WesWorld

With him the only cure seems to be death!

I'd say nukes are out till 1950-ish via the opinion of the majority of players. The only other option would be for developement to be speeded up by another world war, which clearly no one has the stomach for nor the time to script.

I have something to say on this topic.

Firstly, we cannot just say, ban nuclear development. It would be wrong and false to do so any more than to say ban missile development, ban jet engines, ban radar.

The fact is these effects were discovered and militaries tried to make use of the technology. Britain was the first to even think about a bomb in 1939, it did likely costings. They felt that they could make a 1.8kT bomb for £5 million by 1943. That is peanuts in WW terms. We know Manhattan cost alot (heck all those scientists, security arrangements, new towns, new testing sites, more security, more equipment, unlimited access to getting what they want costs a lot of dosh). In fact the Brits managed to make some interesting and powerful advances on American technology (when denied access to it) for cheaper cost. I think as a rule the USA and USSR spent more but much more of the money was wasted than in the UK or France. If you have less you tend to be thrifty to get bigger bang per buck.

It is unrealisitic to think the big powers won't think about these weapons (Churchill tended to think of it as a BIG HE bomb not realising its full power), with hindsight we know of what horrors can be unleashed. In WW 1938 the world is unaware and only two German scientists and a handful of English ones (and probably American) even know the barest knowledge yet.

Also if WW goes on past 1950 we will all want nuclear reactors. If we say no bombs then its no all nuclear research. That would be worse for any post-1950s WW.

All I will say is that I am prepared to meet any Japanese challenge in this field. Roo just beat me to the start by one year, which I find hard to believe since the background research is not due yet until next year when Rudolf Peierls and Otto Frisch at Birmingham University publish research on chain reaction by separation of uranium elements 235 from 238 (and yes Hrolf has agreed to their work in the UK).


OOC: All the Japanese worrying about SEAR is great, at last we have the Asians worried! If Japan thinks India was removed by trickery then it proves communuications between member is very poor (I can't believe the matter has not been disscussed in the Satsuma room long before now). Japan is trying to use the issue to cause trouble. If Japan was to come to terms with Britain it would save itself alot of money on all those midget subs and super-battleships. Brock's fears seem to be misplaced, Japan and China seem very jittery.

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Originally posted by Hood
I have something to say on this topic.

Firstly, we cannot just say, ban nuclear development. It would be wrong and false to do so any more than to say ban missile development, ban jet engines, ban radar.

We have a +3 rule for propellor planes and a +0 rule for jets, what's wrong with a -5 rule for nukes?

We have no mechanism for determining the cost of a nuclear program; really, I can just say "Oh yeah, and Chile has a nuclear program which will give me the bomb by 1950." If we're going to permit nukes in the time of the game, or extend the game post-1950, then I'd like to see some sort of rule to limit who can get it.

I can't even figure out how far ahead of OTL we are in terms of radar. Enough people have it, after all...

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We know Manhattan cost alot (heck all those scientists, security arrangements, new towns, new testing sites, more security, more equipment, unlimited access to getting what they want costs a lot of dosh).

Makes me curious. Is there some cost breakdown list somewhere of the Manhattan Project?

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If Japan thinks India was removed by trickery then it proves communuications between member is very poor (I can't believe the matter has not been disscussed in the Satsuma room long before now).

Gee! I wonder why communication is poor...
http://wesworld.jk-clan.de/thread.php?postid=81658#post81658
Can't discuss anything about it until he returns.

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what's wrong with a -5 rule for nukes

I would think that is accurate as long as there is no big war to mess things up.

You dont have telepathic contact? I guess its just us puppets...

Yes, there is always a telephatic link between master and puppet.

I was thinking the same thing about comunications in SATSUMA. Heck I knew Rocky had a rough planned timeline of events and India leaving SATSUMA was one of them, I just didn't think Perdedor would follow it to a T when he took over.

Seriously guys, ever since India left SATSUMA its been sour grapes in the forums. Lets all grow up and move on. I'd really hate to start dishing out timeouts...

I agree with Brock with reguards to timelines for weapons developement, we have them already, and yet I can see the point James is trying to make as well.

My concern is that powergaming will rule the nest.

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Heck I knew Rocky had a rough planned timeline of events and India leaving SATSUMA was one of them

You knew about something like that?? He has never mentioned anything like that to me. Talk about appaling comunications within SATSUMA. Forget about sour grapes in the forums. Bring on shock and total disbelief! o_O

Well he does visit Vancouver roughly every year! He did discuss a long term plan he had that more or less relied on other events/players reactions to determine what would happen. Alot of the plan I've since forgotten but this was one of the upsets I distinctly remembered, I just didn't think it would happen under Perdedor. Apparently he recognised the same strategic issues Rocky did and came to the same conclusion.

Maybe you guys should use your alliance forums to acctually comunicate? might help you foil the rather effective Atlantean inteligence.

If it is truly important, then this user is the best way to communicate with eachother. I doubt that the effective Atlantean inteligence has the ability to read the PMs of the SATSUMA user.

In all seriousness, yes PM's work well. I'm just shocked that you guys didn't see this coming. I've heard rumblings from other sources.

I can see your point James, on not banning nuclear development. As one of the youngest people on WW, (im 23) I can still hazily remember my Grade 12 chemistry course on nuclear chemistry, and the theory isn't exceptionally difficult, it just needs a group of extremely smart people to put together.

That being said, I just can't see the bomb being invented in 1944 as it was in OTL. Britain could probably do it in 1948/49, they do have access to Canada and Australia's uranium, although both nations have to discover it first, and the Germany probably in 1950, but any other nations I really can't see getting the bomb before then. Japan might figure out the theory, but where are they planning on getting the uranium to make the bomb? Italy, through the Dutch has access to uranium, so they could likely make the bomb too, but sometime in the 1950's.

I agree that we shouldn't ban nukes, but I just feel that the challenges are too much in WW as none of the factors required for OTL are present. Maybe very late 40s or 50s sometime before nuclear weapons get developed otherwise.

The Manhattan project cost around $2bn which is a similar cost to twenty Iowa size vessels or 100 IP.

I think it would be fairly interesting if the sim went beyond 1950 - I could pick up some of those cute Kresta and Kara-class cruisers in the 1970s, ooray, or maybe Gollevainen's Marat...

That said... it feels to me like we've gotten stuck in a spiral of one-upsmanship in regards to certain sorts of tech. This is by nature a ship-sim game, not a contest to see who can steal or acquire the most uberbadawesome tech to "win". It's taking the fun out of things.

I think we should have one rule about this. If you start a nuclear programme you MUST tell everyone OOC and then it takes ten years work before you get anything to show for it.

I just think that scientists are doomed to say "hey look what we might be able to do!" then some General says "Hey its a big bomb" and hey presto. A lot of science has been abused by the military and humankind loves things that go bang, the bigger the bang the more they want to try it.

As a player I'm more interested in the technical challenges and the other spin-offs such technology could produce than power gaming. You can't use a nuke here without the other side agreeing to it anyway. There will be no surprise attacks. We can sim tensions but I doubt anyone here is crazy enough to sim a nuclear winter.

We could limit only certain countries to develop the bomb in WW to those we know did it OTL first or we could limit it to one nation per bloc. This seems a little unfair but in reality even powers like the Dutch and Iberians could not afford such weapons, nor the Nords. Maybe they could get second-generation nukes in the 1950s much easier when someones done all the maths a risk taking.

Brock, you said somewhere on here maybe we should pause reactor development for five years after the bomb, but you need a reactor to get your fissile materials. From that getting a powerplant that makes steam is easy, the reactor is easier than the bomb!

On costs, Manhattan, I think, cost so much because the Yanks threw alot of money into it to get things done quicker. There must have been wastages in the system and of course building two types of bomb side-by-side duplicated effort and cost more. British cost estimates were also on the low side but even in the 1950s we managed to build our own bombs and H-bombs which were technically better (more efficent) at less cost than the US without access to all the US data. Certainly the USSR spent huge sums but since the whole state is geared to defence then it matters not quite so much.


Still I think there is a lot a post 1950s WW could offer.

As a nonplayer i have been following this thread. In OTL Sweden had a program for nuclearweapons, it was started in the late forties and followed up to the late sixties. It met a lot of oppositions in the fifties.
In about 1968 Sweden could have made a nuclear test. Thats why we have the great missile testfield in the northern part of Sweden. My point is that for a small but hightech nation it takes about 20 years to do it on their own without technical input from other nations. And during these times Sweden also had to support a large conventional military program. Also i think Israels nuclear program took about 20 years. Also India about 20 years. So i think without a major war Wesworld would be nuclear ready in the early fifties for the major nations, and late fifties or the early sixties for the smaller ones. Maybe longer if they dont have ready acess to uranium. Sweden has their own uranium.
This is my 2 cents.

Germany would certainly be in better position in WW than historically for this sort of research, with the Nazis not having managed to (as Max Planck predicted) shoot themselves in the foot by chasing off a large number of their talented physicists. And at least (unlike, say, oil) Germany has a decent supply of uranium in-house.

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Originally posted by Johan
As a nonplayer i have been following this thread. In OTL Sweden had a program for nuclearweapons, it was started in the late forties and followed up to the late sixties. It met a lot of oppositions in the fifties.
In about 1968 Sweden could have made a nuclear test. Thats why we have the great missile testfield in the northern part of Sweden. My point is that for a small but hightech nation it takes about 20 years to do it on their own without technical input from other nations. And during these times Sweden also had to support a large conventional military program. Also i think Israels nuclear program took about 20 years. Also India about 20 years. So i think without a major war Wesworld would be nuclear ready in the early fifties for the major nations, and late fifties or the early sixties for the smaller ones. Maybe longer if they dont have ready acess to uranium. Sweden has their own uranium.
This is my 2 cents.

As I said in the Japan newsthread the funding for nuclear weapons in Sweden was withdrawn in 1958 by Riksdagen, so the research carried out after that year was drawn fron the general defence budget. So a small country like Sweden was able to fund a massive rearmament and nuclearprogram at the same time (1946-58). The Indian nuclear program was an on and off thing just see when the first test was carried out.

I think Israel also worked very closely with South Africa and the US.

At least Israel and South Africa worked closely, didn´t SA get nukes as well?