Ground Zero ( GZ ) - The target hex becomes an impassable crater, surrounded by Hill terrain in the six adjacent hexes. Any units in the Ground Zero area ( 0 - 1 hexes ) are destroyed immediately.
Pretty accurate for the cratering; the fireball diameter of an airbursted 20 kiloton device (power of Model 1561 Fat Man) is 110 meters or 1 hex.
Nuclear Assault has a long range of 5 - 24 hexes.
Also Accurate.
The distance at which a 20 kiloton device can cause 3rd degree burns from the thermal pulse is 2,346 meters or 23 hexes.
Suppression - Movement of any kind, at 2 - 24 hexes, is not allowed, for one full turn, from the Allies Assault Phase detonation of the Atomic Bomb.
Actually, this is wrong. If an unit is behind a hill relative to ground zero; the hill will protect them from the thermal pulse and airblast; it should be that units not in trenches or behind hills will suffer this suppression.
Additionally, all road hexes, at 2 - 20 hexes, are negated, and treated as other terrain in the same hex.
What’s the reasoning behind this? A road will not be really affected by the initation, unless it is very near ground zero.
Flavor Text - The USA, in 1945, only had enough fissile material to build three Atomic Bombs: The Trinity test bomb, “Little Boy”, and “Fat Man”.
Actually, this is wrong.
We had the fissile material ready for a fourth atomic bomb in the US; after Nagasaki, and when it looked like the japanese wouldn’t surrender; Col. Tibbets got the order from LeMay to go back to the United States and get the Fourth Bomb and bring it to the Marianas.
Three more Fat Man (Model 1561) type Atomic Bombs could have been ready in September of 1945; and by December 1945, the production rate of the Model 1561 would have been seven or more per month.
Little Boy Uranium bombs were harder to produce, another would have been ready before the end of the year.
Fun Fact; If we had invaded the Japanese Home Islands, we’d have used A Bombs in a tactical role against Japanese troops.
Up to nine A-bombs could have been used; three in support of each of the three US Corps assaulting Kyushu, One would be dropped, before the landing, on the stretch of shore assigned to each corps; a second would be targeted on Japanese forces inland from the beaches, and a third would be dropped on enemy reinforcements “that might try to come through the mountains” in northern Kyushu.