Map of CONUS Nuke strikes.

[jimbo4795]

I wasn't advocating an all out exchange or that they should take out every bridge or crossroads, just a plausible reason for targeting Memphis.

[RN7]

This

I can see two reasons to target Memphis.
1-Naval Air Station Millington was a major training base up until 1993 and then became a "support activity". It is less than 20 miles from downtown Memphis.
2-There are two major bridges over the Mississippi river in Memphis, if they are taken out it leaves a 125 mile gap with no bridges over the river.

Four railroad and highway bridges cross the Mississippi River at Memphis; the Frisco Bridge (single-track rail), the Harahan Bridge (double-track rail), the Memphis-Arkansas Memorial Bridge (Interstate 55), and the Hernando de Soto Bridge (Interstate 40). The two rail bridges carry several major east-west railroad freight lines, and also the major north-south railroad lines that run through Memphis and connect with Chicago, St. Louis, Indianapolis, Louisville, New Orleans, Dallas, Houston, Mobile and Birmingham.

Also the Port of Memphis is the second largest inland cargo port on the Mississippi River, and the 4th largest inland Port in the United States.

Memphis International Airport is the global hub of FedEx Express and is the second largest cargo airport in the world. It is also one of the 50 busiest passenger airports in the U.S. and has 4 runways ranging from 8,946 feet to 11,120 feet in length. There is also Millington Memphis Airport located at the former Naval Air Station in Millington which was an active military base until 1995. In 1998 the name of the remaining naval base (non-airfield) was changed to the Naval Support Activity Mid-South to better reflect its role and it employs 6000 military, civilian and contractor on the 1,950 acre site.

Also the Memphis Light, Gas and Water Division (MLGW) is the largest three-service municipal utility in the U.S.

Memphis is important

[Olefin]

and Memphis wasnt hit in the exchange - end of story - like I said there were lots of places that by all rights should have been hit but werent - heck look at how many STATES never got hit let alone cities

But keep in mind if you really want those bridges taken down there are a lot of ways to take them out that have nothing to do with nukes

things like for instance a Soviet sabotage attack that damages the bridges to where they couldnt be used

or a major rail accident (again helped by said saboteurs) that accomplishes the same thing - and then when things go to hell after the TDM the repairs never got completed - so now you have MilGov after they spent nearly a year taking the place by siege having to spend scarce resources and engineering assets on finally getting the bridges fixed - would make a great idea for adventures - i.e. the equipment is missing vital spare parts which can only be found in XXXXX and the party is tasked with getting them

[Legbreaker]

Also bear in mind nukes are essentially a dual purpose weapon.
Firstly there's the blast and thermal damage, basically everything that happens to the target in the first few minutes and hours.
Secondly there's the lasting fallout and radioactive zone which conventional munitions don't have. This is probably an even more important factor than the initial strike when deciding on targets. If an area can be denied to the enemy over a long period of time...
I've mentioned it numerous times over the years how valuable fear can be for an attacker. A factory worker hears a report about the city a few hundred miles away with a plant that builds APCs getting nuked. Their own city has a plant building SP artillery. Will he show up for work the next day, or grab his family, load up the car with everything they can carry, and get the hell out of town
Nukes are MUCH scarier than conventional weapons, even chemical and biologicals. Conventional explosions can kill of course, but they generally don't have a lasting effect. Chemical and biologicals generally don't have blast damage, and their other, main effects, can generally be mitigated somewhat. Nuclear weapons on the other hand do initial blast as well as the terrifying lasting effects of radiation.

[/rambling]

[Raellus]

Triple action. Don't forget EMP.

[Legbreaker]

Triple action. Don't forget EMP.

How did I forget that!
I suppose you could lump it into the more immediate effects. By itself though it's not likely to kill many people, and it's effects are repairable.
Problem is of course the actual explosion and aftermath make it very, very difficult to repair the EMP damage in any sort of shortish time frame.

[Olefin]

FYI in this case the plant building the APC's and the SPG are the same factory - i.e. the BAE plant in York PA

which we know wasnt nuked

One thing I would consider in a campaign is you can get too nuke happy - i.e. this is a limited nuclear war - thus you arent going to get nukes hitting targets everywhere - not unless you want to change the backstory to a general nuclear exchange

now Europe is different - keep in mind that there you are dealing with battlefield and theater nukes - something you wont see in the US outside of Canada and Alaska - also you can have a hell of a disruption with a nuke with no blast at all - i.e. a pure EMP strike alone - which will fry a hell of a lot of electronics all by itself and cause almost no damage unless you are looking at the higher altitude burst - but screw things up royally on ground when cars wont start, electrical generating stations shut down, computer control systems burn out, etc..

[Olefin]

FYI - you may want to update your map with the Canadian strikes as well - not all of them but the ones close to the border would definitely affect the US - meaning you didnt get any strikes in western NY but you did get strikes against Canada that would send refugees streaming south for sure into that area

[Olefin]

and for added environment while reading this thread you can watch nuke detonation videos

http://www.foxnews.com/tech/2018/07/09/never-before-seen-cold-war-videos-declassified.html