Tactical Nuke



"Tactical Nuke ready, turn the key."- Multiplayer announcer

The Tactical Nuke is an unlockable killstreak reward in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2.

Requiring 25 consecutive kills (or 24 with the Hardline perk) this killstreak is the hardest to acquire in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2. Once used, a ten second countdown will display on all player's screens as the unseen nuclear warhead falls to earth, and a siren will sound. Once the countdown expires, the entire battlefield will be engulfed in white light as the nuke explodes. Time will appear to slow, all vehicles and sentry guns will explode, and finally, all spawned players including the user die on the spot. A Tactical Nuke detonation results in an automatic win for the user and their team, no matter what the current score.

Tips

 * Kills caused by a nuclear detonation do count towards the user's killstreak reported on the leaderboards, as well as his score in the match. However, sometimes the Nuke will kill the player before killing the enemy, which ends the player's kill streak. Because of this, firing a nuke may or may not extend the player's longest kill streak, depending on where the nuke goes off. It is rumored that low areas inside buildings are affected last by the nuke.
 * The Tactical Nuke is most practical in larger matches (especially Ground War), as it is much more difficult to acquire 25 kills in smaller games such as Team Deathmatch before other victory conditions are met.
 * The most practical killstreaks for reaching the Tactical Nuke are usually the Harrier Airstrike/Attack Helicopter, and Chopper Gunner. The reason for this being the Harrier Strike/Attack Helicopter and Chopper Gunner have reasonably long loiter times and can kill a large number of enemy players throughout their duration. The downside is that unlike quick-strike abilities such as the Predator and Stealth Bomber, their effectiveness is largely limited by the skill and coordination of the enemy team; it only takes one enemy player rapidly switching to a Cold Blooded class with a Stinger to render them useless.
 * It is easier to get a Nuke on an open map (ex. Wasteland and Afghan) because you get a massive amount of kills with the Chopper Gunner or AC130 when the players are in the open space.
 * Nuke boosters(a.k.a. 'padders') are easily defeated using SitRep to detect their tactical insertions. One of the standard classes has SitRep as its Tier 3 perk, so you won't have to worry about making a separate class solely for killing boosters.
 * Watching known boosters pre-game to determine their location is another effective strategy.
 * As nuke boosters are commonly found in Free-for-All mode, waiting until they have six kills before killing them is the best strategy so as to make getting a nuke impossible before the 30 kill game cap.
 * You can get the challenge Omnicide with the nuke
 * You also can get the Award "The Ultimate Sacrifice": Launching the nuke while your team is losing.
 * Sabotage matches are often well suited to earning a nuke as they can last up to and over twenty minutes.

Trivia

 * In reality, a nuclear blast that close to the player would blind the player for the brief few seconds of their life before they were incinerated. Also, the map should be destroyed. The incineration feature was probably excluded from the game to decrease the violence and disturbing realism related to the killstreak.
 * The tactical nuke's launch can't be activated while you are affected by an active EMP. However, an enemy using an EMP after the launch will not interrupt the countdown, and it will still detonate.
 * The nuke will appear to be in a different place for each map, appearing to strike outside the level. For example, a Tactical Nuke on Favela will detonate near the Cristo Redentor, the giant statue of Jesus. The height of the explosion is somewhere near the height of an AC-130.
 * After you have used two nukes, you will unlock the Multiplayer title Global Thermonuclear War. After deploying five nukes, you will unlock the title End of Line. After you have used ten, you will get an animated emblem of the Tactical Nuke.
 * When you acquire a Tactical Nuke, your announcer says things such as: "Tactical Nuke ready, turn the key." When the enemy team deploys one, your announcer will scream "Enemy Nuke incoming!" followed by a mournful-sounding cry of: "It's over!" or "We're done for!"
 * It is possible to survive a nuke; if a player calls in a Predator missile or Chopper Gunner or is in last stand exactly when the screen goes white and players die, he will survive. However, the player who called the nuke will still be credited with a kill.
 * The Multiplayer title Toxic is unlocked if you are killed by a hostile Tactical Nuke.
 * The nuke, when activated, stops the timer of the game. In addition, points may not be scored (e.g. capturing the flag), but experience will still register.
 * Oddly, if you are killed during the countdown of the nuke, the counter in the upper left-hand corner is not shown in the killcam despite the fact that the counter is up for everyone. This could maybe be to avoid confusion about when the nuke detonates.
 * You can not use two nukes in one game, even though you can earn them.
 * Upon detonation, all killstreaks in the air will be destroyed giving the player who called the nuke the amount of XP they would normally get for destroying a killstreak, but all windows will be shattered and strangely the chickens will still be alive. The alarm sound heard before the nuke detonates is very similar to the silo alarm in Half Life 2 Episode 2. It is also the same alarm used in the movie "Angels and Demons" when the oxygen level in the archives begins to decrease.
 * Despite much debate, it is not possible to collect a Tactical Nuke from a Care Package or Emergency Airdrop. This has been confirmed by Infinity Ward.
 * If you glitch outside the map on the opposite side of the map that the nuke detonates on, you will see that everyone will simply fall over dead on the spot before the shockwave even reaches you. This is likely because everyone is coded to die about 5 seconds after the detonation no matter where they are, regardless of the shockwave.
 * Even if an approaching nuke is friendly, the announcer will still sound panicked, regardless of the fact that he continually urges you to activate the nuke when you earn it. The only exception is the Spetsnaz, who still sound very calm most likley showing a stereotypical amoral Russian commander's uncaring disposition to the cost of victory despite the loss of his fellow soldiers.
 * The nuke, despite killing everyone straight and true, will not affect the environment at all. However there is enough detail in the game to include the dust and shrapnel in the air after the blast and the fact that the map lacks light during the results after a nuke ends the game. Also, nuclear fallout will begin to cover the map as the scores are displayed.
 * If a player calls in a nuke while the score is one kill away from ending the game, any kills in the 10 seconds will still count for the player but will not add on to the team score.
 * The nuke doesn't always strike the center of the map. This video shows it strike to the left of the map: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YOJvAD4sN-Y#t=3m+39s.
 * In Sabotage, Demolition and Search and Destroy matches, if a nuke is called in while a bomb has been planted the match will still continue until the detonation of the nuke even if the target has been destroyed. Any points gained by players from planting or defusing the bomb or even destroying the target will count towards the players score however it will not affect either team as the team which called in the nuke will win despite the circumstances.