Taking the "SCIENCE!" out of this for a moment, in reality, a full scale countervalue nuclear exchange would take a hell of alot longer than two hours. First off, one full leg of the triad wouldn't even have time to reach their targets (Strat Bombers) The bombers alone would take several hours to reach their targets. Second, there would be targets that would need to be serviced again (due to weapons malfunctions, weapons being intercepted, platforms being neutralized) and finally, governments are damn vindictive. Some of the more survivable assets would be held back to be used well after the initial exchanges. In all reality, a real event would take days, if not weeks for all the bombs to stop. I know it sounds better to say two hours, but still, it irks me. Also, TBH I'd like to know the reason why the great war was escalated to a full scale exchange. Did it start off with a small tactical exchange, was there a chemical attack? Nuclear war just DOES NOT happen. The option for the use of nuclear devices is a damn grim one, that ALWAYS involves escalation. I can't see the President of the USA (Or Premiere of the State Council for the Peoples Republic of China) just waking up one morning and saying "I want to nuke those Blanking Blanks." If it was the the fact that the Chinese were getting their assets handed to them, there would have been a tactical exchange in that theater that would have spread. But its not logical that they'd just let the missiles fly with no rhyme or reason.


(And why I'm being so anol about this is, I spent eight years sitting 100 feet underground in the Dakotas... and besides, this is the NICEST thing I can rant on for being unrealistic. Everything else gets the "SCIENCE!" explanation.)

The war escalated to a nuclear exchange because the Chinese WERE getting their heads handed to them by the T-51b troops. When you realize you ARE going to lose the war otherwise, and have nukes in your possession, then you'll likely use them. Something along the lines of "if I'm going out, then I'll take you with me" thinking..

It's called MAD. Which stands for Mutual Assured Destruction. Where two sides (or possibly more) could essentially obliterate eachother through full scale nuclear exchange. The tactic however, is to prevent such a thing by essentially possessing the same if not a greater strength than your enemy, to assure that neither side is 'stupid' enough to sign their own death warrant by taking the initiative.

The great war and its origins are quite unclear however. It would be very easy to put it down to tensions bewteen the US and China, and everyone inbewteen, The fact of the matter is no-one knows who fired what first, or if these actions were condoned or authorised by their respective higher ups. All we know is missiles went airbourne somewhere, and then more missiles responded elsewhere. You could deduce it was the result of a covert, unauthorised launch, which was the catalyst that made the rest of the world snap. You could also deduce it was a self-aware computer gone mad that decided to have a little fun firing off a few nukes that sparked the great war. It's anyones guess. And the answers likely disappeared in the nuclear conflagration of 2077.

The 'two hours' is probably from the first nuke struck until the last one struck, not from the time of launch. It could be a smaller nation that fired the first nuke, which would have been detected at launch, and instantly everyone else launches theirs.

2 hours is realistic no country would use bombers, they would use ICBMs or space based weaponary (bomb 001), it is never explained who nuked first but the T51b troops were getting bogged down by the chinese, and both armies supply lines were stretched.

Please to be explaining http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B2_Bomber, then. Or http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B-1_Lancer. Or maybe http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2018_Bomber, which is only intended as a temporary measure until http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2037_Bomber can be brought into service.

Lets se, the missile or the missiles(plural) that is first is fired needs a little while so people start spotting them. They would all go like: "Who fired them? They going towards us!, etc.......", so before 1 hour has passed we got missiles flying everywhere. After about 2 hours after the first launch all missiles has done thier jobs, and we are talking MANY of them.
Sure the missiles could have been launched from nuclear subs and similar, but the points is that everybody sends their missiles to wipe out all their enemies who in turn attempt the same. It results in a heck of a holocaust to call it that.
So 2 hours is logical.

there stealth bombers not stratrgic bombers, there not designed to carry nukes, but when they do its for tactical nuclear war not stratrgic nuclear war. (the great war was a strategic war)

Whilst I imagine bombers were utilised in the Great War, I doubt they were effective (or as effective as the ICBMs), EMP probably brought most of them down and grounded (or destroyed) any that hadn't been prepped in time. ICBMs would have been the mainstay of the first strike/counter strike initiative. Megaton is an example of the fate most bombers could have endured.

Thats what i was saying, i werent saying militarys dont have bombers, im just saying that they would have been destroyed, on the ground ot enroute.

Wrong. The http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B2_Bomber has the capability of deploying nuclear munitions:


Similarly, the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B-1_Lancer is in fact a strategic bomber:

It's ordnance options include up to twenty-four http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B61_nuclear_bomb or http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B83_nuclear_bomb variable-yield thermonuclear gravity bombs.

And at least the 2037 bomber project is intended to produce a strategic bomber.

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All of which is somewhat beside the point, actually. That http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B83_nuclear_bomb nuclear bomb, after all? Can be deployed even by such aircraft as the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F-22_Raptor and the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F-15E_Strike_Eagle. Thus, the point is: nuclear armaments ARE currently deliverable by airplane, and the United States maintains a large stockpile of such munitions ... and the craft needed to deploy them.

You'd be fooling yourself if you thought that there weren't any B-83's (or similar) locked up in a secure armory aboard every single aircraft carrier operated by the United States navy, for example.

As for the idea that EMPs would have grounded or destroyed those bombers? Um, guys, this is the MILITARY we're talking about. The people who regularly shield even personal electronics from EMP. If they didn't think they could build a bomber apable of ignoring an EMP, then they'd stick with old-style CABLE-driven controls, rather than fly-by-wire electronics. Slap most of yoru avionics inside a faraday cage, and you're pretty well protected right there, unless you're right on TOP of the explosion - at which point, you have more important considerations to attend to, wouldn't you think?

pax i never said tthey werent capable of deploying nukes, hell f-15 can deploy small tactical nukes. (they'll destroy the plane). but a nuclear exchange would destroy almost all bombers while there still on the ground, and EMPs would effect military aircraft, yes avionics are sheiled, but nothing can protect against gamma radiation except ridicolous amounts of lead shielding (even then some gets through)

Not to come across like an ass... but I was a Missile Launch Officer for eight years, I do have a rough idea how this works. We would be using ALL legs of the nuclear triad. The bombs would not be stopping after a mere two hours. Here is how it would break down: Launch detetected. We Respond, first with SLBMs (~15 min) we scramble our alert aircraft. We light off our ICBM's, (30 min from target), Bombers reach cruise missile range (Normally 1-4 hrs after take off) Secondary targets get serviced, then the gravity bombs are let loose (Say roughly from 2 - 6 hour flight time. Folks, nuclear war takes TIME to fight. Its not all over in a mere 2 hours. And we're not even counting any tactical weapons (Fighters from aircraft carriers w b-61's)

That's absolutely ludicrous. If that were remotely possible, then the United States would never have spent the tens of trillions of dollars it did on the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strategic_Air_Command (Strategic Air Command).

Even an ICBM is nto instantaneous - the launch phase (ground to orbit) is 3 to 5 minutes, followed by a 25-minute midcourse phase, and finally, a roughly 2 minute re-entry phase. That's a total flight time of at least a half-hour - and right now, TODAY, we have the ability to detect the missiles as they are launched. The war of Fallout's universe is set seventy years into our future; I hardly think their on-launch detection capability is any less than ours - especially given that they, unlike us, have things like man-portable directed energy weaponry, and fully-functional Artificial Intelligence ...!

And since their Cold War either never ended, or, was restarted? Then I figure they (unlike us) would have continued to maintain and operate a http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_Strike_Command, which means there'd've been many bombers on hot standby, fuelled and ready to take off with less than five minutes' warning. (In fact, in 2008 the Air Force created a new MAJCOM, the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_Strike_Command, which is essentially the SAC reborn.)


You're combining two entirely separate effects. Yes, the EMP is produced by the gamma radiation of a nuclear detonation - because ... well, I'll just quote Wikipedia, because I can't really improve on the explaination:

Note, the EMP is not generated by the passing of Gamma rays through the electronic equipment - the EMP is produced by a magnetic oscillation in the atmosphere 30 to 40 kilometers above the Earth. So, shielding against Gamma radiation has nothing to do with shielding or hardening electronics to handle an EMP. Nothing.

Now, consider this: the entire aircraft is, itself, a "long metallic object" ... and the electronics, aside from radios, are entirely contained within the skin of the aircraft fuselage. A fuselage which can be struck by lightning - instantaneous voltage-spikes in the megawatt range, if not higher - with absolutely no effect. That is because the aircraft's skin acts as a faraday cage. For any voltage, EMP or otherwise, to get inside the aircraft and affect the electronics within, it would have to essentially melt the airplane ... at which point, the effect on the electronics ceases to be a concern.

Furthermore, try to remember that the fallout universe still largely uses vacuum-tube based electrical systems, and:

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electromagnetic_pulse#Practical_considerations_for_nuclear_EMP)
That means, most FO-universe electronics are far, far less vulnerable to EMP than ours are. Even the civilian stuff - like those PIP-Boy units - aren't going to be automatically fried.

And, some more from the same source:

So, all those explosions down near the ground? The ones actually destroying cities? Aren't producing large EMPs, certainly not large enough to penetrate the natural faraday cage of a modern, metal-skinned aircraft! (There is another sort of EMP - direct http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photoinduced_charge_separation, or "radial EMP"; however, for those sub-10km-altitude detonations, this only occurs in the "intense" nuclear radiation zone, at which point, the primary blast effects are more likely to be an immediate concern than radiation or EMP.)

As for direct exposure to Gamma radiation? That won't kill the crew of an aircraft instantly. Indeed, to be subject to lethal radiation, even from a 20-megaton device ... the best number I can come up with, for a lethal dose of radiation is that you'd have to be, on average, within 5 kilometers of the actual epicenter of the blast itself. At which point, for an aircraft? You just got turned into a few hundred pieces of metallic debris, and radiation is the last of yoru worries.

...

IN SUMMARY:

The bombers would NOT all have been destroyed on the ground. Given any at-launch detection capability at all, there would be a solid twenty-minute-or-more window in which those bombers could be scrambled and put in the air.

Those that were in the air would NOT all have been eliminated by EMP, in part because they would not all have been subjected to a primary EMP detonation (Militaries like to coordinate things like "we're going to hit 'em with some EMPs, and we're sendign in bombers - let's make sure the bombers don't get EMPed too!"). And, in part, because even if they WERE, their systems are protected by a multi-ton faraday cage, called "the aircraft itself". And, finally, because they are vacuum-tube-based systems, and as such inherently less vulnerable to EMP damage.

...

It kind of pays to have a basic, working understanding of how these things really work, rather than relying on Hollywood-spawned nonsense, before you make absolutist statements like your claims RE: bombers in a nuclear war.

EDIT TO ADD:

Honestly, I presume that the two-hour span mentioned was the time from the first major detonation, until the final major detonation - counting only strategic-scale weapons. Any tactical- or sub-strategic detonations, at THAT point, are so far beyond even overkill, as to simply not matter.

IOW: two hours of city-killers actually going "boom". Two hours of mushroom clouds far far larger than Megaton's blast, in every direction. *yipe!*

And, on that side-note: Megaton's bomb was a wee little smallfry, yield-wise - just look at how short that mushroom cloud was! Seriously, I'd estimate that as a sub-100kT device. Possibly, sub-20kT, even. I doubt the cloud topped 20,000' in height, and it certainly wasn't over 40,000'.

Since Fallout has that whole "trapped in the 50's" thing going, I always assumed that they would have VERY large yeild warheads to make up for the lack of accuracy of the delivery vehicles. So the whole Megaton bomb, that just makes me laugh every time I see it. The only thing I can think of is, both sides were prepared and ready for all out war and went into the obsolete weapons stockpile, because, lets face it... no way in hell that was a missile based weapon.

It wasnt it was from a bomber that had crashed.

LOL, yeah.

Of course, it's also possible that after two centuries of sitting there, the Megaton device just didn't perform as expected. I know two centuries isn't usually even a blip on the radar for most weapons-grade fissionables' half-life ... but ... *shrug* well, obviously SOMEthing's up with that.

(Out of setting, clearly, it's just that Beth didn't want to wipe the center of the map completely out. Even just a 5-megaton ground burst .... *shudder* ... )

Other than size, though? They did a surprisingly good job with the look of the Megaton blast. IMO, mind, and fully admitting that I lack any non-Hollywood experience with SEEING nuclear detonations. Still, it looked purty, and including the blast of wind scattering stuff on the balcony was a nice touch.

There are scads of things in nuclear warheads that need to be replaced//refreshed VERY often. The simple fact that the weapon still WORKED after 200 years is remarkable. I can see a fizzle, or low order explosion in the single digit kiloton range.

Yep, there we have the 200 year nonsense again. After 200 years, NOT gonna happen. Why oh why couldn't they have set the game 20 years after the war..

im thinking this might of been what happened: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=45WkykXOhGs

Im prettu sure the pulse charge is what caused it to go kaboom whether how realistic that is or what exactly a pulse charge is, is beyond me.

Of course, if that happened ... ye gods, PARTIAL fission? The area should have become very very VERY radioactive, given that there'd be unconsumed nuclear fuel getting vaporised int eh initial blast. Say, 6/sec level, right at the ruined gates to Megaton, and falling off to 0/sec about halway to the Super-Duper mart (so, allof Springvale would still be a 1/sec area).

...

Say, that'd be a sweet mod!

That is a hilarious video! Too funny..

Actually, our bitter Officer here is quite right, and though he may have spent too many years at Minot AFB for his own good, he is correct to point out, that it is quite impossible for a nuclear war to be fought in 2 hours. Unfotuntely, Fallout sometimes pushes us to extend our disbelief to extrodinary heights. As for being stuck 8 years underground at Minot....then you should have gone enlisted as a member of the Air Force Security Forces, and then you could have had all the "fresh air" you wanted....LOL

Fah, Fresh air is overrated, if you can't tell its recycled, its not safe for breathing I always say. Besides, what could be safer than being in an LCCC in the middle of a nuclear attack? What, there would only be about 5 or 10 RVs aimed right at you, and with Ivan making them, you'd be safe to bet that only half would really function.