So my droogs, lets assume that the button has been pushed and a bright flash followed by roaring thunder has rendered you to live in a hole for the past three weeks like some kind of cave dwelling rat. Lets also assume that there is still enough of a centralised communication system to sound an all clear.
Emergence
So you emerge from your hole, be it shelter, basement, cellar or simply a few doors placed at an angle against the inner wall of your ones beautiful family home. 'What kind of world am i waking up to my brother?' i hear you ask. Well lets not beat around the proverbial bush about this... things are gonna be fucked... proper fucked. Lets start with the obvious things. The Infratsructure of what was once your nice suburban street, complete with Ford Escort On the driveway, and quant little trees, and a nice traditional red post box on the corner is going to be pretty different from when you last saw it.
What has happened?
Assuming again that your lucky (or indeed unlucky) enough to be 8 miles from a 4 megatonne blast (thats 8m tonnes of Explosives.... not for the faint hearted). Now my droogs, your humble narrator will not bore you with the scientific nonsense of Uranium bullets firing down pipes into other crap, we'll cut to the chase, and the question on your mind...'what the fuck is this thing actually going to do to me?' Most Nuclear weapons are delivered via missile. There are two ways that our ghastly enemies can use these missiles on us (Strategically my friends, im talking of taking out cities rather than taking out army formations etc) and each one has its pro's and con's. We'll start with the ground burst. This, quite simply, is when the weapon hits the floor before detonating its payload. This minimised the effect of the blast of the weapon. Unfortunatly the major by product of this is Fallout (no my droogs, hundreds of copies of a certain RPG do not suddenly spawn in the wake of a huge mushroom cloud) Fallout is dust/dirt/soil/shit that is sucked up during the negative shockwave, and sent through the core of the explosion, exposing it to high levels of radioactivity. It is then carried hundeds of miles with the wind, and deposited over Farmer Griff sitting on his tractor, 80 miles from ground zero, bleakly wondering why his 'farmers wives' hasnt been delivered for the past few weeks. Now air-burst, as you can imagine, is when the warhead is set to detonate above the ground, anything from a few feet, to a few hundred feet, and greatly increases the damage caused by the positive and negative blast waves, but due to the higher proximity to the solid ground, creates much less fallout.
The Blast Itself
Lets look at the airburst a little closer shall we... In the 1985 Scenario, A Soviet SS20 missile detonated its 2 2.6 megatonne wareheads simoultaneously, 500m directly over Battersea Power station in London. The initial flash would of burnt the pain off of buildings, and given partial and full thickness burns to people standing up to 6-8 miles away. Newspapers in the gutters would of caught fire. Sails on boats would of melted, and people with light clothing (such as shell suits and nylon tops) would of flt them begin to melt into their skin. A second or So later the explosion would begin to move outwards. This is know as the positive blast, and would involve winds moving up to 3-400 miles an hour. With winds of these speeds, vehicles would be picked up and thrown like toys, older buildings would be flattened, people would be picked up and thrown like petals in the wind. Unfortunately, this would then cause an immense vaccum, that would urgently need filling, so the winds would rush back, this time towards the blast in what is known as the negative blast. Luckily the two blast waves should put out a majority of fires caused by the flash, but do not think for one second my good droogs that this means there will be no fires. Now all in all, that is all we need consider from the blast at this point. More will be explained as we progress.
So What does my Street look like now?
Well for a start, the small Georgian houses built at the turn of the last century are relatively sturdy. Had you been closer they could almost certainly have been wiped aside like Barry Scott wiping away some horrible mess with a cloth soaked in Cillit bang. However we're lucky, the roof has gone bye-bye, and you now have no windows. The blast has knocked down all telephone and power lines, so your now off the national grid, and there no way BT are gonna make a house call after this. Its safe to say, that by all practical means, you are on your own.
Holy Dog shit, what now?
The first thing your going to want to do is probably contact some other poor wanker who has just been through the same shit. Probably not a wise idea. The first thing you need to know about the human mind, is the speed in which is regressed back to an animal state. The average joe bloggs has evidently, very recently seen a large proportion of his brood and friends wiped out, and all his earthly possesions burnt to a crisp. Chances are - he aint gonna be in a talkative mood. On top of that, a lot of people (yourself included) are probably suffering from severe shock. The major problem with this is that the initial symptoms of shock, and the initial symptoms of radiation sickness are the same, so one of two things is going to happen. 1) your going to end up dieing from shock (wrongly believing you have radiation sickess) 2) Your gonna die of radiation sickness! - Ha! not if we can help it, lets get started so we can hurry up for the repopulation phase thats sure to come up if we're lucky!
1) Get some shelter/cover from fallout. The initial dosage of radiation from the flash and blast will already be killing you if you didint seek cover from it, but we cant be worrying about that. People seem to think fallout lasts for thousands of years and will kill you no matter what, this is untrue. By simply putting on a couple of overcoats, a few pairs of trousers, and a pair of gloves, you can almost tripple your chances of survival. Wear a mask if possible, and ensure that, when you go back into your house or shelter, that you take them off and leave them outside.
2) Find some grub. You should really of stocked up on scoff and water before. IF you havent, then my suggestion is to find a weapon, and go and steal your neighbours (hey what do i care, im hoping i died in the blast). Water is very difficult to obtain. The government is advising you to keep your bath tub filled with water and covered, will this is a good start, but its going to go off unless we don something about it. Try and get some chlorine tablets. You can get these from any army surplus store, and a chemist should be able to help you out with a civilian equivalent. Expectedly, the best food for this kind of situation is tinned. Anything tinned is a good idea, but remember to ration it out. Its no good eating like barry white on day one, if your gonna have to eat like lindsey lohan on day 12.
3) Work out what the hells going on. Try and find a radio, and some double A batteries. Take them out of the wifes dildo if necessary (but dont remove them from the tv remote - heavens above people, just cos we've been nuked doesnt mean we must behave like savages). If this fails, then venture out, if you can. Dont go to far from your humble abode as there is always a risk of some nasty toe-rag getting in and doing the dirty to your wife and daughter. Remember, protect your family unit, they are now the most important thing to you (especially if you run out of food and need a quick source of meat - kidding!)
4) Protect and survive. Or as we like to call it in the British Army, Survive and Fight. You've already done all the surviving possible up to this point, so now its time to start thinking of protecting the family, and yourself. Barricade your home. Dont scare the wife and kids, but ensure them that you will look after them. Keep easy exits available incase it becomes necessary to evacuate the abode quickly, and above all, tell them you love them frequently, as you never know what is round the corner.
5) What for the emergency government to make an announcment. Chances are, central government is now a blackened smoking hole (slightly more effective than it has been for years) They will eventually be there to pick up the pieces and re-take power. And if they dont, what the hell! sieze power!
Next week, we'll discuss seizing power, the bolshevik way!
