PSA – for those over 40 who remember the 80's shadow of nuclear war

love the comments about lying in bed paranoia. I grew up in pretty much central London in a converted Victorian house. My room was in the basement and I used to lie in bed wondering if that would protect me from the shockwave and heat blast radiating out from the city. That programme last night brought back a lot of memories.

bloody hell if its top trumps on who was going to get fried first then surely i win as lived but two miles away from Nato HQ in Northwood

My wife works at Manchester University. In their library archive they have a Russian invasion map of Manchester showing all of the strategic points. Telephone exchanges, police stations, major intersections, positions for check points and troop marshalling yards, Wagamama etc.

Rather comfortingly it shows that they also had plans in place for a non nuclear option.

plans in place for a non nuclear option

The west would of had (and still will have) similar maps in their plans for invading the USSR/Russia,

3 good books to read on the war planning that went on , and mostly is now not in use.

Warplan second edition,

cold war secret nuclear bunkers,

secret underground cities.

also a bit more upto date, the excellent sub brit website, and

http://www.secretbases.co.uk by alan Turnbull

Millions must have beenwasted by all governmmnets to protect those with influence from the effects of nuclear fallout, nothing sems to have been spent on protecting those same people from us plebs who may have survived and now glow in the dark.

I was a kid in the ’80’s but never really thought a 3rd world war was ever likely as I thought the whole point of having nuclear weapons was as a deterrent due to mutually assured destruction, so thought that no side would be silly enough to actually use nuclear weapons.

You would be surprised how accurate the Doctor Strangelove depiction of the US military really is!

Big n daft …..awwwwww, the middle of the countryside where I grew up isn’t on there!! So my vigilance was all for nothing then?

Lardcore – in a way that was such a strange realisation that the east wasn’t in fact full of fanatic citizens all baying to kill us. Actually you/they were just like us. I was a young victim of propaganda, I suppose.

I was playing soldiers back in the eighties – several NATO excercises left me a bit worried about the red horde coming west, turns out 50-60% of their armour wouldn’t have made it past Poland! let alone west Germany

my understanding is that would be a good rate for a AS90 (UK 155mm SP Arty) regiment

I remember tales from the regiments based in Berlin, plenty of “alerts” that had them on their toes with the only certainty that you are already 200miles behind enemy lines

Millions must have beenwasted by all governmmnets to protect those with influence from the effects of nuclear fallout, nothing sems to have been spent on protecting those same people from us plebs who may have survived and now glow in the dark.

sorry but KP defence was a role for some units, keeping the Spetnaz and starving locals away

Just watched ‘Threads’. Scary to start with, went on far too long, not convincing. What happened to the rest of the world and why didn’t they help?

On The Beach leaves no room for speculation – there is no hope. It is the end. Tantalisingly, there is the suggestion that parts of Aus could be habitable in 20 years – and then you remember that humanity is about to die out, so it makes no difference.

Neville Shute was a brilliant author – and a brilliant engineer. I’ve never read a duff book by him – and I’ve read most of his books.

Just watched ‘Threads’. Scary to start with, went on far too long, not convincing. What happened to the rest of the world and why didn’t they help?

It was a global nuclear conflict. Airports would have been obliterated in the first or second wave. Don’t or get the US and USSR alone had enough ICBM’s to wipe out all of each others habited areas twice over. The fallout and dust in the atmosphere from such a conflict would end the growing season for crops for years. Everything would be f**ked.

Watched threads after seeing it mentioned on here .. Wow sobering

H’m,
All this talk of the Cold War in Britain both on the forum and in
the BBC Cold War Britain Season documentary but no ones mentioned those
unsung hero’s on the Home Front who, when the chips are down, the
balloon goes up and the Warsaw Pact invades Western Europe.
They will be the ones – who will be in readiness in any one of their
3 man bunkers, called ROC Post’s dotted across the length & breadth of
Britain, including many of her off shore islands.

The Royal Observer Corps composed mainly of volunteers, were
trained to forsake their families for the common good, as part of
the UK’s Civil Defence measures. To shelter in one of 1500 ( reduced
to 872 after 1968 ) 3 man nuclear monitoring bunkers.
Their duty was to measure the explosion of any nuclear bomb that’s
dropped on the UK by means of the BPI ( Bomb power indicator )
and check the height & elevation of the blast from a PIN Hole camera
mounted on top of the hatch. Then report the explosion to their
sector HQ or UKWMO who would then triangulate the blast with those
reported by other ROC Posts to find the centre of the explosion.

That way they warn the general public as well as the government of
the likely direction of any fallout in time of war.
Pretty scary stuff I know, during the days of the 4 minute warning
but bearing in mind that Civil Defence in the UK during the Cold War
was a Phoney War, it was a pretty light hearted affair.
Most ROC Post meetings were held at the local ‘Rose & Crown’ following
underground training exercises in a Cold and damp bunker with
a synopsis of lessons learned, discussed over a game of darts
and a pint of Old Speckled Hen.