A no warning nuclear attack

[cryingfreeman]

Imagine a no warning nuclear first strike on the UK. I'm talking a decapitating precision hit on all the military infrastructure, followed hours later by a more general round of strikes on all the major urban areas. What are the immediate effects and what should your immediate priorities be?

Outside the fireball and blast zones (i.e small towns, countryside), it would be:

No electricity, no running water, no telephone, no internet, possibly cars unable to start, entire banking system shut down so no buying / selling of food, clothes, medicine, nappies, fuel, etc. If you're not prepared and if your first response is to wait for help rather than going on a raid to Tesco, you're already behind the curve and reacting from a position of utter shock and panic.

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So why am I asking this? Because I feel we're closer to it now than we ever were during the Cold War, for reasons I'll leave for the present.

[Timelord]

Please can you clarify the question? Thankyou, TL.:-)

[NorthernRaider]

Whats the question ?

FYI In the 70s the missiles we targetted at each other were not very accurate, they in general would only hit an area within 10 miles of their target, the ruskies ICBMS were even worse. Accordingly to ensure each side totally wiped out its targets the warheads they used were in the multi megaton range, the ruskies had some up to 50 megatons, ( 50,000,000 tons of TNT) most our ours were in the multi megaton range as well. This meant to ensure we for example wiped out the Moscow miliary district bases on the edge of the city we would aim 3 or 4 MIRVS ( multiple independant re-entry vehicles) each of multi megaton range which would covert the entire greater moscow city area and everyone in it into a radioactive hole in the ground. The weapons of the time were so huge for example in War Plan UK IIRC they reported that the Ruskies only needed ONE of their nukes to turn ALL of Birmingham into radio active glass, but in fact the soviets had 4 or 5 aimed at our 2nd city.

London as Londonabad was known when it was the English capital had possibly 7 soviet muti megaton warheads aimed at it, almost nothing could survive that cept cockroachs...... ( today that has a certain appeal for me, Londonabad vapourised Hmmmm )

But I digress moving forward to the present modern targetting systems with initertial guidance, multi gyro, and gps systems means that they can literally place a bomb onto individual buildings with unerving accuracy. So we no longer need the huge great city killer bombs, we can now take out an entire military base, manufacting facility, seat of government, oil refinery, rail yard etc with just one Cruise missile or small MIRV using only Kiloton sized weapons ( thousands of tons of TNT instead of millions) OR if small places like command centers government offices are the target with simple MOAB bombs ( Mother of all bombs) a 22,000 pound fuel air bomb.

The problem we have today is that back in the 70s both sides realised that nukes going off on the ground created HUGE amounts of deadly radioactive fallout, but airburst did not. BUT Air burst bombs sent out an EMP burst that spread out over immense distances, often thousands of miles. So today we live in a micro processor , electronic world where almost everything has a circuit or silicone chip or computer controlling it, and if someone set of only 4 small nukes enhanced for EMP at great altitude they would totally destroy every unprotect circuit right across the UK.

Four baby nukes and we are back to the Victorian era, the preppers living near navigable rivers and preserved steam railways will be laughing, as will those who own working horses.

[bigpaul]

have we still got the 4 minute warning system in place?? not that i suppose TPTB would tell us when it was imminent anyway.

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an airburst that took us back to the Victorian era wouldn't bother me too much, i'd revel in it.

[NorthernRaider]

(8 July 2012, 11:24)bigpaul Wrote: have we still got the 4 minute warning system in place?? not that i suppose TPTB would tell us when it was imminent anyway.

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an airburst that took us back to the Victorian era wouldn't bother me too much, i'd revel in it.

No, 99 5 of the sirens were scrapped, a few were kept for flood warning sirens, our forces no longer have units on 4 minutes stand by, all the old Civil Defence kit, staff and logistics have long since been wiped out.
The govt still have super shelters and bunkers for MPs and Burocrats.

[bigpaul]

(8 July 2012, 12:03)NorthernRaider Wrote:

(8 July 2012, 11:24)bigpaul Wrote: have we still got the 4 minute warning system in place?? not that i suppose TPTB would tell us when it was imminent anyway.

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an airburst that took us back to the Victorian era wouldn't bother me too much, i'd revel in it.

No, 99 5 of the sirens were scrapped, a few were kept for flood warning sirens, our forces no longer have units on 4 minutes stand by, all the old Civil Defence kit, staff and logistics have long since been wiped out.
The govt still have super shelters and bunkers for MPs and Burocrats.

well, why cant we seal them into those bunkers...like the Morlocks in "The Time Machine"??

[cryingfreeman]

TL: The question is, what are your immediate priorities the moment you discover a nuclear strike has occurred?

Go and loot your nearest Tescos? Try to arm yourself or add to your weaponry? Lift some water butts from B&Q? Prep a makeshift fallout shelter? Or sit still and wait for the military to bring supplies?

[NorthernRaider]

Start using my sheets of polythene and duck tape to double seal the doors and windows and fire place and wait and see if there is ANY fallout first, then find out where the buggers went off quickly followed by what direction the wind is blowing, then prolly bugger off the opposite direction.

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BTW Rule one of surviving a nuclear blast is forget about eating any crops or meat that is outdoors when the bomb went off, cos its either already radioactive or shortly going to be radioactive prtolly with Caesium or other nasty eliment. So scavenging crops from the fields etc is a no no.

[Tibbs735]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N9aHT-IlkHo
I posted this a few days ago but it's a pretty good look at a UK Nuke scenario

[NorthernRaider]

I've got this on video, bloody alarming isnt it.

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For further reading and study on Thermo Nuclear war on the UK I reccomend

Surviving Doomsday by C Bruce Sibley
War Plan UK by Duncan Campbell