Thing about slow heavy tanks, - I think it might tie into the development and deployment of Powered Armor infantry. - Turning a infantryman into a walking tank, - a light tank, admittedly, but still, - thus it would make sense to have a heavier platform to support the armored infantry in their pushes. Similar to British tank doctrine. Except power-armor would probably have a easier time keeping up with the tank. (Off the record: Bethesda's "tank" looks like it was designed by someone who had never seen a tank in their entire lives but had a lot of greebling assets handy. The machine guns and laser rifles have similar "never seen a gun in their lives outside of photos" feel to them. - Lasers don't even have a ironsight. They're literally a steel brick with a stock.)
When it comes to the energy guns I think they look that way because they were still considered prototypes. Like how the original cell phones were large and bulky vs modern phones the size of your hands. At least I remember reading that in one of the fallout games.
I felt that way about aircraft tbh. It’s obvious as well nobody in the Devs cared about aviation. None of the crashed planes I’ve seen in FO4 have so much as a yoke or side stick, let alone the remnants of a proper cockpit.
it could be that the very late development of the microchip in fallout kept guided missiles from becoming widespread and thus the planes of the fallout universe are still primarily gunfighters.
Blazers would go to diffuse over distance in atmosphere no expert but I believe they would diffuse even faster in a high humidity environment or fighting over the ocean. The transistor based micro chip only coming in development much much much later is the most likely culprit.
I am leaning towards the lack of microchips being the best excuse, most likely the best form of anti air in fallout is still the VT fuse (Proximity fuse) so using guns is probably still the primary weapon type.
@@dominuslogik484 Proxy fuse is still effective. You will see CHEAP versions of proxy fuses come into wider use IRL versus drones. Not smart to waste 60K per unit missiles on $500 drones, CIWS systems are about to get A "Renaissance" period as they are scaled down to the level that can be mounted on light armor. Proxy fused .50bmg or 14.5mm will be A reality fairly soon if it is not already.
I think the main reason why we see so few modern Fallout aircrafts and vehicles is because most were overseas fighting the war in China or Anchorage. As well as their development of power armor they might have put more funds into the power armor program then into building better Modern reliable tanks. And might of seen it more advantageous to make cheaper easier to manufacture tanks
Someone’s probably mentioned it but if you help the boomers in Fallout new Vegas you repair a (if I remember correctly) B-29 Bomber which they fly over Hoover dam
Being from the Boston area, atom blessed me to not have to speculate what my town and area would look like (my house was some burned trees and a hubflower)
Here's a thought: what if nearly all the military aircraft we see in Fallout being older models is because they're not USAF vehicles, but rather Air National Guard? I.e. the US *has* modern planes (like the Stingray) but they're mostly on the frontlines in Alaska or China and the ones we see ingame are reactivated reserve models put back into service out of desperation? It's been shown in multiple places that the US is really hurting for resources and manpower during this time. Thus, reusing older preexisting models for rear duties (pilot training, home guard defenses, suppression, enforcing martial law) is easier than manufacturing or reassigning newer equipment from more pressing duties. This could explain why the West Coast US Army is using 21st century weapons and not the Laser Rifles seen in the prologue from 4. We could also theorize the Riveted/Bolted armor on the vehicles was another sign of desperation, specifically, a focus on production. As far as the bombs is concerned, it could be that *most* of the bombs are the smaller, dirty type but a few megaton weapons remained. It could why there a few supercraters but not *many.* There were only that many of the megabombs left by that point.
It's an interesting parallel with tank and power armor development at least. Anti infantry weapon systems and carriers got a lot more R&D, and APC's and light tanks developed accordingly. The power armor is a response to the same need of keeping troops up & firing, while answering that need in a different way. It's also worth noting that the fallout tanks wouldn't likely be Frontline, as power armor seemed to take that role. They'd likely find more use as backline shelling units, with 2 turrets doubling the rate of shells and the heavy frame/4 track bracing for large scale munitions.
Perhaps the larger yield bombs were cobalt bombs which in the real world is a completely theoretical nuclear weapon that is capable of producing an insane amount of long lasting radiation
maybe the point of difference from our timeline is the "Bradley wars' guys won the argument with their WW2 & wehrbo fantasies forced on the military zeitgeist. stuck in a conservative view on technology, the hampered the growth of contemporary technologies for alt-history ideological purism. In Fallouts timeline, i reckon tank technology got some bad development, but its failures allowed the need for Power Armour. Re lower payloads of Atomics, maybe the missle gap lie never happened, Russia was ignored rather than feared which allowed the slower and different tech tree?
Excuse me, but there is a whole storyline in New Vegas built around recovering a bomber, and you show scenes from that. So what do you mean "we don't see any bombers"?
The number of P-80s could be an indication of a failing or seriously stretched military where obsolete types are used for home defence. This was the situation in Australia in 1941.
I highly doubt that cause that would mean they would of had to remake the entire armament. Return museum pieces into combat order and straight up make an entire industry just to make and maintain these century old equipment.
@@coryfice1881 Like T-55s and T-62s in Ukraine right now. The US has already had a large amount of obsolete ( not necessarily unuseful ) aircraft in storage. Who says Fallout didn't have the same but larger.
@@uberbeegHow many of that is WW2 vintage planes? The p-80 is literally a first gen WW2 era plane that is GROSSLY obsolete. T-55's and 62's are cold war era vehicles that are still supported despite their age. When the us navy recommissioned the obsolete iowa battleships they literally couldn't make anymore shells for its main guns cause the industry was no longer there for it. The only way the P-80 was still a viable weapon to be put in storage and used in 2077 is if the fallout timeline was far less advanced than ours(which it technically is.)
I think that the reason why they used P-80s is because the devs needed an aircraft that looked retro but either couldn’t or didn’t want to put in resources to design a new aircraft. The P-80 would be an ancient aircraft by the time of the Great War. Simply sourcing the parts and tooling to create said parts would be an expensive and time consuming venture, or diverting resources into developing a variant that uses new systems. Either option would require a large amount of time and resources. Then there’s the question of what it would even do. The unlike the F-84, the P-80 was never intended to be used as a strike aircraft, at least as a primary role, so without major modifications to the airframe it wouldn’t be able to carry more then a few bombs or rockets. I highly doubt it would’ve been used as an interceptor or fighter even if it’s going up against gun fighter planes as the technological gap would be huge. I rationalize them as training aircraft that look like a P-80, but are entirely different under the hood.
As an aircraft enthusiast you should know then that modern aircraft are slower than their cold war counterparts because speed has been found to be detrimental to combat, not to mention it uses more fuel, something they didn't have. Perhaps in Fallout the USAF came to that conclusion much earlier. Besides, the speed of cold war era aircraft was due to an arms race. If China never developed a plane that could challenge at higher speeds that arms race would never have materialised.
If they used nuclear engines then fuel wouldn't be a concern. Modern fighters, although slower than their cold war counterparts, are still generally more than capable of breaking the sound barrier. In fact, I can't imagine the USAF taking on a subsonic fighter. Ground attack and CAS sure, but not fighters or multirole like the f-35 or f-22.
Also another reason why Cold War aircraft were faster is many strike aircraft were also proposed to be deliverers of nuclear weapons whether it be tactical or full-blown and to get out of the blast radius you have to go fast
It makes since that while larger bombs would be ‘retired’, they would still be used. Cities with large populations like Washington D.C., Boston, San Fransisco, Sacramento, and Los Angeles would be target with huge bombs, to ensure total destruction, and radioactive fallout is secondary. However, rural and non-urban areas still contain lots of people, spread out, so low-yield, highly radioactive bombs would be more lethal, as the explosions themselves may not kill everyone, but the fallout would spread far and wide, carried by wind and weather.
Cluster nukes maybe? if they turned all nukes into low yield but merged them like them bundle grenades, it'd might give the craters you spot with the rads from a low.
@@2001sith that’s actually a very reasonable deduction. You can easily prime multiple explosives to detonate at the same time, both ‘released’ from the cluster, or all ‘stuck’ together like a literal grape of wrath. Many bombs clustered together in such a way would act similar to a single high-yield bomb, and would indeed leave a similar crater. This would also explain why the craters mentioned in-game are so much larger than anything in our real, current world. They didn’t make super-mega nukes, they just took dozens, hundreds of nukes and glued them together to have a greater effect.
@@BLK_MN With how their nuclear tech had progressed, it was either that or they have something higher than standard high yield that would be under a different label and thus letting them get away with saying "We got rid of our high-yields, we still have the low". Or prehaps their nukes are more like fusion bombs mixed with a dirty bomb
Just to add Fallout NV, we do see a B-29. The Boomer quest line has you raise one out of Lake mead, and if they are present for the 2nd battle of hoover Dam, it does bomb the damn. Add in that the Boomers learned how to fly through all the simulators at Nellis. It would be fair to say the Air Force would have B-29s in their bomber core. Granted, the B-29 could just be a reference to the B-29 that actually crashed in Lake Mead and isn't meant to mean anything
We know from Vault 112 that the simulators can run more than one program. Although the Boomers say they used them for dogfighting, surely the simulator was equipped to train pilots for different types of aircraft (which would be fitting for an airbase). My takeaway was that it taught them the essentials of flight, meaning that the antiquated B-29 was not sufficiently advanced to require specific technical knowledge.
@@noluckst2 I think the simulators were there just to teach them the basics of flying perhaps it had different types of aircraft but we’ll never know unless Bethesda and obsidian do a deep dive into the simulators
It’s literally on screen at 9:15 when he’s talking about the lack of bombers 😂. It’s not really a contemporary aircraft at the time of the Great War though so I guess it doesn’t really fit the video subject.
As a many time passenger of the Osprey, I can tell you that I never once was sure of my survival until I was back on the ground lol. I can’t imagine vertibirds would be much more fun.
I always felt this way about the CH-53 personally. But that drop when the Osprey goes from Take off to speed. Pants shitting if you're near the offramp lmfao
The pauldrons have a use for the T-45 and T-60, they have anchor points so the suits can be lifted up with a crane or the power armor stand (we aren’t able to do that though so eh..) It also could have a use for transportation of the suits.
The pauldrons are not minor use. They are how the suit is hung for service AND can be used to maximize troop transport, since they can be hooked in and then flown over battlefields and dropped as near-invincible shock-troopers due to the impact ablation.
I'm sure that there are other options for tethering, such as lifting rings on the front and back of the chassis. Look at how Edge of Tomorrow handled their powered suits as an example. T-51B also did not have said lifting rings on the pauldrons.
I feel like the riveted armor on tanks could be explained away as a necessity due to the resource wars. Riveted armor is generally cheaper/ less draining on resources than modern tank doctrine
Yeah this was my thought. The super high-tech and modern stuff would be on the Chinese front, if it existed at all considering power armor might have made tank battalions obsolete, tho thats fuzzy. Tanks at home are just home guard meant to slow down an invasion until the main battleforce arrives or to crush civilian rebellion, which don't need the same level of technical specs.
@@gloomyjzduring older times such as World War Two, welding was a much newer thing, in the uk all the welders were token up by shipbuilding so they had to rivet there tanks together
Alternatively because we never get to see any of the stuff actually used in the war. During Russian victory day parades, they usually show off shit they've had forever. Ancient tech by today's standards. It far different from what they actually have in the field. I wouldn't see why it's different for any other place in the world during wartime logistics to have their best equipment in warzones while the crap shit is back at home preventing riots and anti-war uprisings.
I think it's fairly safe to assume that the operation anchorage VR simulator is accurate about the military vehicles and capabilities of the Chinese lying about that to train your soldiers would end up with soldiers that aren't trained for what they're fighting. It would be a huge waste of money for the military doesn't mean they won't lie about Chinese motives and propagandize simulator but the military stuff they most likely aren't going to be lying about
i agree, the "it isnt reliable" gets a bit too much credit when it comes to what we see. I always took the questions regarding its authenticity to be the fact they have a a sort of heros jounrey special ops character who does everything. youre essentially playing the fallout-universe's call of duty. the weapons and armor may be accurate, though limited, but the story is a dramatized production to be propaganda at the same time.
The simulation was a huge waste of money. There are terminal entries about General Chase having them scrap it again and again. Here is part of one as to why it's not reliable as a source for things outside of itself, "Version 7-36-099 was scrapped after Chase decided his face didn't look just right. I realize progress reports aren't the place for this, but there are concerns that the man is losing it."
It wouldn't be too out of the ordinary if the simulation were more of a mix of propaganda and training, being a vanity project and one to suck the most money out of the defense department
Power Armor almost seems to fill a role akin to a super light IFV, but in places that an IFV can't easily navigate or be more discrete. I imagine a pair of power armor troops could assist a squad of troops in urban operations, providing fire support and suppressing enemy troops while the regulars work their way in and clean up. Though really if anyone were to use something like that it would be special police forces or CTUs where the chance of the enemy having superior firepower like rocket launchers or artillery weapons is low.
Imo power armor is simply designed as a ww1 armor upgrade. We know some soldiers in ww1 had crazy armor suits. So expanding that in the 60's onward makes sense. And realistically the idea of power armor is kinda easy to make. Just have a chassis a person can fit in. Sensors that can feel your muscle movements which connect to circuits that tell a computer to move pneumatic pistols and gears etc etc to move the frame. Then build armor outside of that which is extremely easy especially if you use rolled homogenous armor from ww2 tanks. You can have thin armor but remain bullet proof
@@CrusaderCrunchmaybe although Talos is also a metal robot in greek lore.(which Talos from bethsada might actually be referenc to or atleast how he achieved god hood)
Somehow I see power armor as self moving shield. You put armored troop in the front. The the unarmored troops hiding behind. Just like how SWAT operators hiding behind shield bearer.
I think the aircraft carrier in the Rivet City was meant to be a museum ship, thus the ancient P-80 plane on board Edit: As for the one in Point Lookout, I'm guessing that they decide to save a few P-80 and convert them to Training Planes
I believe the aircraft carrier was under repair/refitting when the Great War happened, since the atlantic was less of a heat zone than the pacific with the chinese I always thought they'd put older ships there
No, I think it was in active use. It was either getting refitted or rearmaed when the bombs fell. In Point Lookout, there is a downed P-80, the pliot's dead remains could be found, and with him a recording of the pliot on combat patrol when the bombs fell.
@@someguy9293 I think the older models of ship, aicraft etc were posted more on the east coast with the best material was put on the west against the chinese
the US navy will sometimes put "retired" ships back into service in times of emergency, for example after 9/11 many decommissioned ships were temporarily used as high power radio/radar stations since there wasn't anything else available, it wouldn't be too much of a stretch to say that they would bring a museum ship back into service to help defend the east coast, most of the heat was on the west coast, so a century plus year old ship would work fine for its purpose on the east coast, if they're bringing P80s back into service for recon why have them take up space at air bases when you have a retired carrier right next door
I'd assume the best aircraft were being used in combat as support due to manpads and AAA. So the only planes you'd see would be training aircraft and second hand shit used to defend the mainland as backup.
Makes sense, especially as modern US military doctrine is literally "US Military is for fighting over in other countries," and the home defense is for the militia to defend (Aka, literally every citizen with a gun).
Here's a comment I like. Particularly the training aircraft concept. Train both naval and aircrews on carrier operations at the same time, without putting your actual good carriers somewhere they are not useful.
I’m surprised you didn’t mention the Chimera tanks in Operation Anchorage, as those are actually moving and are a pretty big part of the storyline. Energy weapons, EMP weapons, and especially the military robots also seem very important as they shape the battlefield of the wasteland and operation anchorage.
I honestly thought the military in Fallout changed to numbers over efficiency after world war two instead focusing on nuclear research, robotics research, and biological manipulation. It was only the resources wars and the war with China that forced the U.S. to start focusing back on military R&D which developed by leaps in that short amount of time.
I think a cool idea for a fallout game would be a nuclear power aircraft carrier that survived the war and had enough crew size to become a generational ship, and stayed out of the way. Occasionally searching for harbors or sending vertibirds out for supplies. The game could be exploring the seas and islands of the pacific and encountering hostile survivors or irradiated beasts. But also finding friendly villages and taking a vertibird on away missions on the shores
That would be really cool to see, especially if I was a monster of a carrier, heck, they could take inspiration from the mobile-iceburg-carrier that was being tested in Canada in ww2, especially since so much fighting was going on in the cold waters around Alaska, it would be a fun location/dlc location for a Fallout game set on the west coast of Canada/Alaska
the shore missions could also be minigames that could show canon fragments of locations in the fallout series that were only mentioned like ronto or monroeville
@@kermitwithashotgun4887 I think the premise if designed properly would have potential for a massive scale game. Because as essentially a mobile city with indefinite power you could travel to a wide array of environments across the coasts of several continents. Going in range of Alaska, Japan, Australia, South America, or anywhere else. And with the Fallout penchant for giant radioactive monsters that also allows the possibility for giant sea monsters interfering with the ship
There is an Event in Fallout 3 where a Vertibird acts as a Bomber, dropping 3 Mini Nukes on a Talon Company Outpost near the area where you can Reach Point Lookout, I was quite shocked and absolutely Giddy from the run, so it would seem the Vertibirds also acted as light Bombers.
I think in one of your earlier video's you discussed that the aircraft carrier may have been a docked maritime museum. That could account for the older style aircraft found on the deck : they were there for display. That would also explain why so many were out and ready to be deployed, despite being docked in the middle of Washington DC. As far as the single plane crashed in Point Lookout, it could be a show plane, or due to lack of other craft, a coastal scouting and recon plane. Thanks for the vid :)
It could also be that it was getting ready to launch, or re launch recently resupplied fighters and they were going to intercept the incoming nukes when something happened, if the carrier is in effect a part of the national guard or some such then it using older aircraft would make sense as well.
It’s mentioned that the Hardened Power Armor in Fallout 1 had undergone a special chemical hardening process, maybe the same process was applied to tank armor as well…
I think the comventional weaponry makes sense in the Fallout universe. Unlike our timeline where nuclear device was feared due to MAD was in place, in the Fallout Universe all thing nuclear became a cultural sensation. When you relay on nuclear options and all things derived from nuclear technologies, (energy cell, microfusin cells, lasers, plasma) conventional kits go on the backburner
You didn't mention robots. In a war (or just comparison) between the two factions... Robots will play a big role in a lit if bsttles. If prewar USA can turn out thousands, hundreds of thousands or even a million plus combat robots then that's a lot of firepower even with Protectrons or Mr. Gutsy. And just think about Liberty Ptime...
33:54 Uh, actually that would be exactly the same. The US released its Nuclear Doctrine in 2018 and they called for EVEN SMALLER weapons than they currently posses, which have already mostly dropped anything in the megaton range. The highest yield bomb actively deployed as of this moment is the B83 which is a 1.2 megaton weapon.
I suspect the sino American war was a heavily infantry focused war with tanks filling more support oriented roles, possibly due to the resource scarcity that caused it in the first place, possibly more ultra light artillery role or siege role hence why the higher firepower and less emphasis on mobility as they where probably almost exclusively used in the back line,
The survival guide doesn't say they completely retired the megaton nukes. It says they have "largely" been retired, and mentions the new yields being in the kilotons range with "few exceptions". So there is still plenty of room for a small number of extremely high yield weapons. So while megaton nukes may have almost completely stopped being a thing, it's quite likely there are a very small number of giga/tera or even higher yield weapons, to account for the craters. Such weapons might have been limited to use towards perceived priority targets, and such weapons themselves might have also been priority targets for interception. New Vegas shows interception was possible, though clearly not widely implemented. As far as the rivets on tanks, the issue of them becoming projectiles inside could be gotten around by having that just be an external layer. Having a cheap easy to replace outer layer with a gap or soft material under it so that attacks break up before impacting stronger layers isn't a bad design, particularly against high velocity projectiles. The material itself might also be extremely heat resistant, thus making it hard to weld, but protective against thermal threats when there is a gap or soft insulative layer under it.
While it is certainly possible to build bigger nukes, there is simply no use for them. Once you get past a certain level of accuracy, even a very small warhead can pretty much kill just about anything no matter how well protected it is. Even Cheyenne Mountain pretty much became obsolete by about 1972 or so given the (relatively primitive) guidance capabilities available. Unless you have a burning desire to make a really big hole in the ground, there is simply no value to a big nuke, far more to build a MIRV and get several targets for the boost of one. Regarding the notion of riveted armor, while external armor layers are useful (and in fact already in use in composite armor as well as applique armor on lighter vehicles), the problem would be by riveting them on the exterior, you run a risk of the rivets being hit and destroyed in combat, thus shaking pieces of the armor loose. This was a known problem in WWII, and there are numerous stories of this happening in the earlier years, especially with the US Grant/Lee tanks.
@@f1b0nacc1sequence7 We do see the craters on the map though, and those craters are far beyond the capabilities of megaton yield weapons. A MIRV also won't produce the same shape. I wasn't saying it was ideal to have super nukes, just that the evidence suggests that they exist, and that the survival guide doesn't dispute their existence. And if you have them, why wouldn't you target them on a priority target, or at least somewhere you think one might be. As far as the rivets, I do think it's more likely that it's a product of styling things for fallout rather than a thought out armor design. But for another design possibility it could be that they aren't actually rivets. As they clearly don't cover entire sections on the tank as though they are holding plates on. With some lines of them terminating seemingly randomly, and there doesn't seem to be much logic for where they are placed. It could be that it is still an external layer but rather than rivets what we are seeing is a result of a plastic or foam layer that fills between layers and needs vents. It could be the rivets are actually that foam/plastic expanding out, or they are armored caps over such vent holes.
@@BoredomItself I don't entirely disagree with you re: the craters, but I suspect (as have others on this thread) that it is far more likely that Fallout's art people simply thought that they would "look cool" and added them anyway. That subspecies of game dev aren't exactly known for their grasp of physics or nuke doctrine, after all... Regarding the rivets, your explanation makes some sense, though is strikes me as a bit of a reach. After all, this is 200 years AFTER the bombs, and these things have been left out in the elements....unless they were something VERY resistant to wear/tear, they would be gone by this time. If they were armored caps (a reasonable conjecture, to be sure), what are they capping? They would still be vulnerable to battle damage, and represent a potential weak spot in the armor. Again, I suspect that this is game designers doing something "neat" (perhaps they saw some old WW2 tank pictures) without any real understanding of what those bumps were or why they would be a problem. In both cases I understand that you make a good-faith effort to provide viable explanations for what we are seeing, but I suspect that you are overthinking it.....sometimes a banana is just a banana...
Just a thing that hit me, is this is after the resource wars, it was shortage of fuel and resources. So it can be so that USA have basically introduced vehicles which was easier to maintain and build. Basically it could lead to subsonic fighter jets, tanks with riveted armour and so in the shadow of a long conflict which have left states/countries short of resources could lead to vehicles which basically is out of date.
That doesn't make sense. Riveted armor actually cost more resources and requires special training vs just welding it. Riveted armor is terrible with literally no upsides or benefits to it
@@AsymmetricalCrimes as riveting was replaced by bolting and welding which both are better methods doesn't riveting make any sense but maybe the thing we see as riveting is really bolting and maybe wielded bolts which can in some situations be stronger and easier to repair then normal welding. i just toss out ideas and try make sense if their actions.
this is pretty well thought out. the resource wars and stuff like that is certainly the most interesting part of the fallout fluff to me. It's that pure 40k grimdark of having solved any fuel shortage via fusion tech and it still being too late because hey, war is hell and certainly the most important thing to humans. Why would we have ever saved the world? It ain't in our nature, baby, coz war don't change.
I wish the game developers for Fallout 4 had made the APC and especially the tank more like atompunk versions of real-life vehicles. There were some really cool designs that never saw service in the Cold War (personally I think a futuristic tank based off the M48 medium tank would look awesome in Fallout). They could have even designed an infantry fighting vehicle with a railgun or some other unconventional weapon instead of an autocannon.
I will say in its defence we don't see an ammunition feed for the main gun on the Fallout 4 IVF, It could be a laser weapon, the two machinegun barrels poking out of the front have ventilation cuts so those seem to be conventional.
A tank based on the T95 medium tank prototype would have been ideal for the Fallout universe. It would have offered a nice compromise between more advanced looking than the Patton series yet still having those rounded lines that we'd expect from a US Cold War era design. The problem is that Bethesda didn't really pay much thought towards realistic and sensible designs when it came to Fallout 4. I mean most of the guns in Fallout 4 simply cannot function due to how poorly they're designed.
@@danf3201 It's clearly a normal cannon since if it was a laser there would be wires attached to the cannons and it would have the typical look of energy weapons.
Reference the state of the Fallout universe's tanks it's possible that there could have been a period of relative peace were treaties banned tanks and their production. If the production facilities got shut down and the designs got lost in a bureaucratic shuffle of being classified they might have been trying to rebuild the designs from scratch. Another alternative (given the real world history of some of the US Army's weapons development) is that some self appointed expert with no background in engineering or practical experience managed to get in charge and thought that all these designs were new and innovative when they were just bad.
Given the poor decision making common in the Fallout universe (and ours, really) this seems entirely reasonable. That and a Heavy dose of "Rule of Cool" given it's all based on retro-scifi and retro tech
Didn't the U.S. military of Fallout have a quadratic nuclear system? Land, sea, air, and space? I seem to remember them having nukes mounted on satellites.
They have some sort of weapon mounted on space platforms (both kinetic rounds from "Highwater Trousers" in F3 and the Archimedes II satellite in F:NV) in several games, though there is no reason that these would have to be nuclear. From the damage that they do (that we see), they look to be more along the lines of the "Rods from God" kinetic penetrators than nukes, but I freely admit that I could be mistaken...
The weird thing about the Rivets on the tank is that during WWII, which went the same in our universe, we had completely phased out Riveted Tank armor by the time the US was in Heavy Fighting.
I would love it if you went over the ammo types that are common in the wastes like how the 10mm is more prevalent in the fallout universe compared to our universe where 9mm is more prevalent
One thought I had about the use of the P-80 was as a reserve aircraft, which would explain why so many are found across the US, another possibility is that they’re a modernized version of the P-80, possibly possessing a more powerful engine, better radar, the addition of missile hardpoints and so on
The style of fallout 4 and 76 simply don’t match up with previous fallout games. I am positive that the fallout universe US army has Vietnam and Cold War era military equipment (M60 Pattons, M1 Abrams, M2 Bradley, UH-1 Iroquois, UH-60 Black Hawks, HMMWVs, deuce and a half trucks, F-4 Phantoms, F-15s, etc). These deigns would fit in far better in classic fallout and even new Vegas alongside many of the weapons which are from around the same historical time period. Tactics even has a Sherman and Humvee so we know those existed within the universe.
And its not like Fallout 1 or 2 even mentioned what kind of equipment was standard issue for the prewar US military during 2077. The only hard evidence that I know that show what 2070s US military equipment was is the T-51b power armor shown in Fallout 1. That's it. Even the pistol used can't be confirmed to be standard issue as NCOs and COs can buy their own and register it as their personal service sidearm. So with this in mind. I honestly don't think that there should be a "cut off point" for military equipment. At least a hard one that takes place before the global resource wars actually start affecting the US economy and industry to the point of the government and private businesses having to downgrade to save on resources.
i dunno why you seem so obsessed with the fact that fallout planes couldnt do supersonic or arent as good as ones nowadays since its well known in the lore that tech in the fallout world was stuck around the 1950s tech... just slight advances while sticking to the exact same stuff.. ie materials and ways of building stuff...so it makes sense that all planes would be just upgraded version of 1940s & 1950s planes rather than looking like real world modern planes
there was a concept for Fallout 4 seen in the art book of a battleship and it looks like a Zumwalf class has a baby with an Iowa class, lots and lots of guns rather than missile VLS.
I think the original deluxe aircraft in FO4 could actually have taken inspiration from another much earlier game. Considering how similar the designs are. That would be the Chernovan Warhawk from the game: Warhawk. They look very similar overall :] EDIT: If you watch Spookston's video on the FO4 tank, you can actually tell it's not as original as claimed, it takes a lot of inspiration from real world cold war tanks with some creative liberties taken.
The explanation for the P80 could be that since the pre-war military is very WWII in its style and likely doctrine, I would not be surprised if they never developed guided missiles like we did so a2a combat even in 2077 was still done with guns and unguided rockets. For the skytrain, transport aircraft don't need speed and was only replaced by the current C130 for carrying capacity. The Stingray is very strange, given its shape it's closest to a ME163 Komet which was a fast-climbing rocket powered interceptor, but like you said the rivets prevent it from achieving the speed it'd need to for interception duties
I stated this previously, maybe the Zetans made those over sized craters, like in Los Angeles with their space lasers that are capable of untorontoing Toronto. For the bomb we see dropped on in Fallout 4, maybe the in game bombs are so much bigger, that they class what we would class as megaton as small arms nuclear weapons. It would be an interesting thing to think about with wide stretching implications.
I’m 99% sure it was a nuclear blast which caused those craters even so, the bomb in fallout 4 using nukemap had to of yielded around 150 megatons to produce heavy blast damage which ended at Natic considering it detonated around holliston.
@@dingbat19 Right, in fallout 4's case, the main target there was a hard target, which would call for something of higher yield than for a non hard target.
I'll say this about the planes and tanks we do and don't see. the easiest explaination is they were fighting the war. beyond power armor which could possibly be made in larger quantities due to having smaller components which would allow them to be manufacturered in barns , and home's, or at least assembled, owning to their large numbers around the wasteland, tanks and planes are big. And require factories. The evolution of the fallout tank and plane could mirror ours exactly until the 2030, where short on resources. and the us of powered armor mad APC's more economical, leaving the tank more a mobile gun for bunker busting if needed, the rivets could be for additional armor, or cost savings, as for the planes, most were deployed and you would not see them, leaving training and light defensive planes at home. All this to say if the us was heavily invested in the power armor programs, and APC's , they might second stringers, as the APC does seem to have better manufacturing, and fighters, the advanced bombers, and fighters are destroyed or fighting so stuck in the post nuclear us we would not see them.
Yeah the military have done a lot of shady stuff in the Fallout universe(although I do like the future 50s style of the armor & weapons). Actually I like to imagine that Nate(my good Minuteman character) was a bit of a rebel. In other words he was patriotic 🇺🇸 but he didn’t blindly follow corrupt orders(Which didn’t let him get a higher rank in the army). Plus I like to think he’s the Anchorage hero. Also I would love to see some pre-war stories in the civilian and military life.
Another person who plays Minuteman Nate? NICE! In my case, I assume he was patriotic, but too hero-y, which prevented him from higher ranks (Like yours), but this did make him into enough of a well-known figure that let him be pulled into speeches and the like when he returned home.
@@randomintrovertedspider7510 Lol 😂 thanks. I wanted to get the best ending for the game & I wanted to see all the factions roam around the commonwealth. Really makes everything feel more alive in the wasteland. Also, exactly you’re spot on. They wouldn’t give him a higher rank but they would give him some luxuries. Like his home for example, the car,(they couldn’t buy a lot of food due to the absurd inflation but still nice house & car) & of course the popular status back home.
@randomintrovertedspider7510 I love the Minuteman and play as Nate as well. I always got the impression Nate was more patriotic than a hero. However, he doesn't blindly fellow orders, and vas never achieved a higher rank than First Sergeant. Though if you get the America rising mod, then you could argue that Nate is more of a morality gray character who isn't bad, nor is he good.
@@someguy9293 You definitely can argue Nate is more gray if you just side with the BoS - there is quite a lot of... bad decisions you can do under them, that could be argued off as part of roleplay (In essence, ignoring meta thoughts and only using in-game actions). Robbing Settlers? Well, obviously the Minutemen can't fight the Institute - they lack the know-how, and the Brotherhood needs the supplies to deal with the greater threat. Killing all synths? Well that's clearly just a dangerous technology, no different than a toaster with a heat ray attachment. Of course, these are justified as gray as part of roleplay - and you could easily argue a synth is alive, for instance, but in roleplay, because he views them as another machine - it's equivalent to destroying a machine. Also, what's the America Rising Mod? Sounds interesting.
Or with it being 200 years, leaks may have developed and they might have sank. Museum ships from WWII are known for their leaks. USS Texas is a very good example
On the matter of bombers, the B52s featured in Fallout: New Vegas comes to mind, though like one other comment pointed out with regards to Rivet City it's likely that apart from the Lady of the Lake the one at Nellis was more decommissioned museum piece than active service bomber.
Just because the Vertibird is relatively new in the fallout universe does not equate to it being the FIRST tilt rotor aircraft in the Fallout universe. It could have been intended to replace a prior existing aircraft, much the same way the US Air Force intends to replace the F-16 and F-15 Aircraft over time with the F-22 and F-35 Aircraft, along with some other aircraft that have no business being replaced by a fighter(cough cough A-10 Cough).
@@AsymmetricalCrimes well that doesn't surprise me. It's pricey as all get out, same with the f-35, and as cool of an aircraft as it is, it physically does not need the added capabilities it has to fill the role of the aircraft it was proposed to replace.
One major difference between fallout universe and hours is that we seem to have put our priorities on different scientific fields to study in. They went all in on nuclear power, laser weapons and plasma robots medicine. Where is our TVs? Are century ahead of them probably are aircrafts are beyond theirs. We focused on aviation tv ballistics firearms computers
The Fallout Survival Guide talks about reducing the size of U.S. weapons to a smaller yield. A change that didn't effect China, (or any other organization that may have stockpiled megaton weapons for their own use. Such as VaulTech.)
It wasn't just the US. The Survival Guide said all the major nuclear powers reduced their yields (just like in real life). Not just the US. Also, Vault-Tec doesn't have any nukes.
@@AsymmetricalCrimesit actually said megaton weapons have largely been retired. Not completely. The USA did create a super bomb according to newspapers which yields in the gigaton range.
I don't think the fighters we see in Fallout 3 are literally meant to be P-80s. They just look like them because Bethesda didn't want to design an original fighter.
Rad king on the tanks normally they keep older designs around as training vehicles so the tanks we see in fallout four and 76 could just be older models that were around for training. Also I think the tank in fallout four and 76 would be classified as a heavy tank destroyer because there’s no way that turret can turn to the back
Kind of; Their markings are that of the USAAF, the original name for the Air Force during World War II back when it was still considered a part of the U.S Army. Regardless, they were most likely long since phased out.
I'm not surprised that older military craft would be used in Fallout universe military, even deep into the 21st century given how computer tech progressed in their timeline.
Seems like the Geneva convention has been revoked Things in fallout lore about the US military is the fact that when they developed power armor as it states in the fallout bible a soldier equipped and power armor could destroy an entire city with no damage to the suit This to me is one of the most radical and biggest changes to our own present-day military door-to-door house-to-house fighting is extremely bloody cost of human life is very high... Not saying that house-to-house fighting would not happen in the fallout universe but to the destructive nature that the war entailed A scorched-earth campaign would not be out of the question
The FIRST stealth aircraft was built in WWI using clear cellophane sheets and used for Reccon' work. However they discovered it was vulnerable to UV light, and turned a deep yellow after a few days of use and later decided it could not be widely adopted.
It's strange that in Fallout there is military vehicles everywhere. Yet the war was fought in Canada, Alaska and China. It's wierd because it suggests that there were so many AFVs in Fallout USA that they could use them at every checkpoint and so on rather than just an armed jeep/Hummer. You wouldn't see that in reality, it's hugely wasteful from a military point of view unless you were expecting large scale attacks within the US.
Why? There were major food shortages and countless riots up to the great war. Which led the government to declare martial war and deploy troops to quel the unrest. What's more in our world, military vehicles are regularly sold on to locale police departments, or just going to and from drills.
@@Orcawhale1 Still, you wouldn't need a heavily armed combat APC for that, just armoured cars with machine guns or riot equipment. As there doesn't seem to be any mention of US forces blasting US citizens with heavy guns anywhere or notable ' food riot ' massacres, maybe those weren't happening in the US. Also if you look at the start of the Fallout 4 intro, life looks pretty good, except for inflation, but I'd say by the homes, the cars, the furniture, most were content and middle class. The ' food riots ' don't seem to have happened in that part of the country. It's sedate, suburban and at ease. Which makes the plethora of military equipment far fro a front very much like overkill. But now I have to laugh at myself because the whole Fallout series is a bit ' over the top' and I am realising I'm taking shit a bit too seriously. lol.
@@uberbeeg dude its america, unless the 2nd amendment got taken down, civilian have access to anti-material rifle, missile launcher and all kind of weapon that can penetrate light armored vehicle.
Just because someone can [possess a weapon doesn't mean they know how to use it effectively. Also, a trained foprce will always overwhelm an untrained militia. Aircraft ever since the 1950s can't be produced like they were in the 1940s. A contract of just 100 aircraft could take a year or two or more to fill. The USAF has for some decades now kept a reserve of obsolete types ( see Reno boneyard ) that can with some TLC be brought back into service and quite often are for various reasons. It's not hard to assume that the USAF in Fallout had the same, and it would also be easy to assume that they would have had a larger reserve as theirs was a world of war tensions.
@@uberbeeg not necessarily disagreeing with you about us military using outdated afv. But disagreed with you about untrained militia being overwhelmed by trained force. They won't be see as army because they never were in the first place. They are called insurgency and they are the pain in the ass to deal with even for the most powerful military in the world, USA. Its easier for US to wipe out nazi Germany ww2 than to wipe out an army of insurgency spreading out accross the country. The fact a single man with bare minimum experience can take out a tank with an rpg or rocket launcher is terrifying.
Y’know how in Gears of War you get to ride the Junker that just blasts debris out of the way with its massive frame? I always thought that’s be a neat idea for a next fallout a vehicle (that you can modify) that blasts debris out of the way
Prior service USAF NCO and general military nerd. It occurred to me during the aircraft section that I can't think of many examples of guided missile platforms in the series. I know there's a probably-SAM-launcher in the F4 opening and you can upgrade the missile launcher with a targeting system, and ICBM/SLBM/space rockets of course, but there's not really much else. I have to wonder if air combat stayed focused on close-range cannon dogfights as in WW2 and Korea instead of shifting to high-speed interception and BVR missile weapons during the Cold War. (Also most non-stealthy aircraft panels are attached to the frame with screws that have flush heads and are then painted over.) AS FAR AS WARHEADS GO: The current US arsenal has typical yields in the 300-400 kiloton range. Other nuclear powers are understandably a bit harder to get solid numbers on, but the general shift in the last 50ish years has been to kt MIRV systems instead of larger megaton bombs. As for crater sizes in-game, I guess there's a Watsonian answer and a Doylist answer. (The craters are from Chinese weapons, not US ones, OR, the devs aren't good at physics)
my head cannon is after ww2 everything that was Researched had to do with Nuclear power/Weapon Capability's and Fusion they had no interest in anything else all the way to the 2000s... not Researching helicopters, Rockets and other stuff.. until Robco and other company's started a "Technology Renaissance" Robots, cars appliances etc. Maybe they saw no need to expand their Military Equipment....so if it wasn't broken don't fix it Approach
I think the explanation for the planes is that we only see the ones left for home defence. Like you said there was a war going on so the high tech planes would be at the front, the furthest west that Bethesdas (first person) Fallouts have gone is the Nevada desert after all, they haven't shown the pacific west yet.
12:14 Not even in an alternate universe, as the Soviet's did dabble in double and even triple barreled designs with their KV-7 tank during World War II, though this never progressed past a prototype design.
I think that the reason that the fallout's power armor is so large is for intimidation while in the real world, soldiers don't need to be scary to the locals and they need to move fast
Just that last tid bit about the bomb sizes, wouldn't the guide be referencing what was being used before the great war, not necessarily what was used in the great war? like modern day we have tactical nukes, nuclear artillery, strategic nukes etc.. It would make sense that given how trench warfare was fought in ww1 that small nukes and radiation fields become the new tactic as a bigger blast would surely bring the threat of all out nuclear annihilation.
There is no real reason why power armor would ever replace tanks, mostly because tanks on the battlefield provide alot more utility including the capability to destroy enemy tanks, providing fire support against a wide variety if threats, and provide protection for convoy's. Alot of which power armorer soldiers wouldnt be able to efficiently do. Power armor would only be good at improving the capabilities of an individual soldier
The bomber from that game was a b29 which was the same type of bomber to drop the first atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. It’s very much a ww2 era bomber
Love the deep look into really specific facets of the lore. I’m particularly intrigued by the state of other countries in the lore, I was looking that up recently. Edit: just realised there’s a video on this very channel about it. Excellent!
Aren't you forgetting the bomber the Courier retrieved from the bottom of a lake on the Boomers' behalf? 'Twas a B-29! Edit: Heck, you even featured it in the video! Also, the way I see it, the P-80's were used not because they were never decommissioned, but because the military was probably struggling from the continuous war and needed simpler and cheaper solutions. Also, also, the Stingray does have a wonky shape, so it might actually have some stealth functionality. The patriotic paintjobs and huge rivets we see are there because they are statues, not real planes, plus, don't forget that the US was at war and therefore was worried about spies, so having "nonfunctional" designs in statues was probably a tactic of getting the spies off-trail.
Thing about slow heavy tanks, - I think it might tie into the development and deployment of Powered Armor infantry. - Turning a infantryman into a walking tank, - a light tank, admittedly, but still, - thus it would make sense to have a heavier platform to support the armored infantry in their pushes. Similar to British tank doctrine. Except power-armor would probably have a easier time keeping up with the tank.
(Off the record: Bethesda's "tank" looks like it was designed by someone who had never seen a tank in their entire lives but had a lot of greebling assets handy. The machine guns and laser rifles have similar "never seen a gun in their lives outside of photos" feel to them. - Lasers don't even have a ironsight. They're literally a steel brick with a stock.)
When it comes to the energy guns I think they look that way because they were still considered prototypes. Like how the original cell phones were large and bulky vs modern phones the size of your hands. At least I remember reading that in one of the fallout games.
@@creatureTHEcritterFair
I think you'll find the heavy tank in the video looks like a Churchill style tank, from WW2 I believe.
@@shakybill3 It really doesn't. Not unless it is at an extreme distance/bad visibility/blindness. Or you have no idea what the Churchill looks like
I felt that way about aircraft tbh. It’s obvious as well nobody in the Devs cared about aviation. None of the crashed planes I’ve seen in FO4 have so much as a yoke or side stick, let alone the remnants of a proper cockpit.
it could be that the very late development of the microchip in fallout kept guided missiles from becoming widespread and thus the planes of the fallout universe are still primarily gunfighters.
It could also be the introduction of laser based weapons also affected the armament.
Nuclear engines on tanks means it gets to possibly move faster or near infinite range
Blazers would go to diffuse over distance in atmosphere no expert but I believe they would diffuse even faster in a high humidity environment or fighting over the ocean. The transistor based micro chip only coming in development much much much later is the most likely culprit.
I am leaning towards the lack of microchips being the best excuse, most likely the best form of anti air in fallout is still the VT fuse (Proximity fuse) so using guns is probably still the primary weapon type.
@@dominuslogik484 Proxy fuse is still effective. You will see CHEAP versions of proxy fuses come into wider use IRL versus drones. Not smart to waste 60K per unit missiles on $500 drones, CIWS systems are about to get A "Renaissance" period as they are scaled down to the level that can be mounted on light armor. Proxy fused .50bmg or 14.5mm will be A reality fairly soon if it is not already.
We do see bombers in Fallout; the B-29 Superfortress from the Boomers quest Volare! in New Vegas.
I was just gonna say, there most definitely are bombers in Fallout.
I think the main reason why we see so few modern Fallout aircrafts and vehicles is because most were overseas fighting the war in China or Anchorage. As well as their development of power armor they might have put more funds into the power armor program then into building better Modern reliable tanks. And might of seen it more advantageous to make cheaper easier to manufacture tanks
have you forgot about the boomers bomber in fallout new vegas
Someone’s probably mentioned it but if you help the boomers in Fallout new Vegas you repair a (if I remember correctly) B-29
Bomber which they fly over Hoover dam
military technology is more advanced than the public is aware of
Actually the US military is very open about its equipment compared to most other nations.
slightly more open about new technology
not very
what they show and or talk about is of no threat if the wrong people find out about it
The fallout tank looks like a weird mix of the halo grizzly and scorpions tanks
Loved the Red Alert reference!
Being from the Boston area, atom blessed me to not have to speculate what my town and area would look like (my house was some burned trees and a hubflower)
Maybe the reason we see old aircraft models is because they were brought back into service as the war with China dragged on.
Here's a thought: what if nearly all the military aircraft we see in Fallout being older models is because they're not USAF vehicles, but rather Air National Guard? I.e. the US *has* modern planes (like the Stingray) but they're mostly on the frontlines in Alaska or China and the ones we see ingame are reactivated reserve models put back into service out of desperation? It's been shown in multiple places that the US is really hurting for resources and manpower during this time. Thus, reusing older preexisting models for rear duties (pilot training, home guard defenses, suppression, enforcing martial law) is easier than manufacturing or reassigning newer equipment from more pressing duties. This could explain why the West Coast US Army is using 21st century weapons and not the Laser Rifles seen in the prologue from 4.
We could also theorize the Riveted/Bolted armor on the vehicles was another sign of desperation, specifically, a focus on production.
As far as the bombs is concerned, it could be that *most* of the bombs are the smaller, dirty type but a few megaton weapons remained. It could why there a few supercraters but not *many.* There were only that many of the megabombs left by that point.
It's an interesting parallel with tank and power armor development at least. Anti infantry weapon systems and carriers got a lot more R&D, and APC's and light tanks developed accordingly. The power armor is a response to the same need of keeping troops up & firing, while answering that need in a different way. It's also worth noting that the fallout tanks wouldn't likely be Frontline, as power armor seemed to take that role. They'd likely find more use as backline shelling units, with 2 turrets doubling the rate of shells and the heavy frame/4 track bracing for large scale munitions.
Homie forgot the hidden 4th method, the Greenlight team 💀
The apoc quote got me! Good one 😅
Perhaps the larger yield bombs were cobalt bombs which in the real world is a completely theoretical nuclear weapon that is capable of producing an insane amount of long lasting radiation
maybe the point of difference from our timeline is the "Bradley wars' guys won the argument with their WW2 & wehrbo fantasies forced on the military zeitgeist.
stuck in a conservative view on technology, the hampered the growth of contemporary technologies for alt-history ideological purism.
In Fallouts timeline, i reckon tank technology got some bad development, but its failures allowed the need for Power Armour.
Re lower payloads of Atomics, maybe the missle gap lie never happened, Russia was ignored rather than feared which allowed the slower and different tech tree?
A Vertabird is just an Osprey.
Optical stealth on a submarine is almost irrelevant. Acoustic and electromagnetic stealth, however, ...
Power armor vs riot gear
The double barrel tanks aren't actually tanks, I think there anti air mobile batteries
I feel like there is no need for improved mobility when you have Power Armor units equipped with Fat Mans (fat men?) and rocket launchers.
Excuse me, but there is a whole storyline in New Vegas built around recovering a bomber, and you show scenes from that. So what do you mean "we don't see any bombers"?
What about the b51 in New Vegas? That's a bomber
The number of P-80s could be an indication of a failing or seriously stretched military where obsolete types are used for home defence. This was the situation in Australia in 1941.
I highly doubt that cause that would mean they would of had to remake the entire armament. Return museum pieces into combat order and straight up make an entire industry just to make and maintain these century old equipment.
@@coryfice1881 Like T-55s and T-62s in Ukraine right now.
The US has already had a large amount of obsolete ( not necessarily unuseful ) aircraft in storage. Who says Fallout didn't have the same but larger.
@@uberbeegHow many of that is WW2 vintage planes? The p-80 is literally a first gen WW2 era plane that is GROSSLY obsolete. T-55's and 62's are cold war era vehicles that are still supported despite their age. When the us navy recommissioned the obsolete iowa battleships they literally couldn't make anymore shells for its main guns cause the industry was no longer there for it. The only way the P-80 was still a viable weapon to be put in storage and used in 2077 is if the fallout timeline was far less advanced than ours(which it technically is.)
The entire history of the Mexican military post 1930 be like:
I think that the reason why they used P-80s is because the devs needed an aircraft that looked retro but either couldn’t or didn’t want to put in resources to design a new aircraft. The P-80 would be an ancient aircraft by the time of the Great War. Simply sourcing the parts and tooling to create said parts would be an expensive and time consuming venture, or diverting resources into developing a variant that uses new systems. Either option would require a large amount of time and resources. Then there’s the question of what it would even do. The unlike the F-84, the P-80 was never intended to be used as a strike aircraft, at least as a primary role, so without major modifications to the airframe it wouldn’t be able to carry more then a few bombs or rockets. I highly doubt it would’ve been used as an interceptor or fighter even if it’s going up against gun fighter planes as the technological gap would be huge. I rationalize them as training aircraft that look like a P-80, but are entirely different under the hood.
As an aircraft enthusiast you should know then that modern aircraft are slower than their cold war counterparts because speed has been found to be detrimental to combat, not to mention it uses more fuel, something they didn't have. Perhaps in Fallout the USAF came to that conclusion much earlier. Besides, the speed of cold war era aircraft was due to an arms race. If China never developed a plane that could challenge at higher speeds that arms race would never have materialised.
If they used nuclear engines then fuel wouldn't be a concern. Modern fighters, although slower than their cold war counterparts, are still generally more than capable of breaking the sound barrier. In fact, I can't imagine the USAF taking on a subsonic fighter. Ground attack and CAS sure, but not fighters or multirole like the f-35 or f-22.
@@sloppymcslops954 He's probably referring F-16 vs F-4. Sure F-16 is slower than F-4, but it's still at supersonic speed.
@@cool06alt yes that's my point
Also another reason why Cold War aircraft were faster is many strike aircraft were also proposed to be deliverers of nuclear weapons whether it be tactical or full-blown and to get out of the blast radius you have to go fast
@@clonescope2433 And Fallouts military are alot less concerned about radiation hurting their troops XD
It makes since that while larger bombs would be ‘retired’, they would still be used. Cities with large populations like Washington D.C., Boston, San Fransisco, Sacramento, and Los Angeles would be target with huge bombs, to ensure total destruction, and radioactive fallout is secondary.
However, rural and non-urban areas still contain lots of people, spread out, so low-yield, highly radioactive bombs would be more lethal, as the explosions themselves may not kill everyone, but the fallout would spread far and wide, carried by wind and weather.
iirc the lore is (or was) that all nukes in Fallout are low yield
@@TOBAPNW_ Uh... yeah. I know, hence, I made the previous statement discussing the use of high-yield/low-yield bombs.
Cluster nukes maybe? if they turned all nukes into low yield but merged them like them bundle grenades, it'd might give the craters you spot with the rads from a low.
@@2001sith that’s actually a very reasonable deduction. You can easily prime multiple explosives to detonate at the same time, both ‘released’ from the cluster, or all ‘stuck’ together like a literal grape of wrath.
Many bombs clustered together in such a way would act similar to a single high-yield bomb, and would indeed leave a similar crater.
This would also explain why the craters mentioned in-game are so much larger than anything in our real, current world. They didn’t make super-mega nukes, they just took dozens, hundreds of nukes and glued them together to have a greater effect.
@@BLK_MN With how their nuclear tech had progressed, it was either that or they have something higher than standard high yield that would be under a different label and thus letting them get away with saying "We got rid of our high-yields, we still have the low". Or prehaps their nukes are more like fusion bombs mixed with a dirty bomb
Just to add Fallout NV, we do see a B-29. The Boomer quest line has you raise one out of Lake mead, and if they are present for the 2nd battle of hoover Dam, it does bomb the damn.
Add in that the Boomers learned how to fly through all the simulators at Nellis. It would be fair to say the Air Force would have B-29s in their bomber core.
Granted, the B-29 could just be a reference to the B-29 that actually crashed in Lake Mead and isn't meant to mean anything
We know from Vault 112 that the simulators can run more than one program. Although the Boomers say they used them for dogfighting, surely the simulator was equipped to train pilots for different types of aircraft (which would be fitting for an airbase). My takeaway was that it taught them the essentials of flight, meaning that the antiquated B-29 was not sufficiently advanced to require specific technical knowledge.
@@noluckst2 I think the simulators were there just to teach them the basics of flying perhaps it had different types of aircraft but we’ll never know unless Bethesda and obsidian do a deep dive into the simulators
I was wondering how he forgot that
This Bomber is in Real Life in this SEA the airforce retired the B-29
It’s literally on screen at 9:15 when he’s talking about the lack of bombers 😂.
It’s not really a contemporary aircraft at the time of the Great War though so I guess it doesn’t really fit the video subject.
As a many time passenger of the Osprey, I can tell you that I never once was sure of my survival until I was back on the ground lol. I can’t imagine vertibirds would be much more fun.
I always felt this way about the CH-53 personally. But that drop when the Osprey goes from Take off to speed. Pants shitting if you're near the offramp lmfao
Yeah, the Osprey was a real shit show when they went in use, cant say if they got much better...
@@origintrackz5235 they work just fine.
@@aredub1847 That's not what I read lol...
@@aredub1847Is that why they've had catastrophic failures and have killed dozens of soldiers?
The pauldrons have a use for the T-45 and T-60, they have anchor points so the suits can be lifted up with a crane or the power armor stand (we aren’t able to do that though so eh..) It also could have a use for transportation of the suits.
also, you can hide your bags of gummy bears under them
They also protect the neck of the armor.
IIRC you can see power armor on the racks via this method in Operation Anchorage
@@metalhero117 Also the main menu of FO4
Plus they look dope
The pauldrons are not minor use. They are how the suit is hung for service AND can be used to maximize troop transport, since they can be hooked in and then flown over battlefields and dropped as near-invincible shock-troopers due to the impact ablation.
They could also be used to keep the wearer in place onboard the FO:4/76 APC (by tethering them to the hand rails/overhead shelf)
You guys should be consulting with the devs for Fallout 5. 👍
I'm sure that there are other options for tethering, such as lifting rings on the front and back of the chassis. Look at how Edge of Tomorrow handled their powered suits as an example. T-51B also did not have said lifting rings on the pauldrons.
@@colddaze6680 technically it should be fallout 6
I feel like the riveted armor on tanks could be explained away as a necessity due to the resource wars. Riveted armor is generally cheaper/ less draining on resources than modern tank doctrine
Yeah this was my thought. The super high-tech and modern stuff would be on the Chinese front, if it existed at all considering power armor might have made tank battalions obsolete, tho thats fuzzy. Tanks at home are just home guard meant to slow down an invasion until the main battleforce arrives or to crush civilian rebellion, which don't need the same level of technical specs.
??? What? Riveting takes more resources than welding. Its not cheaper.
@@gloomyjzduring older times such as World War Two, welding was a much newer thing, in the uk all the welders were token up by shipbuilding so they had to rivet there tanks together
Yeah, I think it's more to conserve resources than to get better tanks.
Alternatively because we never get to see any of the stuff actually used in the war. During Russian victory day parades, they usually show off shit they've had forever. Ancient tech by today's standards. It far different from what they actually have in the field. I wouldn't see why it's different for any other place in the world during wartime logistics to have their best equipment in warzones while the crap shit is back at home preventing riots and anti-war uprisings.
I think it's fairly safe to assume that the operation anchorage VR simulator is accurate about the military vehicles and capabilities of the Chinese lying about that to train your soldiers would end up with soldiers that aren't trained for what they're fighting. It would be a huge waste of money for the military doesn't mean they won't lie about Chinese motives and propagandize simulator but the military stuff they most likely aren't going to be lying about
This comment is good. I always had this impression of this in Operation Anchorage
i agree, the "it isnt reliable" gets a bit too much credit when it comes to what we see. I always took the questions regarding its authenticity to be the fact they have a a sort of heros jounrey special ops character who does everything. youre essentially playing the fallout-universe's call of duty. the weapons and armor may be accurate, though limited, but the story is a dramatized production to be propaganda at the same time.
this is the US military were talking about, they waste money like it's toilet paper
The simulation was a huge waste of money. There are terminal entries about General Chase having them scrap it again and again. Here is part of one as to why it's not reliable as a source for things outside of itself, "Version 7-36-099 was scrapped after Chase decided his face didn't look just right. I realize progress reports aren't the place for this, but there are concerns that the man is losing it."
It wouldn't be too out of the ordinary if the simulation were more of a mix of propaganda and training, being a vanity project and one to suck the most money out of the defense department
Power Armor almost seems to fill a role akin to a super light IFV, but in places that an IFV can't easily navigate or be more discrete.
I imagine a pair of power armor troops could assist a squad of troops in urban operations, providing fire support and suppressing enemy troops while the regulars work their way in and clean up.
Though really if anyone were to use something like that it would be special police forces or CTUs where the chance of the enemy having superior firepower like rocket launchers or artillery weapons is low.
Does explain why they were useful for keeping order on the home front prior to the war.
I just love that the irl power suit project was named Talos. Makes me wonder if I higher up in the company was a Bethesda fan.
Imo power armor is simply designed as a ww1 armor upgrade. We know some soldiers in ww1 had crazy armor suits.
So expanding that in the 60's onward makes sense. And realistically the idea of power armor is kinda easy to make. Just have a chassis a person can fit in. Sensors that can feel your muscle movements which connect to circuits that tell a computer to move pneumatic pistols and gears etc etc to move the frame. Then build armor outside of that which is extremely easy especially if you use rolled homogenous armor from ww2 tanks. You can have thin armor but remain bullet proof
@@CrusaderCrunchmaybe although Talos is also a metal robot in greek lore.(which Talos from bethsada might actually be referenc to or atleast how he achieved god hood)
Somehow I see power armor as self moving shield.
You put armored troop in the front. The the unarmored troops hiding behind. Just like how SWAT operators hiding behind shield bearer.
I think the aircraft carrier in the Rivet City was meant to be a museum ship, thus the ancient P-80 plane on board
Edit: As for the one in Point Lookout, I'm guessing that they decide to save a few P-80 and convert them to Training Planes
I believe the aircraft carrier was under repair/refitting when the Great War happened, since the atlantic was less of a heat zone than the pacific with the chinese I always thought they'd put older ships there
The wreck in Point Lookout was on a Combat Air Patrol when the bombs went off. So I think they were in common use. Same with Jeeps.
No, I think it was in active use. It was either getting refitted or rearmaed when the bombs fell.
In Point Lookout, there is a downed P-80, the pliot's dead remains could be found, and with him a recording of the pliot on combat patrol when the bombs fell.
@@someguy9293 I think the older models of ship, aicraft etc were posted more on the east coast with the best material was put on the west against the chinese
the US navy will sometimes put "retired" ships back into service in times of emergency, for example after 9/11 many decommissioned ships were temporarily used as high power radio/radar stations since there wasn't anything else available, it wouldn't be too much of a stretch to say that they would bring a museum ship back into service to help defend the east coast, most of the heat was on the west coast, so a century plus year old ship would work fine for its purpose on the east coast, if they're bringing P80s back into service for recon why have them take up space at air bases when you have a retired carrier right next door
I'd assume the best aircraft were being used in combat as support due to manpads and AAA. So the only planes you'd see would be training aircraft and second hand shit used to defend the mainland as backup.
Makes sense, especially as modern US military doctrine is literally "US Military is for fighting over in other countries," and the home defense is for the militia to defend (Aka, literally every citizen with a gun).
And let's be honest. If push comes to shove the number of gun nuts in the US is easily enough to overwhelm the Chinese active military all on its own.
yeah some of the launcher like the fallout 4 one offer locks so manpads are a thing.
Here's a comment I like. Particularly the training aircraft concept. Train both naval and aircrews on carrier operations at the same time, without putting your actual good carriers somewhere they are not useful.
I’m surprised you didn’t mention the Chimera tanks in Operation Anchorage, as those are actually moving and are a pretty big part of the storyline. Energy weapons, EMP weapons, and especially the military robots also seem very important as they shape the battlefield of the wasteland and operation anchorage.
They never existed. They were imaginary things made up.
Chimera tanks seem to be a Chinese in-place improvisation technicals, made from mobile drilling rigs with laser cannons strapped on top.
Not to mention the aircraft flying about with the twin tail wing
I honestly thought the military in Fallout changed to numbers over efficiency after world war two instead focusing on nuclear research, robotics research, and biological manipulation. It was only the resources wars and the war with China that forced the U.S. to start focusing back on military R&D which developed by leaps in that short amount of time.
I think a cool idea for a fallout game would be a nuclear power aircraft carrier that survived the war and had enough crew size to become a generational ship, and stayed out of the way. Occasionally searching for harbors or sending vertibirds out for supplies. The game could be exploring the seas and islands of the pacific and encountering hostile survivors or irradiated beasts. But also finding friendly villages and taking a vertibird on away missions on the shores
That would be really cool to see, especially if I was a monster of a carrier, heck, they could take inspiration from the mobile-iceburg-carrier that was being tested in Canada in ww2, especially since so much fighting was going on in the cold waters around Alaska, it would be a fun location/dlc location for a Fallout game set on the west coast of Canada/Alaska
the shore missions could also be minigames that could show canon fragments of locations in the fallout series that were only mentioned like ronto or monroeville
Neat idea for a faction, maybe not an entire game centered around them though
@@kermitwithashotgun4887 I think the premise if designed properly would have potential for a massive scale game. Because as essentially a mobile city with indefinite power you could travel to a wide array of environments across the coasts of several continents. Going in range of Alaska, Japan, Australia, South America, or anywhere else. And with the Fallout penchant for giant radioactive monsters that also allows the possibility for giant sea monsters interfering with the ship
I think there was a novel that followed a destroyer after a nuclear war,carrying the remnants of humanity on it.
There is an Event in Fallout 3 where a Vertibird acts as a Bomber, dropping 3 Mini Nukes on a Talon Company Outpost near the area where you can Reach Point Lookout, I was quite shocked and absolutely Giddy from the run, so it would seem the Vertibirds also acted as light Bombers.
I think in one of your earlier video's you discussed that the aircraft carrier may have been a docked maritime museum. That could account for the older style aircraft found on the deck : they were there for display. That would also explain why so many were out and ready to be deployed, despite being docked in the middle of Washington DC. As far as the single plane crashed in Point Lookout, it could be a show plane, or due to lack of other craft, a coastal scouting and recon plane. Thanks for the vid :)
It could also be that it was getting ready to launch, or re launch recently resupplied fighters and they were going to intercept the incoming nukes when something happened, if the carrier is in effect a part of the national guard or some such then it using older aircraft would make sense as well.
@@Varick76551It's definitely possible that it was kept ready enough that they could press it into service at short notice
It’s mentioned that the Hardened Power Armor in Fallout 1 had undergone a special chemical hardening process, maybe the same process was applied to tank armor as well…
I think the comventional weaponry makes sense in the Fallout universe. Unlike our timeline where nuclear device was feared due to MAD was in place, in the Fallout Universe all thing nuclear became a cultural sensation. When you relay on nuclear options and all things derived from nuclear technologies, (energy cell, microfusin cells, lasers, plasma) conventional kits go on the backburner
No bombers in Fallout? Bro you float a B-29 to the surface in NV
34:02 Actually modern irl nukes are just as small yield as the ones in Fallout. The largest nuke operated by the US today is the 1.2 megaton B83.
Its somehow reassuring that nukes have gotten smaller. Still 1.2 Megatons is an incomprehensible amount of destruction
You didn't mention robots. In a war (or just comparison) between the two factions... Robots will play a big role in a lit if bsttles.
If prewar USA can turn out thousands, hundreds of thousands or even a million plus combat robots then that's a lot of firepower even with Protectrons or Mr. Gutsy. And just think about Liberty Ptime...
33:54 Uh, actually that would be exactly the same. The US released its Nuclear Doctrine in 2018 and they called for EVEN SMALLER weapons than they currently posses, which have already mostly dropped anything in the megaton range. The highest yield bomb actively deployed as of this moment is the B83 which is a 1.2 megaton weapon.
14:50
Semantics but Tanks had angled armor since literally their earliest days.
think was a french ww1 tank with like 30 degree angle pistols could shoot threw
I think its entirely possible that the vehicles, aircraft, and weapons are mostly from the mothball strategic reserves
I love the concept art of Liberty Prime walking with the Prydwin
I suspect the sino American war was a heavily infantry focused war with tanks filling more support oriented roles, possibly due to the resource scarcity that caused it in the first place, possibly more ultra light artillery role or siege role hence why the higher firepower and less emphasis on mobility as they where probably almost exclusively used in the back line,
The survival guide doesn't say they completely retired the megaton nukes. It says they have "largely" been retired, and mentions the new yields being in the kilotons range with "few exceptions". So there is still plenty of room for a small number of extremely high yield weapons. So while megaton nukes may have almost completely stopped being a thing, it's quite likely there are a very small number of giga/tera or even higher yield weapons, to account for the craters. Such weapons might have been limited to use towards perceived priority targets, and such weapons themselves might have also been priority targets for interception. New Vegas shows interception was possible, though clearly not widely implemented.
As far as the rivets on tanks, the issue of them becoming projectiles inside could be gotten around by having that just be an external layer. Having a cheap easy to replace outer layer with a gap or soft material under it so that attacks break up before impacting stronger layers isn't a bad design, particularly against high velocity projectiles. The material itself might also be extremely heat resistant, thus making it hard to weld, but protective against thermal threats when there is a gap or soft insulative layer under it.
While it is certainly possible to build bigger nukes, there is simply no use for them. Once you get past a certain level of accuracy, even a very small warhead can pretty much kill just about anything no matter how well protected it is. Even Cheyenne Mountain pretty much became obsolete by about 1972 or so given the (relatively primitive) guidance capabilities available. Unless you have a burning desire to make a really big hole in the ground, there is simply no value to a big nuke, far more to build a MIRV and get several targets for the boost of one.
Regarding the notion of riveted armor, while external armor layers are useful (and in fact already in use in composite armor as well as applique armor on lighter vehicles), the problem would be by riveting them on the exterior, you run a risk of the rivets being hit and destroyed in combat, thus shaking pieces of the armor loose. This was a known problem in WWII, and there are numerous stories of this happening in the earlier years, especially with the US Grant/Lee tanks.
@@f1b0nacc1sequence7 We do see the craters on the map though, and those craters are far beyond the capabilities of megaton yield weapons. A MIRV also won't produce the same shape. I wasn't saying it was ideal to have super nukes, just that the evidence suggests that they exist, and that the survival guide doesn't dispute their existence. And if you have them, why wouldn't you target them on a priority target, or at least somewhere you think one might be.
As far as the rivets, I do think it's more likely that it's a product of styling things for fallout rather than a thought out armor design. But for another design possibility it could be that they aren't actually rivets. As they clearly don't cover entire sections on the tank as though they are holding plates on. With some lines of them terminating seemingly randomly, and there doesn't seem to be much logic for where they are placed. It could be that it is still an external layer but rather than rivets what we are seeing is a result of a plastic or foam layer that fills between layers and needs vents. It could be the rivets are actually that foam/plastic expanding out, or they are armored caps over such vent holes.
@@BoredomItself I don't entirely disagree with you re: the craters, but I suspect (as have others on this thread) that it is far more likely that Fallout's art people simply thought that they would "look cool" and added them anyway. That subspecies of game dev aren't exactly known for their grasp of physics or nuke doctrine, after all...
Regarding the rivets, your explanation makes some sense, though is strikes me as a bit of a reach. After all, this is 200 years AFTER the bombs, and these things have been left out in the elements....unless they were something VERY resistant to wear/tear, they would be gone by this time. If they were armored caps (a reasonable conjecture, to be sure), what are they capping? They would still be vulnerable to battle damage, and represent a potential weak spot in the armor. Again, I suspect that this is game designers doing something "neat" (perhaps they saw some old WW2 tank pictures) without any real understanding of what those bumps were or why they would be a problem.
In both cases I understand that you make a good-faith effort to provide viable explanations for what we are seeing, but I suspect that you are overthinking it.....sometimes a banana is just a banana...
there are 2 crashed miltary planes in the fallout nv desert.
1 near the ncr base with the statues and one large bomber crashed in the grandcanyon dlc.
Just a thing that hit me, is this is after the resource wars, it was shortage of fuel and resources. So it can be so that USA have basically introduced vehicles which was easier to maintain and build. Basically it could lead to subsonic fighter jets, tanks with riveted armour and so in the shadow of a long conflict which have left states/countries short of resources could lead to vehicles which basically is out of date.
That’s a good idea, or the US started to use older tech methods to save on resources in general the last 50 years before the Great War.
That doesn't make sense. Riveted armor actually cost more resources and requires special training vs just welding it. Riveted armor is terrible with literally no upsides or benefits to it
@@AsymmetricalCrimes as riveting was replaced by bolting and welding which both are better methods doesn't riveting make any sense but maybe the thing we see as riveting is really bolting and maybe wielded bolts which can in some situations be stronger and easier to repair then normal welding. i just toss out ideas and try make sense if their actions.
Cringe pfp
this is pretty well thought out. the resource wars and stuff like that is certainly the most interesting part of the fallout fluff to me. It's that pure 40k grimdark of having solved any fuel shortage via fusion tech and it still being too late because hey, war is hell and certainly the most important thing to humans. Why would we have ever saved the world? It ain't in our nature, baby, coz war don't change.
I wish the game developers for Fallout 4 had made the APC and especially the tank more like atompunk versions of real-life vehicles. There were some really cool designs that never saw service in the Cold War (personally I think a futuristic tank based off the M48 medium tank would look awesome in Fallout). They could have even designed an infantry fighting vehicle with a railgun or some other unconventional weapon instead of an autocannon.
I will say in its defence we don't see an ammunition feed for the main gun on the Fallout 4 IVF, It could be a laser weapon, the two machinegun barrels poking out of the front have ventilation cuts so those seem to be conventional.
A tank based on the T95 medium tank prototype would have been ideal for the Fallout universe. It would have offered a nice compromise between more advanced looking than the Patton series yet still having those rounded lines that we'd expect from a US Cold War era design. The problem is that Bethesda didn't really pay much thought towards realistic and sensible designs when it came to Fallout 4. I mean most of the guns in Fallout 4 simply cannot function due to how poorly they're designed.
@@danf3201 It's clearly a normal cannon since if it was a laser there would be wires attached to the cannons and it would have the typical look of energy weapons.
Bethesda should’ve used the MBT-70 as a tank instead of the god awful design they went with.
Since when he have a face?
He is merely taking a form that we can understand
The radiation exposure took a toll on him, it grew him a face 😔
We’re you expecting a big thumb?
@@cesarmillan5657 a thumb thumb from spy kids yes
Reference the state of the Fallout universe's tanks it's possible that there could have been a period of relative peace were treaties banned tanks and their production. If the production facilities got shut down and the designs got lost in a bureaucratic shuffle of being classified they might have been trying to rebuild the designs from scratch. Another alternative (given the real world history of some of the US Army's weapons development) is that some self appointed expert with no background in engineering or practical experience managed to get in charge and thought that all these designs were new and innovative when they were just bad.
Given the poor decision making common in the Fallout universe (and ours, really) this seems entirely reasonable.
That and a Heavy dose of "Rule of Cool" given it's all based on retro-scifi and retro tech
Didn't the U.S. military of Fallout have a quadratic nuclear system? Land, sea, air, and space? I seem to remember them having nukes mounted on satellites.
They have some sort of weapon mounted on space platforms (both kinetic rounds from "Highwater Trousers" in F3 and the Archimedes II satellite in F:NV) in several games, though there is no reason that these would have to be nuclear. From the damage that they do (that we see), they look to be more along the lines of the "Rods from God" kinetic penetrators than nukes, but I freely admit that I could be mistaken...
Sorry but "no bombers in fallout" shows the b 29 a b 24
Also forgot you pulled a bomber up for Nellis in nv. Unless I'm mistaken and that wasn't a bomber
@@philbosman5717 do you mean the b 29
@hilarybrown2271 Yeah, I do. I thought the boomers were able to get it up and running. However, please don't quote me iam unsure if they were.
The weird thing about the Rivets on the tank is that during WWII, which went the same in our universe, we had completely phased out Riveted Tank armor by the time the US was in Heavy Fighting.
I would love it if you went over the ammo types that are common in the wastes like how the 10mm is more prevalent in the fallout universe compared to our universe where 9mm is more prevalent
One thought I had about the use of the P-80 was as a reserve aircraft, which would explain why so many are found across the US, another possibility is that they’re a modernized version of the P-80, possibly possessing a more powerful engine, better radar, the addition of missile hardpoints and so on
The style of fallout 4 and 76 simply don’t match up with previous fallout games. I am positive that the fallout universe US army has Vietnam and Cold War era military equipment (M60 Pattons, M1 Abrams, M2 Bradley, UH-1 Iroquois, UH-60 Black Hawks, HMMWVs, deuce and a half trucks, F-4 Phantoms, F-15s, etc). These deigns would fit in far better in classic fallout and even new Vegas alongside many of the weapons which are from around the same historical time period. Tactics even has a Sherman and Humvee so we know those existed within the universe.
And its not like Fallout 1 or 2 even mentioned what kind of equipment was standard issue for the prewar US military during 2077.
The only hard evidence that I know that show what 2070s US military equipment was is the T-51b power armor shown in Fallout 1. That's it.
Even the pistol used can't be confirmed to be standard issue as NCOs and COs can buy their own and register it as their personal service sidearm.
So with this in mind.
I honestly don't think that there should be a "cut off point" for military equipment. At least a hard one that takes place before the global resource wars actually start affecting the US economy and industry to the point of the government and private businesses having to downgrade to save on resources.
i dunno why you seem so obsessed with the fact that fallout planes couldnt do supersonic or arent as good as ones nowadays since its well known in the lore that tech in the fallout world was stuck around the 1950s tech... just slight advances while sticking to the exact same stuff.. ie materials and ways of building stuff...so it makes sense that all planes would be just upgraded version of 1940s & 1950s planes rather than looking like real world modern planes
I still wanna know what US Navy surface combatants looked liked, weve seen one carrier but i wanna see what destroyers and battleships looked like
there was a concept for Fallout 4 seen in the art book of a battleship and it looks like a Zumwalf class has a baby with an Iowa class, lots and lots of guns rather than missile VLS.
@@mattseller148 yeah it's funny I posted this comment and like an hour later my copy of the art book got delivered
probably none
wasnt oil basically extinct?
subs probably more economical and safer in a nuke war where ships are some of the first big targets
They might have had a military version of the civilian jet as a bomber?
Actually, the US utilizes muuuuuuuch smaller nuclear devices IRL. That way they're super accurate and a certain somebody can't hide in a bunker
Yes and even though they are smaller they can still destroy a city in one blast.
@@mattseller148 Not only that they could launch multiple warheads into different locations where it's heading.
I think the original deluxe aircraft in FO4 could actually have taken inspiration from another much earlier game. Considering how similar the designs are.
That would be the Chernovan Warhawk from the game: Warhawk. They look very similar overall :]
EDIT: If you watch Spookston's video on the FO4 tank, you can actually tell it's not as original as claimed, it takes a lot of inspiration from real world cold war tanks with some creative liberties taken.
The explanation for the P80 could be that since the pre-war military is very WWII in its style and likely doctrine, I would not be surprised if they never developed guided missiles like we did so a2a combat even in 2077 was still done with guns and unguided rockets. For the skytrain, transport aircraft don't need speed and was only replaced by the current C130 for carrying capacity. The Stingray is very strange, given its shape it's closest to a ME163 Komet which was a fast-climbing rocket powered interceptor, but like you said the rivets prevent it from achieving the speed it'd need to for interception duties
I stated this previously, maybe the Zetans made those over sized craters, like in Los Angeles with their space lasers that are capable of untorontoing Toronto. For the bomb we see dropped on in Fallout 4, maybe the in game bombs are so much bigger, that they class what we would class as megaton as small arms nuclear weapons. It would be an interesting thing to think about with wide stretching implications.
I’m 99% sure it was a nuclear blast which caused those craters even so, the bomb in fallout 4 using nukemap had to of yielded around 150 megatons to produce heavy blast damage which ended at Natic considering it detonated around holliston.
@@dingbat19 Right, in fallout 4's case, the main target there was a hard target, which would call for something of higher yield than for a non hard target.
I'll say this about the planes and tanks we do and don't see. the easiest explaination is they were fighting the war. beyond power armor which could possibly be made in larger quantities due to having smaller components which would allow them to be manufacturered in barns , and home's, or at least assembled, owning to their large numbers around the wasteland, tanks and planes are big. And require factories. The evolution of the fallout tank and plane could mirror ours exactly until the 2030, where short on resources. and the us of powered armor mad APC's more economical, leaving the tank more a mobile gun for bunker busting if needed, the rivets could be for additional armor, or cost savings, as for the planes, most were deployed and you would not see them, leaving training and light defensive planes at home. All this to say if the us was heavily invested in the power armor programs, and APC's , they might second stringers, as the APC does seem to have better manufacturing, and fighters, the advanced bombers, and fighters are destroyed or fighting so stuck in the post nuclear us we would not see them.
Yeah the military have done a lot of shady stuff in the Fallout universe(although I do like the future 50s style of the armor & weapons). Actually I like to imagine that Nate(my good Minuteman character) was a bit of a rebel. In other words he was patriotic 🇺🇸 but he didn’t blindly follow corrupt orders(Which didn’t let him get a higher rank in the army). Plus I like to think he’s the Anchorage hero. Also I would love to see some pre-war stories in the civilian and military life.
You don't have to follow illegal orders in our military today. You can say no
Another person who plays Minuteman Nate? NICE!
In my case, I assume he was patriotic, but too hero-y, which prevented him from higher ranks (Like yours), but this did make him into enough of a well-known figure that let him be pulled into speeches and the like when he returned home.
@@randomintrovertedspider7510 Lol 😂 thanks. I wanted to get the best ending for the game & I wanted to see all the factions roam around the commonwealth. Really makes everything feel more alive in the wasteland. Also, exactly you’re spot on. They wouldn’t give him a higher rank but they would give him some luxuries. Like his home for example, the car,(they couldn’t buy a lot of food due to the absurd inflation but still nice house & car) & of course the popular status back home.
@randomintrovertedspider7510 I love the Minuteman and play as Nate as well.
I always got the impression Nate was more patriotic than a hero. However, he doesn't blindly fellow orders, and vas never achieved a higher rank than First Sergeant.
Though if you get the America rising mod, then you could argue that Nate is more of a morality gray character who isn't bad, nor is he good.
@@someguy9293 You definitely can argue Nate is more gray if you just side with the BoS - there is quite a lot of... bad decisions you can do under them, that could be argued off as part of roleplay (In essence, ignoring meta thoughts and only using in-game actions). Robbing Settlers? Well, obviously the Minutemen can't fight the Institute - they lack the know-how, and the Brotherhood needs the supplies to deal with the greater threat.
Killing all synths? Well that's clearly just a dangerous technology, no different than a toaster with a heat ray attachment.
Of course, these are justified as gray as part of roleplay - and you could easily argue a synth is alive, for instance, but in roleplay, because he views them as another machine - it's equivalent to destroying a machine.
Also, what's the America Rising Mod? Sounds interesting.
The tank in fallout 4 and 76 reminds me of a 50s version of the grizzly tank from the game halo wars
Man ,were is the navy?
Probably largely deployed. Most of the ships were probably left adrift in pacific and the Atlantic.
Or with it being 200 years, leaks may have developed and they might have sank.
Museum ships from WWII are known for their leaks. USS Texas is a very good example
On the matter of bombers, the B52s featured in Fallout: New Vegas comes to mind, though like one other comment pointed out with regards to Rivet City it's likely that apart from the Lady of the Lake the one at Nellis was more decommissioned museum piece than active service bomber.
The plane that crashed in Lake Mead is a B-29. The B-29 is real in 21 July 1948. However it was a B-29 converted into a recon plane
11:26 seems like a Gundam Franchise Earth Federation tank...
Just because the Vertibird is relatively new in the fallout universe does not equate to it being the FIRST tilt rotor aircraft in the Fallout universe. It could have been intended to replace a prior existing aircraft, much the same way the US Air Force intends to replace the F-16 and F-15 Aircraft over time with the F-22 and F-35 Aircraft, along with some other aircraft that have no business being replaced by a fighter(cough cough A-10 Cough).
The F-22 is being retired so its not replacing anything lol.
@@AsymmetricalCrimes well that doesn't surprise me. It's pricey as all get out, same with the f-35, and as cool of an aircraft as it is, it physically does not need the added capabilities it has to fill the role of the aircraft it was proposed to replace.
@@MistaOppritunity The F-35 cost are actually plummeting. The DoD is using the "economy of scale" method which is why the price is falling.
@@MistaOppritunity That's reformer propaganda.
One major difference between fallout universe and hours is that we seem to have put our priorities on different scientific fields to study in. They went all in on nuclear power, laser weapons and plasma robots medicine.
Where is our TVs? Are century ahead of them probably are aircrafts are beyond theirs. We focused on aviation tv ballistics firearms computers
... we focused on safety
The Fallout Survival Guide talks about reducing the size of U.S. weapons to a smaller yield. A change that didn't effect China, (or any other organization that may have stockpiled megaton weapons for their own use. Such as VaulTech.)
It wasn't just the US. The Survival Guide said all the major nuclear powers reduced their yields (just like in real life). Not just the US.
Also, Vault-Tec doesn't have any nukes.
@@AsymmetricalCrimes just because another country said they did something doesn't mean they actually did it
@@AsymmetricalCrimes That's what Vault-Tech _wants_ you to believe.
@@sand0decker It literally said ALL major nuclear powers reduced their yields... Wtf are you talking about.
@@AsymmetricalCrimesit actually said megaton weapons have largely been retired. Not completely. The USA did create a super bomb according to newspapers which yields in the gigaton range.
I don't think the fighters we see in Fallout 3 are literally meant to be P-80s. They just look like them because Bethesda didn't want to design an original fighter.
Rad king on the tanks normally they keep older designs around as training vehicles so the tanks we see in fallout four and 76 could just be older models that were around for training. Also I think the tank in fallout four and 76 would be classified as a heavy tank destroyer because there’s no way that turret can turn to the back
Biplanes in 76 have US military property marks
Kind of; Their markings are that of the USAAF, the original name for the Air Force during World War II back when it was still considered a part of the U.S Army. Regardless, they were most likely long since phased out.
I'm not surprised that older military craft would be used in Fallout universe military, even deep into the 21st century given how computer tech progressed in their timeline.
Seems like the Geneva convention has been revoked
Things in fallout lore about the US military is the fact that when they developed power armor as it states in the fallout bible a soldier equipped and power armor could destroy an entire city with no damage to the suit
This to me is one of the most radical and biggest changes to our own present-day military door-to-door house-to-house fighting is extremely bloody cost of human life is very high... Not saying that house-to-house fighting would not happen in the fallout universe but to the destructive nature that the war entailed
A scorched-earth campaign would not be out of the question
The FIRST stealth aircraft was built in WWI using clear cellophane sheets and used for Reccon' work. However they discovered it was vulnerable to UV light, and turned a deep yellow after a few days of use and later decided it could not be widely adopted.
The biplanes in fallout 76 are also used by the military
Aren't they just for basic training in flying airplane?
They’re everywhere but I’m not sure
@@sillybob9689 the plane it’s based on is a trainer so probably
It's strange that in Fallout there is military vehicles everywhere. Yet the war was fought in Canada, Alaska and China.
It's wierd because it suggests that there were so many AFVs in Fallout USA that they could use them at every checkpoint and so on rather than just an armed jeep/Hummer. You wouldn't see that in reality, it's hugely wasteful from a military point of view unless you were expecting large scale attacks within the US.
Why?
There were major food shortages and countless riots up to the great war.
Which led the government to declare martial war and deploy troops to quel the unrest.
What's more in our world, military vehicles are regularly sold on to locale police departments, or just going to and from drills.
@@Orcawhale1 Still, you wouldn't need a heavily armed combat APC for that, just armoured cars with machine guns or riot equipment.
As there doesn't seem to be any mention of US forces blasting US citizens with heavy guns anywhere or notable ' food riot ' massacres, maybe those weren't happening in the US.
Also if you look at the start of the Fallout 4 intro, life looks pretty good, except for inflation, but I'd say by the homes, the cars, the furniture, most were content and middle class.
The ' food riots ' don't seem to have happened in that part of the country.
It's sedate, suburban and at ease.
Which makes the plethora of military equipment far fro a front very much like overkill.
But now I have to laugh at myself because the whole Fallout series is a bit ' over the top' and I am realising I'm taking shit a bit too seriously. lol.
@@uberbeeg dude its america, unless the 2nd amendment got taken down, civilian have access to anti-material rifle, missile launcher and all kind of weapon that can penetrate light armored vehicle.
Just because someone can [possess a weapon doesn't mean they know how to use it effectively.
Also, a trained foprce will always overwhelm an untrained militia.
Aircraft ever since the 1950s can't be produced like they were in the 1940s. A contract of just 100 aircraft could take a year or two or more to fill.
The USAF has for some decades now kept a reserve of obsolete types ( see Reno boneyard ) that can with some TLC be brought back into service and quite often are for various reasons.
It's not hard to assume that the USAF in Fallout had the same, and it would also be easy to assume that they would have had a larger reserve as theirs was a world of war tensions.
@@uberbeeg not necessarily disagreeing with you about us military using outdated afv.
But disagreed with you about untrained militia being overwhelmed by trained force.
They won't be see as army because they never were in the first place.
They are called insurgency and they are the pain in the ass to deal with even for the most powerful military in the world, USA.
Its easier for US to wipe out nazi Germany ww2 than to wipe out an army of insurgency spreading out accross the country.
The fact a single man with bare minimum experience can take out a tank with an rpg or rocket launcher is terrifying.
Y’know how in Gears of War you get to ride the Junker that just blasts debris out of the way with its massive frame?
I always thought that’s be a neat idea for a next fallout a vehicle (that you can modify) that blasts debris out of the way
Prior service USAF NCO and general military nerd. It occurred to me during the aircraft section that I can't think of many examples of guided missile platforms in the series. I know there's a probably-SAM-launcher in the F4 opening and you can upgrade the missile launcher with a targeting system, and ICBM/SLBM/space rockets of course, but there's not really much else. I have to wonder if air combat stayed focused on close-range cannon dogfights as in WW2 and Korea instead of shifting to high-speed interception and BVR missile weapons during the Cold War. (Also most non-stealthy aircraft panels are attached to the frame with screws that have flush heads and are then painted over.)
AS FAR AS WARHEADS GO: The current US arsenal has typical yields in the 300-400 kiloton range. Other nuclear powers are understandably a bit harder to get solid numbers on, but the general shift in the last 50ish years has been to kt MIRV systems instead of larger megaton bombs. As for crater sizes in-game, I guess there's a Watsonian answer and a Doylist answer. (The craters are from Chinese weapons, not US ones, OR, the devs aren't good at physics)
Not having small A2A weapons would make sense in fallout seeing as they didn't developed microchips as early (or at all I can't remember)
my head cannon is after ww2 everything that was Researched had to do with Nuclear power/Weapon Capability's and Fusion they had no interest in anything else all the way to the 2000s... not Researching helicopters, Rockets and other stuff.. until Robco and other company's started a "Technology Renaissance" Robots, cars appliances etc. Maybe they saw no need to expand their Military Equipment....so if it wasn't broken don't fix it Approach
I think the explanation for the planes is that we only see the ones left for home defence. Like you said there was a war going on so the high tech planes would be at the front, the furthest west that Bethesdas (first person) Fallouts have gone is the Nevada desert after all, they haven't shown the pacific west yet.
12:14 Not even in an alternate universe, as the Soviet's did dabble in double and even triple barreled designs with their KV-7 tank during World War II, though this never progressed past a prototype design.
I think that the reason that the fallout's power armor is so large is for intimidation while in the real world, soldiers don't need to be scary to the locals and they need to move fast
Just that last tid bit about the bomb sizes, wouldn't the guide be referencing what was being used before the great war, not necessarily what was used in the great war? like modern day we have tactical nukes, nuclear artillery, strategic nukes etc.. It would make sense that given how trench warfare was fought in ww1 that small nukes and radiation fields become the new tactic as a bigger blast would surely bring the threat of all out nuclear annihilation.
There is no real reason why power armor would ever replace tanks, mostly because tanks on the battlefield provide alot more utility including the capability to destroy enemy tanks, providing fire support against a wide variety if threats, and provide protection for convoy's. Alot of which power armorer soldiers wouldnt be able to efficiently do. Power armor would only be good at improving the capabilities of an individual soldier
Sat bored at work and this comes in my recommended, thanks RadKing that’s 35 mins knocked off my shift!
In fallout new Vegas there is a bomber that the boomers want you to repair for the battle of Hoover Dam
The bomber from that game was a b29 which was the same type of bomber to drop the first atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. It’s very much a ww2 era bomber
Love the deep look into really specific facets of the lore. I’m particularly intrigued by the state of other countries in the lore, I was looking that up recently.
Edit: just realised there’s a video on this very channel about it. Excellent!
The tank in Fallout 4 is clearly based on the GDI Mammoth tank form Command and Conquer.
Aren't you forgetting the bomber the Courier retrieved from the bottom of a lake on the Boomers' behalf? 'Twas a B-29! Edit: Heck, you even featured it in the video!
Also, the way I see it, the P-80's were used not because they were never decommissioned, but because the military was probably struggling from the continuous war and needed simpler and cheaper solutions. Also, also, the Stingray does have a wonky shape, so it might actually have some stealth functionality. The patriotic paintjobs and huge rivets we see are there because they are statues, not real planes, plus, don't forget that the US was at war and therefore was worried about spies, so having "nonfunctional" designs in statues was probably a tactic of getting the spies off-trail.
That B-29 was stated to have crashed there a little after World War II though, it wasn't in use by 2077.
@@Ultrasmash_GP oh. Alright then, thanks for telling me. 👌🏻