I was under the impression that the nuclear war in the fallout universe as waged with nuclear missiles, but the bomb in megaton is, well, a bomb. the type dropped from a plane. Did they use both? and even if they did, the EMP from the missiles going off would fry the planes before they could drop their bombs.....

Blame Beth, its their flaws. The other games does not suffer illogic at that level.

They used both missiles and bombs.

There is no illogic. The REAL-LIFE nuclear arsenals of the United States, China, and former Soviet Union includes BOTH missiles, and bombs. There is no reason to believe that the FO universe incarnation of these arsenals was not similarly divided between bombs and missiles.

There's a "Fatman" -type Nuclear Bomb in Fallout 2 that plays a rather important part in the story... (frak, unless it was in Fallout 1 - I think it was #2, though.) So it's not really all that odd.

(Actually, come to think of it - through all the games you see Bombs more often than Missiles - as far as the unexploded type that are sitting around after all this time.)

I would assume that the US ICBM's would be launched at cities and high value assets around Red China. As for the conventional freefall bombs, well they would have been used by SAC to take out harder to hit targets...(ie: Scud style launchers).

The benefit of bombs is that the target can be shifted on the fly. Also, with the right aircraft, a bomb can be dropped without warning, whereas ICBM launches can be detected at launch and tracked.

We used to, as did the Russians, patrol with armed aircraft. it's possible taht the first strike would come from aircraft dropped weapons, so, it's not out of the question that the Megaton bomb is possible.

It could also be an American bomb, dropped by accident or surviving the destruction of the aircraft.

It's in the Cathedral in FO1.

1: Even today, around 60-70% of the US nuclear arsenal are gravity bombs. Missiles are actually extremely price-inefficient.
2: Bombers designed to deliver nuclear bombs have emergency vacuum-tube components just for that reason. Since PCB and transistor technology never were fully developed in the Fallout world, that problem was solved from the get-go.

There's also the fact we learn in Fallout 3 there was a Satellite Mounted Nuclear Arsenal in orbit. It's possible instead of missiles those were carrying bomb payloads.

Not that i'm talking about. But the fact that DC is completely intact, or the fact that the Chinese or whoever ended up shooting missiles did not manage to level with just missiles DC is beyond me.
Special in contrast to Fallout 1 and 2.

Didn't manage to level D.C.? O_o Um, considering the area in and around the Mall is about the only thing of the city still standing I'd say most of D.C. got the crap pounded out of it.

Remember, those pockets of houses still standing around (Springvale, Minefield, Andale, etc) are the remains of of specific neighborhoods, not surrounding towns.

One thing that was never addressed: "Did either the USA, USSR or PRC have any sort of "ABM" technology"? At the very least, all 3 sides would have had at least well established rader sites, interceptor squadrons and active anti-air defenses(in the way of rocketry etc.).

It's likely that they did, the US at least, was preparing for nuclear holocaust, and may have employed counter-measures to the best of their abilities. Although, they may have replaced all their ABmissiles with nuclear warheads and sent them on their way. Everyone launched everything they had, I doubt such an onslaught could have been countered on any successful scale.