not planned Nukes, Please....

[smoking_ace420]

For Cold War missions, nukes would really add a whole new dimension to creating more realistic missions. The B1B for instance only carried nukes before 1994. Without them, we can't make a genuine Cold War mission with B1Bs. I would also like to see how easy it would be for air defense to shoot down incoming B-52s like in the movie By Dawn's Early Light.

[Gunfreak]

MiG21 has nukes.

[MiG21bisFishbedL]

7 minutes ago, Gunfreak said:

MiG21 has nukes.

And, they're bad.

[Gunfreak]

44 minutes ago, MiG21bisFishbedL said:

And, they're bad.

That they are. 

[Mainstay]

Why would you need nukes? Cant you simulate the loadout in the briefing its not like your gonna delete DCS world anyways

[Beirut]

Nukes?

 

Yes please. 

[Mike Force Team]

Add the mushroom clouds, too.

[Tank50us]

While I wouldn't mind seeing an improvement to the explosion effects, up to and including the mushroom cloud caused by sufficiently large explosions, I think the idea of adding nuclear weapons to DCS is a horrible idea. My reasoning:

1. Nukes are strategic weapons, and are well beyond the scope of about 99.9% of the missions we fly.
2. Most of the aircraft we have, while technically nuclear capable, are modeled without the ability to deploy the weapons. This isn't just code btw, this includes the physical equipment mounted in the cockpit to actually deploy nuclear weapons. As things currently stand, only the Mig21 has this.
3. Nukes can have the unfortunate effect of completely wrecking both PC and server due to the sheer number of objects being 'deleted' at once. The DCS engine simply can't handle it, and it will crash the game. The same happens when a sufficiently large formation of bombers dumb their loads at once.
4. The aforementioned equipment and deployment is highly classified, and unlikely to be released to the public. To give an idea how classified, one of my Fire School instructors responded to a vehicle fire once and on arrival had M16s shoved in his face because the vehicle that was on fire was a truck carrying B61 Tactical Nukes. Yes, the USAF takes these things that seriously.

Now, if you wish to have nuclear weapons being part of a mission, you can do what I do: Simulate the carrying of the weapon with an AI Bomber, and use the built-in trigger system to simulate the deployment. Generally, if you're in a spot where the deployment of nuclear weapons is a real thing, you better hope you're people are on the ball.

[Hiob]

The debate is pointless, because ED has made it crystal clear it ain't gonna happen. For obvious reasons I might add.

[MiG21bisFishbedL]

On 11/27/2024 at 7:07 AM, Hiob said:

The debate is pointless, because ED has made it crystal clear it ain't gonna happen. For obvious reasons I might add.

Like the fact that the computation to create an accurate effect would be excellent for crashing servers?

also, as @Tank50us put it, these munitions tend to be real hush hush. ED wants to see resources, actual resources and not google searches being put into products. You're not getting into the weeds as you need to be with a B61.

Edited November 29, 2024 by MiG21bisFishbedL

[SharpeXB]

What’s the point? Using these means it’s game over. The only way to win is not to play. 

[PLUTON]

smoking_ace420 said:
For Cold War missions, nuclear weapons would really add a whole new dimension to creating more realistic missions. The B1B for example was only equipped with nuclear weapons before 1994. Without them, we can't do a real Cold War mission with B1Bs. I would also like to see how easy it would be for air defense to shoot down incoming B-52s like in the movie By Dawn's Early Light .

Why can't you do your Cold War missions with B1Bs? To my knowledge no B1B during
the Cold War dropped a nuke! So if they did Cold War missions with B1Bs without dropping nukes, we don't need them either, "ED" doesn't have to provide those horrible things even to play right?
Now that's just my opinion.

[Tank50us]

32 minutes ago, PLUTON said:

smoking_ace420 said:
For Cold War missions, nuclear weapons would really add a whole new dimension to creating more realistic missions. The B1B for example was only equipped with nuclear weapons before 1994. Without them, we can't do a real Cold War mission with B1Bs. I would also like to see how easy it would be for air defense to shoot down incoming B-52s like in the movie By Dawn's Early Light .

Why can't you do your Cold War missions with B1Bs? To my knowledge no B1B during
the Cold War dropped a nuke! So if they did Cold War missions with B1Bs without dropping nukes, we don't need them either, "ED" doesn't have to provide those horrible things even to play right?
Now that's just my opinion.

The way you get around this is with scripting. Since the bombers are AI only, this is easy:

1. Place down two circular trigger zones. One is very small at the aim point, potentially with a 'dummy target' in place. The other is the rough blast radius.
2. Insert a bomber that will be carrying the weapon in question, and have one of its waypoint actions being an attack function with the target area being within the smaller trigger zone.
3. In the triggers, set it up so that when the weapon enters the small zone, you have an explosion that destroys everything within the larger zone.

That's how you handle nukes in a scenario within the current system.

However, when this happens, you'll find your system will have a hard time with all of the objects in the blast radius being 'destroyed' at the same time. Here's some screenshots of how to do it:

I'd show the result... but the game and my computer didn't like it much... but here's the B-1 dropping the JSOW...

[Beirut]

1 hour ago, SharpeXB said:

What’s the point? Using these means it’s game over. The only way to win is not to play. 

 

We need nukes!

 

We have to protect our precious bodily fluids. 

[Dragon1-1]

With nuclear weapon operations being as classified as they are, I doubt we'll ever see nukes in DCS, even without devs being opposed to them on philosophical (and, I suspect, performance) reasons. Nukes on MiG-21 are completely fictional, while it's reasonable to assume that arming up the nuke would be reasonably simple in older aircraft, actual weapon mechanization is strictly classified even on very old platforms. I think we know how they dropped the bombs out of Enola Gay and Bockscar, and that's it.

For what it's worth, though, nuke deployment=/=end of the world. That's a tired old Cold War trope, really applicable only to one matchup: full strategic warfare between US and USSR/Russia. Aircraft-dropped nukes in particular are typically of tactical kind, true strategic weapons would be carried by cruise missiles, aside from ones on ICBMs and subs, that is.

[SharpeXB]

28 minutes ago, Dragon1-1 said:

For what it's worth, though, nuke deployment=/=end of the world.

Uhhh once any country used a nuclear weapon against an adversary capable of responding in kind the resulting exchange, even a somehow limited one would devastate the world’s environment and economy. Theres no rational scenario where these could be used. Militarily they’re only useful for deterrence. Thermonuclear weapons are too powerful for any legitimate military target. Their only use would be to wipe out population centers in an apocalyptic exchange.

[Dragon1-1]

Yes, but again, it's not the end of the world. You're still thinking of the US/USSR exchange, there are plenty of other nuclear powers in the world which, if they got in a fight and deployed their nukes, could do a lot of damage, but it would be localized. Yes, if India and Pakistan, for instance, started slinging nukes at each other, they world would feel it, and we'd see the global economy take a major hit, but it wouldn't result in US or Europe turning into Fallout-like dystopia (though it wouldn't help the Earth's climate, either). The countries involved would undoubtedly be devastated, but in a limited exchange, they could even survive as viable states. US and Russian arsenals are enormous, but other nuclear powers have vastly fewer warheads at their disposal.

At this point, even China doesn't quite have peer level nuclear arsenal compared to US and Russia, though they certainly have enough to make direct warfare against them a non-starter, which is the real purpose of nukes. Not even strategy but grand strategy. However, that doesn't mean it's not possible to come up with a scenario where conventional forces fight on a nuclear battlefield. In fact, there's plenty of plans for those from various phases of Cold War.

In fact, modern thermonuclear weapons are not the gigantic "city killer" bombs we usually associate with ICBMs. While still absurdly powerful, nowadays the number of warheads is more important than packing as much boom as possible into a single physics package. Modern nukes can even have features such as variable yield, so that they can be tailored to a target. Given the anticipated size of Soviet tank armies, dropping nukes on them was actually considered a legitimate tactic.

[SharpeXB]

It’s the greatest insanity to think these weapons could ever be used in a successful way. I don’t see a reason they’re needed in DCS. 

[Tank50us]

4 hours ago, SharpeXB said:

It’s the greatest insanity to think these weapons could ever be used in a successful way. I don’t see a reason they’re needed in DCS. 

I mean, if UFO scenarios were ever made for the game, nukes would be useful against them... provided they're actually vulnerable to such weapons.

[Tank50us]

4 hours ago, Dragon1-1 said:

In fact, modern thermonuclear weapons are not the gigantic "city killer" bombs we usually associate with ICBMs. While still absurdly powerful, nowadays the number of warheads is more important than packing as much boom as possible into a single physics package. Modern nukes can even have features such as variable yield, so that they can be tailored to a target. Given the anticipated size of Soviet tank armies, dropping nukes on them was actually considered a legitimate tactic.

while true, it's also the reason why weapons like the Hellfire and Javelin were developed. Sure, it requires more work to pop one tank at a time (or more in the case of the more recent Radar Hellfires), but you won't require heavy doses of iodine to conduct the post-battle cleanup.

[SharpeXB]

47 minutes ago, Tank50us said:

I mean, if UFO scenarios were ever made for the game, nukes would be useful against them... provided they're actually vulnerable to such weapons.

Anything that can travel here from a distant galaxy and pull 8,000 Gs at 600,000 mph will certainly be immune to nukes

 

[buceador]

On 11/27/2024 at 2:07 PM, Hiob said:

The debate is pointless, because ED has made it crystal clear it ain't gonna happen. For obvious reasons I might add.

This!

[Dragon1-1]

3 hours ago, Tank50us said:

but you won't require heavy doses of iodine to conduct the post-battle cleanup.

Iodine won't help you in case of nuclear warfare, either. That's another myth that refuses do die. Drinking iodine can only help against one, very specific radioactive product of a nuclear reactor operation, which was among products released from Chernobyl disaster, which is how the story got started. It won't protect you against actual radiation, it won't protect you against other products, and it won't protect you from secondary effects of radiation poisoning. There's no RadX in reality, and iodine certainly isn't it. Its only use is if you have to drink water or eat plants that were exposed to fallout and hence contain radioactive iodine. Even in case of Chernobyl, it was used mostly as a precaution and likely did more harm than good.

Hellfire and Javelin (and before that, TOW and Dragon) were developed because conventional conflicts, such as Korea and Vietnam, started to become a concern, and also because you couldn't be sure you'll get all the tanks with nukes. Armor is particularly resistant to all effects of a nuclear blast. This is also why neutron bombs were developed, to counter depleted uranium tank armor. As powerful as they are, on the battlefield nukes are not perfect weapons.

As a final note, post-battle cleanup after modern nukes wouldn't be any harder than after any particularly fierce campaign of urban destruction (in fact, it'll be easier, no UXO to deal with). They typically use airburst detonation, which not only produces minimal fallout, but also utilize the blast wave far more efficiently. Unless someone starts deploying nuclear depth charges or bunker busters (both were a thing during Cold War, for what it's worth), or someone deliberately uses a cobalt bomb to contaminate the landscape, fallout would not be a major concern. The materials from which the nuke itself is made do not contribute much to the fallout, you need to irradiate and disperse some other material, like soil or water, to contaminate anything. Airburst won't do that.

[Mr_sukebe]

On 11/27/2024 at 1:07 PM, Hiob said:

The debate is pointless, because ED has made it crystal clear it ain't gonna happen. For obvious reasons I might add.

This ^
 

It’s a question that has been asked and answered multiple times by ED

[cfrag]

On 11/26/2024 at 9:54 PM, smoking_ace420 said:

For Cold War missions, nukes would really add a whole new dimension to creating more realistic missions.

Only if the goal would be to not deliver it - in which case any dumb bomb/cargo would do the trick for that mission. That being said, I'm sot sure that DCS's physics engine is set up to correctly handle an EMP, and the effects it has on units (ground, naval, air) in a high-alt ca. 1970's high yield blast (not to mention the plasma propagation and fallout clouds). It'll be fantasy central for the remainder of all mission action that follows a blast. Why would we want this kind of silliness in our missions? I'm not even sure that enough research (even classified) exists to model such a scenario (let's be honest: many of us, me included, would try to surf a nuclear blast wave in a jet), so let's hope that ED focus the meager resources that they have for core-related updates on things that more people can use (my hopes still lie with ATC). Modelling nuke blasts is very far down my list of priorities, but since is a wish list forum, sure, you be you.