Cuban Missile Crisis

[weaselsan]

Originally posted by Hangtime
Kinda a side point.. the Russians had short range tactical nukes, and local battlefield commanders in Cuba had a green light to use 'em on an invasion fleet. It was a very, very good thing that Kennedy clamped down on the military's plan for invasion.. it would have certainly resulted in WWIII.

I suspect that those days in October were the closest this country ever came to a military coup.. followed by nuclear armegeddon. It was very very close run thing.

Not really hangtime. At the time we had a major nuclear superiority over the Soviets and we where aware of the advantage. Removing missles from Turkey was no big deal, as long as we had them in western Europe. Why do you think they went to all the trouble of installing a nuclear capability in Cuba? To have some missles moved from Turkey? Hardly,it was to negotiate the removal of the missles from Western Europe. Kruschev came to realize that there would be no negotiation. The no attack on Cuba and removal of missles from Turkey where no concessions at all. As far as Borodas claim of gaining an unsinkable carrier, to do what? Without nukes they are going to use it to fight a conventional war against a Super power 90 miles away? That would be real bright. Imagine trying to fight a conventioal war with the US from Cuba...The logistics would be real fun. Sorry guys no ammo or spare parts you gotta fight with what you got.

[*NDM*JohnnyX]

Yeager, they set us up the shuttle!

[Replicant]

Originally posted by weaselsan
Not really hangtime. At the time we had a major nuclear superiority over the Soviets and we where aware of the advantage. Removing missles from Turkey was no big deal, as long as we had them in western Europe. Why do you think they went to all the trouble of installing a nuclear capability in Cuba? To have some missles moved from Turkey? Hardly,it was to negotiate the removal of the missles from Western Europe. Kruschev came to realize that there would be no negotiation. The no attack on Cuba and removal of missles from Turkey where no concessions at all. As far as Borodas claim of gaining an unsinkable carrier, to do what? Without nukes they are going to use it to fight a conventional war against a Super power 90 miles away? That would be real bright. Imagine trying to fight a conventioal war with the US from Cuba...The logistics would be real fun. Sorry guys no ammo or spare parts you gotta fight with what you got.

During the Cuban Missile Crisis, the UK dispersed the entire V-Force (Vulcan, Victor and Valiant strategic bombers that would launch standoff nukes) all over the British Isles.  The Thor ballistic missiles were also on emergency standby.  

A recent programme on Discovery (reviewing recent declassified documents) mentioned that the USSR were also very concerned at the mobile nuclear arsenal within the UK (the Thor's were provided by the USA) especially since there were so many dispersed sites.  Been quite awhile since I saw the programme so I'm a little vague although there is also a book about the subject too.

[Pei]

Originally posted by weaselsan
Dooms Day because of a Cuban Moron.

[smart alec mode]Actually Ernesto "Che" Guevara was an Argentinian moron[/smart alec mode]

[Hangtime]

They had tactical nukes the US didn't know about in Cuba, and if we had invaded they absolutey would have used 'em to destroy the invasion force and fleet.

Don't kid yourself into thinking that wouldn't have percipitated WWIII.
'

" It was only much later, when Western
researchers began sifting through Soviet
government and Communist Party
archives after the collapse of the Soviet  
Union, that the full story of the tactical
nukes began to emerge.

 Two recent books -- One Hell of a  
Gamble: Khrushchev, Castro and Kennedy,
1958-1964 byTimothy Naftali, a Cold War
historian at Yale University, and Russian
historian Aleksandr  Fursenko, and Gribkov's
Operation Anadyr -- put the number of  
tactical warheads deployed in Cuba at  
between 98 and 104.
 
 
Click to enlarge
 The world has long known about Moscow's
deployment in Cuba of SS4 and SS5 missiles.
With that one stroke, Khrushchev hoped to
double  the number of Soviet missiles capable
of hitting theU.S. heartland, while extending  
his nuclear defensive umbrella to Cuba.
But right from the June 10, 1962, meeting  
at which Khrushchev decided to secretly
send long-range missiles to Cuba in the  
code-named Operation Anadyr, tactical
nukes were on the Havana shipping list.

 They included 80 FKR cruise missiles  
armed with 12-kiloton warheads. The FKR  
was essentially a scaled-down, pilotless  
version of a MiG jet, with a target guidance
system good out to 100 miles, although  
it could fly much farther. It was designed to
defend the Cuban coastline and the land  
around the U.S. Naval Base at Guantanamo
Bay from any U.S. invasion attempt.
 
More tactical warheads
 But when Kennedy made thinly veiled  
complaints about the Soviets' growing  
military deployment in Cuba that August,  
Khrushchev decided on Sept. 7 to add two
more types of tactical nukes to the list,
apparently hoping to bolster Cuba's defenses
against a U.S. land invasion:

12 Luna ground-to-ground rockets, with a
range of 30 miles, with 2-kiloton warheads.
They were to be attached to Soviet motorized
infantry regiments around Havana and
Guantanamo.
Six 12-kiloton bombs for Il-28 bombers, with
a range of 750 miles and based near the
central Cuban city of Santa Clara.

``This shows that Khrushchev had his
finger on the trigger, and really had decided  
to use tactical nuclear weapons if Cuba was  
invaded,'' Naftali  said.

The Soviet freighter Indigirka, carrying  
45 SS4  and SS5 warheads, 36 of the FKR  
warheads and all of the Luna and Il-28
nuclear warheads, left the Soviet Union
on Sept. 15 and arrived in the Cuban  
port of Mariel on Oct. 4, three weeks before  
the crisis erupted.

 The Aleksandrovsk, carrying 24 strategic  
warheads and 44 FKR warheads were detected at
the port of La Isabela on Oct. 23 --
the day before the U.S. blockade of Cuba's
shipping lanes went into effect.
 
click to enlarge
 
 
A U.S. miscalculation
CIA analysts spotted the 30-foot Luna  
rockets in Cuba but concluded they
were armed with conventional warheads,
Naftali said. Washington  never learned  
anything about the smaller FKRs or  the
Il-28 bombs until much later.

``Up to this point, Khrushchev had been
able to send 41,902 men, including 10,000
combat troops, and about 100 tactical
nuclear weapons toCuba [but] U.S.
intelligence had not found any of these
smaller nuclear devices and assumed
that all the Soviets on the island were
support personnel for the ballistic
missile regiments,'' Naftali  and  
Fursenko wrote.

 The hot part of the crisis essentially  
ended that Oct. 28 when Khrushchev
agreed to withdraw the SS4s and SS5s
in exchange for a public Kennedy promise
not to invade Cuba and a secret vow to
remove U.S. nuclear missiles from Turkey.

The Aleksandrovsk left Cuba on Nov. 5,
carrying all the strategic nuclear warheads.
U.S. spy planes snapped photos of all Soviet
freighters departing the island to verify
the numbers of missiles and warheads leaving.

 The aftermath of the crisis was the  
disposition of the Il-28 bombers, which the
Americans wanted out of Cuba because
they were capable of carrying nuclear weapons.
Khrushchev agreed on Nov. 19, in exchange  
for a Kennedy promise to immediately lift
the naval blockade and move to the back
burner a demand for on-site inspections
of Soviet warehouses in Cuba to ensure  
they were empty.
 
Issue of inspections
 Had Kennedy known that tactical
nuclear warheads remained in Cuba,  
he would have strongly insisted on the  
on-site inspections, said Ray Gartoff,
a Cuban missile crisis expert at the  
Brookings Institution, a Washington  
think tank.

``Good thing the CIA did not know  
any better,because the Soviets would  
have looked like liars--they had sworn
that all the warheads were gone
--and the crisis would have gone on,''
Gartoff said.

As tensions wound down after the Il-28
agreement,Defense Minister Rodion  
Malinovsky ordered Soviet troops in
Cuba to begin training Cuban military
units in the use of the Lunas and FKRs  
and their nuclear warheads.

Castro, who had earlier stridently  
opposed removing the long-range  
missiles and Il-28s, made a strong pitch  
to keep the tactical weapons in Cuba
during a Nov. 22 meeting in Havana
with Anastas Mikoyan, the Soviet
Communist Partyofficial who handled
most Cuba-USSR relations.

``Wouldn't it be impossible to keep the  
atomic weapons in Cuba under Soviet  
control without turning them over to the
Cubans?'' Mikoyan quoted Castro as  
asking, in a Russian-language report on
the meeting that he sent to Moscow and
 that was later found by Naftali and Fursenko.

 Mikoyan reported that he quickly told  
Castro, on his own initiative, that such a
deal was impossible.  Khrushchev had  
already made the same decision, apparently
believing that Castro could not be trusted
with such weapons."

NSA Archive, Missile Crisis

[-tronski-]

That was in Fog of War as well...Castro said they had a large number of nukes already in cuba ready to go..

 Tronsky

[Squire]

My friends dad was stationed on the DEW line in N. Canada with the RCAF in October 1962, he said they watched wave after wave of SAC bombers go to the edge of their flight paths and await the recall. Said it was downright scary...

...and a 50 percent loss rate would have been perfectly acceptable, since each B-52 carried a pair of 10 megaton bombs.

Not that I ever hoped such a thing would have ever happened, I doubt I would be here either, since I was born in 1964.

Lets hope it never does.

[weaselsan]

Originally posted by Hangtime
They had tactical nukes the US didn't know about in Cuba, and if we had invaded they absolutey would have used 'em to destroy the invasion force and fleet.

Don't kid yourself into thinking that wouldn't have percipitated WWIII.
'

" It was only much later, when Western
researchers began sifting through Soviet
government and Communist Party
archives after the collapse of the Soviet  
Union, that the full story of the tactical
nukes began to emerge.

 Two recent books -- One Hell of a  
Gamble: Khrushchev, Castro and Kennedy,
1958-1964 byTimothy Naftali, a Cold War
historian at Yale University, and Russian
historian Aleksandr  Fursenko, and Gribkov's
Operation Anadyr -- put the number of  
tactical warheads deployed in Cuba at  
between 98 and 104.
 
 
Click to enlarge
 The world has long known about Moscow's
deployment in Cuba of SS4 and SS5 missiles.
With that one stroke, Khrushchev hoped to
double  the number of Soviet missiles capable
of hitting theU.S. heartland, while extending  
his nuclear defensive umbrella to Cuba.
But right from the June 10, 1962, meeting  
at which Khrushchev decided to secretly
send long-range missiles to Cuba in the  
code-named Operation Anadyr, tactical
nukes were on the Havana shipping list.

 They included 80 FKR cruise missiles  
armed with 12-kiloton warheads. The FKR  
was essentially a scaled-down, pilotless  
version of a MiG jet, with a target guidance
system good out to 100 miles, although  
it could fly much farther. It was designed to
defend the Cuban coastline and the land  
around the U.S. Naval Base at Guantanamo
Bay from any U.S. invasion attempt.
 
More tactical warheads
 But when Kennedy made thinly veiled  
complaints about the Soviets' growing  
military deployment in Cuba that August,  
Khrushchev decided on Sept. 7 to add two
more types of tactical nukes to the list,
apparently hoping to bolster Cuba's defenses
against a U.S. land invasion:

12 Luna ground-to-ground rockets, with a
range of 30 miles, with 2-kiloton warheads.
They were to be attached to Soviet motorized
infantry regiments around Havana and
Guantanamo.
Six 12-kiloton bombs for Il-28 bombers, with
a range of 750 miles and based near the
central Cuban city of Santa Clara.

``This shows that Khrushchev had his
finger on the trigger, and really had decided  
to use tactical nuclear weapons if Cuba was  
invaded,'' Naftali  said.

The Soviet freighter Indigirka, carrying  
45 SS4  and SS5 warheads, 36 of the FKR  
warheads and all of the Luna and Il-28
nuclear warheads, left the Soviet Union
on Sept. 15 and arrived in the Cuban  
port of Mariel on Oct. 4, three weeks before  
the crisis erupted.

 The Aleksandrovsk, carrying 24 strategic  
warheads and 44 FKR warheads were detected at
the port of La Isabela on Oct. 23 --
the day before the U.S. blockade of Cuba's
shipping lanes went into effect.
 
click to enlarge
 
 
A U.S. miscalculation
CIA analysts spotted the 30-foot Luna  
rockets in Cuba but concluded they
were armed with conventional warheads,
Naftali said. Washington  never learned  
anything about the smaller FKRs or  the
Il-28 bombs until much later.

``Up to this point, Khrushchev had been
able to send 41,902 men, including 10,000
combat troops, and about 100 tactical
nuclear weapons toCuba [but] U.S.
intelligence had not found any of these
smaller nuclear devices and assumed
that all the Soviets on the island were
support personnel for the ballistic
missile regiments,'' Naftali  and  
Fursenko wrote.

 The hot part of the crisis essentially  
ended that Oct. 28 when Khrushchev
agreed to withdraw the SS4s and SS5s
in exchange for a public Kennedy promise
not to invade Cuba and a secret vow to
remove U.S. nuclear missiles from Turkey.

The Aleksandrovsk left Cuba on Nov. 5,
carrying all the strategic nuclear warheads.
U.S. spy planes snapped photos of all Soviet
freighters departing the island to verify
the numbers of missiles and warheads leaving.

 The aftermath of the crisis was the  
disposition of the Il-28 bombers, which the
Americans wanted out of Cuba because
they were capable of carrying nuclear weapons.
Khrushchev agreed on Nov. 19, in exchange  
for a Kennedy promise to immediately lift
the naval blockade and move to the back
burner a demand for on-site inspections
of Soviet warehouses in Cuba to ensure  
they were empty.
 
Issue of inspections
 Had Kennedy known that tactical
nuclear warheads remained in Cuba,  
he would have strongly insisted on the  
on-site inspections, said Ray Gartoff,
a Cuban missile crisis expert at the  
Brookings Institution, a Washington  
think tank.

``Good thing the CIA did not know  
any better,because the Soviets would  
have looked like liars--they had sworn
that all the warheads were gone
--and the crisis would have gone on,''
Gartoff said.

As tensions wound down after the Il-28
agreement,Defense Minister Rodion  
Malinovsky ordered Soviet troops in
Cuba to begin training Cuban military
units in the use of the Lunas and FKRs  
and their nuclear warheads.

Castro, who had earlier stridently  
opposed removing the long-range  
missiles and Il-28s, made a strong pitch  
to keep the tactical weapons in Cuba
during a Nov. 22 meeting in Havana
with Anastas Mikoyan, the Soviet
Communist Partyofficial who handled
most Cuba-USSR relations.

``Wouldn't it be impossible to keep the  
atomic weapons in Cuba under Soviet  
control without turning them over to the
Cubans?'' Mikoyan quoted Castro as  
asking, in a Russian-language report on
the meeting that he sent to Moscow and
 that was later found by Naftali and Fursenko.

 Mikoyan reported that he quickly told  
Castro, on his own initiative, that such a
deal was impossible.  Khrushchev had  
already made the same decision, apparently
believing that Castro could not be trusted
with such weapons."

NSA Archive, Missile Crisis

If Kruschev had his finger on the trigger so to speak, then what was his reason for removing the missles? Fear of Kennedy?

Khrushchev had  already made the same decision, apparently
believing that Castro could not be trusted with such weapons."
 
I think you answered the question.

[lazs2]

so... if it wasn't any secret...

How come nobody told me we had plans to invade russia?

lazs

[Boroda]

Originally posted by lazs2
so... if it wasn't any secret...

How come nobody told me we had plans to invade russia?

lazs

Not only to invade, but to start a war, with estimated defeat in no more then 6 months, regardless to nuclear bombings of Soviet cities. IIRC first stage meant killing 10 million Soviet people in two weeks.

You can find detailed descriptions with American sources in a book "CIA target: USSR" by Nikolay Yakovlev. It was printed in English in 1980, and you still can find a second-hand copy on the Internet.

[weaselsan]

Originally posted by Boroda
Not only to invade, but to start a war, with estimated defeat in no more then 6 months, regardless to nuclear bombings of Soviet cities. IIRC first stage meant killing 10 million Soviet people in two weeks.

You can find detailed descriptions with American sources in a book "CIA target: USSR" by Nikolay Yakovlev. It was printed in English in 1980, and you still can find a second-hand copy on the Internet.

I think if we invaded it would definately have started a war, any war plan to invade would only have been for pre-emptive purposes. All miltiarized countries have plans to invade other militarized countries. I believe I read one plan for the invasion of England.  Nikolay Yakovlev is a Chess Grand Master, any book he wrote on the matter of an invasion would have been speculative, not based on actual plans.

[Boroda]

Originally posted by weaselsan
I think if we invaded it would definately have started a war, any war plan to invade would only have been for pre-emptive purposes. All miltiarized countries have plans to invade other militarized countries. I believe I read one plan for the invasion of England.  Nikolay Yakovlev is a Chess Grand Master, any book he wrote on the matter of an invasion would have been speculative, not based on actual plans.

Well, Yakovlev was a brilliant propaganda writer, "CIA target: USSR" has to be taken with a grain of salt (just as any propaganda book), but I doubt that he manipulated facts in a book that was widely distributed in English.

He quotes US government and Congress documents that were de-classified, as well as US studies of the de-classified "defence" plans.

He is also an author of a brilliant book about Pearl-Harbour (probably best ever published in Russian) and an outrageously anti-Soviet "August, 1st, 1914", where he literally praises the Empire and makes a conclusion that February Revolution was a crime.

[GreenCloud]

can russian space tech even be compared to USA's?

we have a shuttle...which carries mich bigger payloads then any russian rocket ...correct?

It has carried thousands of pounds more of space cargo to orbit then russians correct?

I dont really care ..if not..just taking one look at russain history of Research and Development..in the case of nuclear submarines is enuff for me to be very proud of Western Technology and safety

[weaselsan]

Originally posted by Boroda
Well, Yakovlev was a brilliant propaganda writer, "CIA target: USSR" has to be taken with a grain of salt (just as any propaganda book), but I doubt that he manipulated facts in a book that was widely distributed in English.

He quotes US government and Congress documents that were de-classified, as well as US studies of the de-classified "defence" plans.

He is also an author of a brilliant book about Pearl-Harbour (probably best ever published in Russian) and an outrageously anti-Soviet "August, 1st, 1914", where he literally praises the Empire and makes a conclusion that February Revolution was a crime.

I don't doubt his intelligence, after all he is a grand master you don't earn that by being dense. Any invasion plans would still be held top secret. I believe most of the war games where always played out as the Soviets as the attacking force. If i'm not mistaken they had a large numerical advantage in both armor and personel (infantry). If western Europe where attacked I don't see anything short of tactical nuclear weapons stopping them.
I notice you use the term propaganda alot. If something is written that is not based on cold hard facts it may be speculative and not necessarily propaganda. If you write something that you know to be false for the purpose of deceiving your own people or the enemy thats propaganda.

[indy007]

Originally posted by GreenCloud
can russian space tech even be compared to USA's?

we have a shuttle...which carries mich bigger payloads then any russian rocket ...correct?

It has carried thousands of pounds more of space cargo to orbit then russians correct?

I dont really care ..if not..just taking one look at russain history of Research and Development..in the case of nuclear submarines is enuff for me to be very proud of Western Technology and safety

Skylab lasted how long? What about Sputnik?

The bulk of space cargo is still boosted to orbit on rockets. The Shuttle is just too expensive, and has lost 2 vehicles with no survivors. We're not exactly all that much safer when it comes to space exploration.

Wouldn't ride in anything short of a i688 or Seawolf as far as subs go though