15 kiloton nuke is pretty laughable overpowered. Doesn't help provinces vary a lot in size, a nuke in a Siberian province has the same as the little Boston province.

 

[nkibilko]

Are long term radiation effects being modeled in any way?

 

[Gort11]

Are long term radiation effects being modeled in any way?

Given that the bomb is only going to show up in 1945 or so, three years seems too short a time for it to be worth tracking.

 

[nkibilko]

Given that the bomb is only going to show up in 1945 or so, three years seems too short a time for it to be worth tracking.

Sorry, i wasn't aware of the end date, i figured it'd go to like 1960 for some reason.

 

[pedrito_elcabra]

Along with the fact Germany would have had a huge problem with nuclear testing to begin with, they didn't have a lot of isolated atolls in the Pacific or vast areas of desert to test them on. I think they would be limited to an isolated part of Norway or some large patch of land in the USSR they controlled, assuming they still had it by then.

I don't think it would have posed a moral dilemma to the Nazi administration to either clear a large enough swath of land in say the Balkans by deportation, or to simply test the bomb in a relatively low population density valley in any mountain range in occupied territory without worrying too much about the population. They weren't all that high about preserving life to start with, and certainly not in a situation where the survival of their regime would depend on doing this kind of stuff.

Technical problems as many as you want, but lack of testing areas wouldn't have been a problem.