Twilight 2000 4E nuclear targets map

[McPerth]

In no way disputing this point - but, it comes more into the overall question of "why" on the strike and target list?

Are you seeking to decapitate the enemy command and offensive/defensive capability surgically?
Are you aiming for a massive impact on the above plus infrastructure?
Or, as this post posits, are you going scorched earth?

And that is one of the things that surprised me the most. As I said in the OP:

Frankly, I find it quite wrong and breaking with 1E and 2E (the ones I knew), where most nuclear strikes were to military significant targets…

Of course, this includes government centers too, and may include power production, but probably not the nuclear plants, just to avoid what Enoki says:

If you just want to maximize the area of a country you want to generally f--- up in a nuclear war, target the reactor sites. This spreads massive highly radioactive 'stuff' downwind for hundreds of miles. You can turn most of Europe into a radioactive graveyard that makes Chernobyl look like a joke doing that alone.

This is a good tactic for a nuclear doomsday, but this was (quite unuccessfully) tried to avoid in T2K background, where each strike was inteded for a specific (in most cases military significant) target, not to fully destroy the countries.

 

[Dragoner]

Reality of a full launch (Soviets didn't have measured response doctrine) Germany is struck by 30,000 warheads so not much game there, probably go with the game scenario.

 

[bookwyrm]

Hey cool, I'm in an infrastructure casualty!

As a military brat, and now a civilian, my whole life has been lived in a nuclear strike zone of one sort or another.

I'm reminded of a poster I saw while in the Boy Scouts. In the event of a nuclear war, pull down your pants, sit down, bend over, kiss your 'booty' goodbye. This was a poster on a military base, so I changed the word originally used to booty. Think slang used for donkey.

Alas, Babylon by Pat Frank. A small town in Florida after a nuclear exchange between the U.S. & U.S.S.R. Set in the 1960's. One of my favorite reads.

 

[Diveguy]

And that is one of the things that surprised me the most. As I said in the OP:



Of course, this includes government centers too, and may include power production, but probably not the nuclear plants, just to avoid what Enoki says:



This is a good tactic for a nuclear doomsday, but this was (quite unuccessfully) tried to avoid in T2K background, where each strike was inteded for a specific (in most cases military significant) target, not to fully destroy the countries.

Agreed - just looking at it from some of the ways the conversation has meandered throughout the posts.

Which leads to the separate posit of - how would this targeting tale change if we shifted to 2026 world and Russia or China as the adversary, rather than the T2K Warsaw Pact/NATO model? Would be an interesting write-up for someone invested in it...