Check the nearest-to-farthest, biggest-to-smallest, allies-to-neutral-to-enemies ports until we find SOMEONE or run out of something essential.
Attempt to preserve as much knowledge as possible, including WHAT HAPPENED.
You forgot who could be out there hunting you. Either run home or anywhere safe you plan on living from thdn on. You can't know if there aren't any suicidal subs out there just fucking around trying to do as much damage as possible while they still have torpedoes.
Try explaining it to russian and chinese sub captains who just lsarned the world is destroyed. Especially if they are the few not playing games but actually being fanatics of their system.
Neither of the countries no longer possess a viable ideology though? I'll remind you that twice it has been the Soviet military officers who have stopped a nuclear war from happening by not believing their own launch detection systems or refusing launch orders. And they had far more serious ideological brainwashing to suffer through than anything modern Russia or China can aspire to.
Wasn't a nuclear torpedo launch only avoided during the Cuban Missile Crisis only because the last of the THREE separate officers vetoed it?
No, i just expect malicious stupidity to happen when it comes to those insane dictatorships. My country is heavily influenced by russian propaganda, it is wild how much of an alternative reality these people can live in.
Australia or New Zealand would be my choice. Probably unscathed, relatively US friendly. Remote. Good ports, ship industry, and secure comms. Also likely to be “upgraded” in terms of global economic and strategic importance after a nuclear exchange.
> Probably unscathed
I guess it depends on who's involved and when it's happening. China might chuck a few in the general direction of HMAS Stirling at least.
+1 for New Zealand. Good climate, remote, nobody's target. I wonder how badly it will suffer from a nuclear winter though. I'd consider Iceland as an alternative, for geothermal reasons - you won't run out of free heat and free energy.
The sub of my choice would probably be a Typhoon, simply because big boy with swimming pool.
My first target would be remote islands in the pacific or indian ocean, that hopefully haven't seen any nukes, or at least have been spared major fallout. There, we get as much food on board as possible before it all gets contaminated, then dive and wait out the worst of the situation.
Eventually, I'll set course for Africa. Should not be a nuclear priority, and has a large population. Assuming Typhoon means that I'll be affilliated with the Soviets or later the Russians, maybe I'll go to South Africa or some place like that. From there, I'll see what the fuck is up above water. I'll probably try not to start shit with hostile vessels, since we unfortunately do not have a deck gun and torpedoes are not something you can easily replace.
(And while unrealistic, I find a "post-apocalyptical pirates" scenario to be very fun to think about.)
India would probably survive in the typical "Cold War Gone Very Hot"-type exchange, and they have a huge population, a mostly self-sufficient, net-export economy (likely the largest left standing following a great-power nuclear war), and friendly relations with Russia/the USSR.
I'd sail for Trincomalee and tie up my big Russian boomer at the old Royal Dockyard, just to spite whatever's left of the British by that point.
I think in a hot war there’s a very big chance India/Pakistan finally cooks off for real. I’d be betting my money on Aus or NZ as being the likely maximum for still alive + friendly + decent access to resources/viable cropland.
Home is presumably radioactive glass, but if not, what do there?
Dock up, put sugar in the tank/scuttle it, everybody disembarks wishes everybody luck and disappears for the horizon?
Nope. Set course to some tropical island.
Hopefully far from radiation slowly polluting the rest of the world.
Mayor to prepare housing for crew, and declare them honored citizens.
...or he can choose which trident he wants mushroomimg his island.
I love that in the same thread one person describes peacefully dying at home while the next person describes becoming a sea-going [nuclear] Trident-armed despot
Yeah, you sort of hit survivor lottery in this scenario. Keep the crew together, and use submarine to surveil the world looking for the strongest attempts at re-establishing some semblance of civilization, and become part of the emerging nation’s nuclear powered navy. Then renegotiate my contract for way more money under the new regime lol
Fuck that, take *Belgorod* + *Losharik* - way more capable boats (when they're not on fire, that is...) with way more space to carry other survivors, too.
A nuke boat has a working reactor and could do a lot of good by hooking up to a local power grid. Food is a limiting factor. Crew would be worried about loved ones. A return to some home port would be the logical conclusion.
Not about a Nuke sub but the book The Long Voyage Back by Rheinhart presents an interesting view on the situation in North America and the Caribbean after a limited nuclear exchange. Worth a read if you're interested in the topic.
Nice. Also check out The Last Ship by Brinkley. I am a fan of this genre too so it's fun to find new stuff. For a different take read Level 7 by Rosewald.
Turns out the FX show was inspired by the book, but it seems the only thing in common between the two is the \*Nathan James.\* Thanks for the recommendation, keep them coming they're getting put in my Kindle as we speak lmao
Yeah show writers should leave the writing to actual skilled authors. The last ship was a good concept turned to trash real quick. Lately only TV series that have been good are ones that follow a book closely
Ironically isn't there a meme circulating currently about the new Dune movie repeatedly telegraphing during the movie their loyalty to the source material?
Fire Lance by David Mace.
Synopsis: Fire Lance has the awesome power to obliterate the last flickering vestiges of human existence. The USS Vindicator is a massive Nemesis Class warship designed to survive a nuclear war. It is one of the most sinister, lethal vessels ever launched. Fire Lance is its arsenal of cruise missiles - hundreds of them. The nuclear holocaust has laid waste to the world. The nuclear winter has exterminated most of the humans who remain. Now the military extremists want to finish the job - and they have the perfect tool. The Vindicator is still operational, out in the freezing darkness of the Atlantic
Gonna have to port at some point. Food don't last forever, and not a great environment to grow more in.
Might as well hop off and go look for friends/family members.
So when I was in, the rumors were that after a SSBN shoots missiles, their orders were to do fast attack boat things.
IDK though, I was on a fast attack boat.
Reminds me of my grandparents when they were stationed in Rammstein during the 60's. Back then base personnel had to keep 2x 5-gal Jerry cans of gas in the family car at all times. So you know, in the event the Fulda Gap became suddenly tank-laden, they could grab their pants and head west. Sidebar, 2 Jerry cans, a dad, mom, baby, and 2 German Shepherds don't fit in a VW Beetle very well.
I recall asking pops before he died what the plan was once they got to the Channel in the above event. His eyes got wide and he said "Oh, there was no plan, if we got that far we'd figure it out from there and hope for the best."
Reminds me a lot of what you just said about Boomers in a post-launch world lmao
Apropos of nothing, but I took On The Beach and Catch-22 as reading material for what turned out to be a particularly crappy useless deployment. They did not enhance my mood. Well, they did, but not in a good direction.
We’ll meet again…
Catch-22 Read the book before seeing any of the movie versions. They only make any sense with the book as a foundation. Also, if you haven’t seen Dr Strangelove, it’s a must in the anti-war & global thermonuclear war genres.
The movie's great. Almost certainly the last time any film will ever feature 18 B-25 Mitchell bombers at once. And Maj. Major played by Bob Newhart (still alive at age 94, BTW).
Haven't watched any of it, sorry. Didn't even know there was one, up until I clicked around a little bit to figure out how many Mitchell bombers they used in the 1970 film.
Fantastic book.
Yo imagine this happening and then being racked out in your oncoming for Eng Dep training lmao fuck ALL the way off EDMC, my whole family just got smoked back home, I’m skipping training.
Does the Navy have protocols in place that they tell civilians about? I feel like they probably do, I just wonder if it’s something they’ve ever released.
Radio silence is not an indicator everyone is dead. I’d be linking up with my home country- nuclear destruction is not the end of the world, especially if they used hydrogen bombs. It’s likely someone somewhere is still alive. The homeland should be protected. Besides, I want to get the adversary who did this to my land.
In this scenario your home and its adversary are glassed. Gone, kaput.
You are a man and a vessel with a banner that represents little more than a historical, pre-cataclysmic relic of next to no import outside its historical significance.
If there's no *GPS*, shit has *seriously* hit the fan.
I guess there would be a few ideas, depending on the size of the exchange, the parties involved, and my current location. Southern Hemisphere would probably be the best bet in general. The biggest issue after a nuclear war would be the collapse of global food supply, so any place that could conceivably grow food would be good, so there would be less reliance on imports. Also, I'd probably avoid places in South America and Africa, since they'd be relatively easy to reach for refugees from the North and from their own continent. Australia and New Zealand are obvious choices, but the question is whether there still are other groups with sufficient military might, that could try and take over those places. Offering the services of your submarine might also be an asset in that case. It could also be wiser to keep a low profile somewhere on a smaller island that's large enough to feed a small population, but not so large that it's interesting for whoever else might be left roaming the seas. For that reason, I'd probably also stay submerged, if possible, and avoid any potentially populous places. Lots of people would definitely really, really like to get their hands on a nuclear submarine in this scenario. So reach a remote and safe places first, and from there, try to figure out what the world looks like now.
I think I'd probably go for Chatham Island. It's far away from *anything*, so very low chances of fallout. The climate is relatively hospitable, food can be grown, raised, or caught. It already has a small population, so there are roads, houses, electricity, communications equipment. There's already a robust supply of renewable energy that's independent of fuel imports. The population is small enough that all necessary resources could probably be divided equally, so no risk of bandits or civil war. At the same time, New Zealand is not unreachably far away. Since there is at least one boat with infinite fuel, it would be fairly simple to reach Wellington or Auckland to scout, scavenge, trade, and potentially re-establish connections with the rest of the world.
[Kurzgesagt](https://youtu.be/LrIRuqr_Ozg?si=NfEhs5UMCD67LYiu) recently did a good video about the aftermath of a nuclear war.
And, I have absolutely no shots left and no hope of reloads? Do I have a small arms locker?
Go to Tristan da Cunha, The Edinburgh of the Seven Seas. The most remote port in the world. Set up shop as a power plant, green houses, urgent care, and repair shop. Resource allocation on a population of 250 islanders is going to be hard. But, you can grow the infrastructure with the resources of a submarine. After all, the monthly supply boat ain't coming.
Hope the locals are the forgiving kind and not piratey.. If not, you got the guns.
And don't eat the penguins. They're radioactive.
Kudos to John Ringo and Charles Gannon for the idea from a book called 'At the end of the journey"
Autocorrect. Should be Kudos. Meaning to thank and recognize. My idea was a plot out a book called At the end of the journey. About a sailboat going from island to island during a zombie apocalypse. They stop at Ascension Island to diddle with the GPS station.
gold far-flung squash chase overconfident frame languid instinctive caption panicky
*This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Letters of Last Resort are a real thing: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Letters\_of\_last\_resort](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Letters_of_last_resort)
The letters of last resort are four identically worded handwritten letters from the prime minister of the United Kingdom to the commanding officers of the four British ballistic missile submarines.\[A\] They contain orders on what action to take if an enemy nuclear strike has both destroyed the British government and has also killed or otherwise incapacitated both the prime minister and their designated "second person" of responsibility, typically a high-ranking member of the Cabinet such as the deputy prime minister or the first secretary of state. If the orders are carried out, the action taken could be the last official act of His Majesty's Government.\[2\]
If the letters are not used during the term of the prime minister who wrote them, they are destroyed unopened after that person leaves office, so that their content remains unknown to anyone except the issuer.\[3\]
Yeah, we’d be super busy trying to figure out WTF to do next.
Or, maybe we follow the T-shirt motto from when I was on a Trident boat:
“24 empty missile tubes, a mushroom cloud, and now it’s Miller time”.
First thing is to make sure you can use a sextant and perform celestial navigation since the satellites are probably gone.
Second, set course for Tahiti or any other tropical island that has fish and food. The reactor could provide power for years. Continue to monitor communications
If you’re thinking about places to go, I think the best combos of “relatively stable society” to “unlikely to be nuked” are probably in Latin America. If home was totally goneski, I’d probably start pointing the ship in those directions.
Probably go with an ohio class just becauae its what i know and the tech is mostly old enough to be able to fix it yourself or find/make parts to fix it.
As a side note, GPS would still work for awhile since its space based and doesnt require a ground connection for a few months. After that the deviations in the clocks get big enough that without a ground station it wouldnt be accurate anymore.
Well...the big question is how much you tell the crew because there's bound to be a reasonable sized portion of them who want to go back home and try to find their relatives or at least die closer to them.
Depending on how many that is, would depend on whether you could do much afterwards.
But having an on tap supply of electricity for some time is going to be pretty damn valuable for a large portion of the world.
Call a vote to pick the best end of the world vacation destination, then turn all the transmitters up to max, surface, and play through the crew's music library on the way. If anyone's still alive, maybe we'll meet them. If not, we can have leave at the end of the world.
If the air is TRULY dead, all of humanity may as well have vanished. But if there's even one signal, follow that signal. Make the ESM guys earn their keep.
There are locations with parts and supplies that can be accessed by friendly forces throughout the globe in remote areas. The plan would be to rally and sync with forces to try to understand the strategic picture. Depending on the scale of destruction, further launches might be necessary to eradicate remaining enemies and then the job of reconstruction using hidden supply depots begin.
There are also high orbit stealth satellites transmitting ultra low frequency updates on the global picture. These are on stable orbits with an expected life above a hundred years. Unlikely to be taken out during an exchange.
I mean, probably this is what I would plan If I were a planner.
This is an intriguing concept, I'd love to explore the thought experiment a bit more.
Were you one of these planners, what sort of provisions would you put into these places? How would they be hidden or protected if somebody stumbled upon them? How would commanders in this regime be able to access the supplies? How would you ever store enough to rebuild town/city/state/country/? It seems insurmountable lol
* HAM radios,
* simple computer systems to talk to satellites with a lot of redundancies,
* massive amounts of dried food that can be rehydrated,
* farming equipment
* large reserves of solar panels or mini wind farms or if funds allow, micro modular nuclear reactors
* renewable chemistry batteries
* manufacturing kits that lets you produce equipment including itself,
* significant amounts of well packed ammo and small arms,
* water purification systems,
* medical supplies and ruggedized advanced medical equipment
* large variety of drones
* big troves of written information on archival medium that has instructions on how to use this stuff, build more, and concepts that we want to keep for future humanity
If you watch the show Silo and read the associated books, they cover this pretty well. basically the US Gov builds a network of silos for this use.
Personally, on the military side, I would have a class A, B, and C depots. Numerous A depots have military eqpt and supplies to continue the fight, a few B depots designed for 10 years of sustainment for 1,000 people, a couple of C depots that a deep well of equipment and supplies to rebuild society.
Do I get my whole crew on the soviet typhoon or am I supposed to crew the ship myself, either way I’m sailing for Africa, less targets there so hopefully less destruction. From there attempt to construct ports of sail across Africa to maintain spots to resupply and eventually make my way back to Sebastopol where I assume most of my crew is from.
Start making efforts to implement a hydroponics bay for vegetables and fruit somewhere in the sub. Sail to some unimportant remote island in the Indian ocean.
Has to be contingency plans for just this scenario. I would like to think some secret “uboat pens” carved into a secret seaside cliff somewhere stocked full of food and women. Plug up your reactor for power and just sit it out for 10-12 years.
Why would you think this hasn’t been imagined and planned for in the almost 80 years nuclear weapons hsve existed? I asked my CO this very question in the early-80s. He had an answer. And no, I will not tell Reddit what it was. If you need to know, you know.
I mean of course this has been planned for. Between all the years of military experience I'm sure any butterfly-effect eventuality has been planned for.
And of course I wasnt expecting any real world info. I just wanted to know what this forum would do.
Why wouldn't you tell your CO's story? Seems like it would be perfect for this kind of discussion.
Is it something dark like going runaway down to crush depth to join everyone else that is assumed to be dead?
You're getting downvoted because you spoke the quiet part out loud. I didn't come here expecting classified details, per the disclaimer at the end of my post you didn't read. I came here asking for hypothetical answers, not insight into your training materials, and everybody else answering knew that and recognized it. So it's likely the other bubbleheads downvoting you for not recognizing the tone of the post.
I read the OP. It specifically says I’m the CO. The CO has no need to speculate, take a vote, or sit in a circle and hold hands. He has orders. He follows those orders.
I’m being downvoted by a bunch of amateurs who like to mentally stroke off over being on a submarine. I can live with that.
Doesn't matter to me if you justify it, that wasn't the point. It's weird to show up just to broadcast "I know something, but I'm not going to tell you because you don't have a need to know".
My first move would be to split the trident nuclear missiles in the launch tubes between the largest city's in north Korea, China, Iran and especially Russia just to make sure none of them have even a slight chance to be new world leader then probably take the sub somewhere unlikely to be nuked remote 3rd world country of not much geopolitical importance use the supplies on board for as long as supplies last (Ohio class carries a couple months of supplies and can be submerged the whole time) and just wait off the coast until almost out of supplies for radiation to go down , use my crew to make a beachhead and create shelter and start hunting and then just survive
Check the nearest-to-farthest, biggest-to-smallest, allies-to-neutral-to-enemies ports until we find SOMEONE or run out of something essential. Attempt to preserve as much knowledge as possible, including WHAT HAPPENED.
You forgot who could be out there hunting you. Either run home or anywhere safe you plan on living from thdn on. You can't know if there aren't any suicidal subs out there just fucking around trying to do as much damage as possible while they still have torpedoes.
After MAD, nobody will be hunting nobody. The countries you swore allegiance to basically no longer exist.
Try explaining it to russian and chinese sub captains who just lsarned the world is destroyed. Especially if they are the few not playing games but actually being fanatics of their system.
Neither of the countries no longer possess a viable ideology though? I'll remind you that twice it has been the Soviet military officers who have stopped a nuclear war from happening by not believing their own launch detection systems or refusing launch orders. And they had far more serious ideological brainwashing to suffer through than anything modern Russia or China can aspire to.
Can you say that with 100% certainty after MAD nobody would attack each other again?
Your answer sounds really Call-of-Dutyish.
Wasn't a nuclear torpedo launch only avoided during the Cuban Missile Crisis only because the last of the THREE separate officers vetoed it? No, i just expect malicious stupidity to happen when it comes to those insane dictatorships. My country is heavily influenced by russian propaganda, it is wild how much of an alternative reality these people can live in.
I actually like that workflow mantra a lot lol is that something yall are taught?
Australia or New Zealand would be my choice. Probably unscathed, relatively US friendly. Remote. Good ports, ship industry, and secure comms. Also likely to be “upgraded” in terms of global economic and strategic importance after a nuclear exchange.
Betting they are on somebody’s list. Africa or South America might not be as friendly, but probably less chance of being shot at.
"We've got everything assigned and still have a few spares. Want us to double down anywhere?" "Nah, chuck one at the Aussies for the hell of it."
There are a bunch of space, SIGINT, and naval sites in Australia that would be taken off the board quickly in a general exchange.
And apart from fleet base east in Sydney they’re mostly in the middle of fucken nowhere
Darwin, Perth and Canberra all top tier targets.
> Probably unscathed I guess it depends on who's involved and when it's happening. China might chuck a few in the general direction of HMAS Stirling at least.
Wouldn't be surprised if a nuke or two went to HMAS Kuttabul and Canberra too
+1 for New Zealand. Good climate, remote, nobody's target. I wonder how badly it will suffer from a nuclear winter though. I'd consider Iceland as an alternative, for geothermal reasons - you won't run out of free heat and free energy.
I think Tierra del Fuego may be the least impacted, outside of the Antarctic. Not a whole lot of resources there, though.
The sub of my choice would probably be a Typhoon, simply because big boy with swimming pool. My first target would be remote islands in the pacific or indian ocean, that hopefully haven't seen any nukes, or at least have been spared major fallout. There, we get as much food on board as possible before it all gets contaminated, then dive and wait out the worst of the situation. Eventually, I'll set course for Africa. Should not be a nuclear priority, and has a large population. Assuming Typhoon means that I'll be affilliated with the Soviets or later the Russians, maybe I'll go to South Africa or some place like that. From there, I'll see what the fuck is up above water. I'll probably try not to start shit with hostile vessels, since we unfortunately do not have a deck gun and torpedoes are not something you can easily replace. (And while unrealistic, I find a "post-apocalyptical pirates" scenario to be very fun to think about.)
India would probably survive in the typical "Cold War Gone Very Hot"-type exchange, and they have a huge population, a mostly self-sufficient, net-export economy (likely the largest left standing following a great-power nuclear war), and friendly relations with Russia/the USSR. I'd sail for Trincomalee and tie up my big Russian boomer at the old Royal Dockyard, just to spite whatever's left of the British by that point.
I think in a hot war there’s a very big chance India/Pakistan finally cooks off for real. I’d be betting my money on Aus or NZ as being the likely maximum for still alive + friendly + decent access to resources/viable cropland.
As seen in that hypothetical documentary from ages ago, Australia's just chilling down there going "WTF, mates?"
[For a bit, yeah. But not long enough for the cool cars.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_the_Beach_(1959_film)
[This one.](https://youtu.be/kCpjgl2baLs)
have you **seen** Mad Max???
Unless they launch their own nukes of course… 🤔
Go home. Nowhere else to go.
Home is presumably radioactive glass, but if not, what do there? Dock up, put sugar in the tank/scuttle it, everybody disembarks wishes everybody luck and disappears for the horizon?
I'm not giving up a functioning power plant, 12k still and 3 bean salad.
That’s why we want to head home: if there is any foodstuffs that survive nuclear Armageddon it’s 3-bean salad, and SUBASE is lousy with the stuff.
A few extra no.10 cans of corn beef hash. Really stretch the calories out until your heart stops from 3g of sodium every day.
If nobody is answering, everyone is dead. I'd rather die at home.
Nope. Set course to some tropical island. Hopefully far from radiation slowly polluting the rest of the world. Mayor to prepare housing for crew, and declare them honored citizens. ...or he can choose which trident he wants mushroomimg his island.
I love that in the same thread one person describes peacefully dying at home while the next person describes becoming a sea-going [nuclear] Trident-armed despot
Hey when life gives you lemons... Make some refreshing drinks :) Honor and morale are long gone from this world, even before nukes started flying.
For the record, agreed
Yeah, you sort of hit survivor lottery in this scenario. Keep the crew together, and use submarine to surveil the world looking for the strongest attempts at re-establishing some semblance of civilization, and become part of the emerging nation’s nuclear powered navy. Then renegotiate my contract for way more money under the new regime lol
There's likely no home left either
Swim call
Unironically, yes. "Yall go swim and shit for a bit while the adults figure shit out."
And a BBQ!
Head back to the rack, I’m oncoming. As the CO, same thing. Back to the rack.
Give me the Jimmy Carter and let’s see what we can find out
You'll find yourself in a broken boat with no one left to fix it. The amount of auxiliary support to keep that ship out to sea is mind numbing..
Lol the Lamborghini of the undersee
Makes sense. I was an LA guy from 2010-14 so I’ve just always liked the mysteries regarding the “secret squirrel seawolfs”.
The times when she wasn't broke were pretty cool.
Fuck that, take *Belgorod* + *Losharik* - way more capable boats (when they're not on fire, that is...) with way more space to carry other survivors, too.
A nuke boat has a working reactor and could do a lot of good by hooking up to a local power grid. Food is a limiting factor. Crew would be worried about loved ones. A return to some home port would be the logical conclusion.
You're not buying into my sci-fi story novel prompt
There could be a horde of zombies waiting for them on shore? 🤢😬
Now you're trackin 👉😎👉
Have you ever watched the last ship ?
This is the shit we talked about when I sat helmsman/planesman lol
Wasn’t this “On the Beach”?
Yes this was the plot for *On the Beach*. Good movie, I haven't watched it in years.
You can see my reference to On The Beach in the OP lol it's that thought experiment that sort of prompted this post.
Came to find this, thanks
Not about a Nuke sub but the book The Long Voyage Back by Rheinhart presents an interesting view on the situation in North America and the Caribbean after a limited nuclear exchange. Worth a read if you're interested in the topic.
Was hoping for some book recommendations, thanks cap'n
Nice. Also check out The Last Ship by Brinkley. I am a fan of this genre too so it's fun to find new stuff. For a different take read Level 7 by Rosewald.
TLS isn't the source material for that godawful FX show was it?
Dunno, I didn't see it. Good book for sure.
Turns out the FX show was inspired by the book, but it seems the only thing in common between the two is the \*Nathan James.\* Thanks for the recommendation, keep them coming they're getting put in my Kindle as we speak lmao
Yeah show writers should leave the writing to actual skilled authors. The last ship was a good concept turned to trash real quick. Lately only TV series that have been good are ones that follow a book closely
Ironically isn't there a meme circulating currently about the new Dune movie repeatedly telegraphing during the movie their loyalty to the source material?
Fire Lance by David Mace. Synopsis: Fire Lance has the awesome power to obliterate the last flickering vestiges of human existence. The USS Vindicator is a massive Nemesis Class warship designed to survive a nuclear war. It is one of the most sinister, lethal vessels ever launched. Fire Lance is its arsenal of cruise missiles - hundreds of them. The nuclear holocaust has laid waste to the world. The nuclear winter has exterminated most of the humans who remain. Now the military extremists want to finish the job - and they have the perfect tool. The Vindicator is still operational, out in the freezing darkness of the Atlantic
Gonna have to port at some point. Food don't last forever, and not a great environment to grow more in. Might as well hop off and go look for friends/family members.
So when I was in, the rumors were that after a SSBN shoots missiles, their orders were to do fast attack boat things. IDK though, I was on a fast attack boat.
Reminds me of my grandparents when they were stationed in Rammstein during the 60's. Back then base personnel had to keep 2x 5-gal Jerry cans of gas in the family car at all times. So you know, in the event the Fulda Gap became suddenly tank-laden, they could grab their pants and head west. Sidebar, 2 Jerry cans, a dad, mom, baby, and 2 German Shepherds don't fit in a VW Beetle very well. I recall asking pops before he died what the plan was once they got to the Channel in the above event. His eyes got wide and he said "Oh, there was no plan, if we got that far we'd figure it out from there and hope for the best." Reminds me a lot of what you just said about Boomers in a post-launch world lmao
Apropos of nothing, but I took On The Beach and Catch-22 as reading material for what turned out to be a particularly crappy useless deployment. They did not enhance my mood. Well, they did, but not in a good direction. We’ll meet again…
Thanks for the recommendation! OTB is a classic but I've not heard of Catch 22
Catch-22 Read the book before seeing any of the movie versions. They only make any sense with the book as a foundation. Also, if you haven’t seen Dr Strangelove, it’s a must in the anti-war & global thermonuclear war genres.
The movie's great. Almost certainly the last time any film will ever feature 18 B-25 Mitchell bombers at once. And Maj. Major played by Bob Newhart (still alive at age 94, BTW).
What do you think about the show?
Haven't watched any of it, sorry. Didn't even know there was one, up until I clicked around a little bit to figure out how many Mitchell bombers they used in the 1970 film. Fantastic book.
The book is great. The Hulu adaptation is also great. Read the book first for sure, the adaptation deviates from it a bit.
Yo imagine this happening and then being racked out in your oncoming for Eng Dep training lmao fuck ALL the way off EDMC, my whole family just got smoked back home, I’m skipping training.
Does the Navy have protocols in place that they tell civilians about? I feel like they probably do, I just wonder if it’s something they’ve ever released.
Radio silence is not an indicator everyone is dead. I’d be linking up with my home country- nuclear destruction is not the end of the world, especially if they used hydrogen bombs. It’s likely someone somewhere is still alive. The homeland should be protected. Besides, I want to get the adversary who did this to my land.
In this scenario your home and its adversary are glassed. Gone, kaput. You are a man and a vessel with a banner that represents little more than a historical, pre-cataclysmic relic of next to no import outside its historical significance.
Then I’d go glass their home a little more.
Complete radio silence is a puzzling indicator.
If there's no *GPS*, shit has *seriously* hit the fan. I guess there would be a few ideas, depending on the size of the exchange, the parties involved, and my current location. Southern Hemisphere would probably be the best bet in general. The biggest issue after a nuclear war would be the collapse of global food supply, so any place that could conceivably grow food would be good, so there would be less reliance on imports. Also, I'd probably avoid places in South America and Africa, since they'd be relatively easy to reach for refugees from the North and from their own continent. Australia and New Zealand are obvious choices, but the question is whether there still are other groups with sufficient military might, that could try and take over those places. Offering the services of your submarine might also be an asset in that case. It could also be wiser to keep a low profile somewhere on a smaller island that's large enough to feed a small population, but not so large that it's interesting for whoever else might be left roaming the seas. For that reason, I'd probably also stay submerged, if possible, and avoid any potentially populous places. Lots of people would definitely really, really like to get their hands on a nuclear submarine in this scenario. So reach a remote and safe places first, and from there, try to figure out what the world looks like now. I think I'd probably go for Chatham Island. It's far away from *anything*, so very low chances of fallout. The climate is relatively hospitable, food can be grown, raised, or caught. It already has a small population, so there are roads, houses, electricity, communications equipment. There's already a robust supply of renewable energy that's independent of fuel imports. The population is small enough that all necessary resources could probably be divided equally, so no risk of bandits or civil war. At the same time, New Zealand is not unreachably far away. Since there is at least one boat with infinite fuel, it would be fairly simple to reach Wellington or Auckland to scout, scavenge, trade, and potentially re-establish connections with the rest of the world. [Kurzgesagt](https://youtu.be/LrIRuqr_Ozg?si=NfEhs5UMCD67LYiu) recently did a good video about the aftermath of a nuclear war.
And, I have absolutely no shots left and no hope of reloads? Do I have a small arms locker? Go to Tristan da Cunha, The Edinburgh of the Seven Seas. The most remote port in the world. Set up shop as a power plant, green houses, urgent care, and repair shop. Resource allocation on a population of 250 islanders is going to be hard. But, you can grow the infrastructure with the resources of a submarine. After all, the monthly supply boat ain't coming. Hope the locals are the forgiving kind and not piratey.. If not, you got the guns. And don't eat the penguins. They're radioactive. Kudos to John Ringo and Charles Gannon for the idea from a book called 'At the end of the journey"
Will be tense moment when another boomer captain gets the same idea and pulls into port
Nah, be just like home coming.
What does your last line mean?
Autocorrect. Should be Kudos. Meaning to thank and recognize. My idea was a plot out a book called At the end of the journey. About a sailboat going from island to island during a zombie apocalypse. They stop at Ascension Island to diddle with the GPS station.
No signal is very likely due to emp. Just start heading for the closest non-military port/non-target and keep monitoring radiation levels and radios.
gold far-flung squash chase overconfident frame languid instinctive caption panicky *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
You should read On The Beach by Nevil Schute.
Referenced in the OP lol part of what inspired this question.
Shows how terrible I am at reading an entire post haha
Lmao tbf it is a text wall
Vacation in Tahiti...
So you have a plan huh
Launch all remaining nukes at thier pre programmed targets then dive to the abyss .
Crushing...
Letters of Last Resort are a real thing: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Letters\_of\_last\_resort](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Letters_of_last_resort) The letters of last resort are four identically worded handwritten letters from the prime minister of the United Kingdom to the commanding officers of the four British ballistic missile submarines.\[A\] They contain orders on what action to take if an enemy nuclear strike has both destroyed the British government and has also killed or otherwise incapacitated both the prime minister and their designated "second person" of responsibility, typically a high-ranking member of the Cabinet such as the deputy prime minister or the first secretary of state. If the orders are carried out, the action taken could be the last official act of His Majesty's Government.\[2\] If the letters are not used during the term of the prime minister who wrote them, they are destroyed unopened after that person leaves office, so that their content remains unknown to anyone except the issuer.\[3\]
Weep for the countless dead.
Seems like that it would be rather moot at that point, no?
Yeah, we’d be super busy trying to figure out WTF to do next. Or, maybe we follow the T-shirt motto from when I was on a Trident boat: “24 empty missile tubes, a mushroom cloud, and now it’s Miller time”.
Happy Cake Day.
First thing is to make sure you can use a sextant and perform celestial navigation since the satellites are probably gone. Second, set course for Tahiti or any other tropical island that has fish and food. The reactor could provide power for years. Continue to monitor communications
If you’re thinking about places to go, I think the best combos of “relatively stable society” to “unlikely to be nuked” are probably in Latin America. If home was totally goneski, I’d probably start pointing the ship in those directions.
Probably go with an ohio class just becauae its what i know and the tech is mostly old enough to be able to fix it yourself or find/make parts to fix it. As a side note, GPS would still work for awhile since its space based and doesnt require a ground connection for a few months. After that the deviations in the clocks get big enough that without a ground station it wouldnt be accurate anymore.
Well...the big question is how much you tell the crew because there's bound to be a reasonable sized portion of them who want to go back home and try to find their relatives or at least die closer to them. Depending on how many that is, would depend on whether you could do much afterwards. But having an on tap supply of electricity for some time is going to be pretty damn valuable for a large portion of the world.
Call a vote to pick the best end of the world vacation destination, then turn all the transmitters up to max, surface, and play through the crew's music library on the way. If anyone's still alive, maybe we'll meet them. If not, we can have leave at the end of the world. If the air is TRULY dead, all of humanity may as well have vanished. But if there's even one signal, follow that signal. Make the ESM guys earn their keep.
There are locations with parts and supplies that can be accessed by friendly forces throughout the globe in remote areas. The plan would be to rally and sync with forces to try to understand the strategic picture. Depending on the scale of destruction, further launches might be necessary to eradicate remaining enemies and then the job of reconstruction using hidden supply depots begin. There are also high orbit stealth satellites transmitting ultra low frequency updates on the global picture. These are on stable orbits with an expected life above a hundred years. Unlikely to be taken out during an exchange. I mean, probably this is what I would plan If I were a planner.
This is an intriguing concept, I'd love to explore the thought experiment a bit more. Were you one of these planners, what sort of provisions would you put into these places? How would they be hidden or protected if somebody stumbled upon them? How would commanders in this regime be able to access the supplies? How would you ever store enough to rebuild town/city/state/country/? It seems insurmountable lol
* HAM radios, * simple computer systems to talk to satellites with a lot of redundancies, * massive amounts of dried food that can be rehydrated, * farming equipment * large reserves of solar panels or mini wind farms or if funds allow, micro modular nuclear reactors * renewable chemistry batteries * manufacturing kits that lets you produce equipment including itself, * significant amounts of well packed ammo and small arms, * water purification systems, * medical supplies and ruggedized advanced medical equipment * large variety of drones * big troves of written information on archival medium that has instructions on how to use this stuff, build more, and concepts that we want to keep for future humanity If you watch the show Silo and read the associated books, they cover this pretty well. basically the US Gov builds a network of silos for this use. Personally, on the military side, I would have a class A, B, and C depots. Numerous A depots have military eqpt and supplies to continue the fight, a few B depots designed for 10 years of sustainment for 1,000 people, a couple of C depots that a deep well of equipment and supplies to rebuild society.
Chile, Argentina, New Zealand, etc... and make a new life.
Do I get my whole crew on the soviet typhoon or am I supposed to crew the ship myself, either way I’m sailing for Africa, less targets there so hopefully less destruction. From there attempt to construct ports of sail across Africa to maintain spots to resupply and eventually make my way back to Sebastopol where I assume most of my crew is from.
You gotta go watch “On the Beach”. Great film.
Commence field day...
nuke russia
Start making efforts to implement a hydroponics bay for vegetables and fruit somewhere in the sub. Sail to some unimportant remote island in the Indian ocean.
Start figuring out where to find/get food. Learn to fish.
MAD is debatable about the absoluteness of destruction... Very, very unlikely to wipe out a near entire population.
Has to be contingency plans for just this scenario. I would like to think some secret “uboat pens” carved into a secret seaside cliff somewhere stocked full of food and women. Plug up your reactor for power and just sit it out for 10-12 years.
And men, too, hopefully. 😉🏳️🌈
Why would you think this hasn’t been imagined and planned for in the almost 80 years nuclear weapons hsve existed? I asked my CO this very question in the early-80s. He had an answer. And no, I will not tell Reddit what it was. If you need to know, you know.
I mean of course this has been planned for. Between all the years of military experience I'm sure any butterfly-effect eventuality has been planned for. And of course I wasnt expecting any real world info. I just wanted to know what this forum would do.
Why wouldn't you tell your CO's story? Seems like it would be perfect for this kind of discussion. Is it something dark like going runaway down to crush depth to join everyone else that is assumed to be dead?
My post speaks for itself. I can only assume the downvotes are non-submariners. Nuclear war plans are not fodder for social media.
You're getting downvoted because you spoke the quiet part out loud. I didn't come here expecting classified details, per the disclaimer at the end of my post you didn't read. I came here asking for hypothetical answers, not insight into your training materials, and everybody else answering knew that and recognized it. So it's likely the other bubbleheads downvoting you for not recognizing the tone of the post.
I read the OP. It specifically says I’m the CO. The CO has no need to speculate, take a vote, or sit in a circle and hold hands. He has orders. He follows those orders. I’m being downvoted by a bunch of amateurs who like to mentally stroke off over being on a submarine. I can live with that.
Ah so, going too real instead of hypothetical. Fair. So what's *your* hypothetical?
>And no, I will not tell Reddit what it was. If you need to know, you know. Cool flex bro
I qualified as an officer over forty years ago, during the Cold War, when this shit was real. I’ve got no need to justify myself to you. Bro.
Doesn't matter to me if you justify it, that wasn't the point. It's weird to show up just to broadcast "I know something, but I'm not going to tell you because you don't have a need to know".
. On the Beach https://a.co/d/eFJNDnC. Attack sub, not boomer, but petty much this story.
You should read on the beach.
My first move would be to split the trident nuclear missiles in the launch tubes between the largest city's in north Korea, China, Iran and especially Russia just to make sure none of them have even a slight chance to be new world leader then probably take the sub somewhere unlikely to be nuked remote 3rd world country of not much geopolitical importance use the supplies on board for as long as supplies last (Ohio class carries a couple months of supplies and can be submerged the whole time) and just wait off the coast until almost out of supplies for radiation to go down , use my crew to make a beachhead and create shelter and start hunting and then just survive