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For this POS I'm writing.
What would you think would have been the biggest American city to escape Soviet ICBMs in a US/USSR nuclear war?
What parts of the US in general would you imagine would survive most intact after such a conflict?
With what you know of the US today, would such a conflict have balkanised the US into faction nation-states?
If you had a 24 hr head start on the big one being dropped where would you go and how would you get there?
At one point the general targeting guidelines for both sides were public knowledge: There were three broad categories of targets: Population, Industry and Military. The way this would break down would be roughly any city over a certain size (IIRC over 100,000) would be targeted, regardless of any other considerations - also state capitols, I think, were on the list, even if they didn't have the requisite population; any company working on defense-related contracts as a primary contractor would have their affected facilities targeted; and finally infrastructure in the form of power plants, dams (both hydro-electric and simply flood control), and sewage treatment and water treatment facilities. I also suspect that the locks for the St. Lawrence Sea Way would be targeted, and the locks of the Panama Canal.
As for what might survive? Think podunk college towns. I think Oswego might be the largest city in NY that would have had a chance of missing a nuke. And even there environmental factors would leave it poorly positioned for recovery.
Most intact? Those places that have the least development. Which means, to my mind, mountain country.
Balkanization? Bah. You're far too optimistic. Waves of refugees would have devastated regions that weren't directly destroyed. I'd be expecting city states not nation states. That was part of the strategy for destroying the civilian government by taking out state capitals, after all - doing everything that could be done to create chaos in the survivors.
The liquor store.
What would you think would have been the biggest American city to escape Soviet ICBMs in a US/USSR nuclear war?
None of them. If they didn't have anything else interesting, they had our missile sites.
What parts of the US in general would you imagine would survive most intact after such a conflict?
The mountains, where we keep things like NORAD and the survival bunkers for the important folks in the first place.
With what you know of the US today, would such a conflict have balkanised the US into faction nation-states?
I doubt there's be enough left to have more than a Mad Max style existance for a long, long time.
If you had a 24 hr head start on the big one being dropped where would you go and how would you get there?[/QUOTE]
Somewhere in the EU via credit card fraud.
1) What would you think would have been the biggest American city to escape Soviet ICBMs in a US/USSR nuclear war?
Assuming we would have knocked some missiles out a place like Sheidan Wyoming, Billing Montana or Minot N. Dakota seem like the types of cities to survive.
2) What parts of the US in general would you imagine would survive most intact after such a conflict?
Dakotas, Montana, Wyoming & Alaska. Very sparse population today.
3) With what you know of the US today, would such a conflict have balkanised the US into faction nation-states?
Yes, what little was left. It would have been vast wastelands of chaos and some petty nation states.
4) If you had a 24 hr head start on the big one being dropped where would you go and how would you get there?
Throw a huge party and prepare to die. There would be no hope of getting out of New Jersey.
I guess if it was just me for some reason that knew, I could fly somewhere out of the states. My passports are not in order so we would have to bribe our way onto a plane and etc. but go for probably South America. I think if we're going down, so will Europe and the Middle East and large parts of Asia probably.
Alternate is to drive fast for Hudson Bay or the Labrador Sea in Canada. This could be done it 24 hours. I have to get out ahead of panic so it would pretty much just be my family I could tell.
Thanks for the answers. Bump by the way. :)