Nuclear Bomb

The nuclear bomb is a gravity bomb, not a missile. A Wraith Stealth Bomber fabricates one while it circles one of your airbases, and then has to carry it to the target itself: order the drop, and it flies over the point, lets the bomb go and turns for home. The bomb comes down under a parachute and lies on the ground for ten seconds before it goes off: four tiles of blast and a ring out to five, well short of the Nuclear Warhead's six and eight, with two thirds of its punch at the centre.

How to use

Nothing is launched, so nothing is detected: no missile crosses the enemy's anti-air, only the bomber, and the Wraith is seen only up close. What the bomb gives away is its ten seconds on the ground. Every side that can see it is told where it lies, a red ring marks the ground it will take, and anything that shoots at the ground can blow it apart before the fuse runs out. A bomb shot to pieces does not go off. So drop it where the answer cannot come in time: onto an army with no room to scatter, onto buildings whose guns are busy or out of reach, or where your own fire keeps the enemy's units back. Units can outrun a five-tile ring; buildings cannot. It costs 1,200 metal over two minutes, and fabricating it needs the Radar Station, the Nuclear Reactor and the Nuclear Program, like the missile's.

Anecdotes

The B61, the main air-delivered nuclear bomb of the United States since 1968, was built for laydown delivery: let go by an aircraft flying low, it comes down under a parachute, lies on the ground, and detonates after a delay long enough for the bomber to get clear of its own blast. Its yield can be dialled from a fraction of a kiloton to hundreds; the current B61-12 tops out at 50 kilotons, about a sixth of a typical missile warhead.