Am I blind?

[kafka47]

I am nearly done reading the FFE reprint but I am I blind or what...but I see no rules regarding the use of nukes. Presumably both NATO and the Warsaw Pact had plenty of missles and tactical nukes that they could lob against one another.

I have found the rules for effects of nukes, mind you but nothing about their deployment in battle.

 

[Alathan]

The impression I always had was that either all of the nukes had already been used, or that the game designers never wanted the PCs to get their hands on a nuke (or to have a nuke used against them), or a combination of the two. However, if you really want to drop a nuke into your game, there are plenty of sites out there with info on this kind of thing. Even though you've probably already got some of this info, I'll post links for those who don't:

Michael Wong's Nuclear Weapon Effects Calculator

Nuclear War Unthinkable?

You Will Survive Doomsday

I had one other site bookmarked, but it has apparently gone offline. Here's the link just in case it comes back up sometime soon:

Carey Sublette's Nuclear Weapons FAQ

Effects of Nuclear Weapons and Nuclear War

With all of this, you should be able to create some rough numbers for the damage and rads characters might suffer at different ranges and whatnot.

As for deployment, I don't know about the USSR, but I know the US had several different versions of 155mm, 175mm and 203mm nuclear artillery warheads available. Here's what I could find on the 155mm versions:

M454 155mm Nuclear Projectile
Length: 2'10"
Caliber: 155mm
Weight: 119.5 lbs
Warhead: W-48 nuclear warhead, 1-2kt yield, 8.75 mile range

XM785 155mm Nuclear Projectile
Length: 2'10.3"
Caliber: 155mm
Weight: 96 lbs
Warhead: W-82-1 fission warhead, 1-2kt yield, 18.5 mile range using rocket assistance

I'm sure the USSR had their own versions of nuclear artillery; some hunting on the net might track some info down on them.

Deployment is trickier. I don't think the US currently has any nuclear artillery anymore (I think we dismantled it all) but in the original Twilight:2000 history, I seriously doubt that would have happened. The game history even hints at the use of battlefield nukes (both ADMs and artillery nukes). Thus, I'd say it's very possible for the crew of a M109 SP to still have a nuke left, or maybe the players find one hidden in the hulk of a destroyed M109, for example.

And then there's always the possibility of finding an unused ADM (Atomic Demolition Munition, a man-portable nuke, the kind of thing the 5ID left behind when they left Czestochowa). Again, I don't know what deployment was like for these, but I'm sure there are VERY few left by 2000, just as with nuclear artillery shells.

Hope that helps.

 

[kafka47]

Well, that does help a little but I am still looking to see where the nukes might be hidden. As other than Poland (and what happen in China) and major oil refineries, Twilight was still a relatively "limited nuclear war" whilst a terrible conventional war on the continent.

 

[savage]

There were several attempts to introduce nukes. But Loren made it clear that it damaged the Traveller Universe further.

Bears Den had a lite overview of radioactivity, Boomer had ICBMs on the russian sub...I could continue but fact is that it was discouraged.

Checkout Morrow Project for pro nuclear campaign material.

Savage

 

[Ranger]

Some issues to take into consideration:

Human Security. All US tactical nukes were designed with a dual key system, which required two people with seperate information on hand to activate the warhead. My understanding is that the Soviets had similar human systems in place to prevent any one individual from being able to activate a warhead. It is not out of the realm of possibility that most remaining tac nukes would be unusable by the end of the Twilight War due to loss of the codes and trained personel to use them. You might have one, but without the codes and the knowledge of how to use them, it would be useless.

Physical deterioration. Nuclear warheads deteriorate over time. I am not sure how long any given warhead would last without being replenished (as that information is classified), but it is in the range of a few years. I have heard people argue that this is why the threat of a 'loose' nuke from the former Soviet inventory is not a significant threat, as the warheads are now so old as to be inert without very classified and intricate knowledge on how to bring them back up to useable condition.

EMP. The triggers for a nuke are very sensitive electical systems. Any nukes that were not sheilded during a nearby nuclear blast would probably be damaged by the EMP and rendered useless. (This was part of the issue with 'fratricide' during a large nuclear exchange, in which the first nuclear warheads to go off would actually take out nearby warheads before they detonated.)

 

[savage]

correction I meant damaged the Twilight universe....

 

[Ellros]

There was a scenario in an Challenge magazine that dealt with the recovery of a "briefcase nuke" in the Iranian theater. But other than that, I can't think of any that involve nukes. One of the "Return to Poland" series dealt with a Scud with a chemical weapon warhead.

 

[savage]

Boomer had nukes which GDW played down.
Bear's Den had a chemical scud weapon (per Loren's
instructions) but had the necessary info for the
ref to use a nuke instead.

Savage

 

[Stei'awtliyrl]

If I remember correctly from my long-ago T2K (first ed) days (daze?) The USSR and China had a full-on exchange in '96. Though China was devastated and ceased to be a factor in the World War, the Soviets, by virtue of their population centers being far away, and their technological edge over the Chinese (based on 1985 predictions of where both powers would be in ten years) were relatively unscathed. The Soviets struck first, and destroyed what few Chinese silos existed, the Soviet Air Force took out the few surviving Chinese bombers that got off the ground. There is no real Chinese navy to speak of, and no Chinese Boomers.

India and Pakistan also had a MAD-fest, launching full nuclear strikes at each other, and wiping themselves out. Looking at a map of Asia, that pretty much lays waste to everything (and everyone) between Korea and Afghanistan.

It's an interesting legacy (and this is where I may be canonically incorrect) that China becomes such a power in 2300 considering the devastation it must have suffered during the Twilight War.

The American and Russian superpower states exchanged a less intense series of launches in '97 through early '98. This would have had an effect of rendering most missiles that were not fired unusable due to EMP effects.

I've never used a nuke in my T2K games, just because I always figured that if one went off, and the PCs were near enough to appreciate it, the campaign was over.

Though I do heartily second the reccomendations for the Morrow Project by Timeline Ltd. Behind T2K it is my favorite post-nuclear-war RPG.