AHC/WI: most devastating nuclear war possible

[Otto Kretschmer]

Make a nuclear war as deadly and devastating as possible.

How much of humanity could reasonably die?

[redrobin65]

A few ideas:

Combine the most weapons with the least evacuation. Countries have their missiles, subs and bombers ready and local authorities aren't evacuating (somewhat ASB but we'll roll with it)

More countries successfully go through and complete their nuclear programs. Sweden, Italy, Egypt, Iran, Taiwan, many more.

Accuracy and reliability: Failure rates for guidance systems are low, detonations occur in the right places, etc.

If all of these can be done, nuclear war would probably be even worse.

[Otto Kretschmer]

How much time until humanity returns to pre war tech level? Regress to pre industrial levels is more or less inevitable.

[gillan1220]

1983: Doomsday has a nuclear war between the U.S., NATO, and China vs the USSR due to the false alarm being taken more seriously.

[stevep]

   Have several countries use more Cobalt or other cladding to drastically increase the duration of fall-out.  Coupled with the major powers not downgrading the size of their warheads as accuracies improved in the 1960's and 1970's.  No SALT agreements so by say ~1985 there are a lot more missiles and warheads, which are larger and more lethal.  Add in a few more nuclear powers, say India builds up a force after its test in 1975 I think it was and Pakistan responds, plus races elsewhere.

  In that case it would probably be centuries at least before humanity starts to recover anything like modern civilisation.  Not to mention the possibility of extreme religious cults say opposing the evil of technology, diseases possibly running rampant in a rump population weakened by hunger and radiation.