Revealed: How a weather forecast in 1967 stopped nuclear war

That depends on your definition of "limited".

There was a lot of damage caused by above ground testing (designed to minimize damage and investigate the damage there was). And this would NOT be testing - but deliberately placed detonations; designed specifically to kill people. Also even one detonation would be several times larger than the tests.

Not so sure . .

"While it would take decades, perhaps even a century, humanity would be back on our feet."

I think it would take a LOT longer than that. Massive loss of infrastructure and know-how. Much information only available in irretrievable electronic formats (EMP, no power infrastructure, spares, transport, etc.) and all the easily accessible fossil fuels well and truly mined out with none of the knowledge, experience and industrial infrastructure required to access the rest. I think it would be a long, hard, millennial climb back from a new bronze or iron age.

And wiser? Humanity (en masse) has shown little ability to learn from much more recent lessons in where violence leads.

Even if it was 90% mortality (which I doubt) the human race would survive. While it would take decades, perhaps even a century, humanity would be back on our feet.

It is hard to say. It will likely be the more advanced societies, those who have lost the skills and knowledge of their ancestors, have become reliant on others and technology providing for them, who will have the greatest survival problems and will perhaps succumb within months.

There will be some survivalists and a fortunate few who struggle through while those who don't see much change post-Armageddon will carry on much as before. It really comes down to whether the devastation is so bad that even those used to living off dirt cannot survive.

@ doug

depends what "back on your feet", means if you mean 'stopped starving to death and fully expecting to be stabbed for your half eaten carrot' then yes maybe 100 years we'll be back to the middle ages with farms and such. Anything "Digital" would be centuries plural i think.

Archaeology would be a booming industry though :)

> Even if it was 90% mortality (which I doubt) the human race would survive.

You're right to doubt. Whilst the multi-megaton bombs scared the shit out of people during the Cold War the reality was that by the mid 1960s targetting accuracy was good enough that only 50-150kt weapons were being used for strategic weapons (only slightly smaller on tactical nukes)

There's almost nothing left now over 100kt (most of the H-bombs can be dialled from 5-150kt, but the standard setting is around 50kt or less and antisubmarine ones can be dialled as low as 0.3kt). In any case nuclear weapons are an expensive boondoggle that noone can actually use. War simulations verified that to the point where it was reported in 1979 that US military commanders who used nuclear weapons in battlefield simulations only ever did so once. In all subsequent simulation runs they'd surrender rather than nuke even if the _other_ guy was tossing nukes.

The best use for nukes now is to expand the swords-to-plowshears program.

But . .

Germany still had access to industrial products (and support) from less damaged nations to rebuild. That would not be the case in this scenario.

That's without even worrying about irradiated food, land, water, etc.

"the economy would be destroyed but people would survive"

So we'd be fine as long as the invading aliens have some sort of Marshall Plan to keep us fed for the several years until we've rebuilt enough of the economy to feed ourselves, and also to police the world against the inevitable nut-jobs who would reckon there was still something worth fighting for.

Edit: and those 1000-plane raids ... they were equivalent to *one*, *small*, nuke. There's a reason why the Japanese surrendered so fast. (They didn't know the US had run out of bombs.)

Re: "90% mortality

> if nukes launched we'd have over 90% mortality in one year. The electrical grid would go down, and then it wouldn't be rebuild for a very, very long time.

At least we'd only need to rebuild it to 10% of today's capacity!

But seriously, for some grim, depressing viewing - though accurate - try 'Threads (1984)': https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Threads

In its depiction of a nuclear winter, it makes post-apocalyptic films look like a walk in the park.

Re: "90% mortality in one year"

"It's an interesting puzzle, as long as it remains a what-if."

Hiroshima and Nagasaki were nuked to rubble.

Today, aside from the monuments, you'd never know it happened if you visit them.

A real world scenario, hardly a 'what-if'.

Despite their general idiocy, Humans as a whole can be tenacious and inventively industrious when push comes to shove.*

*See also; London after the Blitz.

Re: Wrong lesson, I am afraid

Meh, I think I'd prefer to play pedestrian against tank. The only outcomes are stalemate, or the pedestrian loses. Because the tank can never lose, it never has to even bother turning the engine on. The pedestrian can run as fast or as slow as they like, but they won't win. As long as the tank knows this, the worst damage that can be done is by one pillock to his own head as he tries to nut stationary steel plating.

Re: Wrong lesson, I am afraid

the V-force, which required the airbases still be in tact to launch.

The V-force might have required some airbases to be functional, but it was pretty resilient in terms of which ones.

If you look at the undercarriage on a Vulcan, for example, you will see a rather large number of wheels. A more conventional design would have been lighter, leading to a better aircraft - but doing it the way they did meant that it could land on a wider variety of surfaces, so the destruction of the home base would not necessarily put the aircraft out of commission.

Vic.