Where Did Fallout 3's Bombs Actually Hit?

I'm standing here in the

post-apocalyptic streets of the hit 2008

video game Fallout 3 and I have a

question does this look like a place

ravaged by hundreds of nuclear

explosions to you now obviously the

answer to that is yes but while playing

Fallout 3 for the first time over these

past couple of weeks I started to get

curious where exactly did all of these

nuclear bombs drop and I mean where

exactly did they drop down to the square

foot because I feel like I remember

seeing some obvious nuclear craters

while playing through the game but not

that many did I just miss them well I'm

going to figure it out and you're coming

with me if you want to we're going to be

scouring the capital Wasteland looking

for signs of nuclear Armageddon

including radioactive craters knocked

over electrical infrastructure and in

some cases literal nuclear bombs

anything that might be able to help us

pinpoint where this nuclear Fiesta

actually occurred and how many bombs

actually hit the ground in other words

we want to know how Bethesda chose to

fake the past in a place that doesn't

really have one

the types of places that we're going to

be looking at today really come in two

categories some of them are spots that

are very obviously sites of nuclear

explosions you know places that were put

there by the developer with the

intention that the player would stumble

upon them and go oh a nuclear bomb

exploded here maybe it has references in

the lore or maybe it's just really

obviously a radioactive crater the

second type of place we're going to look

at are places with the telltale signs of

a nuclear strike but no explicit

recognition by the game through

conversations or audio logs or whatever

places that we really have to pay

attention to the environment rather than

just being told by the game and then

technically there's also a third type I

guess which is places with uh literal

nuclear bombs in them that just didn't

explode so obviously this is a pretty

easy one this is the city of Megaton and

you can tell that a giant bomb fell here

on account of the Giant Bomb that's here

now this first one technically wasn't an

explosion so we'll use a little

unexploded icon on the map here you're

welcome now I know there's some debate

in the lore about whether this bomb

actually like fell here or if it was

brought here I'm sorry but these

malnourished post-apocalyptic weirdos

would not be able to drag a bomb there

and if they did why would they set it up

so that it looks like it crashed nose

first into the ground and made some kind

of impact crater we'll probably talk

more later about what the uh lower

communicates about the gamespace versus

what the environment communicates about

the gamespace uh but that is too boring

for the first half of a YouTube video we

have nuclear bombs to find and for those

you saying that a nuclear bomb never

could have fallen from an airplane and

impacted the ground without exploding

guess what yes it could have it happened

in North Carolina once twice I guess

technically here's a picture of it in

the little crater that it created

another place where there has obviously

been a gigantic nuclear explosion is

right here the White House now I know

what you're thinking wow it looks just

like the photographs with one small

difference this gigantic hole in the

ground big hole in the ground plus

radioactivity equals probably it was was

bombed by a nuclear explosion device out

of curiosity I went to that um nuclear

bomb simulator website in order to try

and figure out what size bomb actually

fell on the White House it looks like it

was most likely a 300 ton bomb which is

currently the smallest bomb in the

United States Arsenal Jesus Christ if I

had a 300 ton nuclear bomb and I had to

pick a target for it you know what I

would pick a very large empty field with

nothing in it in the middle of a desert

but if I was in The Fallout Universe I

would probably pick a military base

which is why the next place we're going

is Fort Banister the first thing that

you notice when you come here is all of

these tiny little craters dotting the

landscape almost like a bunch of little

nuclear weapons exploded all around but

then there's also this large crater and

actually with this big crater you can

see it if you look on the pit boy map

that's how big it

is a little further west of Fort

Banister is a place called vault 87 this

is an underground Vault outside of which

a nuclear bomb exploded you can't get

within 100 ft of the place without dying

of radiation poisoning so that's good

enough for me Mark it down aside from

all those the only other place that is

an obvious candidate for this is a

gigantic crater in downtown DC this

gigantic crater is radioactive and in

the bottom of it there looks to be some

sort of missile sounds promising but

upon closer inspection it's not a

missile it's an airplane with an

unexploded nuclear bomb on it so it's an

interesting site for sure but it's more

in line with what we saw in Megaton uh

than an actual nuclear crater so we use

this icon again and and that's really it

for places in the game that seem to have

been made with the intention of a player

stumbling upon them and thinking that

they are a nuclear bomb site so what we

need to do now is look for places that

have indications that they were probably

hit by one of these nuclear bombs even

if it's not explicitly stated by the

game now obviously I could just

personally walk around this whole map

for days at a time in order to find

these spots but I figured there's

probably an easier way which is to go on

Google and find old Fallout fan forums

and see if anyone has uh asked this

question before which lo and behold they

have so I perused all of these threads

and collected any places that people

brought up frequently that we didn't

already cover the first one of those

places is a place called the German Town

Police Headquarters this came up on a

couple of different forums that I read I

don't remember there being any explicit

evidence of a nuclear detonation here

but let's take a closer look and see

what we can't find out that's the police

headquarters there you see behind it all

of these wooden buildings now the thing

with nuclear bombs is that they are

quite warm so they do tend to burn

things up so the existence of these wood

buildings does kind of indicate that if

there was a nuclear explosion around

here it either wasn't directly on the

ground or was a little bit further away

we do have the whole backside of the

building totally torn off and a large

chunk of it literally pushed in this way

you do have a train that was blown

completely off its tracks going that way

so if we were to draw two lines from

both of those points in the opposite

direction that the force was applied you

would end up with something kind of like

this so I do think there is a

possibility that there was an airburst

nuclear explosion right here quite a

long time ago and if I had to pinpoint

the spot I'd say it was probably right

about there now two other places that

were referenced on a lot of these fan

forums were number one on the top of 10

peny Tower apparently if you look South

you will see a nuclear crater and then

number two a couple different people

referenced there being an explosion in

Vernon Square now upon further

investigation I think the Vernon Square

One was actually just people

misremembering where that uh crashed

airplane was so that one's out but if

you go to the top of 10 peny Tower and

you look

South look at that looks an awful lot

like a nuclear crater to me this crater

is off the uh bottom of the map once

again you can see it on the pit boy but

if you get close enough you'll also

notice that the trees surrounding it are

knocked away uh in the direction that

the blast would have come from so as far

as I'm concern it's good enough mark it

down now this is where things get a

little bit trickier cuz as of now we've

marked off every place that is uh

obvious we've marked off all the places

that aren't obvious that people have

mentioned which really only leaves all

the places that aren't obvious that

people haven't mentioned and so far we

only have five actual possible locations

of an explosion uh which doesn't seem

like very many it's definitely a far cry

from the hundreds that allegedly fell on

this area so now what well I pretended a

moment ago that I wasn't going to just

wander around the DC Wasteland and look

for craters myself but that's exactly

what I'm going to do the question is did

I find anything yes I did take a look so

one candidate that I located was just a

little bit Northwest of rock Breakers

last gas and it is this big pit with

this hole there's actually kind of a

faint almost crater like look to this

whole area could it just be kind of an

eroded old mine definitely one of the

things I do like about this as an option

is it reminds me of something that

craters do in real life on planet name

of Earth uh which is they form Lakes

sometimes Crater Lake in Oregon is

probably the most famous example of this

at least in the United States but

there's also this one in Estonia that

kind of reminds me of things that you

might see in Fallout so that's pretty

cool none of the ones in real life were

made by nuclear devices of course they

were all uh created by asteroids or

volcanic eruptions but

still aside from that I was also

wandering around the I I it was the jury

Street Metro Station and I stumbled

across this this is a large empty open

field almost no trees and the trees that

are there are all knocked over in a

suspicious Direction it's subtle but the

details are there you can also see this

little cut in the ground here with this

rock up here I almost wonder if

something maybe exploded and forced this

rock to wedge itself up there also up

kind of near Fort Banister and this

Metro station is this spot it's things

like this that really Tickle My Fancy

because on one hand you can see this and

think to yourself wow what detail they

really put the work in to have evidence

of a nuclear explosion in the past but

on the other hand I would any of this

even actually survive a nuclear bomb

like I'm not even sure if a steel pylon

would survive 200 years not being

affected by a nuclear device much less

having been exploded by one but I kind

of think that's cool they put details

like this in the game to communicate to

us that this is postnuclear apocalyptic

even though the detail itself isn't

realistically postnuclear apocalyptic

you know it kind of reminds me of how

when people saw the movie Apollo 13 they

said this is ridiculous this is just a

bunch of Hollywood mumbo jumbo trash

even though it was all very accurate or

sort of like how Spotify had to program

their Shuffle not to actually randomly

Shuffle the songs cuz when it did people

didn't think it was randomly shuffling

the songs so they had to program it to

not actually randomly Shuffle the songs

so people would think it was randomly

shuffling the songs now I think there's

another argument to be made that maybe

things like this is just sort of dumbing

us down in a way Bethesda is just using

like the bottom of the barrel lowest

common denominator way to communicate

this particular aesthetic and maybe it

would be cooler if they were more

thoughtful about what life in a

post-apocalypse might look like maybe we

would get more interesting human stories

which is why Fallout New Vegas is good

but that the sort of constant argument

uh between three versus New Vegas I

think people do Totally Miss what things

three has that New Vegas doesn't because

they're so preoccupied with what New

Vegas has the three doesn't that's just

my opinion and I didn't play Fallout 3

when I was young this is not a Nostalgia

problem so don't you try and throw that

against me you New Vegas heads even

though you are completely right

obviously anyway where were we show me

the

map all right perfect there's also an

unmarked spot on the map east of WTI

station that has a gigantic radioactive

crater so it's kind of funny that that a

doesn't have its own map marker but B

nobody online mentioned it cuz it's

seems very obviously a candidate for

this and I actually do kind of love that

there's not a map marker for it I think

that's kind of neat games now have too

many map markers too many we need to

restrict fast travel it's a whole other

video so at this point we have found

eight Nuclear Strike sites and two

unexploded nuclear bombs the lore of

Fallout 3 implies that DC was hit by

hundreds of nuclear bombs so what gives

well first of all I'm pretty sure we can

actually find a few more uh potential

Nuclear Strike sites we'll get to that

in a minute but secondly there actually

might be a pretty good explanation for

this and it has to do with scale I feel

like I recall reading a quote from Todd

Howard or maybe somebody else at

Bethesda where they were talking about

how the Elder Scrolls uh isn't

necessarily meant to be a literal fa

simile of the world of Tamriel that

Skyrim is really more more of an

artist's rendition of the world with

kind of like a wonky sense of scale some

flexibility with the specifics of the

lore and a very loose grasp of realistic

unemployment numbers I couldn't actually

find the quote so if somebody knows it

please uh post it down below so I can

find it and if it's not a real quote if

I just made it up well post it down

below anyway so people don't know but if

we were to take the size scale of

Fallout 3 meaning the way that it

compares to the real size of that area

in Washington DC on Earth and apply that

scale to the number of nule clear

strikes that we found where would that

put us the only problem is there's a lot

of debate online as to the exact scale

of Fallout 3 you know we don't know

exactly how big stuff is we don't know

exactly how fast player characters are

walking and it's also a real mishmash of

locations rather than being an exact

scale model of a part of DC but the best

discussion of the topic I could find was

on a forum called No mutants allowed

back in 2009 and they also could not

agree at all but using all the

information that they provided on that

forum as well as spending some time

drawing squares on Google Maps I feel

pretty comfortable saying that the game

is roughly a 1 to8 scale of the area

that it represents so if we take that

scale and apply it to the number of uh

Nuclear Strike sites that we found so

far you end up with I'm going to tell

you in a minute because I have one more

idea about how we might be able to find

some more places that bombs have dropped

see I've already looked in the lore I've

already read the wikis the forums I've

already uh used my own mind but the one

set of people that I haven't talked to

are the smartest people in the world you

guys I put the call out on my Community

page a few days ago asking if any of you

knew of some potential places that we

could investigate and lo and behold you

came through so here's everything that

you guys came up with number one

Isabella proud's Camp behind the Tacoma

Industrial Park this is first of all

just an awesome place if you've never

been here I wish I could uh tell you how

to get here without giving it away but

it's just a really great location and

it's also very likely that this is the

site of a nuclear strike you have a

giant crater it's filled with water

there's radioactive ghouls that's a shoe

in as far as I'm concerned the next

place I saw somebody bring up was the

Arlington National Cemetery and if you

go there you won't immediately see any

signs of nuclear destruction but head

just a little bit north of it and this

is what you find this one looks a lot

like the ones that we found in Fort

Banister so I feel very comfortable

counting it somebody else brought up the

uh Pennsylvania Avenue to Georgetown

Metro station I don't know if I see it

obviously the train tunnels are all

collapsed which I think is what the

person was thinking the idea that well

how would they have collapsed if not for

a nuclear strike but this metro line is

really close to the White House so I

feel like it's probably a result of that

same uh Nuclear Strike so I'm not going

to count that one then someone else told

me that if I went to Oasis and looked

East off the edge of the map I would see

some kind of nuclear crater I looked all

the way from east to west and I was not

able to see it then there were two more

places and these two places might be my

favorite of them all first up you have a

place that's north of spring Vil but

south of the bomac river when you come

here you won't actually notice it right

away but pay close attention and what do

you see this little section of the river

looks an awful lot like a a sort of

decayed nuclear crater like something

that was caused by a nuclear explosion a

long time ago but has since eroded just

a little bit so the details are a little

subtler there's some good signs of

Destruction all around it as well and

then the other place is just south of

Fort Banister now obviously this is

pretty close to fortan canister so

whatever this is was probably caused by

the same bombardment bombardment but

it's far enough away that I want to

count it as a separate place and I also

just want to point out how relatively

subtle the details of this one are

there's an electrical pylon a little

ways away that got blown away in the

direction of the blast there's also a

mound in the middle of the crater here

which does happen sometimes if like an

asteroid smashes into the Earth really

hard sometimes it can hit it so hard

that it actually bounces a little bit

back up and pulls some of the land up

with it which can cause these little

Islands to form and some of these lakes

that are made of craters like we talked

about earlier now I know that a lot of

these details are probably an accident

and that Bethesda probably didn't really

think about each individual piece of

rebar kind of like how they probably

didn't really think about the fact that

in Skyrim these generating waterfalls

could be explained by something uh

hydrologically uh realistic but I do

think it's neat how this combination of

intended lore and uh Happy accident

environmental design can cause you the

player to almost generate these little

mini stories about what may have gone on

in these places so those are all great

cand Cates and I really feel like it

helps flesh out the map that we've put

together so far but one thing that kept

bugging me was that even with all these

marks down it just seems weird that

there's not that many craters everywhere

you know this was a nuclear war this was

everybody uh shooting off every single

bomb they had you would think that the

land would just be a waste land of

craters like um if you ever see that

footage of Old World War I battlefields

it's just like pounded with artillery

but also there is a little bit of a

scientific explanation or whatever you

want to say a lot of people brought this

up when I posted about Fallout 3 they

said most of the bombs were Air Bursts

which means they don't create craters

necessarily and air burst explosions

also spread the damage out which kind of

explains how there's just like a general

destruction across the whole landscape

rather than like these specific points

of Destruction there's great arguments

going either way you could just say

artistic license you can say it's an air

burst whatever you want to do I'm

interested in what the game environment

is actually communicating to us which is

why for good measure I did one final lap

around the whole map and I didn't see

anything else well kind of probably one

more thing that might be worth

considering is that all of these little

nuclear puddles around could be signs of

smaller uh nuclear bombs hitting the

Wasteland but most of these places where

you find these uh nuclear puddles and

whatnot don't have a ton of other

environmental evidence going for them so

I don't believe that's the case you can

make that argument if you want but I'm

not doing it that's not for me that

means that the actual for real face

value total of nuclear explosions in

Fallout 3 is

12 and also the two Duds obviously now

the neat thing is if we take that amount

and we apply that uh 1 to8 scale that we

know Fallout 3 is probably built at we

do get 96 nuclear strikes which you know

it's a far cry from hundreds but it's

definitely enough you know it's

definitely sufficient to level an entire

metropolitan area the only slightly

amusing thing about that is that we know

for a fact that Las Vegas was targeted

by 77 nuclear bombs so this would sort

of imply that they saw the capital of

the United States as only a marginally

more important Target than Sin City but

you know maybe they were worried about

what Mr House was up to I you don't I

can't blame him he's a conniving freak

okay that's it if you support me on

patreon you're one of the greatest

people I know we'll see you in the next

video

h