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Just a quick question about the whole story behind fallout. Did the reds blow up ALL of the US of A, or only D.C.? It would take a [censored] load of nukes to blow up a continent, so I don't think that happened, but if it was just D.C., wouldn't there be the rest of America to kinda help the horrible situation there? The US Army, Navy, and AirForce did not all live in D.C.

/Discuss

Well, Fallout 1 and 2 dealt with a nuked California; and Tactics took place closer to the Midwest (also largely nuked.) So, yeah... it got pretty tore up, coast to coast. Surely, some areas more than others. But generally yeah - it's all in a bad way.

The first two games took place out in California I think.

1950s mindset. What the Fallout world is as how the people of the 1950s imagined the way a global nuclear holocaust would occur and its aftermath.

I know all this, but don't you think that there would be some remains of an army, or even a government? The capital of America, is as deadly as the final frontier!
I'm just saying, after 250 years, if the middle of the USA was hit, states such as Kansas, with no access to the ocean waters would have to move water bound in order to stay alive. (All available water for them would be toxic [censored]) This means that masses of people would have gone to places such as D.C., and I think roughly 30,000,000 people would have cleared away some of the baddies...

ICBM's reach their targets in roughly 12-20 minutes. any nuclear-laden aircraft en route would deliver in a couple hours(hence the war ending in about 2 hours). considering the number of nuclear weapons available - just to the USA - at the height of the cold war(late 70's), and that the fallout war was set to take place in the 21st century, nuking most of the US would be a small feat. the US retaliation would destroy the attackers.
IMO, the capitol wasteland is in good shape - too good a shape - considering what would be a real nuclear attack. but thats the point - the 1950's, fallout's setting, were a time of optimism...as if children could survive a nuclear attack by protecting themselves with school desks for instance. the reality however, is years of rainshowers of radioactive mud and ash accompanied by complete sterilization of the earth.
thats what makes fallout appealing to me...."It's nuclear power! what could possibly go wrong!?!?"

There is, the Enclave and Brotherhood of Steel.

Edit: Spelling, no such thing as a broterhood as far as I know.

Most of the water that feeds Kansas and the states around it is a Giant underground lake. It is called the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ogallala_Aquifer.

beat me to an edit comment

The Pitt and Point Lookout are examples of places that avoided direct hits from the bombs, but they are still very affected by the nuclear holocaust. Also, it has already been mentioned but the Enclave and BOS are the remains of the Pre-War Military and Government.

It's not so much about laying a nuclear carpet around the world but if you just put, say... 10-15 nukes at every major city in America then you've got yourself a crap load of problems. You've got acid rain, radioactive dust clouds, static radiation, polluted water (Which spreads) and nuclear winter to worry about

considering the yield of nukes built at the height of the cold war, i think 10-15 is mega-overkill.

Quite a scary thought we have the capability of destroying the entire world in just a few hours, good thing the world leaders understand the concept of M.A.D., don't they? :unsure:

If humanity decides to destroy itself, I think it deserves it if it really was that stupid.

Indeed. A Cold War nuke creates about a two mile wide impact crater. Everything within five miles gets burnt and blasted down, and everything within ten gets a severe ass-whuppin' with infrastructure damage. I can't fathom even New York City being hit by more than three nukes. It's just...not necessary.

I was under the impression Pittsburgh was hit by nukes though. If I'm wrong, the Pitt has its high radiation levels from fallout and factories burning/decaying? It seems odd that radiation would be more of an issue in a city that wasn't hit by a nuke as opposed to one that was.

That's the worrying thing about nuclear weapons though. It might not be humanity deciding to destroy itself. Nuclear war could come about by an error (it nearly did on several occasions). As to the original post. It would not take a vast amount of nukes to obliterate the States, a single ICBM carries multiple warheads. 1 ICBM and you can say goodbye to 5 cities. For all its military muscle, the US could not win a war with a country like India if it turned nuclear.

Actually, India is a nuclear power. Good thing is that it is hostile with Pakistan, not USA.

Who I'm really bothered though are neutral countries, like Finland. St. Petersburg, IIRC second largest Russian city is so close to Finland that if it got nuked, say 3 times, this whole country would be irradiated if the winds were right.
Let them kill each other, those superpowers, but it bothers me that it will wipe out everyone else too, regardless of their opinion.

Yeah, there have been many errors and misinterpretations when it comes to the US and Russia thinking they're being attacked. This one's probably the most...humbling? I don't know:

In June of 1980, the warning system located at the SAC command post near Omaha, Nebraska, gave a signal of an incoming submarine-launched ballistic missile attack. All the B-52 bomber crews on duty received the command to take their places and turn on the engines. The airborne command post was readied for takeoff as well. Only three minutes later did it become clear that it was a false alarm, and an all-clear signal sounded. Subsequent investigation of the incident revealed that the false alarm had been caused by the malfunctioning of a 50-cent computer microchip of the early warning system. (Taken from http://www.ieer.org/russian/pubs/dlrtbk-e.html)

So, yeah. The possibility of going, "They're attacking us, fire back," which makes the other side go, "They're attacking us, fire back," is one that's pretty frightening and very real.

Sort of like the song from Nena.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=14IRDDnEPR4

Just listen to the lyrics. For those whose taste is a little harder, here's the Goldfinger version:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5QYIlgRg9TY

In the mid 1960's(never bothered checking the date because i drive by the fenced area every day on my way into town) a bomber crashed in the countryside near my home(im located at an airbase flightline); it was carrying 2 nuclear weapons - one was recovered, but due to the force of the impact of the bomber as it hit the ground, the second bomb could not be recovered easily enough, and since you cant hit a nuke with a hammer to make it go off, they simply left it buried 200+ ft under the ground. However reports were released in 1984 that sited the nuclear weapon which was left there had reached stage 4 of a 5 stage arming sequence. since then a security perimeter fence has been erected and surveillence is constant. i doubt you could get out of your car and walk to the fence in the middle of the field before you were intercepted by black trailblazer SS's.

The Soviet Premiere during the late 1970's(im not going to attempt a spelling of his name, i get them wrong all the time anyway) was also confronted by a similar conundrum. the Defense Computers which monitored for incoming nuclear attacks reported birds in the air heading towards the USSR. All available information confirmed this; so, the premier was faced with a decision: Retaliate, destroying the world, or wait and see if it was a false alarm. he decided to ignore the computer warning...and it turns out, the computer was in error.

also in the 1970's a B52 crashed in southern spain, laden with nuclear weapons. although the bombs didnt go off, it forced the US to cancel their nuclear delivery training excersises due to protest from Spain's Government and other non-nuclear powers.

Moderator: Text deleted. Forum rule against politics.


but hey - all i gotta do is crawl up under my desk and im safe, right? <_<

This topic has turned into a debate

to be honest, the topic invites debate. "or is it?"

Well that is true



In My opinion i think they had more like thousands of nukes fired at once destroying most of the planet besides china.
I just have a feeling china is doing good

A guy on TV (Yeah, I know) a professor of some kind said that to completely LEVEL the city of Moscow you would need 9 nukes. That was the "Rule of Thumb" I was going after.



And that's a bad thing?

correct, in a real, full-scale nuclear assault, there would be nothing left of DC at all. but this is fallout, and so i take that grain of salt and contribute it to an optimistic vision of post-apocalyptia.