There Is No Depression: Protect and Survive New Zealand

[Tsar of New Zealand]

URGENT:
Inbound update detected.

Tracking over South Pacific, heading 335 from Wellington.

ETA: Midnight tonight, NZST.

 

[Dub_Phil]

Four targets: Two are Wellington and Auckland, I'm guessing, but I'm drawing a blank on the other two.

Waiting for more...

I'm guessing that Muldoon doesn't survive the attack, given that the comments about him appear to be after he's dead.

Maybe I'm reading wrong but I think the 4 ICBMS are aimed at both Australia and New Zealand and in another P+S TL 3 of them hit Darwin, Canberra and Sydney. However there still is the prospect of SLBMs.

 

[Tsar of New Zealand]

IV. ...But We're As Safe As Safe Can Be​

“Blue smoke goes drifting by into the deep blue sky
And when I think of home, I sadly sigh
Oh, I can see you there with loving tears in your eyes
As we fondly said our last goodbyes…”

Through the wee small hours of the morning of the 22nd, New Zealand stayed up with eyes and ears glued to the latest news. The eerie calm which had descended over Europe didn’t help, with the spare news time being filled with updates from a tired-eyed Dougal Stevenson and information on what might follow a nuclear attack. Across the nation panic spread uncontrollably as the immediacy of nuclear war became apparent to the formerly insulated population of New Zealand. Highways were packed with cars and calls to the emergency services began to go unanswered as policemen were out on the streets trying to maintain a semblance of order, fire appliances were diverted to prepare for possible firestorms, and ambulance services were held back by local health boards hedging their resources for a predicted run on supplies.
As the hours lengthened and the warm, still night gave way to a golden dawn, things only got worse.

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​

“And as I sailed away, with a longing to stay…”

250 kilometres NNE of Port Vila, Vanuatu
South Pacific Ocean
1748 GMT

K-431 had been tailing a convoy sailing for Japan when the order from Cam Ranh Bay came in. Having narrowly escaped that port and the massive bombing raid by dint of sailing out two days before the declaration of war, the skipper was pleasantly surprised to have confirmation that someone was alive there. Hot on the heels of this thought came a far darker realisation: radio silence had finally been broken, so clearly something had gone very wrong.
Indeed, at that moment on the other side of the world, Soviet missiles were launching, casting fiery streaks across the skies of Siberia and the western USSR as sirens blared across deserted towns and cities, their populations huddling in communal shelters as Party bosses fled to redoubts and hardened command posts.
Reading the order the captain’s deepest fears were confirmed: the order to launch had been given. He relayed the order to the crew to prepare missiles and announced a course change, turning away from the flotilla to find somewhere to safely ascend to launch.

K-431 was sailing towards Armageddon.

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***

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​

Underneath Parliament Buildings
Wellington, New Zealand
7:15 am

The funny thing was, nobody was tired. Muldoon barrelled on with the same pigheaded determination which, for better or worse, had been his defining feature these past nine years. MacIntyre sat nearby, communicating the Prime Minister’s directives to the military as planes, trains, and ships were hurriedly prepared for takeoff, departure, or embarkation, co-ordinating transport efforts with George Gair, delegating military problems to David Thomson, and letting Aussie Malcolm try and juggle the screaming health authorities himself. As Muldoon started to speak on the necessity of getting people to safe transit locations in the country, an exhausted-looking SIS man nearly flung the door off its hinges as he burst in.
“They’ve done it!” he said in a near-shout before professionalism reasserted itself. “We’ve lost all contact with London, and the Aussies are saying they’ve tracked missiles inbound across Southeast Asia.”
Everyone in the cramped room looked expectantly towards Muldoon. Although there had been plenty of rumblings about a coup (MacIntyre had been approached surreptitiously in the hallway by Jim McLay barely – good God, only two days ago now since the proposal), the Prime Minister was still the Prime Minister.
Muldoon’s eyes glazed over and lost their focus for barely two seconds, before his hand gripped the tumbler of whisky (the ice, like many Wellingtonians, having left town hours ago) and he downed the rest of the drink in a definite motion, his eyes focusing almost manically upon the major from upstairs as he spoke, words slowly and carefully enunciated in stark contrast to the slur which had been increasingly affecting him since the news of Kassel’s destruction had come through.
“Anything bound for us?”
“Don’t know, Prime Minister. The Australians believe they’ve detected something over Thailand, but the Americans also mentioned they couldn’t rule out Soviet submarines getting past their SOSUS nets around Guam.”
Another agonising pause as Muldoon nodded and waved off the officer before he reached for the jug of water on the table for the first time in nine hours, filling his glass and saying “George, tell the Railways to open the doors on the commuter trains. Get everyone out of the cities we can.”
“Can we still get them out in time?” asked McLay. “With all due respect – ”
“None of that!” snapped the Prime Minister in a tone which in any other environment might have drawn comparisons to other former corporals. “The fucking Reds are throwing everything they’ve got, and it’s our job to keep as many people out of the pigshit as possible. Call the Railways, George, make it happen.”
Gair (who if he was offended at all by the PM’s lack of composure didn’t show it) stood and nodded briskly, exiting the room. Jim McLay simply sat there trying to sink into the floor, the sole voice of dissent silenced at the eleventh hour. As Muldoon resumed talking and upstairs panicked transmissions from NATO states ceased abruptly to the consternation of SIS listeners, the collective mood was split between trying to come up with a plan before God only knew what happened and contemplating just what it was that would happen.

They would all find out soon enough.

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​

At twenty past seven on the morning of February 22 New Zealanders across the country – from those few still in their homes to watch TVNZ as well as the many who listened to the radio in provincial towns, their cars on the packed highways, and even a few impromptu fallout shelters built since the New Year – all of those listening heard a commotion in Avalon Studios, across the harbour from Wellington City, as Dougal Stevenson was handed a notice printed from a telex machine, and he spoke, voice giving out once or twice for the first time that night as he read the dispatch from Europe via Australia.
“I can now confirm to you…I can confirm that we have received reports of multiple nuclear detonations across Europe and North-” here his voice cracked briefly, and careful listening to surviving tapes reveals his saying holy Jesus, “and North America. We have no knowledge of what targets have been hit, but our sources have no doubt that the Americans and NATO will respond in kind.
“A strategic exchange of both Western and Communist nuclear arsenals has begun.”

***​

At 9:29 am, reports of the first impacts in Australia reached both Cabinet and the now practically deserted newsroom in Lower Hutt, where Stevenson made the statement a bare six minutes after his ABC counterpart across the Tasman.
“It’s been reported that –” here his voice gave out once more, with the veteran newscaster pausing and breathing deeply before going on “–that Alice Springs, Cairns, and Townsville, all those in Australia, have been hit with nuclear weapons. I repeat, Alice Springs, Cairns, and Townsville are reported as hit by nuclear –”
A voice from off-camera interrupted with “Two more! Perth and Fremantle!” Stevenson blinked and covered his microphone as he exchanged a couple of words with a frightened young intern who walked over to hand him another sheet of paper, before he nodded and faced the camera again as the sounds of crying filtered in from behind the scenes.

“Once again, five Australian cities have been hit with nuclear weapons: Cairns, Alice Springs, Townsville, Fremantle, and Perth, with more reports yet to come in.” He paused once more, gathering his thoughts. “I, ah, I don’t know how much longer we can stay on the air here in the studio, as many of our staff and yourselves out there will be seeking shelter. I’d just like to say now that I and a few of my colleagues here will stay on as long as we can to keep you informed, and remind our listeners in Auckland, Wellington, and Christchurch that the commuter train services have been made available for evacuation out of your respective city centres, as per Civil Defence broadcasts made by your regional broadcasters in the last two hours. We, uh…I certainly hope that every one of you is safe now with those you love, and…We’re going to go off the air for a couple of minutes, now, but we’ll be back soon to let you know what’s coming.”

***
​

In an almost farcical scene on Bunny Street, down the road from the train station where hundreds were gathering to take advantage of the trains which were set to leave any second now, a mixed bag of policemen and soldiers were escorting the Prime Minister and the few remaining Cabinet ministers across to the ferry terminal, the nearest available space for an airlift evacuation. As Muldoon was bundled into a waiting Air Force helicopter (alongside MacIntyre, McLay and George Gair) and the engines powered up, he looked out over the city in the blinding morning night. The clouds had dissipated since last night, and an unnatural calm had descended over the windiest city.

Such a nice day, thought Robert as heavy, boozy tears began to well up behind his eyes, the weight which had been in the pit of his stomach for the last few days suddenly becoming unbearable.

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​

South Pacific Ocean
2038 GMT

Moscow was gone. So were London, Paris, Kiev, Leningrad, Vladivostok…
They had to be, otherwise why was the captain right here right now, about to see the firing of the remaining MIRV aboard K-431? (Oh, it would have been four, but certain places took precedence in the ungodly arithmetic of strategic nuclear war – by the same token, to whoever in New Zealand had been spared by that stroke of luck, news of the vaporisation of Truk would be a blessing.)
As the officer next to him made a request for confirmation, he added another small sigh to the massive stockpile of sighs he’d been building up ever more over the last few months as he nodded, saying “Da” in a low tone which felt deafening in the hush which seemed to have fallen.
Two minutes passed with much rush and bustle as the seamen executed the manoeuvres for which they had drilled for years. Afterwards, as the captain made the commands to descend once more to depth in order to evade detection from ships he knew would never come looking, his eyes would have seemed to the careful observer to lose what little light they had held in the half-light of the bridge.

As K-431 dove into the blackness of the ocean, the lightly-loaded R-39 missile reached the outskirts of space, three warheads splitting off before they began their descent towards their programmed target co-ordinates in New Zealand. They would hit within fifteen minutes.

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​

 

[Dan]

Chilling and riveting.

 

[fernerdave]

Great writing! Is that morse or some other code or just decoration? I suppose that New Zealand is one of the few places where urban refugees might have plenty to eat. there being more sheep than people, right?

 

[Bernard Woolley]

A very nice chapter. Quite moving, well done.

 

[Nick P]

Great writing! Is that morse or some other code or just decoration? I suppose that New Zealand is one of the few places where urban refugees might have plenty to eat. there being more sheep than people, right?

Yes, it is Morse Code. But I'm not giving it away, you'll have to find your own Morse Code Translator online!

 

[John Farson]

I concur, the newsroom scenes were particularly poignant.

On another topic, was what the Soviet captain said true, was Cam Ranh Bay heavily bombed by the Americans when WWIII broke out? That would then likely mean that other targets in Vietnam were also bombed, meaning that a state of war existed between the USA and Vietnam as well. If so, I may have to update a bit my "Good Night Vietnam" short story...

 

[Julius Vogel]

Three missiles? Ok

So, looking at K-431, it seems to be an Echo II boat armed with some form of cruise missle, either the P-500 Bazalt (or some variant) or the SS-N-3 Shaddock. From Wikipedia anyway. See below. So that would seem to mean that they are single war heads, as anti ship, not anti city.

Three cruise missiles, three war heads of about 200-350KT. That would seem more than enough to wipe out central Auckland, Wellington or Christchurch, assuming local conditions assist.

That being said, the missile should not have the range to hit NZ, so the author must have intended it to be a different warhead/missile. The cruise missile being a short range beast. Even if it was in range of NZ, it would have to be positioned perfectly to deal with all three of those cities, given Auckland and Christchurch are 7-800 kilometres apart and Wellington is about 400 or more KM from Auckland.

A quick look online suggests that the following are the distances between Nauru and Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch, so adding in several hundred kilometres, would mean that you need a reasonably long range missile, so not the above.

4,100 km
4,600 km
4,800 km

In another thread, people speculated that it might be a Yankee class, which seems to run to either one single megaton war head, or 3 smaller, 200kt warheads. The range being 2400-3000km.

If we assume it is the latter, then that makes more sense. It does however mean that it is likely you are wiping out those cities. I don’t see that New Zealand could survive in anything like its current form with that kind of attack.

Three warheads for Auckland, largely based around the military bases (Devenport, Whenupai and AIA/ADA and main airport would seem to neatly bracket the city. Even if the blast waves do not kill, the radiation/burns from three blasts would seemingly doom the remaining people.

For Wellington, well, one for the centre to hit the capital, somewhere near the parliament. That would wipe out Thorndon, Pipitea and the main dock area, probably the whole CBD. Then one for Wellington airport and Kilbirnie (to get the airport and nearby base). Then the last one I guess would be for Trentham? That would wipe out the army base, Upper Hutt and probably Stokes Valley.

Christchurch, well, Burnham Army base, Christchurch Airport, Wigram and Lyttleton are the likely targets. Given how flat most of Christchurch is that would take out most of the western parts of the city. I guess one could position a warhead between the middle two targets and probably get both well enough.

So, if all three cities are out of commission and there are many tens or hundreds of thousands of walking wounded, that will over-whelm the nearby towns. The infrastructure of the country will also be fatally hit as well. It is hard to know quite how hard one has to push a country before it collapses, but losing those three could do it.

It would leave Dunedin and Hamilton as the remaining big cities, then quite a few smaller cities 30-50k) and many small towns (5-30k).

Here are is the Year Book for 1984, with various population statistics.

http://www3.stats.govt.nz/New_Zealand_Official_Yearbooks/1984/NZOYB_1984.html#idsect2_1_19588

 

[Maeglin]

That being said, the missile should not have the range to hit NZ,

Crackpot conspiracy theory: this isn't the Soviets, this is (1) the Australians having secret nuclear weapons run by secret Russian speakers, and (2) wanting to take out New Zealand, because no-one wanted to leave Robert Muldoon in charge of a post-apocalyptic world.

 

[Julius Vogel]

Crackpot conspiracy theory: this isn't the Soviets, this is (1) the Australians having secret nuclear weapons run by secret Russian speakers, and (2) wanting to take out New Zealand, because no-one wanted to leave Robert Muldoon in charge of a post-apocalyptic world.

That does make sense. Will their perfidy know no bounds?

 

[iainbhx]

There are, of course, decent chances of a miss, a dud or a fizzle. If it's nine warheads, all three is possible.

 

[Julius Vogel]

There are, of course, decent chances of a miss, a dud or a fizzle. If it's nine warheads, all three is possible.

We live in hope

 

[Canadian Dragon]

A 100Kt warhead or larger anywhere near an NZ urban area or even within damage/heat range of a rural town would likely produce enough casualties to swamp the nation's intensive care facilities. Even in a rural area people would be triaged or otherwise not be treated for injuries due to distances involved.

Thanks. That's exactly what I was going to say. I actually left out the word "overwhelmed" inadvertently, because my fingers can be a little fast!

 

[Tsar of New Zealand]

There are, of course, decent chances of a miss, a dud or a fizzle. If it's nine warheads, all three is possible.

Three missiles? Ok

So, looking at K-431, it seems to be an Echo II boat armed with some form of cruise missle, either the P-500 Bazalt (or some variant) or the SS-N-3 Shaddock. From Wikipedia anyway. See below. So that would seem to mean that they are single war heads, as anti ship, not anti city.

That being said, the missile should not have the range to hit NZ, so the author must have intended it to be a different warhead/missile. The cruise missile being a short range beast. Even if it was in range of NZ, it would have to be positioned perfectly to deal with all three of those cities, given Auckland and Christchurch are 7-800 kilometres apart and Wellington is about 400 or more KM from Auckland.

So here's what's happened here: I may have written myself into a corner. For whatever reason i neglected to do my homework surrounding nuclear cruise missiles and, having the facts pointed out through conjectures like those above, realise one of two things is possible here:
1) I edit the update in an attempt to salvage realism.
2) We ignore this in the name of willing suspension of disbelief.


...you know what? 1) it is!

 

[Julius Vogel]

Thanks. That's exactly what I was going to say. I actually left out the word "overwhelmed" inadvertently, because my fingers can be a little fast!

Hehe, I'm sure this happens.

I'm not sure if we will be too fussed on precise plausibility so you could handwave a boat a little closer. You could then reduce missile number downward and do as Iain said, have a failure or miss.

 

[Tsar of New Zealand]

Hehe, I'm sure this happens.

I'm not sure if we will be too fussed on precise plausibility so you could handwave a boat a little closer. You could then reduce missile number downward and do as Iain said, have a failure or miss.

It's alright; my first TL's as good a time as any to receive constructive criticism and a lesson in doing my homework beforehand (it's here that being the type of person to yawn and scroll past the technical stuff in threads like Blunting the Sickle is...somewhat undesirable ). I've settled on changing the K-431's position to somewhere in the South Pacific vaguely north of Vanuatu, and to kep range plausible I've settled on the R-39 Rif, a missile deployed from 1983 onwards so within the bounds of plausibility. Assume here that there are only three functioning warheads on the missile to, ah, reduce the weight and increase range? Up to 10 does not infer 10 must always be used, after all.

On a different note, if the only real complaints are to do with technical details around cruise/ballistic missiles (I'm little better-educated than the people ITTL on that subject; consider it to add a touch of realism to POV segments ), then I'm somewhat encouraged.

 

[iainbhx]

Hehe, I'm sure this happens.

I'm not sure if we will be too fussed on precise plausibility so you could handwave a boat a little closer. You could then reduce missile number downward and do as Iain said, have a failure or miss.

If you are using 80's era RedTeam Cruise, about 50% failure.

As it is, three MIRV warheads means the strike can do Auckland and Wellington, or Wellington and Christchurch. As I understand MIRV it can't do Auckland and Christchurch with that range without a MARV capability. Also, you are probably better off with a Stingray than a Sturgeon, 3 warheads with 200kt warheads and doesn't require a Typhoon to be present.

 

[Canadian Dragon]

If you want to hit NZ with MIRVed SLBM/ICBMs rather than cruise missiles, here's what one might want to keep in mind regarding MIRVs is this little statement from The Lucky Country: Protect & Survive in Australia:

From what I can tell 2 ICBMs with each 6 x 550kt warheads and 2 SLBMs with 3 x 200kt warheads, and these have covered the whole country, is that correct? Because a MIRV missile can only put it's RVs within an elliptical 'footprint' of less than 100 miles wide and a bit more than 200 miles long for an SLBM and a bit bigger (maybe 50%) for an ICBM, along the direction of the trajectory.

In practical terms this means 1 ICBM's 6 warheads could take out Williamtown, Sydney and Wollongong but not Canberra, and another could take out Puckapunyal, Bendigo, Melbourne and Geelong but not the power stations in Gippsland. Similarly one SLBM's 3 warheads could hit Amberley and Brisbane but not much further out, and the same with the other SLBM, perhaps Canberra and Nowra.

To hit more targets you'll need more weapons.

In short, the Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch areas and their adjacent military installations would be just too far apart for one MIRVed missile to strike all at once. You probably may need at least three missiles - one aimed at the Auckland area and the other two for Wellington and Christchurch areas each.

But remember that it was from that same thread that it's mentioned or implied that Christchurch was not hit and that a new federal government for all of NZ was being formed there. But still, Burnham Military Camp could still have been struck - Christchurch is far enough away to escape the thermal effects of even a 1-megaton airburst (though I cast doubt that the Soviets would really throw a warhead that powerful there).

 

[Julius Vogel]

I guess so long as you are clear on the story you want to tell, the missiles will work themselves out.

You could have a neat story with lots of strikes, leaving NZ in an effective early 20th century "nation of provincial towns and cities" mode, with the military and government largely evacuated to nearby regions.

Or keep the big 3 partially intact with one strike a piece and having to deal with the aftermath of devastated but useful cities, sort of like Christchurch post quakes x3.