[Torg] what's the damage value of a nuclear bomb?

[Kansas Jim]

Benn writes:

> Seriously, curious what the DV of a nuke would be.

I don't recall an official DV ever being given for one. The Fuel-
Air Explosive (FAE) bomb is sometimes likened to causing as much
devastation as a small tactical (battlefield) nuke and the Kanawa
Heavy Weapons Catalog gave that a DV of 50, though I have found that
many of Torg's explosive DVs are a bit underrated. I believe I
bumped the FAE's DV up somewhere in the 55-60 range in my games.

Most references I've seen to tactical nukes indicate a yield range
between 0.1 and 1 kiloton (kt). With Torg's log scaling, the difference
between 0.1 and 1 kiloton could be rated as a difference of five on
the DV so my FAE DV range above could cover that. If we set 1 kt as a
DV of 60 we can then easily scale up from there. One megaton (mt) is a
thousand times greater which on Torg's scale is +15, so a 1 mt nuke
would be DV 75.

For comparison purposes, the bomb dropped on Hiroshima was 12-15 kt
so that'd be a DV of 66. The Nagasaki bomb was 22-25 kt so DV 67. The
largest nuke built by the US (that they admit to) was 25 mt so DV 82.
The largest nuke the Soviets had was 50 mt so DV 84.

To put that info to use, with a minimal TOU of 55 you would need
at least a 100 kt nuke (DV 70) to take down a bridgehead. Or you
can take the Eddie Paragon route and do it with a satchel charge and
a Martyr card. :)

-- 
Kansas Jim, Torg guru (ksjim (at) sdc (dot) org)
Torg website: http://www.sdc.org/~ksjim/index.html