Fallout's Craters | Where, Why, and What's Happened Since?

[@michaelenglish6028]

I wonder if the radiation warning signs scattered at sites in the captial wasteland weren't pre-war but actually post-war, place by national guard/civil services that survived and at least attempted to maintain order initially.

[@haroldcarfrey4206]

Post War, the Germantown Police terminals speak about post-war civil defense attempts in Fallout 3. Most died of cumulative radiation poisoning either immediately or afterwards as exposure added up

[@thejourney2point0]

@@michaelenglish6028 some of them definitely are. There are signs outside the remains of the white house which could've only been placed after it was destroyed by the bombs

[@JaKingScomez]

@@haroldcarfrey4206i rather die by radiation then die by the bomb

[@forthemysterians7630]

​@@JaKingScomezWhy?

[@nuttbag6658]

@@JaKingScomez that is the dumbest thing I've heard

[@sirrambler6033]

The craters that seem to be in the middle of nowhere in the midwest could be dirty bombs targeting farm land and water supplies for the region

[@masteroutlaw100]

Or they were mass attacks against nuclear silos, either option works really

[@GrouchierBear]

Since ground bursts will leave the biggest craters and create the most fallout, that tracks rather well.

[@toakongu1]

Impact craters would suggest attacks against hard targets like silos. If the Chinese were targeting farmland, a series of airburst detonations would have been more optimal to poison/kill off as many crops in America's Breadbasket as possible while also potentially poisoning the soil and groundwater to prevent future cultivation

[@Joesolo13]

@@toakongu1 Airburst produces little fallout. Ground Burst irradiates a lot of soil and other debris and throws it much higher.

[@HappyBeezerStudios]

What about unreliable information? They might've been aimed at targets that didn't exist, but were launched on the change that there is something.

[@masteroutlaw100]

Those Fallout 3 craters are like cryptids, they're largely unmarked and it seems like you find a new one every time you don't go looking for them

[@hankmann627]

I'm radding so hard rn

[@Rad_King]

D:

[@KuroToaster2199]

@@hankmann627 o_o

[@chilldude30]

IM RADDDDDDDINNGGGGG

[@CODninjarin]

@@hankmann627 I'm bout to rad 😩

[@KuroToaster2199]

Enclave do not support this action

[@VorynDagoth]

Apparently the megaton crater was created by the crashed bomber that deposited the nuke and its debris is what's used as the city walls (not sure how a plane made such a crater but whatever. It just works)

[@markmueller-rougier3098]

Specifically , in the lore , the wall was built by dragging the remains of a nearby airport to the area. Why they didn't just build a settlement at the airport is unknown. I forget if you learn this from a terminal entry or a person.

[@VorynDagoth]

@markmueller-rougier3098 yeah but they could live in a cool crater with a live nuclear bomb (They didn't even use it to make a rudimentary nuclear reactor which is disappointing on Bethesda's part)

[@markmueller-rougier3098]

@@VorynDagoth Damn I didn't even think about making it a nuclear reactor. You're right , that would have been so much cooler.

[@VorynDagoth]

@@markmueller-rougier3098 yeah if they live around a nuke there might as well be a reason other than "it's nuclear Jesus"

[@Nyx_2142]

Even a quick glance at the wiki would have told them that. The fact they dedicated so much time to ideas that were outright incorrect from the start is annoying. And goes to show how fallible so many "lore" KZbinrs actually are. Though, I have to admit, its funny watching them muse over the narrative purpose of craters when its very fucking likely that the writer and/or map maker just put them there for the hell of it. Probably watching and going "Yeah, no, I totally meant to do that." Wouldn't be the first time Bethesda's shitty writing is carried by overzealous fans trying to hard to find a meaning in things, Elder Scrolls is fucking rife with that. Gives me Mass Effect Indoctrination Theory vibes, except at least even BioWare writers had the guts and integrity to admit they never would have been clever or smart enough to write that.

[@spencealwayswins]

Video game Geography is such an underrated part of world building to me, thank you Radking, we say in unison

[@thecurrier]

really adore your videos, they help to keep my passion for this series going

[@Rad_King]

Love to hear it! Gotta keep the dream alive between installments.

[@RNKel1]

This is so real, I’ve sadly lost interest ever since watching the fallout show and playing, I really want fallout 5 and season 2

[@phaylnx]

So the bombs at the Sentinel Site were being directly hooked up to the ICBMS. One of the terminals says that they scientists were having issues interfacing the bombs with the missiles.

[@caerdwyn7467]

Re: the Redding area... In the 1960's, there were numerous Titan missile bases and silos around Chico and the Sutter Buttes. I've been to a couple of them (shhh, don't tell the current landowners). There also is Beale Air Force Base, to the southwest of Chico. Beale is a PAVE-PAWS ballistic missile detection site, and during the 60's through the 90's flew the U-2 and later the SR-71. PAVE-PAWS is still used and Beale is still active. South of Beale near Sacramento was Mather Air Force Base, and near Vallejo is Travis Air Force Base. With Beale, the locals called the three the "Iron Triangle". Mather is now closed; Travis is a significant logistics hub. And just south of Travis was Concorde Naval Air Station (now closed) which had a significant nuclear weapon stockpile. South of THAT was Alameda Naval Station (now closed), where we had Nooclear Wessels. Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory is west of Oakland, where to this day we do nuclear weapons development. It is the home of the National Ignition Facility. And by San Jose is Moffet Naval Air Station (now Moffet Federal Airfield), and what used to be Onizuka Air Force Base (the "Blue Cube", now demolished) where the NSA's satellite downlink for the West Coast was located, right next to Lockheed where the nation's spy satellites are made. All of the above are real-world. The extent to which that is in-game canon is not my department :) NorCal had plenty of reasons to nicely blow it up. My reason, having spent my high school and college years in California's Central Valley, is the cultural wasteland of what is basically a little piece of Iowa.

[@AdlerArno_Germanman]

I remember a theory saying The Glowing Sea was an industrial area filled with nuclear plants and when the bombs dropped they all blew up simultaneously causing mass devastation.

[@MysteryCookie006]

Ejem... That's not even a theory... It's the reality, and a pretty obvious one

[@intheriver790]

For Fallout Tactics: I'd assume that the vast majority of those craters are absolutely not to scale lol. But those in the north of the map, I honestly wouldn't be surprised if they aren't nuke craters at all and may in fact actually be asteroid impacts. They look so... weird. I'd also assume that the accuracy of the craters in Tactics are similarly not quite to scale; as a Nebraskan, I'm certain that Omaha would be *absolutely levelled* in the event of nuclear war. STRATCOM and Offutt AFB (pronounced "off-it", so exactly like how it looks lol) is way too important to not destroy *completely* , and Saint Louis and Rapid City being missed completely just seems unlikely. Anyway just wanted to throw in my two cents about that part of the video as a Midwesterner, great video as always :)

[@serrate-td7tu]

Totally agreed on that, from the Midwest. I do think Rock Falls actually makes sense - because it's right across the water from Sterling, a mid-20th century manufacturing hub. I can only imagine that in the Fallout world, specialties like steel, hinges, and conveyor belts would be even more important than they are in ours.

[@evilemuempire9550]

Some of the prewar nations dragging asteroids onto earth to use as weapons does sound very Fallout. But yeah, a lot of the impact craters in the early fallouts are crazy huge (and probably not to scale).

[@phecto]

Maybe some kinetic impacts from the Zetans helping out, willingly or not. I mean we've seen enough of their ships crashed that maybe they had a large ship coming in fast and steep run into the ground. It's also possible in the fallout universe that the nuclear war just caused some giant eldritch horrors to wake up and burst from the ground to create though craters and who knows what they did afterwards. Either of those events could have easily caused some of the apparently misses in the area to

[@jackodiamonds21]

Who's to say that those craters are nuclear of a kind, possibly could have been part of a "rods from god" type space satellite that used nuclear missiles from space to gain momentum to bunker bust and they could be much much larger due to the fact they didn't need to worry about take-off weight. It is safe to say though that the map isn't entirely to scale for the fact of being able to show these craters.

[@sopadumacacoumadelicia5]

You know, for as many hours as I've got in 76, I forgot about the second crater. It's good that you showed it though, it reminded me that it's a good radscorpion spawn

[@jhonproctor6926]

@@sopadumacacoumadelicia5 76 is gay and your gay for playing it 🏳️‍🌈

[@sopadumacacoumadelicia5]

​@@jhonproctor6926 and?

[@minedude33]

@@jhonproctor6926 and?

[@bp42s56]

@@jhonproctor6926 you’re*

[@MaraStruckMiko]

And? ​@@jhonproctor6926

[@sugarsammy7209]

One thing that could explain some of the craters being at weird target point and not at better strategic locations, is that guidance systems were off. Nukes were flying all over the place and the guidance systems could've failed or been interfered with from the other explosions or bad tactical data.

[@anondimwit]

The accuracy of nukes especially ICBMs fired across the world, is imperfect ("CEP"), and since the Fallout world lacked the high tech computing etc we have, they'd likely have lousy accuracy just like weapons in the 1960s. Bombers were more accurate (sort of) than early ICBMs

[@KuroToaster2199]

So thats why my fridge haven't arrived yet

[@ericchurchill8037]

@@KuroToaster2199 is your fridge running?

[@JJ-me4yu]

@@KuroToaster2199 Hasn't*

[@KuroToaster2199]

@@JJ-me4yu Nikmati roti panggang sempurna setiap pagi dengan pemanggang roti dari Enclave. Dirancang dengan teknologi canggih, pemanggang roti ini memiliki pengaturan browning yang presisi, sehingga Anda dapat memilih tingkat kerenyahan yang sesuai dengan selera. Baik untuk sarapan cepat atau camilan lezat, Enclave akan membuat hari Anda lebih berenergi.

[@KuroToaster2199]

@@JJ-me4yu apakah anda ingin roti bakar yang pas setiap hari? Perkenalkan pemanggang roti Enclave !! , pemanggang roti buatan PT Enclave sejahtera ini merupakan pemanggang roti terbaik di pasaran saat ini yang dapat menjamin dapat membuat pagi mu lebih baik dengan Roti bakar yang fresh

[@KuroToaster2199]

​@@JJ-me4yu apakah anda ingin roti bakar yang pas setiap hari? Perkenalkan pemanggang roti EncV !! , pemanggang roti buatan PT EncV sejahtera ini merupakan pemanggang roti terbaik di pasaran saat ini yang dapat menjamin dapat membuat pagi mu lebih baik dengan Roti bakar yang fresh

[@tristanseaver9054]

CRATER?! I 'ARDLY KNOW 'ER!!

[@mikewolf7288]

Shut up, Grunkle Stan

[@jamesherald5389]

No. How would you crat a woman.

[@NCR_vet_ranger2347]

​@@jamesherald5389 shut up arthur

[@Mr_Vakarian]

AAAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

[@hossdelgado626]

Milk crate, straight to the chin!

[@silverbladeTE]

#1 The accuracy of nukes especially ICBMs fired across the world, is imperfect ("CEP"), and since the Fallout world lacked the high tech computing etc we have, they'd likely have lousy accuracy just like weapons in the 1960s. Bombers were more accurate (sort of) than early ICBMs #2 The Devs admitted that in reality Washington would be shaved *flat* by all the nukes & firestorms, which wouldn't be much fun to play, lol, so they made it less wrecked than it would be, similarly they vastly understate the damage in FO4. #3 Thanks for the vid! :)

[@Pigness7]

I think the sentinal site was the target for the fallout 4 bomb, not boston. targeting military installations makes more sense than population centers.

[@silverbladeTE]

@@Pigness7 Agreed :) it was a very important and hugely "Hardened" site with lots of nukes and is based on an anti-ballistic missile system, so you'd want some massive ordinance to take it out From what's been said in lore, big megaton sized weapons like that one were rare

[@mrazbyte3150]

Get out of here, stalker! ​@@Pigness7

[@paladinboyd1228]

If I remember correctly, didn’t the devs also that pre war, a lot of buildings were reinforced to better withstand attack. Which would explain how they are still standing 200+ years later.

[@silverbladeTE]

@@paladinboyd1228 Well, buildings built in Britain around the Edwardian era were VERY tough, massive sandstone and steel construction The Empire State Building survived a direct collision by a B17 with very little damage, again, very strong construction :) I know nowadays American housing standards are absolutely bloody GARBAGE, ugh! sorry, but it's true :( Fair extent same over here too nowadays alas

[@DuskoftheTwilight]

27:00 two possibilities come to my mind Firstly it is possible that there was some isolated launch site that was pointed specifically at the White House and did not have any communication going to or from it to keep the launch site hidden. The Chinese might have simply assumed that the White House was an obvious target and so once the bombs started flying that group did not have the memo the president wasn't even there and went through with their orders to fire the nuke. Possibility number two is that the ones targeting the White House were informed but thought that it might have been some kind of double bluff where the news stated that the president wasn't at the White House but really he was there and so they nuked it just in case.

[@murmurghle]

the second one is way more plasuable. Ordering someone to launch a nuke at a specific date 6+ months in advance and sending them somewhere completely isolated without a way to cancel the order would be waaaayyyy too reckless even for fallout's version of china. My theory is that they are nuking everything anyway. That general area is a prime target with or without the president.

[@SpartanK4102]

Nice definitely here for a Grey Gaming colab

[@zatada12003]

So the Sentinel Site appears to be reminiscent of the Stanley R. Mickelsen Safeguard Complex. Part of the U.S. Safeguard Anti-Ballistic missile system.

[@thirdhandcomic9]

@@zatada12003 it is. And there is one located in North Dakota at nekoma. It was only used for nearly a year but never got off the ground. Now it's a server bank for computers or something like that.

[@squishy024]

Totally is, and the Sentinel name along with the idea that they were developing more advanced ICBMs lines up with the irl Sentinel program that the US started right around the time Fallout 4 would have been in development

[@CircusFoxxo]

Yeah there's a Minuteman site there irl

[@davidcameron5308]

Great video! I want to suggest that one explanation for nukes near-missing what would otherwise be valuable targets, especially the craters in Tactics, could potentially be from bombers flying overhead that came under attack from American defenses before they could reach their target, and in an attempt to still launch their payload, bombed locations that were as close to their targets as they could get.

[@jackpeep2495]

Most of the craters in the northern part of the United States that you did not know how to explain can be explained pretty easily if you overlay a map of U.S. Minuteman missile silos and strategic bomber bases which are publicly known they match up with where the craters are pretty well. Thought I would point that out to clarify any confusion.

[@wingshad0w00982]

I assume there was a fair bit of interference from the US on nuclear launches. House mentions that a portion of the missiles aimed at Vegas just outright failed, and he had interception for the rest. Its possible other cities had their own defenses passive or active. Though why they missed, say, St Louis entirely, and 90% of Boston, but deleted Chicago is a mystery.

[@TFD_Animations]

KInda like how you two kinda were in character jabbing at eachother at times, really immersive and fun to have two wastelanders of two upbringings wandering the American Wastes cuz one one of Atom's followers, and where ever the rads are he goes and drags his rad-x chugging freind along with him. VERY fitting where Grey was led PAST New Vegas and into more western part of the US and california cuz Rad followed Atom's glow. S+ for roleplaying and character-building!

[@ServantOfOdin]

Given how few craters there are and how small most of them are, I have a theory that the majority of dropped bombs were actually airburst bombs.

[@mrziiz6893]

Would explain the far heightened levels of radioactive fallout compared to the lower amount of destruction. I’d imagine they air bursted over the population centers to ensure that America would remain crippled and unable to recover quickly. They probably only directly struck important sites like the sentinel site and the White House, as their defenses would protect them from air burst attacks. Thousands of smalller dirty bombs with only a hundred or so bigger city levelers aimed at hardened targets

[@minedude33]

Another plausible theory is that the smaller craters were produced from smaller missiles meant to kill rather than cause mass destruction

[@williamwest9204]

Ill give u some context on Appalachia cause i live here. In WV the Green Briar was a hotel that was also presidential fallout shelter from the 50s on, thats one target that makes sense. And Kentucky was a very large producer of Oil Refinery's and Uranium Enrichment facilities in Ashland and Paducah

[@hossdelgado626]

Dunno if relevant or not cause we've never gotten confirmation on the economy regarding silver/ gold backed currency, but potentially Fort Knox could've been a target, as well as we have other weapon stockpiles in Kentucky

[@DrKhallos]

I love you guys' thoroughness, and also the fact that you consider nearby targets to try and work out if a crater is a nuke or not! Bear in mind that some craters being missing may also be because the US was able to intercept and destroy some of the incoming nukes - some obvious targets that don't have craters nearby may have had fighter jets or 'iron dome' style missile defence systems that protected them, just like New Vegas. By the same logic some nuke craters in odd places may be because the missile or bomber carrying them went down off target. Awesome vid as always!

[@TheEclecticAndroid]

Love all the fallout collabs recently! Really awesome community of creators we have on here.

[@andreykuzmin4317]

I still remember the goosebumps I had, when I realized, that entire map around Dayglow is full of craters. The Chinese just saturated WestTec and area around it with ICBMs, just to be sure. It's crazy to think, that Master, Enclave and, to a lesser degree, the Institute all became bad trouble thanks to WestTec.

[@Nuniixo]

Amazing collab

[@LongLiveLiberty]

🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉

[@BeanzInc.]

Bro i love when people get in depth with games like these and its rare so thanks Rad King once again.

[@HLFBLD]

Hearing the RadDaddy say my name is a bucketlist checkmark

[@MemSt3ler]

rad pookie will say my name for money??? hell yeah!

[@chaoticgoodyt107]

Raddy?

[@WarOfWolves]

Cringe

[@qwopiretyu]

​@@WarOfWolves truly a "touch grass" moment

[@frankmagnotto]

Andale comes from Annandale, it’s right in Fairfax county in that area outside DC. I was born in Falls Church, and now in Appalachia (Luray, right near skyline drive)

[@TetanusSnowfall]

Great video, I really enjoyed both the premise and presentation. Also good on you and Grey for not shying away from the real-world circumstances and decisions that make the world of Fallout so noteworthy; to paraphrase the saying "if you're not panicking a little about nuclear weapons you're not thinking about nuclear weapons."

[@dustinhaluch9830]

Illinoisan close to St. Louis here. Haven’t played Tactics, but Litchfield was probably targeted because it’s home to the IL national guard recruitment station. My hare brained theory as to why STL survived is because Scott Air Force Base IL, one of the most important military cites in the nation, is close enough to STL to *fictionally shield the area from incoming nukes. Sick video as always 🤘.

[@libidinistlyn]

i was under the impression that Megaton was the site of a crashed bomber carrying a nuke and when it wrecked at whats now megaton it left that crater and plane debris which early Children of Atom settlers turned into megaton

[@haroldcarfrey4206]

No, it was a crater caused by the nuke not going boom then surrounded by aircraft wreckage from a civilian airfield that was heavily scavenged.

[@Vaultboy-ke2jj]

@@haroldcarfrey4206it’s a USAF bomb, so it wasn’t dropped, it crashed

[@Nyx_2142]

@@haroldcarfrey4206 That undetonated bomb did not make that crater. A bomber crashing there did.

[@General-Atomics]

if you add in the lore of the Fallout 2D20 game by Modiphius in the Winter of Atom campaign the Crater in the glowing sea is there because they aimed at destroying a Under Ground Ancient city (Lovecraft stuff) at the start of the war, The Entrance is the blown up Power planet that had a elevator to Lovecraftian city

[@General-Atomics]

correction the entrance is the Forgotten church

[@NomadicSon_]

The nuke may have not been intended for Boston’s as the damaged submarine could have been tasked with the city itself.

[@screen2529]

The "Mother of all Craters" isn't part of Los Angeles. It's Orange County, just about the entire craters worth. Idk about any military bases in the county except for an old WWII Naval base for blimps to patrol the coast that's in my city of Tustin. (There were 2 massive Hangers that were the world's largest free standing wooden structures or something like that but one of the hangers went up in flames an year ago. The other is still standing) Also the original creator(s) of Fallout lived in Orange County at the time and thought it would be funny if the entire county was wiped off the map

[@lllNiaNlll]

That settler that is overlooking that raider camp in the crater, they are not always dead. Several times I've gone by there and found an alive settler sitting in that chair. Come back later and they will be dead though, presumably killed by the rads.

[@zucktheskeleton9731]

In my run she got killed by random Sentry Bot I tried to save her but Sentry guy got other idea

[@whitegiant]

The target east of St Louis is likely the equivalent of Scott Air Force Base, which houses a lot of logistic support for the U.S. Military

[@notnickyp6193]

grey gaming is the 🐐 of fallout settlement videos, super helpful when i was making big settlement builds

[@benjaminfinlay829]

There's actually a second crater in Fallout 2. That said, it's right next to the one you noted, and is a fair bit smaller.

[@nigerianpr1nce948]

Love the collab. Keep up the good work you 2

[@lysawolf]

Vault 87s door was directly hit with a bomb and is even mentioned by the brother hood of steel when doing the quest to find the geck and given its location.

[@brigadier-tc8565]

I'm only early into the video so I don't know if you mentioned it, but I wonder if the Canterbury and other localised crater impacts were the sites of neutron bomb detonations. For those who don't know, the theory of those is that they will cause the most radiation damage while limiting physical destruction as much as possible, with the most extreme concept being they'd annihilate living organisms while leaving physical structures untouched. They're still only theoretical in reality, but it could explain why they give off more rads than the larger yield explosion in the Glowing Sea

[@toakongu1]

1:03:31 I still love that the first thing you learn about Grey from his about section is "we bash Todd Howard" Grey...Grey never changes

[@bradleytanner9367]

I'm not sure if anyone mentioned this, but not too far from Rock Falls in real life is the Rock Island Arsenal. It's approximately 50 miles west. Perhaps that was what the game devs had in mind

[@105thBattalion]

3:30 don’t forget, the Glowing Sea also has a crash site (which while not the origin of the zone’s radiation, certainly didn’t help)

[@masterassassinaltairibn-la4698]

A collaboration between two fallout gaming legends in Greygaming and RadKing wasn't on my bingo card this year

[@odisy64]

Some of these craters can possibly be explained by an underground nuclear reactor melting down and detonating it. One of these reactors exist under concord that is bigger than the ones you find in cars.

[@atouchoflightning448]

26:37 those radiation warning signs are most likely put up by the brotherhood patrolling nearby

[@Cru128]

Yo, rad king. I’m a CBRN specialist, and I think at 24:01 you misunderstood the characteristics of an air burst, which happens a lot with people. Because this is my job, I thought I’d explain a bit about nuclear detonations and their typical characteristics, without getting into all the fancy stuff. So, you have 3 types of nuclear burst, surface burst, air burst, and subsurface burst. They’re all really self explanatory given their names, but I’ll go into them anyways. Starting with surface burst, we shall get into its characteristics. First- appearance. Surface burst is the only nuclear burst that can produce a mushroom cloud, and any subsurface or air burst have to be classified as surface bursts if a mushroom cloud is formed. The cloud in size may vary based on tonnage and also the amount of irradiated debris caused by neutron radiation. Surface burst produces the absolute most nuclear fallout, as it scatters debris irradiated by neutron radiation. That’s what the mushroom cloud is, after all. It’s debris caused by the pressure wave that forces air out and the air that rushes back to fill that void. Next is air burst. An air burst should not form a mushroom cloud, but those that are intended to be air burst that end up forming a cloud are usually more white in color due to a lack of debris picked up. Predictably, an air burst produces minimal fallout, but nuclear fallout will still occur. And finally, subsurface, classified as any airburst either under sea level or underground. Burst cannot breach sea level or the ground or it becomes a surface burst and will produce nuclear fallout. A prime example is the Bikini Atoll nuclear testing where they severely underestimated the blast and an intended subsurface burst became a surface burst. And predictably, causes minimal to no nuclear fallout, since it shouldn’t reach the surface. Hope my simplified explanation of nuclear bursts is helpful to anyone curious or wondering if the statement made about the vault “crater” was correct.

[@Cru128]

Now, if you want my professional opinion on what possibly caused the radioactive contamination? My bet is that it was a weapon designed for area denial, probably something like Cobalt-60.

[@HappyBeezerStudios]

45:27 That might be an area where one of the nukes Mr. House shot down landed. We know that he had some sort of defense system to cover Vegas, but those warheads still would come down somewhere, even if in shrapnel.

[@anondimwit]

it legit stated in the lore

[@eddieinsa]

RadKing AND GreyGaming?!?!?! I've been waiting for this!!! *Nohw Kittth*

[@geoffreyhebel2438]

The mirv prototype fat man would be a good proof of concept for the upgrading of icbms to do similar with larger bombs

[@MattnessLP]

My theory why Appalachia has been nuked significantly less than the Commonwealth: less population and a larger Chinese presence (hidden operations in basements, Liberator bots etc.). Maybe the Chinese wanted to "spare" Appalachia for their operatives to emerge and establish a base of operations after the dust had cleared. Claim fertile and largely intact land to win survivors' sympathies in post-war US

[@Adwi1992]

Awesome! Two of my favorite fallout creators! 🎉

[@russtyhoward-m3f]

The area around Wall SD used to be home to about 35 or so missile silos, which were decommissioned in the early 1980s. Sioux City is a transit hub for three states: Iowa, Nebraska, and South Dakota. The area was rail heavy, as well as having an off-load point for barge traffic, it also had a (4-lane) interstate highway connection running from Iowa towards SD. Rapid, sigh Rapid City was surrounded by several "military reservations" of indeterminant usage, they were simply fenced off and heavily marked. The backside of the monument however was fenced off for a very different reason, the mine there was a source for Rutile. This was played out in the late 70s, and then converted into document storage. The mine was resold to private hands in the early 90s. The weird craters with the external rays, are a fairly decent match to what ballistic weapons dropped from orbit, might end up looking like. Source for most of the info: I used to live in rural SD and was friends with a rancher who the Feds decided had need of 6 of said silos on their cattle ranch (He was justifiably NOT happy with the arrangement).

[@magicpyroninja]

6:51 there's a number of things you have to consider with a crater like this. That explosion will affect the area around it differently depending on where it went off if it went off in the air. If it went off because it hit something above ground would affect how everything would react afterwards. So if it hit the bridge, the crater probably wouldn't be very deep and damage to the nearby area would be different than a direct hit. Of course the bridge would definitely not survive

[@johnfath996]

Heyo! As someone familiar with the DMV area, I'm fairly certain "Andale" is supposed to be Fallout's take on "Annandale" which is in fact a real city that exists. Maybe the first three letters got lost in the nuclear blast?

[@vladt7150]

22:25 - Actually, there is a town called "Annandale" that's roughly between Falls Church (which *might* be what the 'Fairfax Ruins' in-game is based on) and Springfield today, which would roughly correspond to where "Andale" is located in the Capital Wasteland; much like the Pentagon/Citadel and the National Mall/Monuments/Capitol Building, it's probably one of a handful of FO3 locations that can be accurately locked down and matched to a real life location.

[@wickedcrayon6022]

I love these collaboration vids! You and grey gaming are a great team. Educational and funny. Great job!

[@crylec6534]

22:29 It's likely that Andale is supposed to be based off the city Annandale.

[@ggallinvevo84]

Hey hey! Great video guys. You both have a new fan.

[@SirWussiePants]

Air bursts vs ground bursts can make up some of the differences.

[@Volunteer-per-order_OSullivan]

4:20 The W49 nuclear warhead was a derivative of the B28 nuclear bomb, with internal power systems removed. The opposite was done by Britain. The WE.177C was constructed from the Reggie second stage of ET.317 warheads, recovered from surplus warheads crated with the adoption of the Chevaline penaids, reducing the number of warheads per Polaris missile from 3 to 2.

[@Sleeper____1472]

This will drastically affect the trout population.

[@poromafia]

18:38 Actually Poseidon energy plant WV-06 (irl John E. Amos) was converted to use ultracite instead of coal. [Megaton] It's stated ingame that plane parts/construction materials for the town were scavenged from an airport that has been "washed away by the winds" a long time ago. [V87] The signs were likely placed after the bombs by national guard or NCRA.

[@rushtonshaw4384]

Here's an idea of the most people don't consider what if some of the the larger craters were created via controlled asteroid strikes we already see that before the Great War us was exploring space

[@hoosierpatriot2280]

There are missile fields in the Dakotas so the gigantic craters could be from direct hits on silos that were open and detonated the ICBMs in them.

[@nekipeh7373]

Love the inlcusion of Qgis in some detailed previews fir real world comparison hahah And now that i mention it, the reason why in Tactics map many craters are placed to the right could be because of georeferencing/different projections, which can make places on map and real life not matching 100%: some projections make everything streched, some shrinked/ maybe its Mercator, maybe Gauss-Krüger, Lambert, Gall-Peters you get the point; but both place on map and in real world are correct. To summarize, it is possible the craters are actuall cities/places of interest.

[@terminal8]

the shed next to that crater is indestructible

[@zuzoscorner]

Fun fact IRL: a nuclear blast ill NOT set off other nuclear bombs. at least not the nuclear part of the bomb. it take lot of fine timing to set oen off properly not jsut caguth in some blast

[@masonmugerian4096]

21 miles holy atom, imagine the fireball, flash and shockwave.

[@LongLiveLiberty]

“Behold! He's coming with the clouds! And every eye shall be blind with his glory! Every ear shall be stricken deaf to hear the thunder of his voice!” -ConfessorCromwell(Fo3)

[@embersaffron5522]

That would be a massive cluster of...fuck I don't know, 20mt nukes just pounding that area into ash

[@deracer69]

gotta love Great Mistakes(Great lakes Naval Base) i was there for boot back from 22nd November, 2002 to 31st January 2003, RTC side, then on 3rd February 2003, i was shipped to Pensacola, fl NATTC for my A-school

[@jeremiekauffman4574]

I wanna make you aware that megaton was not targeted by a nuclear bomb. It was a airplane that was transporting the nuclear bomb that crash landed there when the bombs were being decorated in the bomb is what was just left in the center of the crater. thank you for your time.

[@quantemwensday]

0:15 it does look very but holey

[@VoltaicNebulae]

@@quantemwensday Try tongue but hole?

[@bluenightrblx]

best intro so far

[@SaidNoGaming]

Peak collab 🔥

[@timtims2258]

click video, skip directly to tactics, fo2 and fo1, close video as soon as the tv show pops up.

[@Horgler]

Same here.

[@MysteryCookie006]

I never saw a more pathetic nostalfan

[@WeNeverHadForever]

This is so cool. I love seeing some of my favourite Tubers working together. Y'all should have asked AnyAustin to join you. He's done something similar!

[@jorngaming89]

The collab we needed 😅☢️

[@Theegreygaming]

but is it the collab you deserve? :)

[@brodyketner3897]

You and grey should do more videos I like the fun back and forth commentary

[@rezredstripe2774]

Bethesda has never been the best at continuity or the small details. Good vid though

[@Jodie-G198]

You and Gray made for a great duo, to explain one of the more-fascinating features of the Fallout worldspace for me.

[@AndrewCJWinter]

The crossover we knew we needed 🥰

[@Luke_H98]

Always love a good collab especially with Grey and Radking!

[@WHISKEYSHIZZLE]

“Anndale” is most likely Annandale va. I lived there for a few years. It’s just outside of Alexandria.

[@thethievesdomain8360]

I was always under the impression that the Megaton crater was made by the crashing of a large bomber which was dismantled and used to build the town and the bomb at the bottom just happened to survive the crash and no one wanted to touch it.

[@allbankbasalisk___2005]

The crater that megaton is built in isn't a nuclear crater. The bomb dropped there never detonated, so it might be a sink hole of some kind

[@MarrockV]

7:03 In my game that wastelander is always alive when I wander over that way only to die shortly thereafter, using V.A.T.S. you can see her health slowly go down over time until she kicks off... so yeah, it's definitely radiation.

[@LeoDeC-bk9km]

Woah RadKing AND Greygaming??? This is the crossover of the year. Hope you two do more vids together.

[@kxuydhj]

did i miss something or did you not mention the entire island just being absent on the fallout 1 map?

[@killawhale8726]

The craters in the sparsely populated midwest are likely targeting missile silos, as IRL those are silo locations.

[@qwopiretyu]

4:35 highwater trousers. The satcom array in fallout 3 where you can drop a multiwarhead around the array

[@MorgothBauglir3791]

The detonations in rural areas make sense in a 1960s concept (whereupon Fallout is based). It is Nuclear Area Denial. Basically the concept as to irradiate large stretches of enemy land. In order to achieve this, you needed dirty (salted) warheads and a good target location. Fallout is defined by the amount of irradiated debris from a detonation. The yield, altitude and weather pattern come into play but also the type of soil. You want irradiated particles to be carried away by wind as fa as possible meaning you need light particles that stay in the air for a long time. A urban target or a target with a rock base result in heavy particles that fall back to the ground rather quickly. But an agricultural area or a desert make for light particles that stay aloft a lot longer. So from an area denial point of view this makes a lot of sense.

[@DonavanAlloway]

I love gray gaming I love radKing this is the greatest collaboration to exist for fallout 4

[@Theegreygaming]

who is this "Gray" and why's he taking credit for my work? :)

[@michaelbondt8202]

re: the lack of craters in some maps. have you considered this may be due to anti-missile systems , many upper atmosphere detonations may also explain the continued radstorms

[@Ian-ry2ow]

There is a nuke crater you missed in Fallout 76, it is outside the map near the Big Bend Tunnel West

[@ImperatorFrank]

Andale is based on Annandale, VA.