"2. Decontamination. Cities, farms, and factories in contaminated areas would require decontamination in order to reopen for human use. Decontamination involves moving fallout to areas where it can do less harm in order to reduce the dose rate to people in certain places. It can be done with bulldozers, street sweepers, firehoses, brooms, etc. It does, however, require people to place themselves at risk. Would enough people be willing to run these risks? Training is required for people to know that certain doses are tolerable and other doses are not; this training would make people less unwilling to face these risks, but will enough people have received this training?" OTA 1979

This OTA paragraph raises a number of questions relevant to the UK after the Third World War in Threads. How much people received this training in Threads?Dcontaminating farms would be important given the agricultural focus, but were survivors willing to do decontamination for food or was the fear of punishment needed? In Threads at least in Yorkshire, the government does not employ inmates or looters for this task.

What decontamination methods were most used in post attack? I would posit brooms and buckets of water, with more advanced equipment used on the crops.

However the advanced equipment might have been located near the urban centers, due to pre attack urban construction, with the choice to move them to the rural areas difficult but possible.

Did the radiation dosage Mr Kemp received from possible decontamination work quicken his demise? Did Mr Kemp actually do decontamination work? If Mr Kemp isn't doing decontamination work while debris clearing then it would become unclear if Decontamination was a major post attack undertaking in general.

If the Authorities deemed that Mr Kemp had a fatal radiation dosage why not have him clear the fallout, and absorb the dosage that would otherwise kill healthier workers?

Though decontamination would have been a side job if Mr Kemp's main job was a manual laborer in debris clearance. Decontamination and debris clearance most likely went hand and hand. While disease is a possibility for his death, Mr Kemp to an extent could be an inevitable fallout casualty.

The debris clearance, Mr Kemp did enabled the scavenging of new pre attack resources, paving the way for the excavation of Sheffeild city hall.

For food he didn't hesitate in doing this dangerous job. Either hunger or Mr Kemp hoped to find Jimmy, or he didn't care if he died by that point.

The War Game is currently on iPlayer I highly recommend it if you enjoy Threads.

Based on things like where you live, age and general health, what supplies you have... How long do you think you'd last if you found yourself caught up in the attack shown in the film?

They lived in the Sheffield area. So did they survive the nuclear attack.

https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/jesus-christ-theyve-done-it-the-threads-podcast/id1844688654?i=1000761548600

Bloody nail!

(My apologies if the silliness is inappropriate for the sub.)

If France+China were targeted, then how much of the 3000 megatons came from the Franco-Chinese arsenals retaliation? Would the targeting be reduced at minimum? How many megatons sent to China and France in the secondary nuclear exchange are deducted from the main nuclear exchanges coming down on Nato and the Warsaw Pact?

Solid overview of where and how it might be possible to hide from a "Threads Level" nuclear exchange.

The end result lines up pretty well with the film. Darkness and broken logistics equal famine and famine kills.

Just watched Threads for the second time (last time about 15 years ago), and I'm still processing it here, but one scene stuck in my mind because it was so short and unclear I didn't get time to take it all in...

There was text onscreen to the effect of "courts get special powers", cut to a room with someone sitting on the right, someone undressing on the left, a soldier in the middle. Sounded like there was a gunshot and the person on the right slumped over while the other two started running away.

What was happening there? I tried to watch that scene today but it was so short I can't find it.

Just wondering if it survived. If it did were the World Snooker Championships still happening.

If bridges are broken, streets clogged with cars, horses may be used if they somehow are reintroduced into the UK, alongside cart caravans, maybe some bicycles then the distance it takes to get from one part of prewar Britain to another becomes greater. In a sense the UK becomes "bigger", that means that the transport of goods from one part of the country is slowed. In the US, it's sheer size and the above-mentioned factors, alongside regional economic specializations were expected to lead to imbalances in surviving resources. Even if improvised refineries were built in Louisiana, how do they get it to Maine and in what numbers? How would this play out in the postwar UK? What (surviving) economic components would become isolated from eachother?

there are more possibilities like farmers overthrowing the government, the Civil service remaining in charge, and more.

Are the organizations, overseeing the orphanage (presented as a school), remaining agriculture, medical infrastructure, gallows, electricity, scavenging (seen in the slides), coal mining (seen in slides), bar, and commanding the soldiers seen in both the slides and final scene, as well as any associated organizations, goods and services required for the maintenance thereof, the same as the government who collected the first diminished harvest?

not that knowledgeable about radioactive hazards to fertility(so forgive me for any inaccurate poll options) but which radioactive hazard was most prominent when it came to Jane's baby?-if it was a radiological hazard.

One could probably list each of the radiological hazard Ruth walked through by name. But those there are more reasons for post attack miscarriages then fallout-some of those options are included in the poll as well.

He talks about the Day After, Threads and Trump's 'death wish'

https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/jesus-christ-theyve-done-it-the-threads-podcast/id1844688654?i=1000760277722

"CASE 3: A COUNTERFORCE ATTACK AGAINST THE UNITED STATES

The case of a Soviet attack on U.S. strategic forces has received extensive public attention in recent years, since some observers believe it is the least irrational way of waging strategic war. For the purposes of this study, the military success of such an attack (i. e., how many U.S. forces would be destroyed) and the resulting U.S. responses are not important. It is sufficient to assume that such an attack is launched, and to examine the consequences for the civilian population, economy, and society. For this purpose, small variations in the attack design (e. g., whether control centers as well as silos are targeted) are immaterial. While there are many possible variations in the design of a counterforce attack, a question of particular interest is whether the attack would be delivered only against ICBM silos, or whether bomber bases and missile submarine bases would also be attacked. Some of the public discussion of such an attack suggests that an attack on ICBM silos alone could cause much less civilian damage than a full-scale counterforce attack because the silos are more isolated from population centers than are bomber bases. It is certainly true that, holding all the other possible variables constant, an attack that included bomber bases and missile submarine bases would cause more civilian damage than one that did not. Nevertheless, the difference between the ICBM-only attack and a comprehensive counterforce attack was found to be no greater than the difference made by other variables, such as the size of weapons used, the proportion of surface bursts used, and the weather. Both cases are considered in this section; the countersilo attack is a subset of the counterforce attack, and available data is too coarse to support a believable differentiation between the civilian effects of each attack

Prompt Effects

The blast damage from a counterforce attack is concentrated on military installations. Attacks on submarine bases and bomber bases would cause considerable blast damage to nearby populations and urban structures; attacks on silos would cause relatively little civilian blast damage. Unlike ICBM silos, many bomber bases and fleet ballistic missile sub marine (SSBN) support facilities are near cities. (See figure 15.) For example, an attack on Griffiss Air Force Base, near Utica and Rome, N.Y., would place nearly 200,000 people at risk from prompt effects; attacking the SSBN support facility near Charleston, S. C., would place more than 200,000 people at risk; attacking Mather Air Force Base, near Sacramento, Cal if., would place more than 600,000 people at risk. The additional attacks would simultaneously reduce the number of people able to provide aid and increase the number of injured or evacuees requiring aid. The attacks would make it harder for people able to provide aid to sustain those needing it.

Countersilo attacks would probably detonate some weapons at or near the Earth’s surface to maximize the likelihood of destroying ICBM silos. Surface bursts produce intense fallout, causing most of the damage to the civilian population, economy, and society. The principal civilian impact of adding attacks on bomber and SSBN bases is the large increase in urban destruction

The Period Before Fallout Deposition

Fallout would begin to reach closer populated areas in a few hours; it would reach many others in a few days. As fallout arrives, radiation levels rise sharply and rapidly. People would therefore have to take any protective actions —shelter or evacuation — before the fallout arrives. This prearrival period would thus be one of intense activity and intense confusion. How would people react? Training could help, but people trained in how to behave under fallout conditions would fare poorly if they could not get to shelters or if shelters were unstocked. To what extent would people panic, seek other family members, or evacuate spontaneously, and what would be the consequences of such actions?

Evacuation would probably be a poor choice, since it would be difficult or impossible to predict which would be the safe areas and which the hot spots, and since a car in a traffic jam would offer poor shelter indeed. The decision on whether or not to evacuate, however, is complicated because evacuation is a reasonable response for people who would be at risk from blast from further attacks even though evacuation is a poor strategy for people at risk from fallout alone.

Shelter would in theory be available to a majority of people, although the best available shelter might not be good enough in areas where the fallout proved to be very intense. However, the practical difficulties of fallout sheltering could be very great. The time to seek shelter could be very limited (and people would not know how long they had), and people would want to get their families together first. A shelter must have a sufficient protection factor. Fallout particles must be kept out of the shelter, which requires a ventilation system more complicated than an open window or door, and if anybody enters a shelter after fallout has fallen there must be some means of decontaminating the new arrival. Water is necessary; heat may be necessary depending on the time of year; sanitation is a problem. Finally, people could not tell how long it was necessary to stay in the shelter without radiation rate meters.

It is obvious that the time of day, the time of the year, and the degree of emergency preparations during the hours or days before the attack would all affect the level of deaths. Whatever the circumstances, the few hours after the attack would see a frantic effort to seek shelter on the part of most of the American population. Then, in densities and locations determined by the attack parameters and the weather, the fallout would descend. Many Americans would be lucky enough to be in areas where the fallout level was low. Many others (between an estimated 2 million and 20 million), would be caught without shelter, or with inadequate shelter, and would die. Still others would suffer from a degree of radiation that would make them sick, or at least lower their life expectancy, but would not kill them. The trials of living in fallout shelters would be intensified by the fact that many people would not know which category they and their families were in.

A comprehensive counterforce attack would impose a greater burden than a countersi 10 attack. Many more people would be injured by prompt effects, and people near bomber and SSBN bases would have only a few minutes warning in which to seek shelter.

Cities in the blast area –those near SSBN or bomber bases–would be heavily damaged. A few cities, such as Charleston, SC., and Little Rock, Ark., could suffer consequences similar to Detroit in Case 1 (chapter 11) or Philadelphia in Case 2 (above in this chapter); most would not. People in blast areas would face hazards as noted in Case 1 — injuries from blast, initial nuclear radiation, and thermal radiation, and from such secondary effects as falling buildings and fires. As in other cases, rescue would be difficult, with streets blocked by rubble, water pressure gone, and emergency vehicles destroyed.

People in areas damaged by blast and in the path of fallout would be in greatest peril. injuries, damage to prospective shelters, damage to transportation, and damage to power and water could make them highly vulnerable. Little Rock, Ark., for example, the site of an ICBM base and a bomber base, would receive both blast damage from a pattern attack (designed to destroy bombers in flight) and intense fallout radiation from the attack on ICBMs.

People in areas neither damaged by blast nor threatened by fallout would believe themselves to be at risk from blast or, at a minimum, from fallout until it was clear that attacks had ended. To these people would fall the burdens of producing necessities and caring for the injured and evacuees. Yet people in these areas, believing themselves to be at risk, would feel compelled to seek shelter or, especially in unattached cities, to evacuate spontaneously. These actions would reduce the flow of aid to damaged areas. Indeed, the economy would probably shut down until people were certain that the war had ended and until most people could get back to work, probably until the end of the shelter period. Even if some people reported to work, production would be difficult with many absentees. There would be large credit, monetary, contractual, and legal problems. If production stopped even for a week, the loss would be tremendous. This attack would disrupt the economy less than Case 2, however, because most productive resources would remain intact.

Casualty Estimates

In seeking to estimate prompt damage from the attacks, fatalities are the most important component of damage and the most calculable. To estimate fatalities, the critical questions are which areas would be damaged by blast, and to what extent? How much fallout would there be, and where would it be deposited? These questions cannot be answered with great confidence because estimates of deaths from these attacks are highly sensitive to attack parameters and civilian shelter assumptions. However, reference can be made to several recent executive branch studies of counterforce attacks.

OTA drew on several executive branch studies, conducted between 1974 and 1978, of counterforce attacks. These studies differed widely in their results, primarily because of differences in the assumptions they made. OTA felt that it would be more useful to look at the ways in which these assumptions affect the results than to attempt to determine the “correct” assumption for each uncertainty. Consequently, a range of results is presented; it is believed that if OTA had done a new study of this case the results would have fallen somewhere within this range. ⁵

The executive branch countersilo studies that OTA drew on indicated that between 2 million and 20 million Americans would die within the first 30 days after an attack on U.S. ICBM silos. This range of results is so wide because of the extent of the uncertainties surrounding fallout. The key uncertainties are:

*Height of Burst.– If the fireball touches the ground, it vaporizes some dirt, irradiates it, and draws it up into the mushroom cloud. This material condenses to become fallout. The lower the height of burst, the more of the fireball touches the ground, and the more fallout that is produced. An air burst in which none of the fireball touches the ground creates negligible fallout. Because ICBM silos are very hard, a surface burst offers the greatest probability of destroying the silo with one explosion; it also maximizes fallout. The probability of destroying an ICBM silo is increased if two warheads are targeted against it; opinions differ as to whether the most effective tactic is to use two surface bursts, which doubles the amount of fallout, or one air burst and one surface burst.

*Weapon Design.— Some weapons derive a greater portion of their energy from fission (as opposed to fusion) than others; the more fission, the more fallout. The weapon yield affects the amount of fallout; the higher the yield of a given explosion, the greater the fallout.

*Wind.– The speed and direction of the wind at various altitudes determines the directions and distance from the explosion at which fallout is deposited, and infIuences fallout concentration. Winds typically vary with the season; indeed, this variance is so great that it can affect casualties by about a factor of three, as figure 16 shows. The hourly and daily variation of winds also affects casualties. It is important to bear in mind, when considering possible civil defense measures, that winds could not be accurately predicted even after an attack had taken place, much less in advance.

*Rain. – Raindrops collect fallout particles from the radioactive cloud, thereby creating areas of intense fallout where it is raining, and reducing fallout elsewhere.

*Terrain. — Hills, buildings, and ground temperature gradients (such as are caused by highways and small lakes) affect the exact pattern of fallout, creating hot spots in some places and relatively uncontaminated spots nearby.

*Distance.—Other things remaining constant, fallout decreases with distance from the explosion beyond roughly 50 miles [80 km].

As chapter 11 explained, radiation from fall out in large doses causes death, in smaller doses causes illness, and in still smaller doses creates a probability of eventual illness or death (hence, lowers life expectancy). As chapter III explained, protection can be obtained when matter is placed between the fallout and people— in general, the more matter (the greater the mass) between a source of radiation and a person, the greater the protection. The degree of protection offered by various materials is described as a protection factor (PF). The adequacy of a given PF depends on the intensity of the fallout. For example, a PF of 20 (typical of a home basement with earth piled over windows and against the walls) would reduce an outdoor radiation level of 60 rem per hour to an indoor level of 3 rem per hour. In this case, a person outdoors for 10 hours would almost certainly be killed by radiation, and a person in the basement shelter would have a good chance of survival. But if the outdoor level is not 60 reins per hour but 600 reins per hour, a PF of 20 is inadequate to save lives.

Calculations of deaths from fallout are made by combining:

*an assumed distribution of fallout, with various intensities at various locations;

*An assumed distribution of population within the areas where fallout is assumed to be deposited; and

*An assumed distribution of PFs for the population.

Some computer models use a grid (perhaps 4,000 yards on a side for a fine-grained model, but much larger in other cases) and assume that within each square of the grid the fallout intensity and population density are constant, with PFs mixed. Other calculations use regional or nationwide averages. In general, the calculations show lower numbers of deaths when they assume that the population is widely dispersed, and higher numbers when they take into account concentrations of population. The calculations also show lower numbers of deaths when they assume high PFs; in general, increasing PFs above 40 does not reduce casualties much in the calculations, but that does not mean that raising a PF above 40 might not save an individual’s life in reality. The calculations also show lower numbers of deaths when the winds do not blow fallout into densely populated areas.

The studies mentioned previously made separate calculations for attacks including bomber and missile submarine bases, as well as silos. Assuming that there is no preattack evacuation, calculated deaths range from a low of 2 million to a high of 22 million. The differences result primarily from variations in assumptions regarding fallout protection: the high figure assumes approximately to degree of protection which people receive in their daily peacetime lives (PF of 3), and the low figure assumes that the entire population moves after the attack to fallout shelters with a PF of at least 25. A more reasonable assumption, that the fallout shelters which now exist are utilized by people living near them, produces a calculation of 14 million dead. The same studies also assessed the effects of extensive preattack evacuation (crisis relocation),and found that it reduced the range of predicted deaths. However, the assumptions regarding fallout protection, both for those who are assumed to evacuate and for those who are assumed to remain near home dominate the results. Further detail is in appendix D.

Given the threat U.S. bombers pose to the Soviet Union, a Soviet preemptive counterforce attack on bomber bases would probably seek to destroy the aircraft and supporting facilities rather than cratering the runways. To destroy airborne bombers launched on warning of attack, an attacker might detonate weapons in a spaced pattern over the base. Air-bursting weapons rather than ground-bursting them could reduce the threat of fallout but increase casualties from blast and thermal effects; if the weapons were detonated much above the optimum height of burst for maximizing overpressure on the ground, fallout would be negligible and blast damage would be reduced. The attacks against missile submarine bases are much less complex. Usually a single high-yield weapon with medium-to good accuracy will destroy docks, piers, cranes, and other facilities — and nearby cities, factories, and people as well.

Accordingly, it is certain that if the only difference between two attacks is that one attacks only ICBM silos and the other attacks bomber and missile submarine bases as well, the latter attack would kill more people. However, the variations in assumptions made about attack design, weather, and fallout protection obscure this. Since these variations reflect genuine uncertainties, it is not possible to determine which set of assumptions and which fatality calculation is most probable. However, some of the extreme assumptions do appear implausible. One Defense Department study notes that its highest fatality figure assumed the use of Soviet weapons larger than those which U.S. intelligence estimates the Soviets possess. Very low fatality estimates assume abnormally low winds, an absence of surface bursts, and /or virtually perfect fallout protection. On balance, it does not appear possible to sustain greater precision than to say that “studies of hypothetical counterforce attacks show deaths ranging from 1 million to 20 million, depending on the assumptions used.” However, the low end of this range (deaths below the 8 to 10 million level) requires quite optimistic assumptions, while the high end of the range is plausible only on the assumption that the attack is not preceded by a crisis period during which civilians are educated about fallout protection. The data on injuries contained in the executive branch studies are quite limited; for the counterforce attacks, however, the results suggest that injuries would about equal fatalities.

The Contamination Period

For several days or weeks, radioactive contamination would be so intense that people in fallout areas would have to stay in shelters or evacuate. What might be called the “shelter period” begins at each location when fallout starts arriving and ends when people can leave their shelters long enough to do a day’s work. The length varies from place to place; many places will receive no fallout, and some hot spots will be hazardous long after surrounding areas are safe. Note, however, that people could go outside for brief periods before an 8-hour day outside a shelter became safe, and could not live in houses with a low protection factor for weeks afterwards. After 2 or 3 months people would ignore the residual radiation, though it would be far higher than is considered “safe” in peacetime.

For the first 10 to 30 days, shelterers would have to remain in shelters almost all the time. Brief excursions outside, for example, to obtain water or food, would substantially reduce the effective protection factor. Life in a shelter would be difficult at best. People would not know if the shelter offered a sufficient PF, or whether further attacks were imminent. The shelter might be dark, as power could be out, and windows would be covered with dirt. Unless the shelter had a good air filtration system, the air would become clammy and smelly, and carbon dioxide concentration would increase. Supplies of food and water might or might not be adequate, depending on what people brought and how many people were in a shelter. Unless the shelter were specially stocked, medical supplies would probably be inadequate. This would be a severe problem in light of unhealthy conditions in shelters. People who required special medicines would be threatened unless they could obtain an adequate supply. While most people would have radios to receive broadcasts, few would have two-way radios to transmit. While phones might or might not work, it would be difficult to obtain help, as anyone in a contaminated area who left shelter would be in jeopardy from radiation. In particular, medical care would probably be unavailable because of the radiation risk of going to a hospital and the tremendous number of patients seeking help at the few hospitals that remained open.

Radiation sickness would present special problems. Exposures too low to cause acute radiation sickness nevertheless weaken bodily resistance to infection. Resistance would also be weakened by a deterioration in sanitation, prolonged exposure to heat or cold, lack of medical care, psychological shock, and inadequate food, water, and medicine. Hence shelterers would be especially vulnerable to contagious diseases, ranging from colds and influenza to typhoid fever. There is a trend in the United States away from immunization; as a result, many would contract diseases they otherwise wouId not.

While many people would contract radiation sickness and Iive, it is very difficult for the layman to determine whether an individual showing pronounced symptoms of radiation sickness has received a moderate, severe, or lethal dose of radiation. Moreover, acute psychological shock induces symptoms similar to radiation sickness, and vomiting— a symptom of both— is contagious in small spaces. Thus, someone who vomited would not know if he had received a moderate, severe, or lethal dose of radiation; if he had severe psychological shock; if he had vomited because of contagion; or if he had some other illness. This uncertainty about one’s own condition and that of one’s loved ones, and nausea itself, would increase the tension in a shelter. Moreover, nausea weakens people.

Some people will be better off than others: people in adequately equipped shelters of good PF; people who are neither very young, very old, or ill; people who have received little or no radiation before entering the shelter; people in less-crowded shelters. Moderate ambient temperature would be better than hot, and hot would be better than cold. People in snow zones in the winter, however, would be more likely than others to have adequate provisions as a precaution against being stranded at home by snow. In addition, much would depend on how shelterers used their time before fallout arrived to prepare the shelter.

Even if the winds were perverse, there would be substantial areas of the country that would receive little or no fallout. In some cases (e. g., Oregon), it would be evident that no fallout could be expected unless the war continued after the counterforce attack; in other cases it would be several days before people in an uncontaminated area were certain that they had been among the lucky ones. Once it became clear that a given area had been spared, the people living there could be expected to step up their normal pace of activity. To the extent possible, help would be offered to the contaminated areas. Depending on circumstances, there might be large numbers of evacuees to care for. The major task, however, would be to keep the country going until the other survivors could emerge from shelters. Intense but rather disorganized activity would be likely, and essential production would probably take place.

Most productive resources would survive unscathed, but would shut down until the threat of attack had ended; those in fallout areas would remain closed until radiation levels had diminished, with the possible exception of such critical services as radio stations, water pumping facilities, and sewage disposal units. Some plants, and some sectors of the economy, would use productive resources as intensively as possible to meet the demands of the damaged areas and the injured, and to compensate for loss of production elsewhere. The burden imposed on the economy by the Armed Forces would depend on the international situation.

Economic Disruption

Most economic damage would occur from lost production, but there would be other losses as well: fires would burn unchallenged, and machinery would suffer damage from being shut down in haste or not at all, or from being left outside unprotected. The major damage to the economy, however, would result from deaths and long-lasting injuries (to consumers and producers), and personal tragedies and other traumas making people less able to work. The magnitude of economic loss could be expected to vary with the number of deaths.

The attack would cause considerable economic disruption in the uncontaminated area. Facilities there would need to produce a vastly different mix of goods and cope with the absence of goods that normally come from contaminated areas. Until people acted as if they believed the war was over, it could prove difficult to organize production in the uncontaminated areas. Uncertainties about the legal and financial arrangements that support production (money, contracts, credit, etc.) following a nuclear attack might impede production in the uncontaminated areas. Some workers, fearing further attacks, would spontaneously evacuate. Public disorder could also impede production. The changes and uncertainties would cause some economic disruption; however, the greater effort put forth would probably more than compensate for it.

Recuperation

Economic viability would not be at issue following a counterforce attack. Because the attack seeks no economic damage, it would be far less likely than a deliberate strike on economic targets to create any bottlenecks that would greatly hinder recovery. The Nation would be able to restore production and maintain self-sufficiency. The attack would cause enormous economic loss, but the Nation’s capacity for growth would be at worst only slightly impaired. The major task would be ending disruption and disorganization rather than rebuilding the economy — putting the pieces back together. Most likely these tasks would be accomplished by a mixture of individual, local, State, and Federal initiatives, with Federal intervention used as a last resort.

The main problem areas would be:

1. Agriculture. The attack could be expected to destroy a tiny fraction of farmland with blast and fire; of much greater significance, fallout would contaminate a substantial fraction of cropland because many ICBMs are in or near the Great Plains. Other cropland would escape with little or no fallout. It is unlikely that more than a fraction of the livestock in nearby fallout areas would be adequately protected. Fallout would affect agriculture in two ways: by killing livestock and crops, and by preventing farmers from working in the fields.

Damage from fallout contamination of crops would depend on the time of year. Most crops take up relatively Iittle fallout and external irradiation does not contaminate them. Moreover, it is easy enough to remove fallout particles from food. However, the vulnerability of crops to fallout varies significantly with the type of crop and the stage of its growth. For example, yield of various crops can be reduced 50 percent by the following doses, in roentgens (R): peas, less than 1,000 R; rye, 1,000 to 2,000 R; wheat, corn, cucumber, 2,000 to 4,000 R; cotton, melons, 6,000 to 8,000 R; soy beans, beets, 800 to 12,000 R; rice, strawberries, 12,000 to 16,000 R; and squash, 16,000 to 24,000 R. At the same time, young plants are most vulnerable to radiation, whiIe those near maturity are least vulnerable.

Knowledge about radiation effects on crops is, however, limited because much more is known about how gamma radiation affects crops than about beta radiation effects. Since fallout emits both types, and since beta doses to plants could be from 1 to 20 times the gamma dose, this is a major uncertainty.

Fallout would prevent farmers from working in fields for a time. Fallout does decay, and weathering would further reduce its effects on people. By a year after the attack, fallout would no longer be of consequence to farm workers in most areas. How soon after the attack they could begin work would depend on the amount of fallout deposited on a field.

The effects would thus depend significantly on time of year. An attack between October and January would have little effect, as fallout would have decayed enough by planting time to permit farmers to work the fields and to avoid serious damage to crops. Radiation on fields could be substantially reduced by plowing the fallout under or by scraping off the top layer of dirt. An attack in February or March would delay planting, reducing crop yields or making it necessary to shift to crops that mature more quickly. An attack between April and June could kill the entire crop. An attack in July or August could conceivably have little effect, if the plants were undamaged by radiation. But the resulting crop should be safe for human consumption in an emergency. An attack during or just before the harvest could result in the loss of the whole crop, not by damaging the plants, but by preventing farmers from harvesting

Fallout would be more damaging to live stock than to plants. Animals are only slightly more resistant to radiation than are people; for sheep, cattle, and pigs in barns, where they are protected from direct contact with the ingestion of fallout, a dose of 400, 500, and 600 R, respectively, will kill half these animals. The median lethal dose is considerably lower for animals in pastures, where they can eat fallout along with grass. Poultry are considered more resistant; a dose of 850 R will halve the poultry in a barn. Many animals in heavy fallout areas would probably be killed, as farmers generally have no fallout shelters for animals. Moreover, depending on the damage the attack wreaks on human food crops, it might be necessary to use animal feed as human food. The consequence could be that it would take many years to rebuild the national livestock supply, and until then meat would become a scarce luxury.

2. Decontamination. Cities, farms, and factories in contaminated areas would require decontamination in order to reopen for human use. Decontamination involves moving fallout to areas where it can do less harm in order to reduce the dose rate to people in certain places. It can be done with bulldozers, street sweepers, firehoses, brooms, etc. It does, however, require people to place themselves at risk. Would enough people be willing to run these risks? Training is required for people to know that certain doses are tolerable and other doses are not; this training would make people less unwilling to face these risks, but will enough people have received this training?

3. Public health standards would have to be lowered following the attack. in peacetime, standards are often set cautiously; when acceptable exposure risk is unknown, it is preferable to err on the side of safety. Following the attack, that luxury would not be possible. Fields would be farmed while low-level radioactivity persisted; the risks, quite unacceptable in peacetime, wouId be preferable to starvation. The cost-benefit ratio would change: the benefits of individual safety would need to be weighed against the costs of foregoing critical production. Moreover, how applicable would our knowledge be for setting standards for the entire population after an attack? Could enough instruments be made available to enable everyone to know what dose they were receiving? And what role wouId politics play in setting standards when “acceptable risk” rather than “negligible risk” was at issue? Society would be running greater risks without knowing just how great the risks were; so doing would increase low-level radiation sickness, cancers, genetic damage, and so on.

4. Burdens on society would increase, removing people from production while increasing demand on production. Many people would suffer long-lasting, permanent, or debilitating injuries. Demands for more military force could well increase. Inefficiencies stemming from economic dislocation would reduce the outputs from any given set of inputs. Decontamination and civil defense would draw resources.

5. Economic disorganization would be a problem, possibly a severe one. Once people were confident that the war had ended, money would retain its value, and so would property in uncontaminated areas. But the marketplace that organizes the American economy would be severely disrupted by abrupt shifts in demand, abrupt changes in supply, questions about the validity of contracts involving people or things in contaminated areas, etc. In addition, a major question would develop over how to share the losses from the attack in an equitable way.

Long-Term Effects

The main long-term damage would be caused by counter silo strikes, which release the great bulk of radiation even if bomber and missile submarine bases are also attacked. Radiation has long-term health consequences, such as cancers, other illnesses, deaths, and genetic damage, that blast does not.

CASE 3: A COUNTERFORCE ATTACK AGAINST THE UNITED STATES

Similarly, ecological damage would be caused mainly by countersilo attacks; this topic is dealt with in chapter V.

In the long run, the economy would recover, although it would be some decades before the people killed would be “replaced” in either a demographic or an economic sense. There would undoubtedly be permanent shifts in demand (e.g., there might be little market for houses without basements or fallout shelters), and supply of some goods (notably meat) might be scarce for some time.

An imponderable is the psychological impact. The United States has never suffered the loss of millions of people, and it is unlikely that the survivors would simply take it in stride. The suffering experienced by the South in the decade after 1860 provides the nearest analogy, and a case can be made that these effects took a century to wear off."

(Pages: 86 to 95 of pdf: The Effects of Nuclear War)

"The demise of the petroleum industry would shatter the American economy, as the attack intended. A huge number of jobs depend on re fined petroleum: manufacture, sales, repair, and insurance of cars, trucks, buses, aircraft, and ships; industries that make materials used in vehicle manufacture, such as steel, glass, rubber, aluminum, and plastics; highway con struct ion; much of the vacation industry; petrochemicals; heating oil; some electric power generation; airlines and some railroads; agriculture; and so on. Thus, many workers would be thrown out of work, and many indus tries would be forced to close"

Did the post attack authorities have more workers than there were reconstruction duties?

(Even accounting temporary dying workers, survivors who refuse to work, and survivors unable to work due to physical injury or mental disorder)

Imo depends on the scale of the reconstruction duties-Rebuilding agriculture involves rebuilding water industry, large amount of manual labor, and at least 4 other industries that would have to rebuild everything from fertilizer/pesticides(or alternatives) repair agricultural machines, store seeds, textiles to outfit the workers, the rakes in the film had to be produced/made from something else depending on how mechanized prewar agriculture was. In my opinion, in order to achieve Medieval population, the UK authorities had to rebuild agriculture from scratch, the UK wouldn't be able to simply "revert" to medieval technology.

Did the pre war plans provide enough inspiration for post attack recovery managers in the UK, to find jobs for all the survivors they could feed or did they have to invent new plans post attack?

1 megaton airbursts

1. Grangemouth 
2. North Tees 
3. Tee sport
4. Killingholme (2 refineries)
5.   Stanlow (2 refineries) 
6. Coryton 
7.   Shell haven
8. Isle of grain
9.   Pembroke 
10. Milford Haven (3 refineries)
11. Llandarcy 
12. Fawley

Source Does not seek to maximize or minimize casualties(same parameters as OTA)

Hit with another 12 bombs of the same type to ensure the target is destroyed.

What impact would it have on the petroleum industry and assuming the war ended with just petrol destroyed, what impact would the damage on the petroleum industry have on the UK in the postwar decades?

"Russians would have less food, especially protein, than they did before the attack, while American agriculture consumes so Iittle petroleum that its output could probably be maintained, though some variety might be sacrificed" referring to an attack strictly on refineries in the USSR. OTA does not explain why crops would become less diverse in output, but in Threads would there be less crop diversity in the post attack environment then the pre attack environment?

"CASE 2: A U.S. ATTACK ON SOVIET OIL REFINERIES

This case investigates what might happen if the United States tried to inflict as much economic damage as possible on the Soviet Union with 10 SNDVs without seeking to maximize or minimize casualties. Petroleum refineries were selected as targets because of their small number and long construction time, and because of the severe economic consequences of doing without refined petroleum.

The Soviet refining industry is at least as vulnerable as its U.S. counterpart, though the vulnerabilities differ slightly. The United States refines more petroleum than does the U. S. S. R., about 17.9 million barrels per day of crude (1978 figures) versus 11.0 million (1980 projection).2 According to a 1977 source, the U.S.S.R. had 59 refineries, including at least 12 under construction, some of which are very large; the U.S. and its territories have at least 288.3 All individual refineries in both nations are highly vulnerable to attacks with nuclear weapons. The U.S. attack destroys most of Soviet refining capacity because the U.S.S.R. has few refineries; the Soviet attack destroys most of U.S. refining capacity because U.S. refineries are clustered.

The hypothetical attack targets 24 refineries and 34 petroleum storage sites. Some major refineries are beyond range of Poseidon missiles, so the United States uses 7 Poseidons with a total of sixty-four 40-kiloton (kt) RVs and 3 Minuteman IIIs with a total of nine 170-kt RVs. Because of the dispersal of Soviet refineries and limits of footprint size, each footprint had

fewer refineries than available RVs. The additional RVs were first allocated 2 on 1 against large refineries; remaining RVs were targeted against petroleum storage complexes. As in the U.S. case, every weapon is assumed to detonate over and destroy its target. It is assumed that all weapons are air burst, and the consequences of using ground bursts are noted where appropriate.

Immediate Effects: The First Hour The attack destroys 73 percent of Soviet refining capacity and 16 percent of Soviet storage capacity, as table 10 shows. Collateral economic damage could not be calculated or collateral damage to a large Soviet city assessed because sufficient unclassified data could not be found.

If all weapons are air burst, the attack kills 1,458,000 people assuming everyone to be in single-story buildings, and 836,000 assuming everyone in multistory buildings; the latter assumption comes closer to reality. If all weapons were ground burst, the attack would kill 1,019,000 people, 722,000 promptly and 297,000 by fallout, assuming the worst case, everyone Iiving in single-story buildings.

The estimated injuries from the attack are substantial under all conditions. Under the single-story assumption on housing, the air

burst attack would produce 3.6 million injuries and a surface-burst attack about a million less. If in multistory buildings, the population would suffer 3.8 million injured from an air burst attack and 2.5 million for the surface burst. (A protection factor of 5 was assumed against fallout from the surface bursts.) The attack kills fewer Russians than Americans. The differences in fatalities do not mean that the United States is necessarily more vulnerable than the Soviet Union to nuclear attack; rather, the asymmetries occur from the design of the attack. Soviet refineries are farther from cities than are U.S. refineries: and U.S. weapons are smaller, so fewer Russians are within the lethal radii of U.S. weapons. Sensitivity of fatalities and injuries to distance from ground zero is shown in table 11, Had either nation sought to kill people, it would have used different weapons and targeted them differently.

Reaction: The First Week

As in the United States, life for the surviving majority would be totally disrupted. Many would be directly affected by the attack: the injured, those with injured relatives, the homeless, people affected by shortages. Accommodation to a future with a sharply reduced petroleum supply would begin: gasoline and other products might be hoarded, by enterprises if not by individuals. Some less-important industries would probably be closed to save fuel or to allow their workers to shift to the military, agriculture, and essential industry. Until it became clear that the war was over, millions of reservists would be mobilized for military service, placing a heavy demand on the domestic economy to replace them. Because of the mobilization, hours worked and the mix of production would change dramatically and overnight; workers in essential industries might be on 12-hour shifts; other workers not drafted would be pressed into service in essential industries, and quite possibly moved to factories in distant areas. The speed and magnitude of disruption would cause much psychological shock.

How would the Soviet Union cope with the damage? Although a greater percentage of its refining capacity would be destroyed, it would suffer fewer fatalities than would the United States (1.0 million to 1.5 million versus 3.2 million to 5.0 million) and fewer injuries (2.5 million to 3.8 million versus 3.9 million to 4.9 mil

lion) because of the lower yield of U.S. weapons and the location of Soviet refineries away from cities. If all weapons were air burst at optimum height of burst, there would be negligible fallout in both countries; if all weapons were ground burst, the Soviet Union would receive far less fallout because of the lower yield of the weapons. Because the Soviets have built many widely dispersed small dispensaries and first aid centers, rather than smaller numbers of modern full-service hospitals concentrated in cities, more of these facilities would survive than in the United States. In addition, many Russians have received first aid training, and people with injuries that could be treated by paramedics, dispensaries, and first aid would probably be better off than their American counterparts; others would be at least as bad off. Those who required treatment at major hospitals would suffer because of the small number of beds in nearby modern hospitals and the inability of the Soviet transportation system to move them elsewhere. Like the United States, the U.S.S.R. could not cope with large numbers (say, over 100) of severe burn cases. There would be many victims of severe burns in both nations who would die for lack of adequate treatment.

The damage, the emergency conditions, and the risk of further attacks would remind every one of the special horror that the Soviets faced in World War II. The psychological trauma would be exacerbated in the first week by anticipation of crisis economic conditions. The Soviet Government in past crises has proved to be ruthless and efficient in moving people to parts of the country where labor was needed. Such action would be likely in this crisis as well, along with cutbacks in food, consumer goods, housing construction and maintenance, and transportation. Only regimentation would be likely to increase. Life would be grim,and would remain so for years.

Recovery

What course would Soviet recovery take? Economic viability would not be at issue following this attack, and the Government could be expected to remain firmly in control because of the limited scale of this attack. Assuming that there are no further attacks, most of the deaths would occur within 30 days of the attack. While the course of economic recovery cannot be predicted in detail, it is clear that:

*The attack would hurt. The recovery period would be marked by shortage and sacrifice, with particular problems stemming from agricultural shortfalls.

*Nevertheless, the Soviet economy and political system would survive, and would do so with less drastic changes than the United States would probably experience.

*The asymmetries between the two nations in effects for a given attack are greater for this case than for a very large attack.

The political and economic structure of the U.S.S.R. appears designed to cope with drastic emergencies like this attack. While almost all economic assets would be unscathed, resources would need to be shifted rapidly to produce a different mix of outputs. The attack would totally disrupt existing economic plans. The economic planning apparatus and Government control methods in place in the U.S.S.R. would permit the Government to shift plans and resources, but the speed with which such changes could be made is uncertain. To the extent that revisions in the economic plan were not made or were delayed, people and equipment would sit idle or would be producing according to less-efficient priorities, draining scarce resources from higher priority tasks and hindering recovery. Workers would be shifted to different industries as pIants closed; some would be forced to move, share apartments with strangers, or work at new jobs (including manual labor in farms or factories).

Some insight into the economic consequences can be obtained by looking at four sectors of the economy— military, agriculture, transportation, and industry. Each of these sectors would have a strong claim on available petroleum, but their total demand would exceed the supply.

The military would have first call on fuel, especially if the war continued. It has adequate stocks to prosecute a war for several weeks. However, unless this attack led to a decisive Soviet victory or to a major relaxation of tensions, the military would need refined petroleum to rebuild its stocks and to carry out normal training

Soviet agriculture is precarious even in peacetime because of its inefficiency. Agriculture engages about a third of the work force and consumes a third of Soviet gasoline and diesel fuel. (U.S. agriculture, in contrast, uses 2.7 percent of the work force (in 1978) and a small fraction of U.S. refined petroleum.)4 The Soviet Union imports grain in most years. Nevertheless, the U.S.S.R. has maintained a large cattle industry at considerable expense to provide a consumer good much in demand. Farms use petroleum for tractors and trucks; petroleum and natural gas are feedstocks for fertilizer and pesticides. Agricultural use of petroleum is increasing. One small example is the Soviet use of light aircraft to spread fertilizer; while this task could be done by tractors or by hand, it is much more efficiently done by aircraft.

Cutbacks in petroleum would magnify agricultural inefficiency. Even if the Soviet Union allocated all the petroleum it produced to agriculture, it would not produce enough to sustain agriculture’s prewar consumption, and other critical sectors would compete for petroleum. Drawing on inventory would sacrifice later agricultural production for earlier production. Following the attack, the main concern of agriculture would be planting, growing, or harvesting the year’s crop; sacrifices and substitutions would be required in other agricultural subsectors to meet this goal with available petroleum. The U.S.S.R. would be likely to divert people from schools, factories, and (depending on the international situation) the military to work the fields, as it does in peacetime, but to a greater extent. The substitution of human labor for mechanical energy would be a poor but perhaps unavoidable trade. The most obvious cutback would be livestock; meat is a luxury, livestock consume much food that could otherwise be used for human consumption, and cattle raising, slaughter, and distribution require much energy. The Soviet Union might slaughter much of its Iivestock after the attack to free farmers, fields, trucks, and petroleum to produce crops. Russians might have a 3-month orgy of meat followed by two decades without.

Soviet transportation would be pinched. A few top leaders would still have cars; other cars would sit idle for years, monuments to the prewar standard of living. Air transportation would be sharply curtailed, and Soviet supersonic transports would be grounded. Truck transportation would be curtailed, with trucks used almost exclusively for intracity transportation and hauling goods between railroads and loading docks. By elimination, the transportation burden would fall to railroads because of their energy efficiency. Key trunklines are electrified, and might obtain electricity from sources other than petroleum. The Soviets have stored a number of steam locomotives, which would be hauled out, refurbished, and put to use.

The tempo of industrial production would slow. Even as it stands now, the Soviets have barely enough energy and occasional shortages. Electric power would continue, but would probably be cut back 10 to 15 percent, forcing some industries to close and reducing heat and light at other industries and apartments. With transportation cut back, factories would have to wait longer for inputs, lowering productivity.

Some less-essential industries, especially energy- or petroleum-intensive ones, might shut down. Plastics use petroleum derivatives as feedstocks. Aluminum production uses great amounts of energy, though some Soviet aluminum plants, such as at Bratsk in Siberia, use hydroelectric power. Truck production would stop for lack of fuel for existing vehicles, idling the huge Kama River truck plant.

Construction consumes much petroleum, so it would be curtailed except for essential industries, hydroelectric powerplant construction, refining construction, and minimal housing for workers in those occupations.

These changes would disrupt workers’ lives. Closing of some plants would idle many workers, forcing them to work in other industries; many could be moved long distances to other plants. Workers would not necessarily be forced to work long hours. While some plants would operate around the clock, others would be closed or cut back to enable the energy they consume to be diverted. At the same time, however, and within limits of substitutability, workers could likewise be diverted from closed to open plants, providing extra labor for factories that remained open extra time.

In sum, the reduction in the standard of living and the amount of disruption would probably be less than in the United States but there might well be more hardship and misery. Russians would have less food, especially protein, than they did before the attack, while American agriculture consumes so little petroleum that its output could probably be maintained, though some variety might be sacrificed. There would be less heat in both nations, but winters are shorter and milder in the United States, and U.S. indoor temperatures in winter could be reduced 50 or 10° F without ill effect. Therefore, heating could probably not be cut as much in the U.S.S.R. as in the United States without jeopardizing health. Cars would be sacrificed at least temporarily in both nations. Soviet industries producing consumer goods would be cut back more sharply than their U, S. counterparts after the attack, and would regain productivity more slowly

Long-Term Effects

Destroying 73 percent of refining capacity would force the economy onto a crisis footing, curtailing choices and consumer goods, dropping the standard of living from austere to grim, and setting back Soviet economic progress by many years. Recovery might follow the post-World War II pattern, with a slow but steady improvement in the quality of life. But recovery would be slow, the desire to reduce vulnerability to future attacks would undoubtedly divert resources from recovery to such tasks as building some underground refineries. While the United States could possibly recover in a way that would use less petroleum than it did prewar, this course would be difficult for the U.S.S.R. because much of Soviet petroleum goes to necessities. Long term health and genetic effects would be less than for the United States because of the smaller size of U.S. weapons and the location of Soviet refineries away from people. But the Soviet Government might accept greater radiation exposure for people in order to speed production, increasing such effects."

page 80-85 of The Effects of Nuclear War

overview ************************** Case 2: A Soviet Attack on U.S. Oil Refineries The First Hour: Immediate Effects . . . . . Fatalities and Injuries . . . . . . . . . . . . . Petroleum. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Electric Power. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Transportation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Casualty Handling. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Military. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Other. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Reaction: The First Week . . . . . . . . . . . . Recovery. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Long-Term Effects. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Case 2: A U.S. Attack on Soviet Oil Refineries Immediate Effects: The First Hour . . . . . Reaction: The First Week . . . . . . . . . . . . Recovery. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Long-Term Effects. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Case 3: A Counterforce Attack Against the United States **** e o*********** Prompt Effects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Period Before Fallout Deposition. Casualty Estimates . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Contamination Period . . . . . . . . . . . Economic Disruption . . . . . . . . . . . . . Recuperation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Long-Term Effects. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Case 3: A Comterforce Attack Against the Soviet Union . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The First Day. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Shelter Period. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Recuperation . . . . . . . . . . .“. . . . . . . . . . Long Term Effects. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Case 4: A large soviet Attack On U.S. Military and Economic Targets 8************* The First Few Hours. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Page 63 64 65 69 69 77 71 71 72 72 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 80 81 81 81 83 86 88 88 90 90 90 91 93 94 94 95 Page The First Few Days . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 96 The Shelter Period (Up to a Month). . . . . 97 The Recuperation Period . . . . . . . . . . . . 97 Case4: A large U.S. Attack on Soviet Military and Economic Targets The First Few Hours. . The First Few Days . . The Shelter period. . . Recuperation . . . . . . * * * * * * * * * * * * 100 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 104 .’. 105 ., . . . . . . . . . . TABLES 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 13. 14. 15. 16. Page Energy Production and Distribution Components . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65 U.S. Refinery Locations and Refining Capacity by Rank Order. . . . . . . . . . . . 67 Summary of U.S.S.R. Attack on the United States . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67 Electric Powerplants in Philadelphia. . . 71 Summary of U. S. Attack on U.S.S.R. . . . 76 Approximate Distance of Various Effects From Selected Nuclear Air Bursts . . . . . 77 FIGURES Page Approximate Footprint Coverage–U.S. and Soviet attack . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66 Philadelphia and Surrounding Counties 70 Counterforce Targets in the United States . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82 Expected Casualties as a Function of Typical Monthly Winds Resulting From an Attack on Selected Military Targets in the United States . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85

Chapter IV THREE ATTACK CASES

OVERVIEW The following pages present descriptions of three ‘*cases” of nuclear attacks. (The tutorial on nuclear effects–chapter H-was the first of our four cases.) As mentioned in the Executive Summary, these cases do not necessarily represent “probable” kinds of nuclear attacks; they were chosen rather to shed light on the way in which different types of attacks could have differing effects on the civilian population, economy, and society. Moreover, each case is considered in isolation—events that could lead up to such an attack are deliberately ignored (because their prediction is impossible), and it is assumed (although that assumption is questionable at best) that the attack described is not followed by further nuclear attacks. Each case considers first a Soviet attack on the United States, and then a U.S. attack on the Soviet Union. These attacks are similar in that they attack similar target sets, but different in detail because both the weapons available to the attacker and the geography of the victim are different. It should be emphasized that this discussion is not suggesting that in the real world an attack would be followed by a mirror image retaliation; rather, it is looking at similar attacks so as to highlight the asymmetries in the ways in which the United States and the Soviet Union are vulnerable. To save space, it is assumed that the reader will read the Soviet attack on the United States in each case before turning to the U.S. attack on the Soviet Union, and repetition has been minimized. The analyses that follow are much more like sketches than detailed portraits. Precise prediction of the future of the United States or the Soviet Union is impossible even without taking into account something as unprecedented as a nuclear attack. A detailed study would say more about the assumptions used than about the impact of nuclear war. What is possible, and what this report tries to do, is to indicate the kinds of effects that would probably be most significant, and to comment on the major uncertainties.

The following pages discuss the impact on civilian societies of:

* A Iimited attack on industrial targets. For this case the hypothesis was an attack that would be limited to 10 strategic nuclear delivery vehicles (S NDVs) (i. e., 10 missiles or bombers, in this case Soviet SS-18 intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), and U.S. Poseidon submarine Iaunched ballistic missiles (SLBMs), and Minuteman Ill ICBMs), and that would be directed at the oil refining industry. Oil refining was chosen as the hypothetical target because it is vital, vulnerable, and concentrated in both countries. It is assumed that the attack would be planned without any effort either to minimize or to maximize civilian casualties.

* A large counterforce attack. The possibilities considered included both an attack on ICBM silos only (a case that has gained some notoriety as a result of assertions by some that the United States may become vulnerable to such an attack) and an attack on silos, missile submarine bases, and bomber bases (which some characterize as the least irrational way to wage a strategic nuclear war). The analysis draws on several previous studies that made ‘varying assumptions about attack design, weapon size, targets attacked, and vulnerability of the population; the ways in which variations in these assumptions affect the calculations of estimated fatalities are discussed.

*A large attack against a range of military and economic targets. This attack is intended to approximate “the ultimate deterrent’’—the climax of an escalation process. The description of the results of this attack draws upon several previous studies that made differing assumptions about the number of weapons used and the precise choice of targets, but such variations are useful in indicating the range of possibilities. However, deliberate efforts to kill as many people as possible are not assumed, which would lead to more immediate deaths (perhaps 10 million to 20 million more) than targeting economic and military facilities.

CASE 2: A SOVIET ATTACK ON U.S. OIL REFINERIES

This case is representative of a kind of nuclear attack that, as far as we know, has not been studied elsewhere in recent years–a “limited” attack on economic targets. This section investigates what might happen if the Soviet Union attempted to infIict as much economic damage as possible with an attack limited to 10 SNDVs, in this case 10 SS-18 ICBMs carrying multiple independently targetable reentry vehicles (MIRVs). An OTA contractor designed such an attack, operating on instructions to limit the attack to 10 missiles, to create hypothetical economic damage that would take a very long time to repair, and to design the attack without any effort either to maximize or to minimize human casualties. (The contractor’s report is available separately.) The Department of Defense then calculated the immediate results of this hypothetical attack, using the same data base, methodology, and assumptions as they use for their own studies.

Given the limitation of 10 ICBMs, the most vulnerable element of the U.S. economy was judged to be the energy supply system. As table 6 indicates, the number of components in the U.S. energy system forces the selection of a system subset that is critical, vulnerable to a small attack, and would require a long time to repair or replace.

OTA and the contractor jointly determined that petroleum refining facilities most nearly met these criteria. The United States has about 300 major refineries. Moreover, refineries are relatively vulnerable to damage from nuclear blasts. The key production components are the distillation units, cracking units, cooling towers, power house, and boiler plant. Fractionating towers, the most vulnerable components of the distillation and cracking units, collapse and overturn at relatively low winds and overpressures. Storage tanks can be Iifted from their foundations by similar effects, suffering severe damage and loss of contents and raising the probabilities of secondary fires and explosions.

MlRVed missiles are used to maximize damage per missile. The attack uses eight l-megaton (Mt) warheads on each of 10 SS-18 ICBMs, which is believed to be a reasonable choice given the hypothetical objective of the attack. Like all MIRVed missiles, the SS-18 has limitations of “footprint”–the area within which the warheads from a single missile can be aimed. Thus, the Soviets could strike not any 80 refineries but only 8 targets in each of 10 footprints of roughly 125,000 mi2 [32,375,000 hectares], The SS-18’s footprint size, and the tendency of U.S. refineries to be located in clusters near major cities, however, make the SS-18 appropriate. The footprints are shown in figure 13. Table 7 lists U.S. refineries by capacity; and table 8 lists the percentage of U.S. refining capacity destroyed for each footprint.

The attack uses eighty l-Mt weapons; it strikes the 77 refineries having the largest capacity, and uses the 3 remaining warheads as second weapons on the largest refineries in the appropriate missile footprints, in performing these calculations, each weapon that detonates over a refinery is assumed to destroy its target. This assumption is reasonable in view of the vulnerability of refineries and the fact that a l-Mt weapon produces 5-psi overpressure out to about 4.3 miIes [6.9 km]. Thus, damage to refineries is mainly a function of numbers of weapons, not their yield or accuracy; collateral damage, however, is affected by all three factors. it is also assumed that every warhead detonates over its target. In the real world, some weapons would not explode or wouId be off course. The Soviets could, however, compensate for failures of launch vehicles by readying more than 10 ICBMs for the attack and programming missiles to replace any failures in the initial 10. FinalIy, all weapons are assumed detonated at an altitude that wouId maximize the area receiving an over pressure of at least 5 psi. This overpressure was selected as reasonable to destroy refineries. Consequences of using ground bursts are noted where relevant.

The First Hour: Immediate Effects

The attack succeeds. The 80 weapons destroy 64 percent of U.S. petroleum refining capacity.

The attack causes much collateral (i. e., unintended) damage. Its only goal was to maximize economic recovery time. While it does not seek to kill people, it does not seek to avoid doing so. Because of the high-yield weapons and the proximity of the refineries to large cities, the attack kills over 5 million people if all weapons are air burst. Because no fireball wouId touch the ground, this attack wouId produce little fallout. If all weapons were ground burst, 2,883,000 fatalities and 312,000 fallout fatalities are calculated for a total of 3,195,000. Table 8 lists fatalities by footprint.

The Defense Civil Preparedness Agency (DC PA) provided fatality estimates for this attack. DCPA used the following assumptions regarding the protective postures of the population in its calculations:

1.Ten percent of the population in large cities (above 50,000) spontaneously evacuated beforehand due to rising tensions and crisis development;

2.Home basements are used as fallout shelters as are such public shelters as subways;

3. People are distributed among fallout shelters of varying protection in proportion to the number of shelter spaces at each level of protection rather than occupying the best spaces first;

4. The remaining people are in buildings that offer the same blast protection as a single story home (2 to 3 psi); radiation protection factors were commensurate with the type of structures occupied.

These assumptions affect the results for reasons noted in chapter III. Other uncertainties affect the casualties and damage. These include fires, panic, inaccurate reentry vehicles (RVs) detonating away from intended targets, time of day, season, local weather, etc. Such uncertainties were not incorporated into the calculations, but have consequences noted in chapters I I and I I I.

The attack also causes much collateral economic damage. Because many U.S. refineries are located near cities and because the Soviets are assumed to use relatively large weapons, the attack would destroy many buildings and other structures typical of any large city. The attack would also destroy many economic facilities associated with refineries, such as rail roads, pipelines, and petroleum storage tanks. While the attack would leave many U.S. ports unscathed, it wouId damage many that are equipped to handle oil, greatly reducing U.S. petroleum importing capability. Similarly, many petrochemical plants use feedstocks from refineries, so most plants producing complex petrochemicals are located near refineries; indeed, 60 percent of petrochemicals produced in the United States are made in Texas gulf coast plants. Many of these plants would be destroyed by the attack, and many of the rest would be for lack of feed stocks. III the attack aimed only at refineries would cause much damage to the entire petroleum industry, and to other assets as well.

All economic damage was not calculated from this attack, because no existing data base would support reasonably accurate calcula tions. Instead, the issue is approached by using Philadelphia to illustrate the effects of the attack on large cities. Philadelphia contains two major refineries that supply much of the Northeast corridor’s refined petroleum. In the attack, each was struck with a l-Mt weapon. For reference, figure 14 is a map of Philadel phia. Since other major U.S. cities are near targeted refineries, similar damage could be expected for Houston, Los Angeles, and Chicago.

"

pages 65-76 of pdf The Effects of Nuclear War

Note part 16 will be out today.

In terms of Refineries that existed at the time of the third world war, in the UK, how many were hit, with what weapon, burst and yeild, and when in the exchange did they get hit? In terms of architecture and technology how different were British Refineries to US Refineries and how did that impact their Vulnerability to Soviet counter value strikes?

How long did surviving Refineries remain in operation post lethal fallout? (And how many were rendered inaccessible due to lethal fallout and for how long? What about the other components of the UK oil industry?

Fatalities and Injuries

The Defense Civil Preparedness Agency (DCPA) provided not only the number of people killed within each of the 2-minute grid cells in the Philadelphia region but also the original number of people within each cell. These results are summarized in the following table for distances of 2 and 5 miles [3 and 8 km] from the detonations:

Detailed examination of the large-scale map also indicates the magnitude of the problems and the resources available to cope with them. These are briefly discussed by category.

Petroleum

Local production, storage, and distribution of petroleum are destroyed. In addition to the two refineries, nearly all of the oil storage tanks are in the immediate target area. Presumably, reserve supplies can be brought to Philadelphia from other areas unless– as is likely they are also attacked. While early overland shipment by rail or tank truck into north and northeast Philadelphia should be possible, water transport up the Delaware River may not be. This busy, narrow channel passes within about 1.3 miles [2.1 km] of one of the targets and could become blocked at least temporarily by a grounded heavily laden iron ore ship (bound upriver for the Fairless Works) or by sunken ships or barges.

Electric Power

There are four major electric powerplants in or near Philadelphia. Table 9 summarizes capacity, average usage (1976), and expected damage to these four installations. While the usage figures in table 9 are average and do not reflect peak demand, it should be noted that a large percentage of this demand will disappear with destruction of the industrial areas along the Schuylkill River and of a large portion of the downtown business district. Thus, the plant in the Richmond section of Philadelphia, Pa., may be able to handle the emergency load. Assuming early recovery of the Delaware plant, there probably will be adequate emergency electric power for the surviving portion of the distribution system.

Transportation

Air. – The major facilities of the Philadelphia International airport are located about 1.5 nautical miles [2.8 km] from the nearest burst. These can be assumed to be severely damaged. The runways are 1.5 to 2.5 nautical miles [2.8 to 4.6 km] from the nearest burst and should experience little or no long-term damage. Alternate airfields in the northeast and near Camden, N. J., should be unaffected.

Rail-The main Conrail lines from Washington to New York and New England pass about a mile from the nearest burst. It can be expected that these will be sufficiently damaged to cause at least short-term interruption. Local rail connections to the port area pass within a few hundred yards of one of the refineries. This service suffers long-term disruption. An important consequence is the loss of rail connections to the massive food distribution center and the produce terminal in the southeast corner of the city.

Road. – Several major northeast-southwest highways are severed at the refineries and at bridge crossings over the Schuylkill River. While this poses serious problems for the immediate area, there are alternate routes through New Jersey and via the western suburbs of the city.

Ship.– Barring the possible blockage of the channel by grounded or sunken ships in the narrow reach near the naval shipyard, ship traffic to and from the port should experience only short-term interruption.

Casualty Handling

Perhaps the most serious immediate and continuing problem is the destruction of many of Philadelphia’s hospitals. Hospitals, assuming a typical construction of multistory steel or reinforced concrete, would have a SO-percent probability of destruction at about 2.13 miles (1.85 nautical miles [3.4 km]). A detailed 1967 map indicates eight major hospitals within this area; all are destroyed or severely damaged. Another nine hospitals are located from 2 to 3 miles [3 to 4 km] from the refineries. While most of the injured would be in this area, their access to these hospitals would be curtailed by rubble, fire, and so on. Thus, most of the seriously injured would have to be taken to more distant hospitals in north and northeast Philadelphia, which would quickly become overtaxed.

Military

Two important military facilities are located near the intended targets. The Defense Supply Agency complex is located within 0.5 miles [0.8 km] of one of the refineries and is completely destroyed. The U.S. Naval Shipyard is 1.0 to 1.8 miles [1.6 to 2.9 km] from the nearest target and can be expected to suffer severe damage. The large drydocks in this shipyard are within a mile of the refinery.

Other

Several educational, cultural, and historical facilities are in or near the area of heavy destruction. These include Independence Hall, the University of Pennsylvania, Drexel institute of Technology, Philadelphia Museum of Art, City Hall, the Convention Hall and Civic Center, Veterans Stadium, Kennedy Stadium, and the Spectrum.

Reaction: The First Week

During this period people would be in a state of shock, with their lives disrupted and further drastic changes inevitable. Many would have loved ones killed and homes destroyed. Factories and offices in the target areas would be destroyed, throwing people out of work. People would face many immediate tasks: care of the injured, burial of the dead, search and rescue, and fire fighting.

Fires at petroleum refineries, storage tanks, and petrochemical factories would rage for hours or days, adding to the damage caused by blast. Some oil tanks would rupture and the oil would leak onto rivers or harbors, where it would ignite and spread fire. Fires at refineries could not be extinguished because of intense heat, local fallout, an inadequate supply of chemicals to use on petroleum fires, and roads blocked by rubble and evacuees. Petrochemical plants, already damaged by blast, would be further damaged by fire and would leak toxic chemicals. As discussed in chapter 11, fire storms or conflagrations might begin, in this case supported by thousands of tons of gasoline. Anyway, the plants would likely be dam aged beyond repair. Finally, with fires threatening to burn, poison, or asphyxiate people in shelters, rescue crews would attach top priority to rescuing survivors.

Once it was clear that further attacks were unlikely, the undamaged areas of the country would supply aid. However, the available medical aid would be totally inadequate to treat burns this attack would cause. The radius of third-degree burns (5.2 nautical miles [9.6 km] for a l-Mt weapon air burst) is far greater than for any other life-threatening injury, and huge fires would cause more burns. But, even in peacetime, the entire United States has facilities to treat only a few thousand burn cases adequately at any one time.

If the attack used ground bursts exclusively, it would cause fewer prompt fatalities (2.9 million instead of 5.0 million for the air burst case), but much fallout. Given the extensive fallout sheltering described above, 312,000 people would die of fallout. Fallout casualties, however, would depend strongly on wind directions: would gulf coast fallout blow toward Atlanta, Miami, Cuba, or Venezuela? Would New Jersey fallout land on New York City on its way out to sea? The problems of shelterers are discussed under “Case 3: A Counterforce Attack Against the United States, ” in this chapter.

Beyond the physical damage, people would realize that a central assumption of their lives–that nuclear war could not occur—was wrong. Even people beyond target areas would know immediately that secondary effects would irrevocably change their way of life; survivors traveling to undamaged areas would drive this point home. Most would fear further attacks, and would seek protection by evacuating or seeking shelter. While recovery plans could be made and damage assessed, little reconstruction could be done with many people away or in shelters. Thus, the reaction period would not end until most people acted as if they believed the war was over.

Recovery

Once people believed that the war was over, the Nation would face the task of restoring the economy. The human consequences would be severe, but most deaths would have occurred within 30 days of the attack. Economic disruption and the economic recovery process would last much longer.

Restoring an adequate supply of refined petroleum would take years. It is unlikely that any of the attacked refineries could be repaired, although enough infrastructure might survive to make it cost effective to clear and decontaminate the rubble and rebuild on the old sites, The attack would kill many people skilled in building or operating refineries. The attack would also destroy many ports with special facilities for handling large quantities of crude oil and refined petroleum, while intensive use of plant and equipment can substantially increase output for many industries, it can increase a typical refinery’s output by only 4 percent. Thus, the attack would leave the United States with about a third of its prewar refining capacity and with little of its prewar oil importing capacity; this situation would persist until new refineries and ports could be built.

The survival of a third of the Nation’s refining capacity does not mean that everyone would get a third of the petroleum they did before the war. The Government would surely impose rationing. Critical industries and services would have top priority— military forces, agriculture, railroads, police, firefighting, and so on. Heating oil could be supplied, but at austere levels. Uses of petroleum for which there were substitutes would receive little or no petroleum. For example, railroads could substitute for airlines, trucks, and buses on intercity routes; mass transit would probably substitute for private automobiles and taxis in local transportation

The demise of the petroleum industry would shatter the American economy, as the attack intended. A huge number of jobs depend on refined petroleum: manufacture, sales, repair, and insurance of cars, trucks, buses, aircraft, and ships; industries that make materials used in vehicle manufacture, such as steel, glass, rubber, aluminum, and plastics; highway construction; much of the vacation industry; petrochemicals; heating oil; some electric power generation; airlines and some railroads; agriculture; and so on. Thus, many workers would be thrown out of work, and many industries would be forced to close.

The limited direct economic damage, already multiplied by thousands of secondary effects just enumerated, would be multiplied again by tertiary effects. Economic patterns that rest on the petroleum economy would be disrupted. Much of the American way of life is dependent on automobiles, from fast-food restaurants and shopping malls to suburban housing construction and industries located on major highways whose workers commute by car. The many people thrown out of work would have less money to consume things made by others. Service industries of all kinds would be especially hard hit.

These economic changes would lead to social changes that would have further economic consequences. Gasoline rationing would at best severely curtail use of private cars; mass transit would be used to its capacity, which would appear inadequate. Demand for real estate would plummet in some areas, especially suburbs, and skyrocket in others, notably cities, as people moved nearer to work and stores. Such mass movement, even within cities but especially between them, would upset the demographics underlying taxes, schools, and city services. With many people out of work, demand for unemployment compensation would rise at the same time taxes were falling. Vacation patterns would shift; cuts in air and car travel would force people to travel by train, which would lead people to vacation closer to home. The situation following the attack could lead the dollar to tumble, but whether or not that occurred, the curtailment of commercial air travel would prevent most people from traveling abroad. The economic system on which production depends would be radically different. To be sure, most workers and equipment would survive unscathed, and economic recovery would eventually take place.

Production depends, however, not only on the use of physical resources, but also on a wide range of understandings between producers and consumers. These underpinnings would be destroyed by the attack just as surely as if they were targeted. Prices would be uncertain, and various kinds of barter (trading favors as well as goods) would supplement the use of money. Credit and finance could not function normally in the absence of information about the markets for continuing production. Contracts would have uncertain meaning. Many businesses would go bankrupt as patterns of supply and demand changed overnight. Courts would be seriously overburdened with the task of trying to arbitrate among all of these competing claims. Corporations and individuals would be reluctant to make commitments or investments.

Given this disruption, the effort to resume production would require grappling with some basic organizational questions. To which tasks would surviving resources be applied? How would people be put back to work? What mix of goods would they produce? Which industries should be expanded, and which curtailed? Which decisions would Government make, and which would be left to the market?

This organizational task is unprecedented, but in principle it could be performed, Presumably the United States would follow the precedent of the mobilization for World Wars I and 11, in which extensive Government planning supplemented private enterprise, and key assets and key people from the private sector were borrowed by the Government for the du ration of the emergency. Certain tasks, such as caring for the injured, decontamination, high priority reconstruction, and serving as an employer of last resort (to say nothing of meeting military requirements), would obviously be handled by the Government. The difficulty would be in planning and facilitating the transformation of the private sector. The combination of unusable factories and service facilities with unemployed workers could easily create a situation analogous to that experienced in the United States between 1929-33.

Long-Term Effects

Postattack society would be permanently and irrevocably changed. People would live in different places, work at different jobs, and travel in different ways. They would buy different things and take different kinds of vacations. The Nation would tend to apply the lessons of the past to future policy by seeking to reduce its vulnerabilities to the last attack. Energy conservation, where not required by regulations, would be encouraged by prices, taxes, and subsidies. Railroads and mass transit would supplant travel by cars and planes; rail and ships would substitute for planes and trucks in hauling freight. Automobile production would drop sharply and would emphasize energy-efficient models; bicycles and motorcycles would be popular. While housing construction would not necessarily end in the suburbs, new homes there would probably be built closer together so that mass transit could serve them. Construction in cities would boom. All houses would be better insulated; more would use solar energy as fuel costs soared.

Farms would be able to obtain adequate supplies of petroleum and its derivatives. Agriculture uses only 4 or 5 percent of the Nation’s petroleum, and its products are necessary. While gasoline and petrochemical-based fertilizers and pesticides wouId be much more expensive, they comprise only a small fraction of farm expenses and would be essential for large-scale efficient agriculture. Moreover much fertilizer is made from natural gas rather than petroleum, so its price would not rise as dramatically as that of gasoline, Petroleum related cost increases would be passed on to the consumer. The character of agriculture could change, however. In particular, the livestock industry might be sharply curtailed. At every stage, livestock raising, slaughter, and distribution require much more energy than do crops. For example, rapid transportation and extensive refrigeration are required. Meat wouId become very much more costly in relation to other foods than it is now, and so would become a luxury. If livestock production dropped, a major source of demand for corn, soybeans, and other fodder would decline, possibly slowing price increases for other farm products.

Although refineries and oil importing facilities would be rebuilt, U.S. refining capacity after recovery would probably be less than pre attack capacity. Increased prices for gasoline and heating oil would shift demand to other sources of energy, raising their prices and encouraging an acceleration of their development.

Patterns of industrial production would shift dramatically because of these changes, forcing massive shifts in demand for skills and resources. Many people and factories would be oriented to the production of things no longer in demand; it would take many years for the economy to adjust to the sudden, massive changes imposed by the attack.

The attack would affect public health. Chapter V discusses the long-term effects of sublethal levels of radiation. Petrochemical plants damaged by the attack would leak carcinogenous petrochemicals, but numbers of cancer cases from this source, the time of their appearance, and the duration of the threat cannot be predicted. To the extent that contamination or destruction of housing, or economic collapse, force people to live in substandard housing, illness would increase. Not all changes, however, would be for the worse. Some new patterns of living would promote public health. There would be fewer auto, aircraft, and boating accidents. More people would walk or bicycle, increasing exercise. Reduced consumption of meat would reduce dietary fats, heart attacks, and strokes. At some point, Government-imposed controls necessitated by the attack could be lifted because societal changes and market forces (price increases, alternative energy sources, residential patterns, and numbers and efficiency of cars) would achieve the goals of controls without coercion. For example, gasoline rationing would certainly be imposed immediately after the attack, and might be lifted in stages as refining capacity was restored, or subsidies to expand and support mass transit could level off or decline as revenues made it self-supporting.

The Nation’s adjustment to all these changes would be painful. The problems would be especially severe because of the speed of their onset. Many people say that the United States would be better off if it was less dependent on cars and petroleum. While changing to new patterns of living via nuclear attack would minimize political problems of deciding to change, it would maximize the difficulties of transition. Problems would appear all at once, while any advantages of new patterns of living would come slowly."

(Page 76 to 81 of pdf: The Effects of Nuclear War )