Not to mention not all nukes the RAF had were "harmless" nukes. Several of those were laced with cobatd which means unlike the "clean" nukes their fallout would salt Terra for a long time. The WoB actually salted parts of the US (the Dallas regin) with cobalt laced nukes. Though considering how the Clans have this distinct advantage what else is left? The tried and true "fighter to the bridge" kamikaze? Or the Robert Davion burial meaning crashing assault Dropships into Warships? This really feels like James McKenna's attempt of bringing back all planets into the fold of the Hegemony: the only power with Warships but the scope is way too big. The new Star League doesn't have the manpower to defeat everyone
If used on the ground? yes. If used at the jump points, or during the burn toward terra? not so much. But again, the problem here, is that while everyone has Nukes, everyone holds on to them to use them on the ground, even when they know they're the best equalizer in space...because everyone with strategic control, is a ground forces officer and...well...they can't really
grasp a Naval defense strategy. (Hence, using fixed installations at jump points as if they were narrow inlets, when that's never worked, and is always tried.)
Stone? was a ground forces guy, he thinks like a ground forces guy, (well, badly like a ground forces guy it turns out, but still...) He therefore worried about radioactive fallout that would NOT be anywhere near the planet, because like everyone ELSE in his inner circle, he thinks 'ground warfare'.
Hence the
entire defense "Plan" for Sol being a crude copy of what he ran into during SCOUR, which in turn, was a crude copy of what failed for Amaris during Liberation.
The grasp just wasn't, and isn't, there to understand concepts needed for a functional naval defense-nobody's done it since the Taurians did at Malagrotta, and while it worked there, the Hegemony and their allies used raw numbers of larger ships to batter their way through during teh Reunification War, then everyone developed a phobia about Nukes thanks to the succession wars, where ground generals nuked the hell out of cities on planetary surfaces.
The basic concepts he'd have needed to execute a defense like that, just aren't understood or practiced in the world of the 32nd century, and haven't been for probably five centuries or more.
The tragedy here, is that if he hadn't dismissed it, and the strategy had been executed competently, he'd have broken TWO Clans in quick succession with the forces listed in the sourcebook.
But that, in turn, requires competent execution-which I doubt the RAF could've pulled off, given they are not, and have never been, space-naval primaries-their navy is built on the same thinking eveyrone else uses, so minus getting the Belters to work it out and practice it over the last ten years or so? He likely couldn't have executed that strategy
anyway, gear or not.
Nuclear warheads aren't what's missing here, it's doctrine and lateral thinking that's in short supply.
The problem here, is that while we've got analogues for Napoleon, Ceasar, Lee and Grant, what we don't have in the setting, is a Yi or Nelson figure...and we likely can't or it would be setting-breaking.
