THE EFFECTS OF A GLOBAL THERMONUCLEAR WAR: UPDATED 1988 REPORT.

by gimp , OZ. STH. PACIFIC., Friday, January 29, 2010, 04:55

http://www.johnstonsarchive.net/nuclear/nuclearwar1.html

The Effects of a Global Thermonuclear War
4th edition: escalation in 1988

by Wm. Robert Johnston
last updated 18 August 2003

INTRODUCTION:

The following is an approximate description of the effects of a global nuclear war. For the purposes of illustration it is assumed that a war resulted in mid-1988 from military conflict between the Warsaw Pact and NATO. This is in some ways a worst-case scenario (total numbers of strategic warheads deployed by the superpowers peaked about this time; the scenario implies a greater level of military readiness; and impact on global climate and crop yields are greatest for a war in August). Some details, such as the time of attack, the events leading to war, and the winds affecting fallout patterns, are only meant to be illustrative. This applies also to the global geopolitical aftermath, which represents the author's efforts at intelligent speculation.

There is much public misconception concerning the physical effects of nuclear war--some of it motivated by politics. Certainly the predictions described here are uncertain: for example, casualty figures in the U.S. are accurate perhaps to within 30% for the first few days, but the number of survivors in the U.S. after one year could differ from these figures by as much as a factor of four. Nonetheless, there is no reasonable basis for expecting results radically different from this description--for example, there is no scientific basis for expecting the extinction of the human species. Note that the most severe predictions concerning nuclear winter have now been evaluated and discounted by most of the scientific community.

Sources supplying the basis for this description include the U.S. Defense Nuclear Agency manual on nuclear weapon effects, scientific papers describing computer simulations of long-term effects published by groups ranging from the U.S. government to left-leaning scientific organizations, and research by a similar variety of groups on weapons characteristics and strategy.

1 July 1988: Gorbachev is killed when his plane is attacked by a Stinger surface-to-air missile in East Germany; military heads take control in Moscow, accuse the CIA of responsibility for the assassination, impose a news blackout in the U.S.S.R., and send troops to East Germany and Poland to impose martial law.

15 July 1988: West Germans propose intervention in East Germany following reports of violence there; clashes occur along the border between the two Germanys; NATO puts its forces in West Germany on alert.

19 July 1988: A massive Soviet invasion of West Germany begins: NATO airfields are attacked by missiles with chemical warheads as tanks pour across the border. U.S. nuclear forces are put on alert: Bergstrom Air Force Base (AFB) near Austin receives 4 B-52 bombers dispersed from their home base.

31 July 1988: With Soviet forces 200 kilometers (km) (120 miles) inside northern West Germany, NATO issues a vague ultimatum to the U.S.S.R.

1 August 1988: NATO nuclear weapon depots are attacked by conventional and chemical weapons; ongoing naval combat claims a Soviet ballistic missile submarine in the Arctic Ocean.

4 August 1988: NATO threatens the use of tactical nuclear weapons against Soviet forces advancing towards urban areas in western West Germany.

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CONTINUED .......

http://www.johnstonsarchive.net/nuclear/nuclearwar1.html

By way of Kudos I found this here;

http://theorstrahyun.blogspot.com/search/label/Australia%20Gets%20Nuked

The apocalypse that didn't happen..... Yet.

Thank Christ for small mercies eh?

The end of the world as we know it-- is a big thing when you look into it.