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IMo not so much conventional nukes from rogue states but ""dirty bombs" where the intent is to pollute rather than destroy with explosions. Much easier to make
military pilots (in particular) who were active from the 60’s to the 90’s
My dad flew Lightenings from Gutersloh in the late 60's and he was in no doubt about what his mission was and his life expectancy. - Part of his flight kit was an eye patch an anti radiation injection that he was supposed to stab into his thigh... His friend he flew A4s in the US navy was his squadron's Instructor for the Mk61 bomb. Both of them were both acutely aware of how completely crazy the whole thing was.
I spent most of my childhood growing up on military bases, and being aware from quite an early age that if it did come, at least there was one directed at us – at whatever air base we were stationed at, and we’d be spared survival
Living near Aldershot, this was the sobering thought my mum gave to me when I watched When the Wind Blows...
FWIW, Russian military doctrine draws no distinction between tactical nuclear and conventional weapons. They are perfectly happy to drop a low yield nuclear cruise missile on a military target if it meets their tactical needs.
If you read any of the books from military pilots (in particular) who were active from the 60’s to the 90’s, most of their training was based on getting airborne before the Soviet hordes came over the horizon, shoot down as many of them as possible and then eject into the sea (the assumption being that there wouldn’t be the support to have air to air refuelling).
any recommendations for the best one or two?
Much easier to make
Wasn't one made by Chechen terrorists in the 1990s?
Growing up in the 80s, it seemed to me an absolute certainty that I wouldn't make adulthood. Me and my mates used to discuss where nearest to us the first nukes would strike (Strike Command (Naphill) a few miles down the road) and Upper Heyford not far the other way. We used to genuinely & candidly discuss whether we'd die in the initial blast or in the fallout that followed, and what your last actions would be when you heard the 4-minute warning.
I'm aware typing this that it sounds very morose and nihilistic, but it really wasn't those types of conversations; they were more like nuclear weapons Top-Trumps and a response to the pervasive background noise of nuclear armageddon. I remember thinking Reagan was very dangerous and had an itchy trigger finger, and almost certainly something big would happen that nobody really would want to survive anyway. What was the point of spending many thousands on nuclear bunkers (and some people did) when there'd be nothing left when you popped your head up afterwards anyway?
I think it was Einstein who said " I don't know what weapons the 3rd World War will be fought with, but the 4th World War will be fought with stick and stones".
For interesting insights, the podcast series Cold War Conversations gives some fascinating inside views on what was really going on at the time. Ideal windy dog-walking listening and a good chance to reflect that the 16-year old you maybe never thought you, or mankind, would still be around now.
I remember having similar conversations with my mates in the 80's as creakingdoor above, and while those scenarios seamed an almost inevitable reality, they were at the same time an abstract fiction.
I guess like now, we had no real control of the morons in charge so couldn't change anything, but whether because general attitude of the times were different or it was just the exuberance of youth, we feared it less and just lived with more positivity in our daily lives.
CND was funded indirectly by the KGB.
Conspiracy theorist crap is not new it's just more people knew when to ignore it.
CND still exists and for as long as there are nuclear weapons it is important that peace advocates highlight the madness, expense and danger of nuclear weapons. Peace is not maintained by holding guns to each others heads.
Threads scared the living shit out of me. Insane times but MAD did seem to work and i don't think russia is a global nuclear threat or China, it's just what do we do know that the genie's out of the bottle and india, ****stan, nk, israel and others have these weapons and objectives of their own? It'll go tits up at some point but I don't think it will be washington and Moscow shooting at each other
We’ve really got to figure out a way to remove them from the menu.
What we really need to remove from the menu is war full stop. We really should have learned this after WW2, but unfortunately humans are just a bit too arrogant. If the 'buzzer' goes I'm going to the nearest high priority target...
I'm genuinely afraid of the future we are leaving for all of our children. Shameful.
Growing up in the 80s, it seemed to me an absolute certainty that I wouldn’t make adulthood. Me and my mates used to discuss where nearest to us the first nukes would strike (Strike Command (Naphill) a few miles down the road) and Upper Heyford not far the other way. We used to genuinely & candidly discuss whether we’d die in the initial blast or in the fallout that followed, and what your last actions would be when you heard the 4-minute warning.
I’m aware typing this that it sounds very morose and nihilistic, but it really wasn’t those types of conversations; they were more like nuclear weapons Top-Trumps and a response to the pervasive background noise of nuclear armageddon. I remember thinking Reagan was very dangerous and had an itchy trigger finger, and almost certainly something big would happen that nobody really would want to survive anyway. What was the point of spending many thousands on nuclear bunkers (and some people did) when there’d be nothing left when you popped your head up afterwards anyway?
This, was pretty much exactly my childhood also.
Exercise Square Leg was a GB government civil defence preparedness test/simulation in the event of a nuclear attack. (One of a number of "cricket" themed ones, IIRC).
It was a bit odd as the government didn't think central London would be targeted.
Also, people who “knew” about these things, reckoned the target list was “unlikely” and also the amount of bang! was underestimated (suggested 250 megabangs! Vs expected 1000 megabangs!)
I dont think the exercise considered the radioactive fallout from a devastated US drifting over the UK, the effect of a nuclear winter, or the use of cobalt salted weapons (everything stays radioactive for ages).
Even so I recall reading (but cant find it now) that 80% of the country would be dead by 12 months. Wiki says 35% of the population are “short term survivors”.
Anyway, to lighten the mood, why not hit Todmorden with a Topol SS25 warhead: Insanity simulator.
This is a bit dated now but still a captivating and terrifying read...
http://www.johnstonsarchive.net/nuclear/nuclearwar1.html
Growing up in the 80s, it seemed to me an absolute certainty that I wouldn’t make adulthood. Me and my mates used to discuss where nearest to us the first nukes would strike
This. As a 70s kid and 80s teenager, I used to experience what psychologists called 'nuclear nightmares'. I didn't know they were a thing until I was reading Douglas Coupland's 1993 book 'Life After God' (a series of short stories), in which one story is just a series of recollected nuclear nightmares. I remember feeling like someone had hit me in the gut when I read it, because I couldn't believe that someone else had the same experience.
I remember hearing an academic banging on about the Cold War affecting kids' psychological wellbeing in the states, creating neurosis, reducing aspirations and even learning potential. A bit bloody much if all they're doing is willy waving.
This is a bit dated now but still a captivating and terrifying read…
Yeeeesh. Stuff of nightmares, no?
As a kid in the late 70s I remember the local warning siren going off. Suburban east London. Absolutely shat myself and was genuinely upsetting being about 10 at the time. Think they were testing it for flood warnings. Gits
I grew up in the 80s and don’t think the serious thought of nuclear war crossed my mind once !
You guys must have led a dark childhood!!
It's was rough being an 80s kid tbf.
I remember a test of the air raid siren I was about 11 ran into my mum and dads bedroom and we all just looked out of the window waiting. My sister did not wake up so my dad just left her in her room.
We lived 1 mile ish from a mod site so it would have been quick I suppose.
It has stayed with me and that film z for Zachariah? We watched at school my god it was grim we did get pac man though.
I spent most of my childhood growing up on military bases, and being aware from quite an early age that if it did come, at least there was one directed at us – at whatever air base we were stationed at, and we’d be spared survival
I was a RAF brat, Dad went to Germany every year to role play what would happen if it kicked off.
Which did mean an American National Guard squadron came into Wittering for the same exercises. Over equipped, overly generous and over here. I was the best equipped Scout in our troop though 👍
I think that the Soviet threat was exaggerated during the cold war, certainly post Cuban Missile Crisis. It suited both sides politically.
If you look at the mapping exercise that the Russians did it was for only one reason. You don't need detailed maps of Grimsby for defensive reasons.
Despite being a cartoon, I don’t think it was for kids is it?
I was a kid when I watched it.
I'm now an adult.
It influenced my view on the things, for life.
It might have been aimed at kids, at the time, but kids grow up.
Anyway, to lighten the mood, why not hit Todmorden with a Topol SS25
The stone mines at Lee Quarry were once a prospective command centre, I think they were put off by the fact no-one in senior ranks would move there
Yeeeesh. Stuff of nightmares, no?
Yup. Mad Max stuff. Essentally the US and Western Europe turning into lawless zombielands. You really don't want to survive a nuclear war! Although I think I would want to just out a macabre curiosity as to what would happen after.
Also can't believe no one's posted this yet.. 😄
https://nuclearsecrecy.com/nukemap/
Britain's CGWH had accommodation for 4000 and 60 miles of underground roads, and a BBC radio studio
As a kid in the late 70s I remember the local warning siren going off. Suburban east London. Absolutely shat myself and was genuinely upsetting being about 10 at the time. Think they were testing it for flood warnings. Gits
I grew up in Malvern late 70's early 80, the air raid sirens used to be tested every couple of weeks. RRE as it was then was one of the prime likely targets for a bombing.
I remember talking to mates when I went to uni and was surprised that they'd never heard a siren before, though it was commonplace, which kinda made it sink in a bit more. that and chinooks flying over my school with big swinging payloads.
I was born in 71 and my dad was in the RAF, including 6 years at Gutersloh in the late 70s. Going to read up on what they actually did there later tonight as I’ve never given it any thought until it was mentioned above.
As a few in this thread, I was never really bothered or thought about nuclear was as I grew up.
CND was funded indirectly by the KGB.
Conspiracy theorist crap is not new it’s just more people knew when to ignore it.
Given how widespread the Soviet infiltration of the UK was, I'd be astonished if CND had escaped their attention.
That's not to say it was some sort of KGB run puppet organisation though
Given how widespread the Soviet infiltration of the UK was, I’d be astonished if CND had escaped their attention.
That’s not to say it was some sort of KGB run puppet organisation though
Uk/US/etc have probably done the same for years
I remember a woodwork teacher who had a "break glass" 3 minute warning kit, it comprised a tea bag, a match and a cigarette
CND was funded indirectly by the KGB.
CND’s loss is the Tory party’s gain
All this, and it's a Monday. I'd absolutely just kill myself if it came to complete nuclear war.
If you want to be be aboard a B52 as the human race snubs itself out its also with watching By Dawns Early Light. Not a doc, a very good fictional account of WW3 kicking off from the view point of a crew aboard a B52 on a bombing run to Russia. Compulsive viewing.
Full film here. Well worth a watch. If you've not seen it I suspect you'll always remember watching it too. Just as I have.
All this, and it’s a Monday.
It's a fascinating subject though. The science and technology behind it all are mind-boggling..
https://www.johnstonsarchive.net/nuclear/nukergv.html
fascinating
It's definitely that, but I wouldn't put it at the top of the list. Frightening, is my first thought.
I thought the hierarchy would at least give us 6 months of respite after covid before starting another world war.
Some sobering reading here
Hah, completely misses that time a Titan Missile actually exploded
Anyone remember the animated film ‘where the wind blows’ ?
A cheery film about an elderly couple in the country trying to survive after a nuclear strike
i put the trailer up last Friday on a work teams meeting, due the storms 🙂
I remember my big yellow nuclear survival book.
I think that’s why we had good music thou the backdrop of death,doom and destruction.
I was born in the 50s, just, and I was one who grew up thinking it was unlikely that I'd live to my 50s thanks to the nuclear threat. I read Nevil Shute's 'On The Beach' when I was really too young, and then 'Down To A Sunless Sea' when I was about 20. Everyone knows that a nuclear war would be pointless, and probably an extinction event, but given the politicians and leaders we have, it's hard to believe that they aren't stupid enough to start one anyway.
I’m not crazy far from where the Americans accidentally nuked Spain,which even more crazily was the plot in the the Cliff Richard Finders Keepers musical/movie 🙂
I keep meaning to cycle down and get a few bike against nuclear warning fence signs pics.
There was some play on the BBC about American bomber crews based in Norfolk (I think) on heroin to cope with the stress, and one of them sets off to drop the bomb. I might have got the details wrong but I remember it scared the crap out of me. This would have been when I was a teenager so the mid 80s I suppose
It’s weird thou the interest in making films and tv programs about nuclear apocalypse , almost like they were deliberately scaring the shite out of everybody on a weekly basis in the 80’s 🙂
If you believe in crystal ball foresight the current world system will be destroyed by a weapon from space that will split/break earth into pieces. The destruction is caused by a human madman who will be stationed in space and dissolute with earth. When? Sometime in future when we can live in space station "permanently", of course.
No wonder we all went hedonistic with raves.
It's weird right but that's exactly around the time I had recurring dreams about nuclear apocalypse 🤪
If you believe in crystal ball foresight the current world system will be destroyed by a weapon from space that will split/break earth into pieces. The destruction is caused by a human madman who will be stationed in space and dissolute with earth.
Charlton Heston, is that you?
It’s weird thou the interest in making films and tv programs about nuclear apocalypse , almost like they were deliberately scaring the shite out of everybody on a weekly basis in the 80’s
Hollywood and the BBC funded by KGB? Makes you think...