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Popping off a dozen 0.5Gt nukes in the upper atmosphere will certainly throw a major spanner in the works for much of the industrial world, that is true. The EMP coverage of each such blast is vast, and would make the worst solar flare disruption we’ve seen to date seem like a leisurely stroll in the park.

The problem is: how do you direct such a blow against any of the industrial centres in Central Europe without affecting the corresponding ones on your own side of the Curtain? The distances are very close, and that pulse kind of goes everywhere, without giving a toss about political borders.

So you kind of can’t.

And that’s the point — that kind of a indiscriminate strategic strike is pretty much per definition a MAD doctrine strike. I fry your industry ... sure, I fry my own as well by doing so, but that doesn’t matter, because if I haven’t done it, then you will anyway.
Mutually assured destruction.

And if the war has gone into the MAD stage ... then those EMP strikes and the presumably ensuing industrial collapse is likely to be the least of the problems the people populating the setting will be facing.

Postulating a industrial collapse in the industrial world can be done ... but I can’t see how it could be done that neatly. Logically, it will knock down other domino bricks ... with consequences you might not be all that eager to have in the setting.

There is also the question how many of your launch systems and warhead will actually work. Once and USAF officer pointed me to the failure ration in NASA space launches, more often than not using ICBM... and made the comment that these were individual launches, in a carefully controlled environment, and with carefully set up launch systems. Fire your missiles stored into silos with on order and see how many will fly. I think back in the 70s an USAF analysis expected 20% of the combat launches being successful... and no... you cannot fire back up... fratricide... it was one of the issues of the earlier SIOPs, too many system coming into the same blast zone. A SAC deconflicting study ended up realizing more than half of the launches would have basically been wasted. It was when Ike realized there must be a single planning cell...

TSR2... another genius decision... by the way... the decision to scrap the TSR2 and go for the F111K was official made on April 1st...

As for the Invincible class... HMS Invincible was schedule to be sold to Australia in early 1982 (and she was literally brand new). The Secretary of State for Defence of the time, Notts, appeared to be quite 'removed' from reality. He told General Julian Thompson to not worry about amphibious operations anyway because he and his brigade would have been landed in Denmark administratively. And you have to listen Julian telling the story... Commodore Clapp, the CO of the Fearless and the head of the Amphibious Task Group (that was to be scrapped) was tole basically to relax because amphibious things were... things of the past. Remember in 1977 UK and Argentina had almost come to war for these little islands. The RN had to deploy a SSN and their last carrier. Defense things and London had a weird relationship... this from Winston Churchill time (who was someone who know better than anyone else... because he had been a young cavalry lieutenant!).

Knocking out the electrical grid doesn't require EMP. Cruise missiles used during the Gulf War shot out a cloud of carbon threads over substations and high tension powerlines that short-circuited and fried everything, knocking out power to both military installations and Iraq's cities.

The issue is that they can be quickly repaired. The Iraqis didn't have that time but without follow up attacks power can be restored in a reasonable timeframe.

A good example of repairing critical infrastructure is rail lines in WW2. The railways were a primary target struck by bombing, partisans, and were even torn up as part of scorched earth. Those same rail lines were usually repaired and working again within days. The Japanese even had the railways working again in Hiroshima and Nagasaki shortly after the nuclear attacks - in fact both cities regained their pre-attack sizes within a few years.

https://davidson.weizmann.ac.il/en/onli ... emolition.

What I see happening is more of what happened to Germany in WW1. Germany was not subjected to strategic bombing nor did any fighting occur on German territory. Yet by 1917 industry was struggling to maintain output and the population was hungry. In 1918 industrial production collapsed, the navy mutinied, and revolution stalked the streets of Germany's cities. All this was caused by the Allied naval blockade that cut Germany off from import markets. The needs of the army came first, so military production stripped the civilian section first of consumer goods, then of horses needed for transport, and finally of foodstuffs like fat and citrus needed to make explosives. The population was so malnourished that the weight and height of 18 year olds being drafted in 1918 were about 80% of those drafted in 1914.

And the collapse on the Homefront led to military collapse on the Western Front even after bringing the armies back from Russia. Then the Spanish Flu ripped through the weakened populous.

The loss of global trade in oil and food coupled with a prolonged war, with maybe a few nuclear strikes, as well as famine and plague tossed in, could do the same to modern societies in the 1990s.

In the end it will come down to what Fria Ligans wants the world to be like in July 2000. That is the starting point. They then need to work backwards to put in place events to lead to the outcome.

At the risk of getting slightly off the topic of T:2k 4e.

Type 45's had a problem with power supply: high electrical demand caused the system to fall over. Supposedly all fixed now (cut open the hull and stick in an extra generator, was the fix, if I recall).
The more significant issue is that the order was for 6 'now' and provisionally a follow on order for 6 more, keeping destroyer numbers up, and reducing 'fleet obsolescence' (they don't all reach the end of their life simultaneously). Then the defence budget gets trimmed a bit more, and 'oh, sorry, not making that follow on order after all'.

Invincible class / through deck cruiser. It seems to be generally accepted nowadays that the term 'through deck cruiser' didn't really fool anyone, though may have been a politically useful descriptor for what were escort carriers. The defence cuts announced in 1981 sadly really were intended (sell Invincible to Australia if they'll have her, sell Hermes to India, scrap Fearless and Intrepid without replacement, scrap Endeavour, the Ice Patrol ship / the Falklands guard ship, without replacement).

TSR2: the reality is that it was very expensive, and wasn't as good as it was supposed to be. Partly this reflects 'mission creep' in what it was being asked to do, and partly it was because it was pushing the envelope technically. Given more time and money, it likely would have got there. Killing it to save money perhaps made sense, but justifying it on the grounds that the UK would get the (almost equally troubled F111) instead suggests a degree of 'dishonest' politicking at work at the time.

Ok, getting a bit back to T:2k 4e.
There's being a bit of discussion of whether Challenger 2 fits in the T:2k 4e timeline. Vickers were awarded a proof of concept contract in 1988, with a projected in service date of 1993. Prototypes were built by 1990 and the decision to acquire Chally 2 made in 1991, so in a 'no end to the cold war in 1990' setting, you'd certainty have Chally 2, and almost certainty in many more numbers that happened for real (it was to replace the Chieftains: my 1992 Pocket guide to the British army (yes, really!) says the British army still had 870 chieftains then, 400 in store, so Chally 2 would likely be built in 2 to 3 times the numbers it actually was)

WW1 Germany...

The Imperial army collapses first, the home front later. By August the German army was getting ripped to piece (the Black Day of the German Army). They had numbers and depth to make it costly and prolong it to November, but the army had been trounced. Ludendorff (someone who had his own share of responsibility) and his pals conveniently omitted that, and some historian took verbatim. It feed nicely in the myth of the super-German army (but the British the French, and even the AEF were tactically and operationally better) that some military historians have expouse.d Fed perfectly in that political myth of the backstabbing that caused so much grief later.

On top of that... while the blockade was certainly bad for the German economy, and by 1918 it was emptying the core of the state, by late 1917/18 they had taken over Ukrainian granaries. Even worse the Entente, London in particular, kept the Blockade running after the Armistice and that was something devastating.

And yet to keep a naval blockade you need to be the naval top dog. The Soviets were not at any point in their history. Professor Andrew Lambert from KCL in UK even argued that NATO armies were useless in WW3, and navies would have decided the whole matter. I have my doubt and certainly Andrew's views have also been colored by his own political stance and his anti RAF/British Army and pro-RN advocacy, a tad to extreme if you ask me... and even if you ask professor Eric Grove.

Back on track... Challenger 2. I brought it in... I think it is a cool tank, have some in 15mm and I think it fits in the timeframe. But I was not so sure it would have been a straight outcome considering London's previous track history. The original idea was to have a dual fleet of Challenger I and Chieftain MK12 (the Challenger one being basically a way to save Vickers and to show the Tatcher government was doing something defense related). Now no one has any idea of what the Mk12 would have looked like. But knowing the budgeteers in Whitehall... it would have been a good way to say something was being done while not doing anything. The Challenger 2 program started... slooowly... when the Mk12 was definitely shelved and with agreement on force reduction being on the table it appeared there was no need for a new tank in the 'shortish' term.

Also wiki and Fas list the Mk12 as the Stillbrew MK11, but Colonel Taylor book on the Chieftain ( great book, if you are interested into tank get a copy, Dick Taylor 'Chieftain Main Battle Tank' by Haynes) lists the Stillbrew as Mk11. And no MK12 produced.

Said that by the look I like both the Chieftain and Challenger II better than the Challenger 1... the Chieftain is a must have for BAOR!

The problem is: how do you direct such a blow against any of the industrial centres in Central Europe without affecting the corresponding ones on your own side of the Curtain? The distances are very close, and that pulse kind of goes everywhere, without giving a toss about political borders.

So you kind of can’t.

The thing is, EMP only wipes out items that are either connected to antennae, to power lines, are particularly sensitive (unshielded ICs), or are really close to G0. EMP also doesn't do much to most mechanical devices, just the control electronics. (It can, in theory, cause welding of railroad switches.)

If you know when your blasts are going to happen, you order all the antennae offline for an hour, and order disconnects from the grid (via couriers with sealed instructions for the plant supervisors. The orders simply read: "Tovarishi: Open all breakers NOW or be charged with treason. Signed, podpolkovnik Vladimir Putin, KGB"
That will save about half your factories...
Plus, a number of soviet factories were functionally less integrated circuit (IC) dependent than their western counterparts. IC's are the most susceptible components...

I don't know for sure, but I suspect that the Soviet Block was electrically isolated from most of NATO... And whomever launches first knows to keep ready for instant shutdown once the ICBMs launch.

So, while you can't prevent direct impacts, by knowing when, you can mitigate a lot of the effects.

And yet to keep a naval blockade you need to be the naval top dog. The Soviets were not at any point in their history. Professor Andrew Lambert from KCL in UK even argued that NATO armies were useless in WW3, and navies would have decided the whole matter. I have my doubt and certainly Andrew's views have also been colored by his own political stance and his anti RAF/British Army and pro-RN advocacy, a tad to extreme if you ask me... and even if you ask professor Eric Grove.

There is a whole swathe of general officers, historians and military analysts who cannot foresee a non-nuclear WW III, and cannot accept that either side might actually avoid going full strat-nuke-war.

And yet to keep a naval blockade you need to be the naval top dog. The Soviets were not at any point in their history. Professor Andrew Lambert from KCL in UK even argued that NATO armies were useless in WW3, and navies would have decided the whole matter. I have my doubt and certainly Andrew's views have also been colored by his own political stance and his anti RAF/British Army and pro-RN advocacy, a tad to extreme if you ask me... and even if you ask professor Eric Grove.

There is a whole swathe of general officers, historians and military analysts who cannot foresee a non-nuclear WW III, and cannot accept that either side might actually avoid going full strat-nuke-war.

I think you missed the point here. It is not nuclear-non nuclear.

Andrew's view were about land/naval. He argued (with some flair but little substance) that strategic naval blockade would have strangled the Soviet Union as it strangled Imperial Germany.

Thus NATO defense of West Germany was irrelevant notwithstanding the outcome. Ergo land forces were irrelevant at all (read BAOR). I was never persuaded by that, neither as his student or GTA. But he made a sound case that economic blockades require massive naval forces, then even under Gorshkov the Soviet did not have. So on paper it wat the combined western navies who had the capability. Of course... how much overseas shipment the USSR needed?

TSR2... another genius decision... by the way... the decision to scrap the TSR2 and go for the F111K was official made on April 1st...

Says it all really, doesn't it...?

The TSR-2 did have its fair share of technical problems, cost overruns, and scope creep, certainly — like quite a few other major projects of its kind since the 50's. However, let us not forget that it got canned fairly early on in the development process, with only three prototypes completed, only one of which ever actually flew. It's as if someone had decided to cancel the Typhoon in 1994, or the Gripen in 1988.
This being in a time when the Brits still knew jolly well how to build capable combat airplanes by themselves, I see no reason to doubt the TSR-2 eventually would have been able to fulfil its considerable potential and more. But thanks to Mr Wilson, we'll never know.

There's being a bit of discussion of whether Challenger 2 fits in the T:2k 4e timeline. Vickers were awarded a proof of concept contract in 1988, with a projected in service date of 1993. Prototypes were built by 1990 and the decision to acquire Chally 2 made in 1991, so in a 'no end to the cold war in 1990' setting, you'd certainty have Chally 2, and almost certainty in many more numbers that happened for real

Agree completely with the conclusion, albeit perhaps for slightly different reasons. To my mind, the escalating arms race of the T2k timeline's 90's must inevitably show considerable acceleration in military development and procurement programmes across the board, compared to the "end of history" policies of the IRL 90's.
A fair bit of hardware that didn't get deployed IRL until 2000 or after — or, in some cases, ever — will, perforce, be available in volume by 1997, given the changes in the historical scenario. Fitting in e.g. the Challenger 2 is for me therefore pretty much a given.

In addition to what Vader wrote about new stuff: perhaps more of the old equipment would be kept in storage in usable condition. Just in case.