The destruction was the way people believed on 50's, much like only nukes, fallout and your are safe to go. Today is widely know that the result of an global nuclear war would lead to an nuclear winter, and even non nuked countries would be bad.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_winter

those are tactical nukes, 250kT each, usually the warheads assigned to ICBM's(known as MIRV's); also included in nuclear-tipped cruise missiles. yes, it would take about 10 tactical nukes to turn Moscow into nothing but ash. remember though, russian delivery systems were much less sophisticated and therefore the soviets made up for that deficit by increasing the average yield by a factor of 10 or more - the most famous of which being the Tsar Bomba which had a planned yield of 100 megatons but was tested with a warhead that only had half the intended uranium - the rest was concrete, to cause radioactive fallout to be heavier and fall to the ground more quickly instead of being carried by the jetstream(well beyong the thermonuclear range of US Strategic Warheads - typically no more than 1.2-1.5 megatons at most. remember, strategic nukes and tactical nukes are used for different objectives...tacticals were planned to be used in a semi-conventional 'hot war'. land-based, sea-based, and air-based delivery systems for tactical nuclear warheads were developed by the US and the USSR during the cold war. i continue to ignore china because all they do is steal the latest inventions from americans or their former-soviet neighbors; heck their new stealth bomber is a blueprint copy of the american B2 Spirit, and their nuclear submarine is a copy of the Los Angeles Class fast-attack sub, with nuke silos added..)

Whops! Forgot that an ICBM carries more than 1 warhead.

I read somewhere in the game that no one knows for sure who launched the bombs first,however when they did everyone went into a panic and fired there nukes upon everything. :shrug: I guess we won't never know for sure.

most american Trident II's carried 7-9. Soviet missiles usually carried 10-12 depending on if they were sea-based or land-based. additionally, the USSR developed many single-warhead ICBM's designed to deliver multi-Megaton payloads across the globe.

Reply to most comments:
The Enclave seems FAR more official then the BoS, but they're still trying to kill half of the survivors (or more) with the purifier. Our president is a talking robot. And I just think that after 250 years, places such as the Pitt, which were lightly hit, should have cleaned itself up, and grown a bit more resistant to the radiation. Now, they've resorted to slavery... I know this is a fictional game, but I would like some solid answers... Bethesdaaaa

So they have a "shotgun" for when they want to do much damage and a "Bazooka" for Leave-nothing-standing?

a simple anology, but it fits.

sea-based delivery of tactical nukes were for disabling ship-to-ship communications and onboard electronic systems by detonating the nuke underwater in the middle of a carrier group; the radiation plume would block radio communications between the fleet and the EMP would disable a lot of onboard electronics.
air-based attacks were the lowest yield, as they were "Super Flak"...designed to destroy massive numbers of incoming bombers before they got within striking distance of their targets.
land-based tacticals were to be used as radioactive barricades against infantry movement, and to eliminate large numbers of infantry(the latter proving itself ineffective in drills as shown during the Korean Conflict and the decision to abandon tactical nuclear usage, out of fear of soviet and chinese reprisal[the chinese loved the threat of nuclear attack as it helped them to demonize the US as nuclear warmongers during the korean conflict])

and then the strategic nukes...well lets just say that would be the last button anyone ever pushed, because there would be no more buttons.

Making an underground city for a near atomic war was the dreams of the Russians, and you may know, there is a kind of underground Vault has been made by the Russia government when the country was Komonist. I think It's under the city of Moscow. and it' a very big city with streets and...
all that I want to say is that the game is made on this kind of theory in 1950's: Komonists one day will attach U.S.A. but you know it was just a theory. so you see in this game that the China (that is a komonist Country) is attacked U.S.A in 2077. (Poor China!!)
and I think that it is All the U.S!
I think there must be some kind of cold war between U.S and the Eastern country now. such as china and Arabic countries and also Iran (which is my country!).
I think there is an underground city in Montreal too.

You are from Iran, interesting. What is the availability of computer games there? What does the government think about them?

The remains of the army are the Brotherhood of Steel, and the remains of the government are the Enclave.

If water was contaminated in rivers, then there would be no point going to the coasts since the ocean waters are poisoned and irradiated, too.

Also, most of the Midwest is dotted with ICBM silos and they likely would have been a major target for enemy bombs...

Most of California was hit. Vegas was hit. Reno was hit. Denver was hit. Chicago was hit. D.C. was hit. Pittsburgh wasnt hit but severely poisoned by 3 irradiated rivers converging in town.

US got fudged...

The Reds launched a nuke first and then american decided "HEY TEY LAUNCHED A NUCLEAR MISSILE LETS JUST HIT BACK AND DESTROY THE ENTIRE WORLD" America then launched there missiles and the reds decided to launch all they had onto america.
Allies of america launched at allies of East, The allies of the East launched to the allies of america.

SO on so thourgth it all went boom.

its unknown who fired the first nukes, but it was probably either china or america. Anyway one of them fires nukes at the other, the other launches a retaliatory strike, european counties nuke one another and america, and possibly russia (europeans were not happy with america after they denied them the oil in the pacific). russia possibly nukes china, or europe. the middle east was probably in pretty bad shape from the war with europe

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wxrWz9XVvls

G4 said maine wasn't hit with any nukes when talking about point lookout.

everyone got fudged. :/

Of course they striked back. Those nukes mean the death of a billion+ people. Would you have preffered, "HEY THEY LAUNCHED A NUCLEAR MISSILE... LET'S WATCH AND HOPE THEY MISS!"

Hi, nice to meet u too.
there is no limits. we can buy every game in stores. you know, we dont live in desert!! :hehe:
by the way,sometimes it is hard to find a new game, because there is no Copy-right in Iran.
Our crazy-Ahmadi nejad's government don't have a mind to think about it!! but there is no anticipation or something!

Hehehe interesting opinions, I would not try to dig too-deep for meaning in the selection of China as the country that the US fought, and there is nothing to say that in 100 years when China is the dominant world power, it couldn't happen. There isn't any "theory" on show here, Russia did make plans to invade the US and if I recall the book I read correctly, it was the fact that something like 150 million American's have firearms and the size of our country/distance for the USSR that ultimately defeated such plans - but what do I know?

If there was an underground city in Moscow, I find it hard to believe that it is still in use. More probably it looks like one of the rusted vaults from Fallout3! Maybe even a nice violin down there or something.

As for a Cold War with Europe, now your dreaming (even in Fallout3 times), but our problems with Iran are real and hopefully solvable with the right diplomacy and enough time.

As for a vault underneath Montreal, yeah there is one - its full of Beer Kegs for when the end of the world comes - Canadians have their priorities in-line after all, if a nuclear winter really comes, then Hockey will finally become a dominant world sport and beer will be on-hand to celebrate when everyone else runs dry.

M

I agree with the diplomacy! you know it's so funny that we all the people of the world like and also know each other, but our governments try to hide this sometimes. anyway I am in my last year of university and my field is mining and tunneling, and all I said about the Russian vault was presented by one of our Teachers that has lived in Moscow for a long time! I would be nice if we had a Russian guy here!!maybe he could help us to understand the truth!

China Obvouisly nuked first.
They were loosing the war i do believe.

I dont think that china was losing i think the t-51b cut apart the chinese forces in alaska, but i dont think the americas were winning the war as far as i can remember the power armour units got bogged down in the chinese mainland.

we have NORAD built into a mountain; the russians were even more paranoid, shelters are everywhere. I'm sure there's a large autonomous shelter near the Kremlin - but as to it being the size of a city ala fallout style? unlikely. never a good idea to keep all your eggs in the same basket.

And you best thank your lucky stars for that fact.

You see what happened when crabs got hit with this radiation? We got Mirelurks.

The day Maine Lobsters are irradiated, we are all well and truly screwed.

how many years the human will live on earth? if we say 1 million year after this "post"(!) this time can be a cause to great genetic changes in animals! and maybe at the year 1002009 (wow!!) there would be Mirelurks everywhere!!