Forum

Has anyone tried to figure out or - even better - list or map the nuclear strikes in Poland? While some locations are mentioned in the official lore, it is quite vague. Currently it is difficult to understand how many cities have been hit or how likely is it to encounter a nuke strike crater.

In the lore I have only found 2 cities that had received Strategic Nuclear Strikes, those are the two port cities in the North. Warsaw had received several tactical strikes... I have randomly put several tactical strikes a few kms East of the German/Polish border. The lore states that the highways from Germany were hit hard. Other than that, I have found no specific target locations. I guess that's why tactical Nuke crater is used as an encounter. But, if others have more details, I would like to know as well!!

I had, perhaps naively, thought that all of the ruined cities on the Travel Map had suffered a nuclear strike. Also, as the crater encounter suggests, one can presumably assume many more tactical nukes were used on columns of vehicles and troops throughout the country.

Does someone have the expertise (or resource) to speculate how much damage a "tactical" nuclear strike actually does in combat? And what would be the main effects regarding radiation? What about the size and shape of craters?

There's a pretty wide range of what's considered "tactical" -- some people's definition extends even to include MIRVs. Mine doesn't. So looking at just tactical air-dropped, gun-fired, or short range ballistic missiles...

The most common US/NATO tactical nukes would be things like the B61 bomb and Pershing II -- both having dial-a-yield by the time period. For the Pershing that's 5-80 kilotons (so still in the Nagasaki realm, plus some). For the M61 that's as low as .3kt but as high as 300+ kt in some configurations. There was also stuff like the Davey Crockett but I'm ignoring that. The Lance had been pulled from service in the early 90s but was probably still waiting somewhere. Similar yields. The Soviets had similar systems to deploy from strike aircraft, Scarab and Iskander missiles, cruise missiles, etc.

The Soviets could deploy nukes from 152mm, 203mm, and 240mm tube artillery. The US had 203mm rounds.. I don't know the yields on these exactly but they should be approaching 1kt. These would presumably be primarily used on enemy formations, while the above weapons would be used on infrastructure and rear areas.

All of these weapons would probably be used in airburst roles, which would maximize blast damage but minimize fallout (and cratering). I believe the clearest sign of such a weapon having been used wouldn't be the crater itself, which could be quite small or gradual, but warning markings on the perimeter, derelicts, and mass burn/defoliation (although after a even just a year or two that becomes harder to spot -- trees and plants grow back fast and especially in the winter/fall the difference might not be at all obvious).

I'll also add that if you have any contact with the locals, it's highly unlikely they wouldn't have charted any nuclear crater in their backyard. A truly undiscovered nuclear crater would be a rare exception unless in a very remote area (which doesn't really describe any of Poland).

And this is just boss!

https://www.fourmilab.ch/bombcalc/

I like this site best: you can overlay the explosion effects onto Google Maps and see how your hometown would fare:
https://nuclearsecrecy.com/nukemap/

As an additional note: Instead of attacking enemy formations directly, tac nukes can also be used very effectively in an interdiction role such as bridge demolition (useful when aircraft are rare) as well as making certain areas impassible: detonate even a small yield device over a forested area you'll create a jumble of fallen trees that will make it almost impossible for vehicles to pass through. See pictures of the Tunguska event for an example of what that would look like.

The Soviets could deploy nukes from 152mm, 203mm, and 240mm tube artillery. The US had 203mm rounds.. I don't know the yields on these exactly but they should be approaching 1kt. These would presumably be primarily used on enemy formations, while the above weapons would be used on infrastructure and rear areas.

According to Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W33_(nuclear_warhead) the W33 warhead has a yield of 5-10kt.
Apparently it was withdrawn from service in '92. I don't know if that means it was put into storage or dismantled.

This site https://military-history.fandom.com/wi ... ar_weapon) claims the yield was 1kt for the first test and 40kt for the second.

Interestingly, the replacement to the W33, the W79 Artillery-Fired Atomic Projectile (AFAP), had a much lower yield at around 1kt.