Re: High Tech/New Tech

[damocles@nostromo.gate.net (Randy Vice)]

On Thu  4-Sep-1997  7:46a, bgarmer@tsc.net wrote:
BG> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
BG> At 12:53 AM 9/4/97 EST, Randy Vice wrote:
>On Wed  3-Sep-1997  2:57p, bgarmer@tsc.net wrote:
BG> <stuff deleted>
>BG> NO!  The point is whether they have the resources and facilities to,
>BG> after
>BG> a very big nuclear bang, to handle the nuclear winter and bounce back as
>BG> a (or the) power.  
>
>THe question is, just how bad will the Nuclear Winter be in the southern
>hemisphere since the majority of the disturbance is in the nothern
BG> hemisphere.
>I realise some of the trade winds in the subtropic will bring it downwards
>past the equator into the southern subtropics, but the question is, how much?
>
>The where will they get the minerals and supplies needed
>BG> to develop a total 20th century economy (factories, mines, etc).  Steel
>BG> production needs iron, coal, etc.  In addition, being allies of the US,
>BG> their biggest cities will probably be targetted also.
>
>I guess it depends on how many free nukes the fUSSR had to "waste" on
>tercerary targets outside US/NATO.  As for iron, Brazil has between 1/4 to
BG> 1/3
> of the world's reserve (Encyclopidia Americana 1970).  Coal, Brazil doesn't
>have that much and it's low grade.  Peru has oil, iron, gold/silver other
>mines.

BG> If you have 10k+ warheads you can drop a few on the friends of your
BG> enemies.  The USSR nuke warplan for the CONUS was to beat it down along
BG> with anyone who could help it so that Europe could be secured.  This
BG> means
BG> that available production facilities in the Western Hemisphere are
BG> targets.

Yet only a small fraction of those were used in TMP.  This is the reason I
don't think fUSSR would have worried all that much with nonpredetermined
ordinance going to S/C America.

>>Remember that Chilie and Argentine both had Ironclad fleets
>>BG> in the last century and were considered major Navy powers.  Did not last
>>BG> long after Europe and the US stopped supporting them.
>>
>>True, yet there are a fair amount of IC fabrication facilities down there
BG> for
>>a high tech support for S/C America.  I would think these key industries
BG> will
>>see massive amount of financial support as the drug trade will be non
>>existant.  Too many customers no longer living or can afford the coke.

BG> But the point still holds - twenty years after the support was withdrawn,
BG> these countries went from having world class fleets to third rate naval
BG> powers.  The same will happen after the bang.

For the fleet issue,I agree.  Nor would they need them IMO for many years down
the pike. Nowif your talking 140+ years, then that is a different story.

<snip>

>I'm not really focusing in on the assembly plants, rather the core
>manufacturing facilities.

BG> My point is that they do not have many and those that they have will be
BG> blasted!

If they were under the limited number of nukes that did fall.

BG> Given the target list from TM1-1 and following your line, then the US
BG> should have re-bounded without help.  After all, there are factories with
BG> tooling and equipment all over the country.  Add in the home based
BG> machine
BG> shops by garage based mechanics, gunsmiths, hell even stained glass
BG> makers
BG> means that the means of production will be available.  In addition, you
BG> don't need the raw resources because you have the processed stuff around.
BG> Car bodies for steel, etc.

If the US wasn't hit as bad as it was, yeah, it would have rebounded without
help.  Yet it was, with bio weapons and we are in a much higher level of
tech/convinence intergrated society then S/C America population.  If a dozen
nukes hitting CONUS, I think we could rebound within 20 or so years. 500+
nukes hitting, forget it. 

Now, IMC, there are portions around CONUS that did revive the tech level and
are pretty close to what the PCs left in the Old World.

BG> In SA, right now, you have people stealing cargo containers for housing.
BG> Living in simple huts.  Look over the border at El Paseo or San Diego
BG> were
BG> the people are relatively well off.  And then ask people who have visited
BG> the rural parts of SA countries.  I have friends who were a husband-wife
BG> freelance new teams for CNN and the stories they tell are amazing.  They
BG> saw Americans in rural areas attacked for looking at children because the
BG> natives believe that American took their children for organ transplants
BG> (actually I did not believe that one until I found the same story on the
BG> net).

Life is pretty cheap down there and not all US citizens are loved.  Then
again, I'm sure we could find the same as your above example in the fIron
Curtain.


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