Tactical or normal nuke modelling

[MarkSheppard]

Why the US have not used them in Korea or Vietnam?

Korea was before the Eisenhowerian doctrine of "I love nukes,
I want them everywhere", and Vietnam was run by Strange McNamara
who wanted a large conventional army.

And also, using nukes is a significant escalation for
what were side-shows in the Cold War. The US Decision making
process at the time saw Korea as a sideshow, and some
people even viewed Korea as having been started by the
Soviets as a diversion to draw US Forces away from Europe.

This resulted in a policy that no real frontline equipment
was sent to Korea; which is why you saw refurbished WW2
era B-29s doing bomb runs over Korea, instead of post-war
built B-50s. Similarily, the Midway CVBs were never deployed
off Korea; it was war-built Essexes and CVLs that did the
brunt of the Naval Air War over Korea.

[MarkSheppard]

Listy said:
Even with warhead and HEK set to 255, infantry still survive at ground zero. it will do aloft of damage, but won't wipe out the targets.

I've done some tests before, what I found to be close to a realistic nuke blast was using a MRLS style setup with accuracy of 100%, and having multiple 255/255 "Shots" hitting
the same hex in rapid succession.

[Shadowcougar]

Because it was desigbed to "make a whole area kill or incapacitate advancing troop formations and irradiate the area so that it was uninhabitable for up to 48 hours, long enough to mobilize NATO forces." Not much fun to game out to me. The Special Atomic Demolition Munition isn't much fun either.


from website that photo came from with text.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Davy_Cr...lear_device%29

One of the smallest nuclear weapons ever fielded, the Davy Crockett was developed in the late 1950s for use in a tactical confrontation with Soviet troops in West Germany. Small teams of the Atomic Battle Group (charged with operating the device) would be stationed every few kilometers to guard against Soviet attack, using the power of their nuclear artillery shells to kill or incapacitate advancing troop formations and irradiate the area so that it was uninhabitable for up to 48 hours, long enough to mobilize NATO forces.

The M-388 round used a heavy version of the W54 warhead, a very small sub-kiloton fission device. The W54 weighed about 51 lb (23 kg), with a selectable yield of 10 - 250 tons (very close to the minimum practical size and yield for a fission warhead). The complete round weighed 76 lb (34.5 kg). It was 31 in (78.7 cm) long with a diameter of 11 in (28 cm) at its widest point; a subcaliber piston at the back of the shell was actually inserted into the launcher's barrel for firing.

The Davy Crockett could be launched from either of two launchers: the 4-inch (102 mm) M28, with a range of about 1.25 mi (2 km), or the 6-in (155 mm) M29, with a range of 2.5 mi (4 km). Both weapons used the same projectile, and could be mounted on a tripod launcher or carried by truck or armored personnel carrier. They were operated by a three-man crew.

Both recoilless rifles proved to have poor accuracy in testing, so the shell's greatest effect would have been its extreme radiation hazard. Even at a low yield setting, the M388 would produce an almost instantly lethal radiation dosage (in excess of 10,000 rem) within 500 feet (150 m), and a probably fatal dose (around 600 rem) within a quarter mile (400 meters). With no shielding or protection from either blast or radiation, a Davy Crockett crew would have been unlikely to survive an engagement without long-term health risks.

The warhead was tested on July 7, 1962 in the LITTLE FELLER II weapons effects test shot, and again in an actual firing of the Davy Crockett from distance of 1.7 miles (2.72 km) in the "SMALL BOY" test shot (LITTLE FELLER I) on July 17. This was the last atmospheric test detonation at the Nevada Test Site.

Production of the Davy Crockett began in 1956. 2,100 were produced. The weapon was deployed with U.S. Army forces from 1961 to 1971.

Versions of the W54 warhead were also used in the Special Atomic Demolition Munition project and the AIM-26A Falcon.

[Shadowcougar]

here is some sites

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_weapons
http://nuclearweaponarchive.org/Usa/.../Allbombs.html
http://everything2.com/index.pl?node...lear%20weapons
http://psychcentral.com/psypsych/Dav...lear_device%29

[MarkSheppard]

Because it was desigbed to "make a whole area kill or incapacitate advancing troop formations and irradiate the area so that it was uninhabitable for up to 48 hours, long enough to mobilize NATO forces." Not much fun to game out to me.

The Soviets responded to that by introducing special
anti-radiation internal liners for their tanks, plus
rubberized anti-radiation coatings for the outer
surfaces (T-55A is one such example).

I apologize if I come across as perhaps a bit evangelical,
but I've always wanted to play a wargame on my computer
below the grand strategic/operational (TOAW) scale, that
allowed the useage of tactical nuclear weapons or chemicals,
as they would have been used widely if the balloon had
ever gone up in Europe.

[Shadowcougar]

from 1 of the sites

The Davy Crockett could be launched from either of two launchers: the 4-inch (102 mm) M28, with a range of about 1.25 mi (2 km), or the 6-in (155 mm) M29, with a range of 2.5 mi (4 km). Both weapons used the same projectile, and could be mounted on a tripod launcher or carried by truck or armored personnel carrier. They were operated by a three-man crew.



Both recoilless rifles proved to have poor accuracy in testing, so the shell's greatest effect would have been its extreme radiation hazard. Even at a low yield setting, the M388 would produce an almost instantly lethal radiation dosage (in excess of 10,000 rem) within 500 feet (150 m), and a probably fatal dose (around 600 rem) within a quarter mile (400 meters). With no shielding or protection from either blast or radiation, a Davy Crockett crew would have been unlikely to survive an engagement without long-term health risks.

with a link to that gun/truck site
http://www.guntruck.com/DavyCrockett.html

[Shadowcougar]

despite the idea that the USSR had about the use of nukes... no one wins with nukes.. everyone just dies

[MarkSheppard]

Shadowcougar said:
With no shielding or protection from either blast or radiation, a Davy Crockett crew would have been unlikely to survive an engagement without long-term health risks.

Actually, that's false. You can protect yourself from
blast, radiation and thermal pulse by simply putting
yourself behind an earthen berm; in short, by firing the
Davy Crockett from behind a hill. It IS an indirect fire weapon, after all

I also seem to recall that SOP for firing positions with
the Crockett when you had the time to prepare one was to
dig a firing trench for the crew to huddle in and fire the
weapon from.

[FJ_MD]

MarkSheppard said:


And also, using nukes is a significant escalation for
what were side-shows in the Cold War.

You took the point here. In less than 30 mins you have to do what troopie wrote in a previous message.


That's also why I think it will be much more interesting to model battles days after nukes attack have occured (again a lot of new graphics and new OOB....) and not the nuke strike itself (tactical or normal).

[MarkSheppard]

You took the point here. In less than 30 mins you have to do what troopie wrote in a previous message.

Actually; nukes won't kill everyone.

An exellent essay on the aftermath of a Nuclear War
Another excellent essay on Nuclear Winter by the same author

Both pieces are written by an actual honest to God nuclear weapons targeteer; this guy
during the Cold War, actually placed pie-cutters over cities, calculated the effects,
and analysed what would be the immediate aftermath of a nuclear exchange.

It basically comes down to this:

1.) A lot of people will die in the exchange, but a lot more will survive.

2.) Worldwide civilization will be thrown back to the early 19th century; because
with our industrial infrastructure destroyed or severely damaged; we will not be
able to manufacture advanced steels, etc.

Also, a global nuclear exchange wouldn't be the end of combat operations, although casualties
would be severe among the deployed military forces. Norman Friedman's The Fifty Year's War
states that the ammunition stockpiles for the East German National Peoples Army (NVA) of
160,000 men were far larger than it's West German counterpart's stockpiles, which is
interesting, considering the FRG's army was of 500,000 men, or 3.78 times larger than
the NVA.

In other words, the kinds of stockpiles you build up so that if a nuclear war takes out
your production facilities, your forces will be able to fight as before for just a bit
longer, which is all it will take to overrun the enemy, whose stocks will have been
decimated.

Anyway, going back and thinking over it, Nuclear weapons would most likely only be
employed in the first battle of a campaign, and then only used very sporadically after
that, due to them being used up in the opening exchange...which makes it be too much
effort programmer wise, for something that will only be used infrequently, as opposed
to "reversable tanks", which I use a LOT.

But it does put forth a rather cool idea for a "post-nuclear" campaign for WinMBT as others
have stated in this thread, where your decimated units fight against equally decimated Warsaw
Pact units in the post-apocalyptic battles following a nuclear exchange after a Warsaw
Pact/NATO war in Europe.....so I guess the typing we've all been expending in this debate
haven't been for waste, LOL!