World War III: What if?
Discussion
I've been reading this story on the Mail this morning regarding Whitehall plans for WWIII should it have started in the 80's and it's fasinating and terrifying in equal measures:
Mail said:
March 1981, and inside 10 Downing Street, Margaret Thatcher is confronting the most terrible dilemma any British Prime Minister has ever faced.
The news could hardly be worse. Across Britain, tens of thousands of terrified people are streaming out of the major cities. Looting is widespread, while every day brings bomb attacks at railway stations and RAF bases.
Abroad, the Red Army has sliced through the West’s defences, using chemical weapons to punch through Nato’s front lines. Yugoslavia has fallen, and West Germany and Norway are on the verge of succumbing.
After four days of Russian air raids, killing hundreds of people in Glasgow, Liverpool, Manchester and Southampton, Mrs Thatcher faces the ultimate decision. On her desk is a message from the Supreme Allied Commander in Europe, asking for authorisation to launch a nuclear attack across the Iron Curtain.
She tells her colleagues that never before has a British Cabinet faced ‘such a grim choice’.
But there is no alternative — and with the world staring into the nuclear abyss, Mrs Thatcher gives the go-ahead.
This may sound like the stuff of fantasy. We all know that there was World War III in March 1981. But, in fact, this scenario is chillingly realistic
Read the rest here: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2106247/Th...The news could hardly be worse. Across Britain, tens of thousands of terrified people are streaming out of the major cities. Looting is widespread, while every day brings bomb attacks at railway stations and RAF bases.
Abroad, the Red Army has sliced through the West’s defences, using chemical weapons to punch through Nato’s front lines. Yugoslavia has fallen, and West Germany and Norway are on the verge of succumbing.
After four days of Russian air raids, killing hundreds of people in Glasgow, Liverpool, Manchester and Southampton, Mrs Thatcher faces the ultimate decision. On her desk is a message from the Supreme Allied Commander in Europe, asking for authorisation to launch a nuclear attack across the Iron Curtain.
She tells her colleagues that never before has a British Cabinet faced ‘such a grim choice’.
But there is no alternative — and with the world staring into the nuclear abyss, Mrs Thatcher gives the go-ahead.
This may sound like the stuff of fantasy. We all know that there was World War III in March 1981. But, in fact, this scenario is chillingly realistic
In '82 us 20 year olds were more worried about being conscripted into the army because of the Falklands War. Was this this really on the cards?
We thought we'd be conscripted and sent to Germany, Northern Ireland and other places that the British Army were stationed, in order to free up the veteran soldiers for war in the Falklands.
We thought we'd be conscripted and sent to Germany, Northern Ireland and other places that the British Army were stationed, in order to free up the veteran soldiers for war in the Falklands.
Not convinced about the Soviets overcoming our air defences. In 1980-ish we had very good rapid response cold war era inspired air cover, coupled to the fact that the Yanks would have been rapidly mobilising in Britain with all their British bases being re-inforced with interceptors and bombers. The Soviets would have been spread too thin to mount successful air raids, other than suicide missions maybe.
s2art said:
Not convinced about the Soviets overcoming our air defences. In 1980-ish we had very good rapid response cold war era inspired air cover, coupled to the fact that the Yanks would have been rapidly mobilising in Britain with all their British bases being re-inforced with interceptors and bombers. The Soviets would have been spread too thin to mount successful air raids, other than suicide missions maybe.
The Russians would have began with a pre-emptive invasion of Iceland and used it as a staging post. I read it in this manual once, Red Storm Rising I believe it was called.In Maggie T's autobiography she says that NATO fully accepted that their conventional forces would never be able to hold off a Soviet attack into Western Europe for any significant length of time and they would inevitably have had to resort to nukes on the battlefield which would have no doubt triggered the annihilation of the UK in a Soviet counter-strike.
Maggie reckoned that the USA would not have sacrificed its own cities to save Europe from nukes when it came down to it and that when the sh*t hit the fan it would have been left to the UK and France to use their own nukes to try and wipe out the Russians first. Thank f**k it never happened.
Maggie reckoned that the USA would not have sacrificed its own cities to save Europe from nukes when it came down to it and that when the sh*t hit the fan it would have been left to the UK and France to use their own nukes to try and wipe out the Russians first. Thank f**k it never happened.
Sparta VAG said:
Maggie reckoned that the USA would not have sacrificed its own cities to save Europe from nukes when it came down to it and that when the sh*t hit the fan it would have been left to the UK and France to use their own nukes to try and wipe out the Russians first. Thank f**k it never happened.
Lets be honest, any war situation where nukes are used ends with mutual removal from the planet for all involved. I can't see a situation where a nuke is used on the battlefield and it doesn't escalate to wiping each other out. And that ends badly for the whole Northern Hemisphere.
DieselGriff said:
Very good, that nutter in that clip I seem to remember playing another nutter role in Howards way!Back on point, I would have thought any attack on the UK from the Ruskies then would have been enough for a return fire.
rich1231 said:
There was another thread here on PH about that, there were links to a TV documentary on it. Scary s
t!Jackleman said:
Very good, that nutter in that clip I seem to remember playing another nutter role in Howards way!
Back on point, I would have thought any attack on the UK from the Ruskies then would have been enough for a return fire.
Sort of the point of the clip really, I thought it was on point. The question being at what point do we retaliate? It is not an easy question to answer as the clip humorously illustrates. Back on point, I would have thought any attack on the UK from the Ruskies then would have been enough for a return fire.
If another side declares all out nuclear war then the decision is fairly easy and straightforward (and the vast majority of us die), anything less than that and things get difficult.
I was once coworkers with one of the last artillery commanders in Europe (US Army). His mission was to deny at all costs, Soviet tanks from crossing the Fulder Gap by means of tactical nuke artillery shells. This was devised knowing that conventional forces may not be able to stop a Soviet push. It is not a public doctrine, but having US troops in West Gemany was not to stop the Soviets (as there was nowhere near enough), they were a tripwire to ensure that the US got right into the war and did not debate the issue as FDR had to do before WWII. That way, if they decided to take all of Gemany and France but promised to stop there, some appeasers would be arguing for peace and letting them keep their gains. This is of course IMO and of many others who served there.
Jimbeaux said:
I was once coworkers with one of the last artillery commanders in Europe (US Army). His mission was to deny at all costs, Soviet tanks from crossing the Fulder Gap by means of tactical nuke artillery shells. This was devised knowing that conventional forces may not be able to stop a Soviet push. It is not a public doctrine, but having US troops in West Gemany was not to stop the Soviets (as there was nowhere near enough), they were a tripwire to ensure that the US got right into the war and did not debate the issue as FDR had to do before WWII. That way, if they decided to take all of Gemany and France but promised to stop there, some appeasers would be arguing for peace and letting them keep their gains. This is of course IMO and of many others who served there.
I remember the brief you got on arrival in Germany as part of BAOR. It went something along the lines of, "If the Russians invade you will be declared missing in action almost immediately. We will act as a speed-bump to slow their progress, nothing more".Almost put you off your brattys I can tell you
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