What if Lee had Nukes??

[5fish]

What would Gen. Lee do if a Time traveler went back in time to 1863 or 1864 and gave him three small "tactical" nuclear warheads?

The Time Traveler say "If you use these items you will open the gates of hell but victory will be yours"

Would Gen. Lee use these warheads against the union?

If he used one warhead, would he have used another after seeing its power to bring death and destruction?

Would the Confederacy have won the Civil War with three small nuclear weapons?


A thought to ponder....

[3rd_PA_Artillery]

He probably wouldn't have used them. Knowing his nature, he probably would've found them too cruel of a weapon to use.

[blue_zouave]

And Lee would be known for his famous quote, "It is well that nukes are so terrible, else we should grow too fond of them!"

These "what if they had modern weapons" threads give me a chuckle. The unstated agenda might be that Lee was such a gentleman that he would never use something so destructive. Grant or Sherman, on the other hand...

Zou

[ole]

Space bats!

ole

[5fish]

It was the summer of 1863 to be more accurate it is July 3rd. Gen Lee watching the remnants from of Pickett's charge come straggling back from their ill-fated charge at the Union line on Cemetery ridge.

Gen. Lee fearing a counter attack but hours pasted and no attack came. He reflected on why he had marched into the North, He had come North to defeat but to destroyed the AoP but had met with failure.

Gen. Lee who had march north in desperation now sat at his headquarters pondering failure and the desperation of defeat. He looked over to the other side of the room he sat at the chest that contain the gifts from the Time Traveler.

At 9:00pm on July 3, 1863, Gen Lee gave Gen. Porter the order to fire one round at the union forces atop Cemetery Ridge. Within moments of the one round fired a flash of light and roaring wind followed by a mushroom cloud rising high into the dusk sky.

Gen. Lee knew he had made a deal with the devil himself and hell awaited him but victory for him and his cause.


It was days later when Gen. Lee came up with that now famous bumper sticker "The one with the most toys in the end, Wins."

.. A future Cold War favorite...

[PvtClewell]

I don't know how much damage a limited nuke would do, but if it's fired from an Civil War artillery piece wouldn't it pretty much consume the Confederates, too?

[cw1865]

Nukes? We're really getting out there now!

I think one tank would probably do the trick at Gettysburg!

The one thing that IS surprising about the Civil War is that the Union doesn't seem to take complete advantage of the repeaters that are becoming available.....

[blue_zouave]

Originally Posted by cw1865

Nukes? We're really getting out there now!

I think one tank would probably do the trick at Gettysburg!

The one thing that IS surprising about the Civil War is that the Union doesn't seem to take complete advantage of the repeaters that are becoming available.....

'Cause the gummint was too cheap to buy them. Wilder's men had them at Chickamauga because Wilder bought them out of his own pocket. Even at the Little Big Horn, eleven years after the end of the ACW, Custer's men were armed with single shot rifles while the Indians had repeaters (which they bought with THEIR own money!)

Zou

[ole]

The one thing that IS surprising about the Civil War is that the Union doesn't seem to take complete advantage of the repeaters that are becoming available.....

It does take a while for new technology to be adopted. Note: Buford's boys did not have Spencer's or Henry's, they had Sharps rifles. The Spencers and Henry's did not show up in the AotP until well after they became common among the western troops.

Back on the subject: Space bats.

ole

[ole]

'Cause the gummint was too cheap to buy them. Wilder's men had them at Chickamauga because Wilder bought them out of his own pocket. Even at the Little Big Horn, eleven years after the end of the ACW, Custer's men were armed with single shot rifles while the Indians had repeaters (which they bought with THEIR own money!)

Interesting, Blue, but not entirely on point. Lincoln was an avid proponent of the new rifles, but neither Spencer nor Henry was in a position to supply what was needed. I'm thinking that, even today, if I asked Winchester to ship 7,000 Model 70s in .308 caliber (7.62mm), how long would it take?

Custer's unfortunate command had its people supplied with the 1873 trapdoor Springfied carbine in 45/70. It was a killer cartridge and there was no such thing as a slight hit with one of them slugs. Go boom, fall down. But that the Lakotah and Cheyenne at Little Big Horn had a firepower advantage is also generally overstated.

It is likely true that a number of the Indians had repeating arms, but most had nothing but obsolete muskets of varying types and bows with nasty arrows.

I'm guessing that you've stood on that hill and looked at the impossibility of doing any real damage to those who were shooting at you from downhill, now-you-see-'em-now-you-don't advancing, really mad Indians. Didn't give one much more than a snap-shot. And then Crazy Horse is coming down on you from behind with his mounted cavalry.

As to the topic of this thread: space bats.

ole