Low yield tactical nuke

[Predator145]

A copy and paste job from Sketchfab: https://sketchfab.com/3d-models/davy-crockett-m28-nuclear-device-fac96d8179d44dab89700a4502bca15d and Vuldacon's parts.



Low yield here means indeed low yield. Nowadays, many "tactical nukes" have far more destructive power than the bombs dropped in Japan. This unit is meant to represent true tactical nukes meant to be used in proximity to friendly troops.

It's based on the W54 low yield tactical nuclear warhead fired from the Davy Crockett recoilless rifle with a range as short as 2km and a yield as low as 10 tons of TNT. It uses the blast and lethal radiation to destroy. The poor crew fired the recoilless rifle from either a jeep or a tripod with no NBC protection. Back then, they didn't know better. They had John Wayne shoot a movie near a nuclear test site, taking years off the cast's life expectancy.

https://i2.wp.com/www.reporterherald.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/RHC-Z-20210729-Davy-Crockett.jpg?fit=620%2C9999px&ssl=1

In game, the blast radius is too small to be hitting more than just the tile it hits. So it's not supposed to be a nuclear weapon ability unit but a very strong cruise missile unit. Like combining 2 or 3 cruise missiles into 1 unit (something like a ROF of 6 or 9), great for the AI to bust human players' armies or fortified positions. Range should be just 2. AI strat should be Artillery in its final AI only form (You'd need an AI only king ability unit) otherwise it won't train any real artillery. I personally have them move at 2 ignoring movement penalty to represent a single jeep/APC and requiring no escort. This way the AI can use it without any trouble. For now, that's all I can think of implementing them. Maybe in the future C3X can give the option to bombard multiple units on a tile.

That also means you can't tie it into the Manhattan Project wonder. Personally, I find the idea of a great wonder enabling all civs the ability to create nukes to be silly. Nukes were a closely guarded tech. And nations have to go through their own lengthy programs (in civ3 terms it would be more like building their own SWs) to be able to build them. But the nukes flag in the editor affects all civs. So maybe an SW with the nukes flag ticked that auto produces a "Nuclear Flag" improvement in all cities. Use C3X to limit the production of all true and pseudo nuclear units to that improvement. The problem then is if that SW gets destroyed, you won't be able to make nukes until it's rebuilt. So for now, it's hard to implement the "once you've built the expensive SW the ability to build them is there for good" effect. You could add multiple SWs that also auto produce the "Nuclear Flag" improvement that require a Nuclear Flag in the city to be built. That way the AI will likely have multiple SWs in differently cities ensuring their ability to build nukes as the original SW city will be a priority first strike target for the human player.

This unit can also represent the small gravity tactical nuclear bombs delivered via tactical bombers and fighter bombers. To have the unit configured as a true nuclear weapon, have the "Nuke" animation (included in the folder) as its victory and death animations. Have the run animation of the delivering aircraft of your choice as the run animation. This way like Atomic Bomb in the WWII Pacific scenario, the unit won't do the whole vertical rise into the air and belly flopping into its death animation.

To have the unit configured as a cruise missile ability pseudo nuke, use the aircraft run animation of choice for run. Use "Nuke" for the attack animation. Use a nuclear explosion animation for death:



The choice of making a cruise missile ability unit a land, air or sea unit will determine its targeting priorities. Tactical nuclear artillery prioritize land units and thus should be land units. Tactical nuclear bombs delivered by fighter bombers often target enemy air fields and should be made air units.

 

[Predator145]

Civilopedia entry:

By 1950, there had been rapid developments made in the use of nuclear weapons after the detonation of "Little Boy" and "Fat Man" in 1945. These developments paved the way for nuclear warheads to be created at a smaller size. Advances in nuclear weapons technology, spurred on by the first detonation of the Soviet nuclear bomb in 1949, led to great reductions in the size of nuclear weapons. By 1957, the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) declared that it had created a small fission warhead that could be deployed for frontline use by infantrymen.

One of the most fervent supporters of the Davy Crockett was West Germany's defense minister Franz Josef Strauss, in the late 1950s and early 1960s. Strauss promoted the idea of equipping German brigades with the nuclear weapon, to be supplied by the US, arguing that this would allow German troops to become a much more effective factor in NATO's defense of Germany against a potential Soviet invasion. He argued that a single Davy Crockett could replace 40–50 salvos of a whole divisional artillery park – allowing the funds and troops normally needed for this artillery to be invested into further troops, or not having to be spent at all. US NATO commanders strongly opposed Strauss's ideas, as they would have made the use of tactical nuclear weapons almost mandatory in case of war, further reducing the ability of NATO to defend itself without resorting to atomic weapons.