• Hi Guest!

    The costs of running this forum are covered by Sea Lion Press. If you'd like to help support the company and the forum, visit patreon.com/sealionpress

Post-CMC WWIII World?

MAC161

Well-known member
Published by SLP
Location
WI, USA
Recently finished playing (for nostalgia's sake) the AH game Cuban Missile Crisis: The Aftermath and its somewhat abbreviated, cobbled-together sequel Ice Crusade, and got to wondering what the world might realistically look like in the wake of a nuclear Third World War resulting from the CMC. Ice Crusade has the surviving powers basically relocating to the Southern Hemisphere (as this map shows), overrunning and colonizing the nations and colonies that still existed in the 1960s, while the Northern Hemisphere becomes frozen in nuclear winter, abandoned except for salvage operations and sparse enclaves of survivors. Based on the strategies, arsenals, and politics of the time, and presuming all-out attacks by every nation involved, what are the odds of anything like this scenario actually happening? If not, what outcome is most plausible?
 
I think 1961 had the Soviets not having enough weapons with enough reach to really make North America uninhabitable so its probably something closer to Cuban Missile War timeline where Russia is wiped off the map but North America, while hardcore struggling, isn't suffering the horrific nuclear winter and people are still living there in cities and stuff.
 
My understanding is that North America suffers tens of millions dead across the US and Canada, but the Soviet Union is finished as a nation. Europe is also in corpse-littered ruins. The southern hemisphere isn't getting invaded because the US is still around and the European & Soviet powers... well, can't. Any European 'government-in-exile' fleeing to a remaining colony is doing so in a position of weakness.

Now, for the purposes of a story, you could say "I'm doing it anyway" and the Queen & her wartime government show up in the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland, and mash up the Swinging Sixties and Rhodesia's UDI to see what happens
 
My understanding is that North America suffers tens of millions dead across the US and Canada, but the Soviet Union is finished as a nation. Europe is also in corpse-littered ruins. The southern hemisphere isn't getting invaded because the US is still around and the European & Soviet powers... well, can't. Any European 'government-in-exile' fleeing to a remaining colony is doing so in a position of weakness.

Now, for the purposes of a story, you could say "I'm doing it anyway" and the Queen & her wartime government show up in the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland, and mash up the Swinging Sixties and Rhodesia's UDI to see what happens

Obviously a "doing it anyway" scenario :D, but given the headache that I've read Rhodesia was making of itself before the UDI, would the UK wartime government have considered it a worthwhile spot to flee to (apart from relative proximity), as opposed to Australia or New Zealand?
 
I think 1961 had the Soviets not having enough weapons with enough reach to really make North America uninhabitable

It's not so much the shortage of nukes (the USSR had c.1700 warheads in 1963), as the shortage of delivery systems capable of getting them to North America.

Europe will be a blackened ruin, however.

isn't suffering the horrific nuclear winter and people are still living there in cities and stuff.

A few thousand burning cities in the Northern hemisphere will wreck the worlds climate for decades. The 1964 and 1965 US harvests will fail. The US famine will be catastrophic.
 
Obviously a "doing it anyway" scenario :D, but given the headache that I've read Rhodesia was making of itself before the UDI, would the UK wartime government have considered it a worthwhile spot to flee to (apart from relative proximity), as opposed to Australia or New Zealand?

Probably not, but if the Ice Crusade idea is the northern powers have fled south and are running things, somewhere that hasn't decolonised yet would be a better bet than the dominions.
 
It's not so much the shortage of nukes (the USSR had c.1700 warheads in 1963), as the shortage of delivery systems capable of getting them to North America.

Europe will be a blackened ruin, however.



A few thousand burning cities in the Northern hemisphere will wreck the worlds climate for decades. The 1964 and 1965 US harvests will fail. The US famine will be catastrophic.

Do you know if there are any estimates or studies out there that detail the possible climactic effects of an early 1960s nuclear war, whether globally or just in the U.S.?
 
Probably not, but if the Ice Crusade idea is the northern powers have fled south and are running things, somewhere that hasn't decolonised yet would be a better bet than the dominions.

Interesting; I presume (speaking from admittedly little knowledge) that because they're self-governing, the dominions would be wary of having the Queen and the UK government on their soil (even temporarily) out of fear of losing sovereignty to the (now-destroyed) "mother country"?

I'm familiar with the CGWHQ and the U.S. Continuity of Operations setup, but do you know if there were ever any Western/NATO survival plans that touched on relocation of gov't and/or population and resources out of country? Obviously something like the exodus(es) in the Ice Crusade idea is extremely unlikely at best, but I'm curious if the war planners of the time considered such options, or stuck with the fallout shelters and "duck n' cover."
 
Interesting; I presume (speaking from admittedly little knowledge) that because they're self-governing, the dominions would be wary of having the Queen and the UK government on their soil (even temporarily) out of fear of losing sovereignty to the (now-destroyed) "mother country"?

It's going to depend on what the hypothetical goverment-in-exile wants to do. If it wants to continue the idea of a surviving Britain or run the remaining empire but is doing it in Australia/New Zealand/South Africa and asking for their resources, that's going to get awkward. (They'd probably be fine with the monarchy and it'd just now been Queen Elizabeth of Australia or something)
 
It's going to depend on what the hypothetical goverment-in-exile wants to do. If it wants to continue the idea of a surviving Britain or run the remaining empire but is doing it in Australia/New Zealand/South Africa and asking for their resources, that's going to get awkward. (They'd probably be fine with the monarchy and it'd just now been Queen Elizabeth of Australia or something)

Wasn't South Africa a republic by the time of the CMC? Definitely awkward, in that case (unless the pro-British population pushed it to return to the Commonwealth or even the Empire by coup or other action, which I doubt would happen even with a nuclear WWIII).

You're likely right on them accepting just the Queen and Royal Family (with caveats of them avoiding any involvement in political affairs). As for the gov't, given what I've read of colonial/territorial perception of Macmillan after the "Wind of Change" speech, and Wilson after him, it feels unlikely they'd tolerate even its temporary relocation to Rhodesia's Salisbury, for example. Might be slightly less awkward IMO if the show was being run from Canberra or Wellington, but still tense, as you say.
 
Do you know if there are any estimates or studies out there that detail the possible climactic effects of an early 1960s nuclear war, whether globally or just in the U.S.?

This study from 2009 tried to model the effects of "regional", "moderate" and "large" nuclear wars. The "moderate" scenario would probably be closest to a 60s nuclear war. It doesn't account for the fact that Europe, the Soviet Union, and probably China would be flattened whilst the US might "only" take a dozen or so strikes but looking at the model it seems that would only delay the soot cloud covering the entire northern hemisphere with growing seasons not being possible for a number of years.
 
Of course that is assuming that the monarchy and government actually do leave Britain. I believe the evacuation plans for HM were only drawn up after the CMC.

Assuming that there's a sufficient warning to ensure that key people aren't in the centre of London, you've then got the question of whether HM would actually accept leaving the country. I can well imagine that what you see instead is HM, the Duke of Edinburgh and the Home Secretary locating to either Balmoral or a safe country house while ensuring that the children, the Queen mother and Princess Margaret are evacuated out the country for greater security for a couple of years.

It's likely that Britain unceremoniously abandons whatever of the Empire isn't immediately useful to support immediate needs. If someone's thinking ahead they'll grab the crown jewels in the evac purely so they can see how much food they can get from India if they give them the Koh-i-noor back.
 
It was, I';d forgotten and thought that was later.

No worries. Do you know of any sources detailing how the Macmillan government dealt with the CMC, and what the Royal Family was doing at this time (tours of remaining colonies, other state visits, or domestic events)? A UK government exiled to Rhodesia or some other colony might be more plausible IMO if the Queen (or the highest surviving member of the Royal Family) were already present, or could find refuge there without too much difficulty. I have doubts the Queen herself would leave during the crisis given her family's having stayed during the Blitz, but maybe some others would at her request, as Alex Richards suggests.
 
Now, for the purposes of a story, you could say "I'm doing it anyway" and the Queen & her wartime government show up in the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland, and mash up the Swinging Sixties and Rhodesia's UDI to see what happens

Going back to this, a wild yet awesome idea comes to mind:

1965. In a post-nuclear CMC TL, the Queen and the surviving UK leadership--and a large number of refugees--are firmly established "temporarily" in Rhodesia, until the fallout lessens and resettlement of Britain is possible...which in reality is probably decades away, but they're aiming for it nonetheless. Naturally, this causes tension with Ian Smith's faction, with protests, brawls with refugees, and an increasing number of shootouts with the Royal Army.

To end this, safeguard British interests, and establish real majority rule in Rhodesia ("incidentally" winning over the colony's African population, which is by and large naturally wary of UK rule and white rule in general) MI-5 approaches/reunites four young refugee men from Liverpool to play a concert (or series of gigs?) with music (a mix of their pre-Oct. 1962 songs and some from what OTL knows as "Rubber Soul" and "Hard Day's Night") that will help to turn the colony against the Smith gov't--and cause its downfall by popular uprising when the UDI is attempted. Robert Mugabe and Nelson Mandela would also be present in this story, in some way.

A different form of "British Invasion", feels like :D. What do you think?
 
Last edited:
I was making the tea, and I started thinking of explaining the Profumo scandal to the little ponies in Equestria. Ergo, I know Profumo and Keeler slept together in 1961 (if that is wrong, just let me know), and after the Bombs fly in 1962, does the scandal ever come to light in British-occupied (Blue) Africa?
 
Probably not, most people involved would be dead.

If it did it would probably be an even bigger scandal - not the sex part, the idea that Secretary of Defence might've been compromised by a Soviet official and those Soviets KILLED TWENTY MILLION ENGLISHMEN (And A Million Scottish And Welsh Too)
 
Back
Top