Aces High Bulletin Board
General Forums => The O' Club => Topic started by: Hap on August 07, 2013, 06:24:21 PM
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http://video.pbs.org/video/2289498535/
I was 6 years old during this: bomb shelters, duck and cover, the whole nine yards.
To those who watch PBS's offering, opine. Also, other graybeards' recollections of the time, I'd appreciate -- even more if you watch.
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x
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lol Duck and Cover. That's a good one. But I also understand that you HAD to give the people SOMETHING. :aok
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During grade school that was the drill our teachers made us do.
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I was born a couple of years after the Cuban missile crisis. Watched the PBS show about it as well as other documentaries. Scary times and probably as close as we have ever come to all out nuclear war. We didn't have the duck and cover drills in school but I do remember the civil defense siren going off every Saturday at noon.
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I was born a couple of years after the Cuban missile crisis. Watched the PBS show about it as well as other documentaries. Scary times and probably as close as we have ever come to all out nuclear war. We didn't have the duck and cover drills in school but I do remember the civil defense siren going off every Saturday at noon.
try living withing a few miles of a nuclear power plant then hearing the sirens go off for what seemed like hours. I grabbed my kids threw them in the minivan taking off while yelling at the wife to get her fat bellybutton moving. several of our neighbors did the same thing. then we hard on the radio stations about 1/2 an hour later that it was just a test but the nuclear plant had screwed up and didnt warn the neighbors.
semp
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They were still doing duck and cover disaster drills when I was in elementary school. For a while after they were no longer required for nuclear attack, we kept doing them for earthquake response since it was in San Diego. My Elementary school was built like a fortress, half dug into the side of a hill. The windows were floor to ceiling but only about 4 inches wide with thick decorative reinforcing bars between the panes. The walls were about a foot and a half thick reinforced concrete. Somehow they managed to make it look attractive, with interesting landscaping outside and good lighting and interior design inside. It's one heck of a strong building, not a bad place to ride out an earthquake or nuclear attack. In that bldg., hiding under a desk would actually be a pretty decent option since the major interior damage, assuming the building survived, would be ceiling tiles and stuff falling. Hiding under a desk is a great way to keep a kid from getting killed by a falling ceiling light fixture or air conditioning vent.
And knowing what I know about CBRNE / NBC warfare, the suggestion to have a bunch of plastic sheeting and duct tape to seal off doors and windows in the event of an NBC attack is actually pretty smart. It's too bad idiots who think they know everything about everything were so caustic and sarcastic, spending a lot of time trying to discredit what is in fact a really good defensive measure against many NBC attacks. Sealing off your house for 48 hrs would be effective against probably 90% of the common agents and delivery methods, not a bad way to improve your odds of being a survivor of such an attack.
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I was in going to grade school in Las Vegas in the early seventies. We didn't have the duck and cover drills, but we did have the civil defense siren going off every Saturday at noon for about fifteen minutes iirc. The siren was located at the elementary school just down the street from my house. Funny thing is they still did tests at the Nevada nuclear test sight and they never warned us about those. :bolt:
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My mom was teaching at CFB Moose Jaw when I was growing up in the 70s and 80s. It may have just been a training base, but a lot of NATO and USAF stuff went on there, and it was a major alternate landing base for all the Minot based bombers, and the B52's would regularly practice and come visit. For this reason, there was bomb shelters there, as the base was an obvious target for a secondary strike, or even a primary one had things ever gone nuclear.
I can remember in grade school having to do the duck and cover drills, as well as fire drill type drills to get us all into the closest shelter. I thought it was pretty cool, not having any idea what it really meant when I was 10.
I will watch the PBS thing, I was impressed with some of their other stuff linked on this BBS.
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Secret papers released showed it was political posturing.
Commies removed missiles and capitalists removed "Jupiter" missiles from the borders of soviet union :)
If the Russians wanted to put missiles in cuba they would not have them on display on there transport ships for everyone to see :)
Has North Korea invaded Wigan yet? :old:
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Secret papers released showed it was political posturing.
Commies removed missiles and capitalists removed "Jupiter" missiles from the borders of soviet union :)
If the Russians wanted to put missiles in cuba they would not have them on display on there transport ships for everyone to see :)
Has North Korea invaded Wigan yet? :old:
They were not seen on transport ships, they were discovered being set up in Cuba by U-2 spy photos.
Aside, detailed info on the Soviet Deception : https://www.cia.gov/library/center-for-the-study-of-intelligence/csi-publications/csi-studies/studies/vol46no1/article06.html
On board, the Soviets applied the same maskirovka measures that they had adopted when they first began to send weapons to Cuba. Packing crates or special shipping containers concealed and protected weapons carried as deck cargo. Certain telltale military equipment was boarded up with planks to make it look like the ship's superstructure. Even on-deck field kitchens were disguised.28 The Soviets shielded crated military hardware—such as missiles and launchers—with metal sheets to defeat infrared photography.29 They stored other combat and specialized equipment below, out of sight. Ordinary automobiles, trucks, tractors, and harvesters were placed on the top deck to convey the impression that only civilian and agricultural gear was being transported.
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No it was NOT posturing. Dozens of missiles were either active or on the verge of being active. The ones observed in photos alone could have killed 80,000,000 Americans, AND, also on the Island were Soviet bombers and gravity nukes. If the Reds only wanted the Jupiters out of Turkey they probably only had to ask. Since the Jupiters were out of date anyways. "Cuba" was the real deal.
Secret papers released showed it was political posturing.
Commies removed missiles and capitalists removed "Jupiter" missiles from the borders of soviet union :)
If the Russians wanted to put missiles in cuba they would not have them on display on there transport ships for everyone to see :)
Has North Korea invaded Wigan yet? :old:
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I was, I think in grade 7. The worst of it came with the US Navel blockade of Cuba. Our parents were told we could be found at the Gator bowl as it was called back then if things went bad. I think we had to take a bag lunch on the worse day when they encountered the first Russian cargo ship. Long time ago. I remember being apprehensive. The teachers seem to be worried.
My Dad was maintenance Supervisor for the federal government building down town. I went with him one night to fill water containers for the shelter in one of the buildings.
I seem like I remember the news hyping up the poor residents of Keys. They would surely be overrun by Cuban and Russian troops since they were only 90 miles away.
And then the Bay of Pigs making JFK 1, 0 and 1 with he Cubans
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I remember being apprehensive. The teachers seem to be worried.
Yup. While we probably were closer to nuclear holocaust at other times, this was certainly the scariest I can remember.
- oldman
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The guy who saved the world: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vasili_Arkhipov
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See Rule #14
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PBS has 3 shows on their website about that era. I was 5 years old, so memory is hazy. Dad was at RAND at their DC office. An uneasy time even for a kid who could understand it all.
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Ok, yet again, another topic heading into political discussion. Posting political stuff will get you suspended from the board. I should not have to remind anyone of this.
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They were not seen on transport ships, they were discovered being set up in Cuba by U-2 spy photos.
Aside, detailed info on the Soviet Deception : https://www.cia.gov/library/center-for-the-study-of-intelligence/csi-publications/csi-studies/studies/vol46no1/article06.html
On board, the Soviets applied the same maskirovka measures that they had adopted when they first began to send weapons to Cuba. Packing crates or special shipping containers concealed and protected weapons carried as deck cargo. Certain telltale military equipment was boarded up with planks to make it look like the ship's superstructure. Even on-deck field kitchens were disguised.28 The Soviets shielded crated military hardware—such as missiles and launchers—with metal sheets to defeat infrared photography.29 They stored other combat and specialized equipment below, out of sight. Ordinary automobile
s, trucks, tractors, and harvesters were placed on the top deck to convey the impression that only civilian and agricultural gear was being transported.
In my history book it shows Russian transport ship with them uncoverved on the deck :)
When the Soviet union collapses the truth will be known :old:
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When the Soviet union collapses the truth will be known
This will never happen, the people will not allow that! :old: (http://www.secondcitizen.net/Forum/images/smilies/communist.gif)
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In a nutshell this is what ended the Cuban missile crisis.
(http://i478.photobucket.com/albums/rr149/Rich46yo/cuban-missile-_zps297c5929.jpg)
This does not include the huge stockpile of nukes in our bomber force, the weapons we had available on our CVs, the Polaris SSBNs "the soviets had no such subs at the time". Had the Soviets used one of those Cuban nukes they would have had to face an American retaliatory strike of about 3,500 weapons. They would have been out numbered in both nukes and yield by about 17 to their 1. In short they would have suffered less casualties shooting their own nukes at themselves then they would have at us. The strategic balance of forces is what ended the crisis.
And it was what started it. They thought they could equalize the game by putting IRBM and gravity weapons in Cuba. They had sent 40,000 troops as well to help protect the Island and the crisis ended up going hot. They shot at our reco aircraft and even downed a U-2.
The world was on the brink thats for sure.
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The Soviets had 57 ballistic missile submarines in 1962. They couldn't match the USN's Polaris subs, but still, the US seaboard would have been a radioactive wasteland...
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Who were they protecting the Cubans from?
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In a nutshell this is what ended the Cuban missile crisis.
(http://i478.photobucket.com/albums/rr149/Rich46yo/cuban-missile-_zps297c5929.jpg)
This does not include the huge stockpile of nukes in our bomber force, the weapons we had available on our CVs, the Polaris SSBNs "the soviets had no such subs at the time". Had the Soviets used one of those Cuban nukes they would have had to face an American retaliatory strike of about 3,500 weapons. They would have been out numbered in both nukes and yield by about 17 to their 1. In short they would have suffered less casualties shooting their own nukes at themselves then they would have at us. The strategic balance of forces is what ended the crisis.
And it was what started it. They thought they could equalize the game by putting IRBM and gravity weapons in Cuba. They had sent 40,000 troops as well to help protect the Island and the crisis ended up going hot. They shot at our reco aircraft and even downed a U-2.
The world was on the brink thats for sure.
(http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/ee/B-52H_static_display_arms_06.jpg)
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So Jupiter Missiles in Turkey were nothing to do with it?(American Nuclear missiles)
The Jupiter missiles were removed a year after Crisis :)
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PBS has 3 shows on their website about that era. I was 5 years old, so memory is hazy. Dad was at RAND at their DC office. An uneasy time even for a kid who could understand it all.
Thanks Hap,you've managed to make me feel suddenly.... :old:
I indeed remember this,up here in Canada we didn't do the duck and cover drills,we did "fire drills".
:salute
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The Soviets had 57 ballistic missile submarines in 1962. They couldn't match the USN's Polaris subs, but still, the US seaboard would have been a radioactive wasteland...
Some had 1st Gen cruise missiles, the SS-N-3 which only had a range of 150 nm and probably would have been tasked with taking out CVs. Or trying to.
The rest were several classes of "noisy" boats that only had 3 SS-N-4 missiles, again relatively short range "350 nm" compared the Polaris system which had 3 times the range, each boat carrying 16 missiles. Like US Air Defense USN ASW defense was far superior to anything the Soviets had. Its unlikely any Soviet bombers would have gotten thru and no Soviet missile submarines were in the area. So they had about 320 strategic weapons capable of hitting America and about all but 50 delivered by bombers that probably wouldnt get thru.
I agree the damage done to us would have been unacceptable. But looking at it from their point of view they must have wondered what in Hell they got themselves into. This of course was the main motivation for their huge strategic arms build up in the 'late '60s and '70s. The Yom Kippur War in '73 was another scarey time, tho not quite as bad. Had we not given the Israelis all those advanced weapons they may have launched which would have triggered another Super Power confrontation.
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So Jupiter Missiles in Turkey were nothing to do with it?(American Nuclear missiles)
The Jupiter missiles were removed a year after Crisis :)
It was a face saving gesture to give to the Soviets so yeah it had "something". But these missiles were out dated anyways, there were only 15 in Turkey, and besides they were easy targets for the Soviets to take out should they want to. Besides with Polaris SSBNs active the Jupiters werent really needed for NATO defense since America/NATO had such a huge nuclear advantage over the Reds at the time. There were other NATO nukes in Turkey, and eventually B61 bombs and JABOs to deliver them. So removing 15 Jupiters didnt really change anything.
Of far more importance was the American garuntee not! to invade Cuba should the Reds remove their nukes.
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The guy who saved the world: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vasili_Arkhipov
there's a few more who saved the world.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanislav_Petrov
semp
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My dad could have beaten up your dad, back in 1962.
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The guy who saved the world: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vasili_Arkhipov
Scholzy, here's PBS' take. Watching right now. Can't vouch for the documentary's quality since I've not finished: http://video.pbs.org/video/2295274962/
Now I'm 30 mins in. This is crazy scary. I visited bomb shelters in Los Angeles built by guys whom my Mom knew.
And fwiw, I say youngsters, generally, do not possess the gravitas to understand this moment. Not all, but most. The guys involved lived through WW2 or were of age when it happened. This is not light stuff. The "today" verbal bluster cannot account or negotiate real adult things. No matter how awful those adult things be. This is not a Facebook moment.
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norwegian_rocket_incident <---1995
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My dad could have beaten up your dad, back in 1962.
My dad is Ink so your wrong!
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Scholzy, here's PBS' take. Watching right now. Can't vouch for the documentary's quality since I've not finished: http://video.pbs.org/video/2295274962/
Now I'm 30 mins in. This is crazy scary. I visited bomb shelters in Los Angeles built by guys whom my Mom knew.
And fwiw, I say youngsters, generally, do not possess the gravitas to understand this moment. Not all, but most. The guys involved lived through WW2 or were of age when it happened. This is not light stuff. The "today" verbal bluster cannot account or negotiate real adult things. No matter how awful those adult things be. This is not a Facebook moment.
Pretty good documentary. Few people today truly understand the level of paranoia and fear of annihilation people lived under every day back then.
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Its unlikely any Soviet bombers would have gotten thru and no Soviet missile submarines were in the area. So they had about 320 strategic weapons capable of hitting America and about all but 50 delivered by bombers that probably wouldnt get thru.
Where the Soviet missile subs were at the time is unknown, but if a war broke out they would be sailing towards the US to make their attack. Some if not all would get through. After all the four subs the Soviets sent to Cuba eluded The entire US Atlantic fleet for weeks, and one of them was never detected. After receiving 50 ICBM's do you really think the US would be capable of defending itself against the (estimated 155+) Soviet bombers?
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Where the Soviet missile subs were at the time is unknown, but if a war broke out they would be sailing towards the US to make their attack. Some if not all would get through. After all the four subs the Soviets sent to Cuba eluded The entire US Atlantic fleet for weeks, and one of them was never detected. After receiving 50 ICBM's do you really think the US would be capable of defending itself against the (estimated 155+) Soviet bombers?
Yes. NORAD was its own command. With the Canadians as well.
All this assuming the 50 1st Gen Soviet ICBMs actually worked, and hit what they aimed at, but I doubt they would have targeted NORAD or TAC. They would have sent them after SAC bases and cities, keeping some in reserve. I'd bet at least 75% of them would be targeted for SAC Bomber and Missile bases as well as CNC.
Heres a chronology http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB75/subchron.htm of submarine activity during the crisis. You see we had a far better handle on it then you seem to think. The thing about their missile boats is they use to hide them under the ice, or on the edge of polar ice, and there wait for deployment orders. That gives them very predictable approach lanes to the eastern seaboard and as you see we had deployed a huge ASW contingent to look for them. Once we decided to look for these Soviet subs we found them in short order.
Yes a few would get thru. Yes the war would have been catastrophic for us, "at least by how we define such things", nobody is arguing that. But the entire Soviet Union would have been a radioactive smoking ruin. America had a large preponderance of nuclear forces and thats why the Reds backed down. Can you really argue against that? 20% of SAC's bomber force was in the air at any one time during the crisis, the rest were dispersed all over the place and could be in the air within 15 mins. Khrushchev himself later told his son, "Kennedy had us by the b---s but didnt squeeze".
Even the rabid Red ideologues didnt want this war. In their theory communism was going to eventually win out against its enemy anyways so's its best if theres a world left over for it to inherit. I suspect the big Bosses in Russia also didnt want to lose their dacha's, mistresses, fancy cars, or the pampered futures for their children. We arent all that different after all.
The result of this entire mess was a big build up of Soviet nuclear deterrence, the concept of MAD, Euro Realpolitik, and eventually detente. Of course eventually the end of The Cold War came about cause the Soviet economic model could not sustain an arms build up against NATO and the west. So the missile crisis had very large implications across the board. Who knows what would have happened if the nuclear forces were only equal, or close to equal? We might be living in a "Boy and his dog" type of world.
I served in SAC during the height of The Cold War. None of this stuff was a joke and i can only imagine what it was like being on DEFCON 2 for days on end. All it could take was one accident or Loon making a mistake. If I remember right the Soviet Commander in Cuba was authorized to release nuclear weapons so all it would have taken was for him to have a bad day.
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And Europe, and Asia would also have been radioactive cinders. Americans may have suffered most in the long run; I'd rather take the thermal blast in the face than being a "survivor" and succumbing to the horrors of a post-apocalyptic radioactive wasteland. I'm not as confident in the USN's ability to track Soviet subs in the 1960s as you; and I'm very skeptical to the functionality of NORAD and its radars after a nuclear strike. I'd be surprised if they could get even the interceptors' electronics repaired and working in time to stop the incoming bombers. Fortunately we can debate these things without the certainty of history... since it never happened.
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since it never happened.
And thank goodness for that. How things did not get loose with all those arms in close proximity and Berlin never came into play. Phew!
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The West made money out of the Coldwar, the East was bankrupted :)
Now the Russians live in Manhatton :rofl
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See Rule #14
What would that be the politically correct version of event? PC is killing the country.
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What would that be the politically correct version of event? PC is killing the country.
I think he doesn't care much about the C part, it's the P part in general ;)
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What I said was histrically correct not politcal at all. Like Jack Webb on Drag Net said' Just the facts.
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Scholzy, here's PBS' take. Watching right now. Can't vouch for the documentary's quality since I've not finished: http://video.pbs.org/video/2295274962/
Now I'm 30 mins in. This is crazy scary. I visited bomb shelters in Los Angeles built by guys whom my Mom knew.
And fwiw, I say youngsters, generally, do not possess the gravitas to understand this moment. Not all, but most. The guys involved lived through WW2 or were of age when it happened. This is not light stuff. The "today" verbal bluster cannot account or negotiate real adult things. No matter how awful those adult things be. This is not a Facebook moment.
What are you talking about?
What has this to do with stupid people (young and old) who quote Wikaidiot and claim to be informed :)
Cuban missile crisis is in the realm of urban myth and is a example of paranoia which reinvents itself every 50 years, the US still uses Cuba as a bogeyman, the reality is that they make good cigars that everyone can buy except you :)
I do blame Cuba for the way North Korea behaves though :old:
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Zack maybe you should just go back to the infantile one-Liners. Your experience and grasp of strategic matters threatens to overwhelm us here.
What are you talking about?
What has this to do with stupid people (young and old) who quote Wikaidiot and claim to be informed :)
Cuban missile crisis is in the realm of urban myth and is a example of paranoia which reinvents itself every 50 years, the US still uses Cuba as a bogeyman, the reality is that they make good cigars that everyone can buy except you :)
I do blame Cuba for the way North Korea behaves though :old:
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I remember JFKs' speech on TV to the American people. This one statement made it scary " Any weapons launched from Cuba on the United States would be considered an act of War by the Soviet Union on the United States which will result in a full retaliatory strike on the Soviet Union by the United States." even though I quoted this....it's only the gist of what JFK said. Our whole family was around the TV at that time to listen to what our President had to say. And yes....imho this is the closest this world has come to nuclear disaster. It was truly scary. After this incident Khrushchev faded from the picture as the USSRs Premier.
Folks.....this was a game of chicken. Who would flinch first. Seeing our blockade. Soviet ships actually changed course and went home. They wanted no such confrontation.
I remember Khrushchev banging his shoe on a lectern while addressing the UN telling the US that the USSR would bury us.
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Well said, Hajo.
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Zack maybe you should just go back to the infantile one-Liners. Your experience and grasp of strategic matters threatens to overwhelm us here.
Your as important as I am which is not a lot, at least I know it :)
Hajo even stated it " His family sat around the TV", it was already over by then :old:
another "modify" :) "Korea and Iran" are our "Cuba", last month everyone on this forum were jumping about it now what?, nothing, because its rhetoric for daft people like us :rofl
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Do we have a translator in the house please?
Your as important as I am which is not a lot, at least I know it :)
Hajo even stated it " His family sat around the TV", it was already over by then :old:
another "modify" :) "Korea and Iran" are our "Cuba", last month everyone on this forum were jumping about it now what?, nothing, because its rhetoric for daft people like us :rofl
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Its a outrage!
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Kid, you are a bother. Bother others. Ty to all else on this thread.
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I remember Khrushchev banging his shoe on a lectern while addressing the UN telling the US that the USSR would bury us.
Heh. Reminds me of the Radio Free Europe commercials, with the little kids in uniform performing for their bald-headed teachers.
Scared the crap out of me. Propaganda works. At least on kids.
- oldman
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Yes. This was all real world stuff. And I too recall Nikita banging his shoe. Kids and the ignorant will make fun. For those of us who were kids or older during that time, we do not make fun.
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I apologise :old:
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_MCbTvoNrAg
The nuclear scare lasted well into the 1980's. I remember watching this as a young teenager. I didn't sleep well that night...
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The years I served were the scariest overall. At least to me tho standing on ground zero will do that. First there was the end of Carter's tenure, when NATO was conventionally weakest and the Soviets actually had an edge on us. Then there was the beginning of Reagan's build up, actually started by Carter who had finally figured out he'd been deceived, when the Soviets had to be thinking it was now or never. At least to put down NATO. I was involved in the Op that brought in Pershing-ll and GLCMs to NATO, replacing many of the gravity bombs. The Reds were scared shirt less of these, most of all the cruise missiles, and they had their "better red then dead' "useful fools" running point for them in England and Europe. As well as a lot of citizens who were just plain scared.
At the time the Soviets had no viable defense against SLCMs. "They" and the 600 ship USN, terrified them. That system alone probably brought the Cold War to an end more then any other and strengthened Arms Control.
Other systems were coming on-Line then as well. Or were being upgraded. Ohio class, Trident-ll, MX, Minuteman-lll, ALCM, Tomahawk, LA Class, B1b, Star Wars, Stealth, Air Laser, and many conventional systems the Reds couldn't hope to match capability-wise. As the window was closing they had to be tempted. Many had to think there was no way we'd escalate if they rolled into west Europe with their tanks. Im glad the prudent were listened to cause we most surely would have. There was a great book written at the time called "The Third World War" by a brilliant Brit General named Sir James Hackett. If you ever get the chance its a great read.
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There was a great book written at the time called "The Third World War" by a brilliant Brit General named Sir James Hackett. If you ever get the chance its a great read.
Agreed. Now: spoiler alert:
Hackett's original manuscript had the Soviets winning the war...which, in my opinion at the time, was probably the likeliest outcome. Peer pressure made him change it so that NATO "sensibly" rearmed with AT missiles &c. just in time, so that people wouldn't get all depressed and say "well why bother spending more money if we're only going to lose?"
That book was a big seller at the time. He wrote a sequel, too.
- oldman
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I never knew that. The copies I had all ended up the same way. The nuking of Birmingham and Minsk and the overthrow of the Soviet State. Its been many years since I read it, I should probably find another copy.
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Cuba Missile crisis and Korea 007 incident were the closest we've come.
http://thebulletin.org/timeline
The following remarks were made by former Soviet Foreign Ministry official Sergei Tarasenko at a 1993 conference of former US and Soviet officials:
Around this time [late 1983], [First Deputy Foreign Minister Georgi] Kornienko summoned me and showed me a top-secret KGB paper. It was under Andropov. Kornienko said to me, "You haven't seen this paper. Forget about it." ...In the paper the KGB reported that they had information that the United States had prepared everything for a first strike; that they might resort to a surgical strike against command centers in the Soviet Union; and that they had the capability to destroy the system by incapacitating the command center. We were given the task of preparing a paper for the Politburo and putting forward some suggestions on how to counter this threat not physically but politically. So we prepared a paper [suggesting] that we should leak some information that we know about these capabilities and contingency plans, and that we are not afraid of these plans because we have taken the necessary measures.112
Tarasenko was a senior adviser to Kornienko. He was one of the few officials outside the Soviet intelligence community who had seen the above mentioned KGB paper. His remarks confirm that the Soviet leadership genuinely believed the risk of a US attack had risen appreciably.
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My bedroom window faced east.
Woke up one morning to this almighty brightness (brightest sunrise I can remember) and thought this is it and waiting to be incinerated.
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Food for thought: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1J1wLUJQ3EM
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For those of you who weren't born yet and didn't live through the Cuban Missile crisis, this is the kind of threat World faced:
Ok, yet again, another topic heading into political discussion. Posting political stuff will get you suspended from the board. I should not have to remind anyone of this.
Are you sure you want to continue?
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Heh. Reminds me of the Radio Free Europe commercials, with the little kids in uniform performing for their bald-headed teachers.
Scared the crap out of me. Propaganda works. At least on kids.
- oldman
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IKqXu-5jw60 This is a perfect example of what you're taking about!
:salute
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IKqXu-5jw60 This is a perfect example of what you're taking about!
Good find. Ah, the memories of happier times!
- oldman
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The issue with Hackett's thinking was his belief that a conventional war in Europe would stay (mostly) conventional. This is merely reflective of staff planning in the cold war, since there's little point in making plans for a conventional forces in a nuclear Armageddon, but it was absolutely delusional. If the Cuban Missile Crisis nearly launched the missiles, if KAL 007 nearly did, it's pretty inconceivable that a general war in Germany would not.
Not that staff planning today is any more realistic. Hands up everyone who believes Afghanistan will be a stable democracy by 2014. Or that invading it hastened the day bin Laden died by even 24 hours.
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The issue with Hackett's thinking was his belief that a conventional war in Europe would stay (mostly) conventional. This is merely reflective of staff planning in the cold war, since there's little point in making plans for a conventional forces in a nuclear Armageddon, but it was absolutely delusional. If the Cuban Missile Crisis nearly launched the missiles, if KAL 007 nearly did, it's pretty inconceivable that a general war in Germany would not.
Not that staff planning today is any more realistic. Hands up everyone who believes Afghanistan will be a stable democracy by 2014. Or that invading it hastened the day bin Laden died by even 24 hours.
I dont think the two are comparable. The one would have been a conventional war between established armies, and who knows what would have happened?, while your second paragraph refers to the propaganda side show over an asymmetric conflict against fundamentalist factions in a remote 3rd world country.
When Cuba happened it was the Dawn of the nuclear Cold War and nobody knew what to do. By 1985, in Hackett's account, both sides were comfortable enough with living under MAD that I think a general war WAS conceivable, if only cause the opposite was unacceptable. Hackett merely used one possible end scenario for his book. He could have just as easily used the ending of the Soviets beating the West which triggered a theater release by NATO, which triggered a strategic release by both sides. Which I think would have happened.
However I dont know for sure. Neither do you, and neither did Hackett. At the same time I think Hackett's account of how the NATO edge in technology, which we had by '85, allowed us to stop them WAS plausible. We tended to over estimate the Reds during the Cold War but the simple truth is they just weren't as good as we were. We got to see that NATO force in its prime, if only against the Iraqi's, and it was over whelming.
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We tended to over estimate the Reds during the Cold War but the simple truth is they just weren't as good as we were. We got to see that NATO force in its prime, if only against the Iraqi's, and it was over whelming.
Desert Storm utilized a NATO force that had been vastly improved since the time Hackett wrote his books. Hackett's "war" theoretically occurred in 1982, before the Reagan reforms had had much chance to take effect, and while NATO forces were still in their late-1970s condition. Ever read "Army in Anguish"?
The other two books similar to Hackett's that come to my mind are Tom Clancy's "Red Storm Rising" and Ralph Peters' "Red Army." The latter is one of my dozen or so favorite books of all time.
- oldman
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Desert Storm utilized a NATO force that had been vastly improved since the time Hackett wrote his books. Hackett's "war" theoretically occurred in 1982, before the Reagan reforms had had much chance to take effect, and while NATO forces were still in their late-1970s condition. Ever read "Army in Anguish"?
The other two books similar to Hackett's that come to my mind are Tom Clancy's "Red Storm Rising" and Ralph Peters' "Red Army." The latter is one of my dozen or so favorite books of all time.
- oldman
To a point. But remember Desert Storm also had in use many of the systems that were then becoming fielded in the time frame of T3WW. Tomahawk, TOW, Stinger, Stealth, Abrahms, Apache, A-10, F-15, F-16, F-14, ASAT, Laser, LA Class, Trident, the list goes on and on. With a few exceptions, and maybe a few newer versions, the NATO of the Gulf War was the NATO of Hackett's book. In fact Reagan got credit for many systems that were actually started, or kick started, by Carter. Also dont forget that while the book was published in 1982 the actual war was projected to be in 1985.
Hackett's account was eerily accurate for writing about a conflict 7 or more years into the future. Of course he was in position to know a lot and was a fascinating character in his own right.
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I remember reading hacketts book when I was 12. I thought the same thing then that I do now which is that nobody starts a war thinking they are going to lose and that things don't often go as planned. The Cuban missile crisis is an example, the 20th century world wars are too.
I thought Hastings had a good story but just a story. After Germany wiped the floor with the allies I imagine that not many people thought that invading Russia would result in the total destruction of Germany, the rape of most of her women in the east and the division of the country for 40 years. The matter of factness is what got me about his book, I just thought it was ridiculous to think that predictions more than one or two steps down the road would sync with reality.
Khrushchev was so so wrong in his thinking about how the US would respond it should be an antidote to over confidence. The remarkable lesson in leadership that comes out of the crisis for me is that Kennedy while listening to his counsel was strong enough to ignore them and realize that the solution was not about war fighting but about personalities and face saving.
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The Gulf War is not really comparable to a NATO/WP conflict. Arabs are nitwits when it comes to warfare, their Soviet equipment were/are the monkey versions without advanced systems like night vision, targeting computers and modern ammo. They had/have almost no proper command and control abilities.
A better comparison is the Kosovo/Serbia campaign in 1988-99 where NATO attacked the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (Serbia and Montenegro), a former Soviet satellite republic. They proved very skillful in avoiding detection and destruction by NATO air power while inflicting embarrassing losses on their attackers. Perhaps most so the shoot-down of an F-117 stealth. After Milosevic accepted the international peace plan to end the fighting in Kosovo, the Serbian army withdrew from Kosovo largely intact; after months of bombing by NATO. The official losses were 462 soldiers killed, and 299 wounded. Most of the targets hit in Kosovo were decoys; Newsweek gained access to a suppressed US Air Force report that stated the real numbers of destroyed vehicles were 3 tanks not the 120 claimed, 18 APCs not 220 as originally claimed, and 20 artillery pieces, not the originally claimed 450. After months of bombing.
Fighting in Europe is worlds apart from fighting in the desert.
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Fighting in Europe is worlds apart from fighting in the desert.
True that. There are a lot more foreigners in Europe.
Nonetheless, the NATO armies, designed from the start to fight in western Europe, did just fine in the desert, too.
Jungles, now, those might be another matter....
- oldman
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Real scary thing is one day zack's generation will be in 'control.'
Mr. President, Kim Il Dim Wit is on the hot-line and wants to talk to you.
Put him on hold. I dont recall who he is and I have to look him up on wiki. Does he have a FaceBook page?
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I never said they were "comparable". I simply stated it was NATO in its prime.
I think we lost 2 or 3 fixed wing aircraft over Serbia to hostile fire. One was a 117 that we stupidly flew during the day and along the same route time and again. Yes Im aware of some of the claims by the Serbs and get a good laugh out of them. We ended up forcing the Serbs out of Kosovo using air power alone. Actually the Iraqi's were a bigger threat to our air power then the Serbs were.
Hardly "embarrassing".
The Gulf War is not really comparable to a NATO/WP conflict. Arabs are nitwits when it comes to warfare, their Soviet equipment were/are the monkey versions without advanced systems like night vision, targeting computers and modern ammo. They had/have almost no proper command and control abilities.
A better comparison is the Kosovo/Serbia campaign in 1988-99 where NATO attacked the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (Serbia and Montenegro), a former Soviet satellite republic. They proved very skillful in avoiding detection and destruction by NATO air power while inflicting embarrassing losses on their attackers. Perhaps most so the shoot-down of an F-117 stealth. After Milosevic accepted the international peace plan to end the fighting in Kosovo, the Serbian army withdrew from Kosovo largely intact; after months of bombing by NATO. The official losses were 462 soldiers killed, and 299 wounded. Most of the targets hit in Kosovo were decoys; Newsweek gained access to a suppressed US Air Force report that stated the real numbers of destroyed vehicles were 3 tanks not the 120 claimed, 18 APCs not 220 as originally claimed, and 20 artillery pieces, not the originally claimed 450. After months of bombing.
Fighting in Europe is worlds apart from fighting in the desert.
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Actually what forced Milosevic to negotiate was when NATO started bombing political, economic and civilian targets in Serbia itself. TV and radio stations, power plants, water and sanitation facilities, bridges. Even the Chinese embassy got hit.
Here's a copy of the Newsweek article: http://one-six-one.fifthinfantrydivision.com/airpwr.htm
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Ignore arguments of technology, training, or era. There are three possible outcomes to a general conventional war in central Europe during the cold war.
1) The Warsaw pact loses.
2) NATO loses.
3) Stalemate
Imagine the Warsaw pact loses. Deep strikes paralyze their command and control, Poland surrenders, the Ukraine front collapses. Only nuclear weapons can stop NATO from taking Moscow. What do you think Andropov would do?
Now imagines NATO is loses, 5th Guards tank army has overrun Germany, Soviet troops are coming through Strasbourg and tomorrow they'll be in Paris. Do you think the French will not use their nuclear weapons to prevent this? If they don't, will the USA allow a million cut-off American soldiers to be taken prisoner before using nuclear weapons to cover their evacuation? That evacuation will be across the English Channel. Would a British submarine captain (with sole launch authority, remember) hesitate to use a nuclear SUBROC round to stop a quad of Oscar class subs getting within their 500km Granit missile range of the rescue. For that matter, would not a German artillery officer simply commandeer his US issued W48s (and the US PAL officer if necessary) when the first Soviet recce forces clear the western end of the Fulda Gap?
The best possible outcome is a stalemate - but if the conventional forces are stalemated then nuclear weapons are the way to break it. And you'd better use yours first...
Here's General Rair Simoyen of the Red Army, when asked if a conventional war might not mean nuclear war. "No side will accept defeat until it uses all the weapons it has,"
And here's General Curtis LeMay, when he was told that a pre-emptive strike at the opening of the was not US national policy, "I don't care, it's my policy. That's what I'm going to do."
The main purpose of conventional forces on both sides in Central Europe was to allow the politicians to pretend they had a strategy that somehow didn't involve destroying the world. The soldiers went along with it, because what else could they do?
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Pretty much.
I live in a town that would have been nuked within days of the opening shot, if not on day one. The Soviets would have nuked it if they couldn't capture it. If they did capture it, NATO would have nuked it. The plans were already drawn up.
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Lemay was a megalomaniac who liked to run his mouth. He liked to say a lot of stupid things about nukes. Who knows? Maybe it was a strategy, tho in burning Japan to the ground you have to believe he meant it. Heres another of his quotes.
I think there are many times when it would be most efficient to use nuclear weapons. However, the public opinion in this country and throughout the world throw up their hands in horror when you mention nuclear weapons, just because of the propaganda that's been fed to them.
Unfortunately for him, and fortunately for us, the decision to release them was not his. In fact it wasnt even an American Presidents, at least in Europe. NATO would have to concur. Dont get me wrong, I also believe either side would have used nukes before being defeated and overthrown. But it would have been the leaders of NATO who released them. And once released it wouldnt have ended there. By putting special weapons in Europe America also put her own population at great risk. I think a general nuclear war would have chain reacted.
Germany had its own thing going with the Reds. With "RealPolitik" they defused many tensions and helped open constructive dialogue. Thus decreasing tensions. They did not welcome the idea of special weapons being used on their territory. And lets not forget "nukes" were not the only scarey weapons. Both sides had very large chem/bio arsenals as well. Most of all the Reds who practiced fighting in a chem environment probably more then we did.
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The Soviets considered chemical weapons to be conventional, not "special", so any conventional-only war with the WP would have included massive use of CW in Europe. Also, NATO has no authority over the French and British nuclear arsenals. France wasn't even part of the military alliance in NATO after 1966, only the political. France stood alone for most of the Cold War.
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The Soviets considered chemical weapons to be conventional, not "special", so any conventional-only war with the WP would have included massive use of CW in Europe. Also, NATO has no authority over the French and British nuclear arsenals. France wasn't even part of the military alliance in NATO after 1966, only the political. France stood alone for most of the Cold War.
Not so alone. They did realize their survival was linked to the rest of NATO in case of hostilities and only a fool would think France would survive as a free nation with the entire Soviet bloc on their doorstep. I think Hackett was right when, in his book, he wrote how France unequivocally allied with NATO when the war broke out.
Yes both France and England had their own arsenals but compared to the Soviet one they were far, far smaller. A threat to use them unilaterally would have been taken by the Reds to be no more then a bluff. Again we would be left with NATO only releasing after a consultation. I agree about the chems, which is why I always had a MOPP gear on my hip or in my war bad while I was there. I think the Reds would have used them and we would have used them back. Their use would favor the forward defense strategy of NATO and eventually the Reds would have quit using them.
Again I think Hackett was correct.
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France would doubtless side with NATO. The question is, would France use nuclear weapons to stop the Soviets on their border? Absolutely. Would the US use nuclear weapons to prevent the loss of the half-million troops they had in Europe? Absolutely. Would Britain use nuclear weapons to stop the Soviets from sealing the English channel? Absolutely. Would a German artillery officer commandeer the US nuclear weapons tasked to his unit to prevent Germany from being over-run? Absolutely.
When your enemy can obliterate your continent in twenty minutes, it is pointless to argue over who had more planes or better tanks. You can construct a thousand scenarios and they will all end the same way. However Hackett could hardly interest anyone in his story if it ended with the world wiped out, so he had everyone come to their senses at the very last moment.
The reality is - everyone has to keep their senses from the very first moment, and we're very fortunate that they did.
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The French policy was, and still is, that any attack on France, even conventional-only, will be answered by all-out nuclear war from day one. Their policy was also that any attack on France should be retaliated to cause at least the same amount of casualties on the attacker as the total French population, or about 60 million people. France is a lot closer to Russia so they don't need huge ICBM delivery systems. Today they have just under 300 warheads. In the late '80s they had more than 500. Easily enough to turn European Russia into a wasteland. Today most of France's nuclear weapons are carried on their four SSBNs. 16 missiles per sub with 6-10 warheads each. In the 1980s they had six SSBNs with 16 missiles each. In 2006, French President Jacques Chirac stated that France is willing to use nuclear weapons against a state attacking France via terrorist means. He noted that the French nuclear forces had been configured for this option.