History of Nuclear War II This is the second of four tournaments in a series which explores the history of nuclear war. This tournament will focus on the time from the entry of the U.S. into WW II in 1941 until the dropping of nuclear weapons on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Eligibility: To play in this tournament, you must be premium, have a turns-taken record of 98% or better, at least 100 completed games, and be at least a PFC on sign-up.Procedure: In each tourney in this series, the first nine phases will consist of multiplayer Standard games. In each of these phases, only the first player eliminated from each game is eliminated from the tournament. All others will continue to the next phase. As soon as all games in a phase have had one player eliminated, I will begin the next phase with the survivors. Winning these games will not influence the course of the tournament; only that first elimination is significant.Settings: All games will be Casual and Automatic, with Chained reinforcements. Maps will vary widely from phase to phase. Needless to say, spoils in all games will be nuclear.Fog or Sun: Foggy or Sunny status will be established by the votes of a majority of the remaining players. Please indicate your preference when you sign up, and this will settle it for the first phase. When players are eliminated, their votes will cease to count, so later phases may have a different Fog status than the earlier ones. You may also change your vote if you wish (just don't change it often enough to become annoying.) I won't bother chasing people for their votes; this will be a bonus for people who pay attention.show: Phase 1
As we covered in History of Nuclear War I, U.S. government participation in nuclear research began in 1939, only two months after the Einstein-Szilard letter was written. Sufficient impetus to spend the enormous funds required to develop a practical nuclear weapon didn't materialize until after the Pearl Harbour attack brought the U.S. officially into WW II.Phase 1 first player eliminated in each game is out of the tournament. The remainder will go on to the next round.
show: Phase 2
On December 2nd, 1942, the world's first self-sustaining nuclear reaction was created at the University of Chicago. Enrico Fermi, the designer of the experiment, was finally able to demonstrate the power of nuclear fission, which he had predicted almost 20 years earlier. A now-famous indicator of the urgency in the effort is that Fermi's reactor was located under the bleachers in the University's football field, because a permanent facility being build for him in the Argonne Forest wasn't ready.Phase 2 first player eliminated in each game is out of the tournament. The remainder will go on to the next round.
show: Phase 3
By far the largest facility run under the umbrella of the Manhattan Project was the Clinton Engineer Works at Oak Ridge, Tennessee. Here, Uranium-235 was separated from Uranium-238 by a variety of processes, all of which were experimental and needed to be developed and improved "on the fly." The centrifuge method was a failure and was soon abandoned, but electromagnetic separation, gasseous diffusion, and thermal diffusion were all successful to some degree and contributed to the final stockpile of fissionable uranium. By 1945 there were 75,000 people working at Oak Ridge, and the K-25 gasseous diffusion plant was the single largest building on the planet.Phase 3 first player eliminated in each game is out of the tournament. The remainder will go on to the next round.
show: Phase 4
The British nuclear effort codenamed "Tube Alloys" was centred at Manchester and Birmingham Universities, but to protect the laboratories from the threat of German bombing, they were moved overseas to Montreal.Quebec Agreement and full co-operation resumed.Phase 4 first player eliminated in each game is out of the tournament. The remainder will go on to the next round.
show: Phase 5
While possibly 90% of the expenditure and employment of the Manhattan project was devoted to the manufacture and refining of fissionable materials, the crucial remaining 10% was devoted to the construction and delivery of the bombs themselves. Most of this was done in New Mexico at Los Alamos, the "city in the desert" codenamed Project Y.Phase 5 first player eliminated in each game is out of the tournament. The remainder will go on to the next round.
show: Phase 6
The Manhattan Project was initiated with the idea of fighting the war against Germany. However, the Project took so long and the conventional war proceeded so quickly that Germany had already surrendered 10 weeks before the first bomb was tested.Phase 6 first player eliminated in each game is out of the tournament. The remainder will go on to the next round.
show: Phase 7
With Germany and Italy out of the war, Japan continued to fight, and nuclear bombs were preparared for use against Japan.the wikipedia article During the war "annihilationist and exterminationalist rhetoric" was tolerated at all levels of U.S. society; according to the UK embassy in Washington the Americans regarded the Japanese as "a nameless mass of vermin".[90] Caricatures depicting Japanese as less than human, e.g. monkeys, were common.[90] A 1944 opinion poll that asked what should be done with Japan found that 13% of the U.S. public were in favor of the extermination of all Japanese: men, women, and children.[91][92]
Phase 7 first player eliminated in each game is out of the tournament. The remainder will go on to the next round.
show: Phase 8
On August 6th, 1945, the Enola Gay soul-searching art. Phase 8 first player eliminated in each game is out of the tournament. The remainder will go on to the next round.
show: Phase 9
On August 9th, the plutonium-based "Fat Man" bomb was dropped on Nagasaki. The original target had actually been the city of Kokura, but smoke and cloud obscured the target. After three attempts to approach Kokura and make a visual sighting, the B-29 continued on to the secondary target, Nagasaki. Fuel was running low and serious consideration was given to ditching the bomb in the sea and going home. The mission has been called the Mission That Almost Failed .Phase 9 first player eliminated in each game is out of the tournament. The remainder will go on to the next round.
The finals will be different from the first nine phases. show: Phase 10 - Finals - The nuclear cataclysm
Phase 10: The nuclear cataclysm
For more information on this series, visit the
History of Nuclear War Series InfoCentre 
Posted: Sat Nov 19, 2011 10:48 am