Tactical Nuke



"Tactical Nuke ready, turn the key."

- Multiplayer announcer when you earn a Tactical Nuke

"Tactical Nuke incoming! It's over!"

- Multiplayer announcer when an enemy uses a Tactical Nuke

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 nuclear warhead, although invisible, 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. Getting the Nuke requires a prolonged amount of camping, cautious gameplay and strategy. Because of this, Nuke Boosting has become increasingly prevalent, where two players sit in a corner of the map with a Tactical Insertion and one kills the other 25 (24 with Hardline) times until the Nuke is acquired.

Tips

 * Kills caused by a nuclear detonation do count towards the user's killstreak reported on the leaderboards, as well as his or her score in the match. However, sometimes the Nuke will kill the player before killing the enemy, which ends the player's killstreak. Because of this, firing a nuke may or may not extend the player's longest killstreak, 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 Missile 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 or Javelin 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 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 cannot get the challenge Omnicide with the nuke.
 * You also can get the challenge "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

 * Players that have glitched out of the map will still die from a Tactical Nuke.
 * 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.
 * 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 upon being 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.
 * Just after the game was released, points were still accredited to the team score regardless of whether or not a nuke was activated. Due to heavy complaints from gamers who 'finally managed' to obtain the nuke couldn't enjoy it due to the fact that other victory conditions may be met during the nuke countdown, Infinity Ward have now made it so that the game score freezes upon activating a nuke.
 * You can not use two nukes in one game, even though you can earn them.
 * Upon detonation, all enemy 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. Players will die only when the shockwave reaches them, while killstreaks are destroyed instantly. Killstreak rewards called in by your team mates strangely are unaffected.
 * 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 players glitch outside the map on the opposite side of the map that the nuke detonates on, they 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.


 * The nuke, despite killing everyone, 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.
 * 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.
 * Despite how the objective of the game is to defend the sites from explosives, using a nuke while on the defending team of Search and Destroy or Demolition causes your team to win the game, although both sites are destroyed.
 * You are able to survive a nuke if you are shot to final stand during the blast. You can also use a kill streak that involves a computer and use that immediately when you start to get slow.
 * In early pictures, it seems you were able to receive Tactical Nukes from Care Packages and the icon picture was a mushroom cloud.
 * The background music that plays during the explosion of the tactical nuke is the same one that plays on the campaign level Endgame.
 * If a nuke is called in during a Free-for-All game, the person who called it in may still sometimes lose.
 * If host migration starts after the nuke is called in, the nuke can go off during the seconds before the game restarts.