Complete Absence of Nuclear Weapons in 3rd Succession War-extremely unrealistic?

[Tai Dai Cultist]

You do know that a firestorm wouldn't always form after a nuclear detonation due to various factors (including hilly terrain).

Nagasaki did not suffer from a firestorm.

Nagasaki didn't see a megaton warhead deliver an airburst, either.   Hilly terrain isn't going to do much to mitigate a blast from a mile up.

[JadeHellbringer]

Looks like it's time for a reminder to keep the discussion focused on fictional nuclear warfare.

Knock it off, please.

[Dayton3]

Well given 1,000 years of advancing technology,  they have had compact fusion reactors in the Battletech universe for centuries for crying out loud,  shouldn't they have developed extremely "clean" nuclear warheads by then?     Such as fusion warheads that are triggered by advanced chemical explosives or by laser triggers.

[Tai Dai Cultist]

With regards to nukes in the late SW:

The armies of the Great Houses surely have the technology for over-the-horizon artillery, too.  The reason we never did see rules for it is static trench style warfare isn't the BattleTech milieu.  Of course the important cities of the important planets have incredibly tough static defenses like minefields and artillery- that's the analogue of the castle.  We even see them occasionally discussed.  Especially in the 4th SW NAIS Atlases.

But a game of CBT/Boardgame BattleTech isn't about representing a siege.  The only way you'd do siege warfare in CBT/BattleTech is by doing a game where the scenario is representing a sally, and the outcome of the off-screen siege hinges on that scenario outcome.

Nukes are similar- there's no only little in-universe reason to use them balanced against a lot of reasons to NOT use them... they're just not appropriate for game balance in the kinds of skirmishes CBT/Boardgame BattleTech represents.  It was always a terrible move to name the compliled rulebook "Total Warfare" as that's exactly what warfare in the BTU isn't.   

(the Jihad notwithstanding.  The only possible reason to forgive CGL for the unfortunate name of the rulebook is that the rulebook is perhaps intended to be the Jihad era rulebook, but that's very awkward for the rest of the game.)

[Orin J.]

i think all this talk about how effective nukes would be is missing the meat of the issue- if you nuke something, you can't take control of it, ot recapture it later. by the third SW, there was a lot of technology they simply couldn't replace (until the helm incident, at least) and they reached a point where it was too valuable to risk breaking them, even if it mean you lost them.

even in the modern era there's still plenty of "vacant lot" worlds in most of the successor states, and if you try to take a planet it's generally not simply because it happens to have some nice suburbs to colonize. there's valuable resources, and if you bomb them into dust, you can't get them back no matter what. back during the 3rd SW, those valuable resources were literally irreplaceable. i'd hardly call avoiding a weapon that might render the very reason you would want to hold a world moot a gentleman's agreement when doing so might deny the entire galaxy ever getting certain technology again. nobody wants to be the jerk that destroyed the last working 'mech gyro factory because they didn't want to lose it. or the last cheese ball factory, but i don't think that technology was in danger of being lost.

[glitterboy2098]

since i can't post the full quote here (it is way too long), i'd direct you to the reasoning presented in Robert Heinlein's Starship Troopers Novel
https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/159952-if-we-can-use-an-h-bomb--and-as-you-said-it-s

i think the successor states knew that lesson perfectly well by the 3rd and 4th succession war.. they'd seen what happens when the use of force is unrestricted and uncontrolled, and even without official treaties or agreements had decided to ensure that wars would be fought with the appropriate use of force in the future, with an eye to minimizing collateral damage as much as is possible. they couldn't afford to lose too much more after all. which was probably why the 3rd succession war was so tame over all.. no one wanted to risk escalating it to a world scorcher again. the 4th war was nasty enough, but the mindset of avoiding escalation to a WMD level was probably still there.

[Daryk]

TDC, I think CGL dodged the bullet you mention, as the phrase you're referring to is "Total War", not "Total Warfare".

Dayton3, I was serious when I said "order of magnitude or two"... that makes a difference in even the models you cite.  Natasha has it right about models in general.

[JadedFalcon]

For the Battletech universe physics, the Regulan campaigns in the late Jihad obliterated worlds from the maps. And the Age of War Digest talks about colonized worlds typically not being as robust as Earth itself, with more fragile biomes that won't bounce back as readily. Hence the effects of nuclear winter is especially amplified on terra-formed worlds.

And it was the 80s. The change in warfare fits with one side shaking their fist at the end of a campaign and declaring "next time, Gadget!"  :P

[Mendrugo]

The NAIS Atlas section on the fortress cities of Tikonov notes the existence of “city buster” bombs, but says the Federated Suns wanted to take the infrastructure intact, as much as possible, and so refrained from reducing Tikograd and other strongpoints to glowing craters.

[AJC46]

Well given 1,000 years of advancing technology,  they have had compact fusion reactors in the Battletech universe for centuries for crying out loud,  shouldn't they have developed extremely "clean" nuclear warheads by then?     Such as fusion warheads that are triggered by advanced chemical explosives or by laser triggers.

there would still be the effects of neutron activation which can make normally nonradioactive material radioactive.

one proposal was so called "salted" bombs which had a tamper the best of these proposed salted weapons would have used a cobalt isotope that when neutron activated would have had a half life both short enough to generate "useful" amounts of penetrating radiation like gamma and beta radiation (your skin will stop alpha radiation with very little chance for ill effect unless a bunch of its on you for a significant amount of time  sorta like how long term sun exposure  can increase your skin cancer chance now if a alpha particle emitter gets inside your body that is a different story. ) but long enough that it couldn't be quickly waited out before it decayed to the point the radiation wasn't much worse than normal background were even after 3-5 half life cycles there would still be quite enough to emit a dangerous amount of it still

[Pat Payne]

I think the nail was hit on the head already by Tai Dai on why, at least out of universe, that we don't see more deployment and use of nukes in the BTU -- it just isn't fun. There was an old wargame about a hypothetical NATO-Warsaw Pact war that had succinct rules for the use of nuclear weapons: "Douse your maps in gas and light 'em on fire." 

The fiery nuclear incineration of (INSERT PLANET HERE) and all that comes after isn't usually a fun gaming experience (OK, Twilight 2000 pulled it off, but still...).

In universe? One thing that nobody's mention IIRC is Mutually Assured Destruction. If you have nukes, and your foe has an equal amount, enough to make any strike you might launch still end as a bad day for you, you'd be liable to think twice about pushing the button (which is the going theory why we did not end up ashes sometime between 1949 and 1989). Once the first generations that fought SW1 and SW2 had died off, cooler heads prevailed, realizing that there probably wasn't a lot to keep a determined, single-minded attacker from sending a Zerg Swarm of dropships with nukes to Luthien or New Avalon or wherever if a nuke strike had been launched. And it would only take one in the vicinity of the capital to wreck that Successor Lord's day.   

[Kidd]

@TDC - It's also called Total Warfare because it united Mech, vehicle, ASF and infantry rulesets in a single coherent whole. Totalled up the previous disparate rules, if you will. And I do find it fitting as the fictional backdrop at the time was indeed the Jihad era, and that is exactly what is depicted on the front cover.

I think wars are fought for much the same reasons as individual motivations, and the most basic of all is existence. It would normally take an existential crisis for a State to deploy WMDs, and in Battletech a couple dozen worlds chipped off here and there out of a 500-system interstellar empire don't count as reasons to "go nucular". That's just resources, and a little loss of pride.

The Jihad on the other hand truly did seem existential from the start - the Blakists began by attempting decapitation strikes on the capitals, and damn well nearly succeeded. That's not something that would go down well with scions of centuries-old interstellar dynasties.

one proposal was so called "salted" bombs which had a tamper the best of these proposed salted weapons would have used a cobalt isotope

They feature in the Jihad, used by both WOB and the Regulans... anybody else?

[Tai Dai Cultist]

@TDC - It's also called Total Warfare because it united Mech, vehicle, ASF and infantry rulesets in a single coherent whole. Totalled up the previous disparate rules, if you will. And I do find it fitting as the fictional backdrop at the time was indeed the Jihad era, and that is exactly what is depicted on the front cover.

You're not wrong.  And I absolutely got why they went with the name.. it's just giving the wrong kinds of impressions about what BattleTech is outside the Jihad era.  IMO.  Really getting into a tangent now on this I suppose.  But honestly a much better name was "Rules of Warfare".  I get that they can't or didn't want to re-use that specific name, nor the bleedingly vanilla name "Compendium".  It's just Total Warfare as a name is not at all "BattleTechy" for non-Jihad (and non Early SW) play.  Again IMO.   A name that fit better with an idea of futuristic neo-chivalric knights in giant robots duking it out in ritualized combat would have been much better, and I daresay even have helped convey a sense of the game (mostly) being about a setting where Nukes don't play a meaningful role.

[Dayton3]

Something that hasn't been mentioned but is probably worth noting:

When the Battletech Universe begins where we first start it in "real time" its around 3025.

It has occurred to me that in the 3025 time frame aside from Maximillian Liao,   none of the other main Inner Sphere Leaders,   Janos Marik,  Katrina Steiner,  Takashi Kurita, and Hanse Davion had what could really be called a "mass murdering homicidal mindset".    And neither did any of the second generation of leaders (probably Katherine Steiner-Davion was closest) or arguably even the third generation (and by the time the third generation came around, even the Liao's (Sun Tzu) was beginning to become reasonable.

So at least among the Inner Sphere leaders,   we had about three consecutive generations when Battletech coincided with our real time in which no one hardly in leadership positions were really interested in large scale genocidal scale military action.

[Baldur Mekorig]

IIRC, there are mention of use of "salted" nueclear weapons. Thats a big no no. I imagine that the memory of that weapons use will contain the homicidal urges of the inner spehere commanders.

[Drewbacca]

This is pretty much it. How many worlds were lost in the first two wars?

Once the cost of going nuclear is known no one in thier right mind would do it. Hmmm... that sounds familiar...

You might be surprised.  A huge part of the 3rd SW  setting is that you're absolutely willing to withdraw from a world and let the enemy have it if you so much as look like you might take serious casualties in a stand up fight.  Maneuver is more important than the actual fighting.  And control of a world was seen primarily on the 4th dimension:  you now control the planet, but only until I come back and re-take it.

And even when it comes to getting your butt whooped in actual fighting you just wave the white flag and congratulate the enemy on a well fought battle and discuss ransom terms to cede the world and discuss the price of being allowed to withdraw offworld.  What we now call Hegira was a thing in the Inner Sphere long before the Clans ever invaded.  Now if the enemy gets all unreasonable about the ransom of letting you withdraw, YEAH then you have nothing to lose and you go down to the gritty, dirty end, potentially to the extreme of lobbing nukes if you got 'em.  That's WHY if you're on the winning side you don't get unreasonable with your ransom terms and allow the defeated to withdraw ;)

[Korzon77]

The main reason?  Nobody likes to play a game where the only units that matter are those fast hovers zipping around spam nuking everything. Btech is not OGRE where the main units can tank multiple mininukes.

[Decoy]

*looks over at the Hadur*

Well, maybe the Mongols....but that's a bit beyond the 3rd Succession War.

[Mendrugo]

The main reason?  Nobody likes to play a game where the only units that matter are those fast hovers zipping around spam nuking everything. Btech is not OGRE where the main units can tank multiple mininukes.

The BattleTech space combat system (do we still call it AeroTech?), on the other hand, has fighters carrying Alamos and units like the Leviathan, capable of soaking up multiple mininuke strikes.

[Korzon77]

This is pretty much it. How many worlds were lost in the first two wars?

Once the cost of going nuclear is known no one in thier right mind would do it. Hmmm... that sounds familiar...

And it didn't achieve victory.  Had any power been able to point out to "our using nukes won the war" then they would probably be more popular, but they did little to prevent the eventual stalemate--and a lot to make that stalemate as costly as it was.

[Mendrugo]

Honestly, had the Combine used more nukes, they would probably have ended the 1st Succession War in a better place.  They glassed Helm and nobody said "boo."  It was the personal-level brutality of the Kentares Massacre that made it stand out, crippling DCMS morale while fueling the AFFS with a passion for revenge, and thereby turning the tide.  If the Combine had Ghost Protocoled Kentares, they'd have been able to fully consolidate the Draconis March, if not more.

[Dayton3]

Honestly, had the Combine used more nukes, they would probably have ended the 1st Succession War in a better place.  They glassed Helm and nobody said "boo."  It was the personal-level brutality of the Kentares Massacre that made it stand out, crippling DCMS morale while fueling the AFFS with a passion for revenge, and thereby turning the tide.  If the Combine had Ghost Protocoled Kentares, they'd have been able to fully consolidate the Draconis March, if not more.

IIRC,  the Combine concentration on Kentares also drained lots of resources they were massing for the coming move on New Avalon (which ultimately never happened).     Not to mention the staggering blow to the morale of the DCMS for their part in carrying out the atrocity.

Not to mention the Eridani Light Horse leaving the Combine (bloodily after the Combine tried to make them stay) because of the Kentares massacre,   Comstar's apparently hostile reaction to the massacre and the other successor states reactions besides the Federated Suns.

[epic]

Hmmm... actually, I swear there was a mention in one of the early novels where there was talk about DCMS (3025) doctrine including firing tac nukes as EMP airbursts before landing, to disrupt enemy communications.

Looking for citation now...

[Nastyogre]

Seems realistic to me. First, look how often nukes have been used IRL, despite how 'effective' they are.

Second, the first two succession wars resulted in the destruction of multiple worlds and factories. With fewer factories and resources, the goal became raiding supplies from those few remaining complexes to continue the fight.

Third, I imagine most of the Houses stockpiles had been depleted. Nukes became rare and valuable as well, and would not be committed to field commanders on raids. They'd be saved for the final push against the enemy, a final push that never materialized.

THe big problem with nukes is that they end up being used on the stuff you want. The people, production and facilities. Sure you could use smaller ones on formations but your formations get hit with them right back and then military units seek shelter near the stuff you want. Then its nuke 'em and you get the planet, but not the factories and the people (which are the two things you want)

Nuclear winter may or may not be a complete myth. The large amount of radioactive fallout will kill or contaminate a much bigger swathe than the blasts of course. That also doesn't make up for the mass famines as power and transportation networks are destroyed. The nukes don't kill off everybody or even most of everybody. They do wreck society and THAT does kill most people.

[Charistoph]

THe big problem with nukes is that they end up being used on the stuff you want. The people, production and facilities. Sure you could use smaller ones on formations but your formations get hit with them right back and then military units seek shelter near the stuff you want. Then its nuke 'em and you get the planet, but not the factories and the people (which are the two things you want)

Well, nukes are extermination and punishment weapons.  They can be used if you can catch an offensive target away from an objective.  That's only likely if you caught them out in the field on maneuvers or transitioning between locations.  There is little difference in using a nuke or orbital bombardment at that point, though. 

Much like the Romans on Carthage, dirty nukes are only useful if you're not going to keep it and just want to leave nothing useful for your enemy behind.

Nuclear winter may or may not be a complete myth. The large amount of radioactive fallout will kill or contaminate a much bigger swathe than the blasts of course. That also doesn't make up for the mass famines as power and transportation networks are destroyed. The nukes don't kill off everybody or even most of everybody. They do wreck society and THAT does kill most people.

A lot depends on the scale of the nuke.  City-busters like what was used on Hiroshima, sure.  "Tactical" nukes like the Davy Crockett don't wreck society in themselves, but only by wide-spread use.  But the same could be said if indiscriminate use of mustard gas, too.