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Nuclear apocalypse

I don't know how many of you have seen films like "the postman" depicting life after nuclear war e.t.c.
But does it strike you as unlikely that there would be NO form of government left? When I watched that film I have expected old Kevin to stumble across a whole state that had been left untouched and for him to return with a few units of national guard or something.

Why is it that civilisation would collapse, surely even in a place like England life would still go on, electricity would keep coming and police/soldiers would keep the peace?
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Comments

  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Well I think it depends on just how bad the event is. Apocalypse sounds pretty final <IMG alt="image" SRC="http://www.thesite.org/ubb/smile.gif"&gt; If it were just a few strikes on major UK cities then im sure life would go on with a couple of differences. There would be a lot of lawlessness at first but I think it would be sorted out eventually. The local councils and low level government would run things.

    BUT...The more worrying thing is the total collapse of the economy. When people cant buy food things start going to hell. Notice that our farming industry is decimated..I doubt that we could even feed a county, let alone the whole country.

    Once money is worthless and all financial records are lost then people will soon turn to crime, looting and murder. Groups of bandits roaming the countryside etc.

    Ever read a book called 'The Stand'? Its a story about a disease getting loose in the states and wiping out huge numbers of people...Quite a scary book.

    A large scale nuclear or biological attack on the UK would almost certainly destroy all govt and turn the country into a battlezone.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Originally posted by Balddog:


    A large scale nuclear or biological attack on the UK would almost certainly destroy all govt and turn the country into a battlezone.


    I dont think so. The police and armed forces (especially) are trained to act independantly of government in an emergency. There would be lawlessness in a few places that are not near a military held area, but if you think about it each city can run independantly of another. If London was hit then local govts would have to take action. Maybe the economy would collapse, but food would still get from place to place, especially as most of our commerce is by road and not rail.
    However if large numbers of cities fell then maybe we would have a much bigger problem.

    As long as the military and police could remain in control, possibly by declaring Marshall law then it wouldn't be so bad. In a biological attack the only people left would be military and government personnel, they are the only ones with the equipment and training.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    You reckon the police and army would stay at their posts when they arent getting paid and their family maybe dying somewhere?

    Bear in mind that most of our army is elsewhere in the world on UN police operations..

    You say cities can run themselves but how do they do that? How do they get food? How do they run the sanitation? How do they control disease? Treat casualties? Keep the peace etc.

    How long would it be before the criminals started causing trouble and some madman set himself as some kind of dictator..a la Postman.

  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Errrr NO! if you were near the blast you'd be blind, dying or dead.

    There'd be no supermarkets shops etc to rely on. there's be no clean drinking water, no fresh food. The fall out would kill you if the blast didn't.

    As Bob Dylan said about nuclear war ...'I've been having the same old dream, except mine's differen't you see... I dreamed after a Nuclear war the only person left was me'
    You see .. we all like to think we'd be a survivor, but most of us would be dead!!
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Would you really want to still be alive?

    All evil needs to thrive is for good men to sit back and do nothing
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Er byny, I think we took it as granted that you situation was that you had survived the nuclear attack. Otherwise this is a bit of a pointless thread seeing as we are all dead.

    Even if nuclear bombs fell on every city in the UK , not everyone would die. If they just landed on the major cities then most people would survive. You would be fine over there in Wales as long as you aint in Cardiff. The prevailing winds take all fallout across the channel into France and the Netherlands.

    The fallout would be down to livable conditions within around 2 weeks. Nuclear war is more survivable than people think.

    Hell yes id want to still be alive...Thats a bit defeatist there Marmite..Bugger dying its crap.

  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Originally posted by Balddog:


    Even if nuclear bombs fell on every city in the UK , not everyone would die. If they just landed on the major cities then most people would survive. You would be fine over there in Wales as long as you aint in Cardiff. The prevailing winds take all fallout across the channel into France and the Netherlands.


    When over 80% of the British population live in a city, I think a LOT of people would die.
    I think you should give the police and armed forces more credit, they have to deal with tough situations all the time. besides, if a policman's family die most likely he would too, as they rarely move to different cities from their home towns.
    As for food e.t.c. commerce wouldn't stop completely, we would still recieve food from abroad by ship anyway, it would just have to goto different locations, and you saw how everyone managed to feed themselves during WW2.

  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    80%???

    Where did you get that number? I find that extremely hard to believe.

    Tough situations..hmm maybe but I think nuclear war is a whole new ball game. Remember that we no longer have any civil defence preparations. They were all canned after the cold war. The govt institutions no longer have any idea what to do in event of nuclear war.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    a-level geography, over 80% of the UK population lives in a city/urban area.

  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Ah urban area is different...Theres a lot less than 80% living in major cities. Just a misunderstanding there.

    Ill try and dig out the list of UK nuclear targets..I saw it a few weeks back and bloody lost it.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    80% IN CITIES ?????? nop, urban areas at a long shot, besides it would be very difficult for anybody to hit every single urban area with nuclear weponary, the governments would be long gone into there bunkers and the means to deliver such an attack aren't available. Even if be some miracle this was pulled off, the countryside folk would with the finances of europe and the west would over time rebuild the country. I doubt very much in the face of such an attack there would be looting and murder either, people just aren't like that, were people looting ny 11/9 ? no, of corse not - and just about all the police etc were occupied there - you gotta remember were british, we'd survive

    drugs may be the road to nowhere, but at least there the scenic route
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    There are 60m people in this country right? What percent of the population are army/police? Anyone know?
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    [T],

    There are around 100,000 in the army
    I dont know about the RAF or Navy but id say 50k in the Navy and maybe 20k in the RAF.

    Police numbers are around 125,000 as of this year. Of course armed police are but a tiny fraction of that number. Armed police are the only ones who could enforce the law under martial law.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    a very small one, but sufficent to maintain a resonable degre of law and order

    drugs may be the road to nowhere, but at least there the scenic route
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Eb,

    Rebuild the country? Its that simple? At least the first years harvests would be destroyed after the nuclear strikes and possibly the next years depending on how much the land is ploughed.

    Expanding the situation a little, a nuclear attack on the scale we are talking would almost certainly be followed up by an invasion force. That puts a whole new slant on things.

    11/9 isnt even on a comparable scale. But yes there were looters. Several people were arrested for stealing the watches/wallets of the dead and several more for looting local shops. Its all documented on news websites.

    I have no doubt we would survive but the country would be crippled totally.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    i refer you all to the entertainment forum, where there is currently a thread on 'Threads' (the film) which sounds vaugely similar to this postman thing. tho i bet that this wasnt as horrific as 'Threads'. evryone on there has said it is the most powerful, strongest and most shocking film they have ever seen. there, there is nothing, no government of any kind, even 13 years after the attack, coz about 50m people have died.

    on the thing about the number of the police/armed forces, you have to remember about the TA, RNR, RAuxAF and RMR. there are also TA units of the SAS and SBS. dont forget the hobby bobbies like Marmite - there must be a few of them knocking around. i just tried to look it up, but their websites are crap - i think the army has about 107,000 troops, the navy much more - something like 300,000 (including Royal Marines) and the RAF will be pretty small - under 100,000 i would have thought.

    Because I want more stars.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Baby,

    Youve also got to factor in the number of troops that are out in the wider world. Id bet that at half of our army and airforce are in foreign countries and more than half the navy.

    Theres no way theres 300,000 in the Navy nor anywhere near 100k in the RAF. Our military is grossly understaffed.

    Threads is a bloody scary film.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Army:175,000
    Navy:120,000
    RAF:115,000

    Approx. That also includes logistics, enginneers and support staff. However ALL armed forces personnel are taught combat training and all are taught how to fire a gun and defend the country if need be.
    Plus you are forgetting the 300,000 souls in the TA, RAF and Naval reserve, as well as recently demobbed personnel who are required to fight in times of crisis because of their training.

    Add onto this the police and special constabulary, roughly 6% of the population are authorised to keep law and order.
    Your also forgetting that the Army do have a wide range of armoured vehicles at their disposal, which as well as keeping the peace would be suffieciently dispersed throughout the cities to maintain an effective defence force.

    Our forces maybe in other countries, but they would hastily be recalled if there ever was an attack on Britain.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Can I ask where you got those numbers? I had a bastard of a time finding the number of active duty soldiers.

    Of course there is the issue that all military bases are on the target sheets. There are 20k police in London alone so that would be quite a loss. Add to that the police numbers in the cities which we are saying will be hit..
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Originally posted by Balddog:
    Eb,

    Rebuild the country? Its that simple? At least the first years harvests would be destroyed after the nuclear strikes and possibly the next years depending on how much the land is ploughed.


    Aid ??????? what the hell has ploughing got to do with rebuilding a country ? they can't get aid into ghan quick enough, we have alot of very powerful rich allies in this world, i doubt very much we'd expected to grow our own wheat in order to survive. Same goes for an invading force, allies would send them packing - now if we manage to fall out with the whole world were fu**ed, but in that scenario i doubt they'd bother rendering the country useless for a number of years by blasting it to pieces. I know you can't just put everything back together in a few years, but i suspect within a year or so temporary parliments, police, hospitals, schools would be set up, telephone lines, electricity and broadcasting systems would be installed. Then after 5 a basic infrastructure of roads and bridges would be constructed, then over the following years the country would be re-populated with immigrants looking for asylum, and all would be financed by america, europe, un, world bank etc........ you would never get england back of course, but a whole new country hopefully based on the england that was. It wouldn't take forever to build the basic shell from which to progress



    drugs may be the road to nowhere, but at least there the scenic route
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Eb,

    The ploughing has to do with fallout levels which was why it was in the same sentance as harvests. IE food availability.

    Sorry but the chances of the UK being the only country destroyed by nuclear weapons is laughable...Theres no valid scenario that could lead to the UK being a target and not our allies.

    I suggest some of you guys read the civil defence documents that were written up in the cold war. Theres a reason people were scared shitless of nuclear war. It wouldnt be just a couple of years of hardship and then all back to normal.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    From www.royal-navy.mod.uk:
    Royal Navy Fact File
    The Royal Navy Fleet consists of:
    129 ships and submarines
    182 aircraft
    A Commando Brigade comprising of 7,000 men and women.
    43,526 uniformed personnel (trained and untrained)
    6,338 civilian personnel working directly for the Royal Navy
    Over 12,000 civilians working for Chief of Fleet Support in the new Defence Logistics Organisation.

    I make that about 50,000 proper troops and about 20,000 civilian support staff.

    From www.raf.mod.uk:
    Totals
    General Duties 4,261
    Ground Branch Officers 6,570
    Airmen Aircrew 1,311
    Ground Trades 41,061
    Grand Total 53,203

    That includes airmen in training. Total ~50,000 again.

    From www.army.mod.uk:
    There are over 40,000 members of the TA, providing one quarter of the total strength of the British Army. There are lots of different units with different commitment and various roles for you to choose.

    Total army 160,000 if my arithmetic serves me correctly.

    Total armed forces ~260,000, using 2.7% of our GDP each year.

    (Edited to add army stats)

    [This message has been edited by Kentish Man (edited 29-11-2001).]
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    if some nutter takes out alot of the west then fair point, were done for - and to be honest i'd like to be right slap bang under the bomb ! but if were talking of a one off attack aimed only at the main cities of this country, then the country wouldn't collapse and decay into wasteland, it would be a nightmare to restore some kind of normality and a hell of a lot of time needed ! lets just hope we don't find out for real

    drugs may be the road to nowhere, but at least there the scenic route
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Originally posted by Balddog:
    Hell yes id want to still be alive...Thats a bit defeatist there Marmite..Bugger dying its crap.

    How do you know? have you tried it!

    All evil needs to thrive is for good men to sit back and do nothing
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Originally posted by Marmite:
    How do you know? have you tried it!


    If it was anything like the films then I hope that I would be in the army. At least they are always the only ones who ever know whats happening and they are the only ones who seem to survive.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    If it happens i hope i'm settled in the police, as an SFO that way i'll be enforcing marshal law. It looks fun in the films! Oh and hopefull boots will be doing a factor 50,000,000 sunblock.

    All evil needs to thrive is for good men to sit back and do nothing
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Originally posted by Marmite:
    If it happens i hope i'm settled in the police, as an SFO that way i'll be enforcing marshal law. It looks fun in the films! Oh and hopefull boots will be doing a factor 50,000,000 sunblock.



    Realistically though, the police and armed forces have the most chance of surviving. They have guns and tanks. Civvies dont
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    I haven't seen a police tank yet, but oneday soon it will be mine.......oh yes!

    All evil needs to thrive is for good men to sit back and do nothing
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Dont think id wanna be a policeman or a soldier after something like this.

    Id rather just bugger off to wales and live in the hills like a hippy or summit.

    Theres another group that has vast amounts of guns and thats criminals. Oh and the million or so target shooters and hunters.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Join the american survivalist movement, cause the apocolypse is coming!

    Now they're strange

    All evil needs to thrive is for good men to sit back and do nothing
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