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Small-Scale Question Sunday for September 15, 2024

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.

Culture war topics are accepted, and proposals for a better intro post are appreciated.

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Military targets are:

  • Sydney (naval base in the harbour, which is perhaps not the best place to put it)
  • Perth (naval base just offshore, which is perhaps not the best place to put it)
  • Darwin (US nuclear bombers in airbase there; not going to object to this one since Darwin's low-population and much of that is for the military base)
  • Pine Gap (major control station for ABM radar, which is fairly relevant in a nuclear exchange)
  • maybe Cairns
  • Canberra (capital)

Obvious civilian targets are, yeah, the five state capitals Brisbane/Sydney/Melbourne/Adelaide/Perth, especially Syd/Melb.

And, obviously, it only takes one high-altitude nuke to EMP much of the continent, so why wouldn't you?

Agreed that they might not have the nukes to hit all of those.

Adelaide is usually upwind of me (as is Perth, though it's far enough away to be less of a problem), and frankly Victoria's weather is weird enough that I'm not entirely confident in being upwind of Melbourne (I'm in Bendigo). And, well, EMP is still a thing. But yes, fallout is much less of a danger than in the 'States.

WRT number of ICBMs, remember that they have MIRVs (i.e. in some cases "one ICBM" can drop nukes on 12 different cities as long as they're close enough to each other). Australia is also closer to China than the USA, so some of their missiles that can't hit the USA can hit us.