If the UK had ever been nuked...
Discussion
williamp said:
I read soemwhere that we knew we wouldnt last in a nuclear war, so we had to convinve the russians tht our policy was "first strike" -in other words, we would be the ones who pushed the button first, not in response to somone else pushing the button
Cannot help but think of this:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IX_d_vMKswE
Back in the early 80's there was a plethora of apocalyptic TV programmes and films. The first time I'd really given much thought to the city of Sheffield was when the BBC informed me how it would suffer under a nuclear attack! There was a scarier US film too (may have been mentioned before).
I think most people feared it would happen one day (Stephen Hawking thinks it still might). I remember seeing a sizeable nuclear fall-out shelter being delivered and installed in the garden of a large house in the southern suburbs of Leicester. Imagine how many new friends they would have made in the final few hours prior to Armageddon! They'd have probably been lynched by the mob, before the first weapons fell.
I think most people feared it would happen one day (Stephen Hawking thinks it still might). I remember seeing a sizeable nuclear fall-out shelter being delivered and installed in the garden of a large house in the southern suburbs of Leicester. Imagine how many new friends they would have made in the final few hours prior to Armageddon! They'd have probably been lynched by the mob, before the first weapons fell.
I lived in the Reading area in the 80s and we always accepted that we'd be some of the first to be turned to ash. Greenham Common and the AWE and other sites around Aldermaston were less than 10 miles away, we'd have had a nice view of the mushroom clouds from the top of the hill where I lived! Aldershot & Sandhurst & Farnborough would have been in the frame no doubt, as well as Heathrow airport and the bunkers up around High Wycombe with the RAF HQ/strike command - where we were all supposed to get the 4 minute warnings in the first place.
There were a few local government command bunkers (like at Warren Row for instance) which we always thought would be targets too.
I suppose the targets would be slightly different nowadays, but proximity to London, or any major center of population, military or industry wouldn't be too good. We also felt that the safest place would be as far from the UK as possible, like the Falklands - particularly after the fortifications in the 80's!
It was funny thinking about this now - this was pretty serious stuff during the 60s, 70s & 80s. Fortunately the worst never actually happened, but it certainly weighed heavily on my mind when I was growing up.
Well, at least the same great view across the Thames Valley meant I got to see Concorde fly past twice a day!
There were a few local government command bunkers (like at Warren Row for instance) which we always thought would be targets too.
I suppose the targets would be slightly different nowadays, but proximity to London, or any major center of population, military or industry wouldn't be too good. We also felt that the safest place would be as far from the UK as possible, like the Falklands - particularly after the fortifications in the 80's!
It was funny thinking about this now - this was pretty serious stuff during the 60s, 70s & 80s. Fortunately the worst never actually happened, but it certainly weighed heavily on my mind when I was growing up.
Well, at least the same great view across the Thames Valley meant I got to see Concorde fly past twice a day!
LotusOmega375D said:
Back in the early 80's there was a plethora of apocalyptic TV programmes and films. The first time I'd really given much thought to the city of Sheffield was when the BBC informed me how it would suffer under a nuclear attack! There was a scarier US film too (may have been mentioned before).
The US film was The Day After - it was (from memory) a rather more sanitised (albeit still fairly bleak) vision of armageddon and the aftermath compared with Threads. I seem to remember reading that Crewe was in line for a fairly sizeable warhead, on the basis that it hosts a major rail marshalling yard and is the hub for a lot of the cross-country rail lines.
While some might say that that a multi-megaton airburst would be just the kind of civic re-engineering that Crewe is crying out for, it might have been a cause for some concern to me, resident a few miles up the road!
jmorgan said:
Got a runway. But with a nuke, two for the price of one I suppose.
Bear in mind Cornwall also has: Falmouth - deep water port and regular haunt for some of the RFA's grey ships.
Devonport - just over the bridge into Devon but any nukes here would make Cornwall uninhabitable.
RAF St Mawgan - mainly civil aviation now, but one hell of a long runway.
slinky said:
jmorgan said:
And if they do it on a bank holiday then that is most of the population sorted.
They only need to strafe the A30 on a bank holiday to sort that out.. I have an idea for this for supermarket trollies as well.
I remember watching "Threads" as a teenager and it completely scared the crap out of me for months after. Such a grim film. I've seen it since and it still stands up.
The US version http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0085404/ wasn't quite as grim but I've read somewhere that it affected Reagan and changed his mind on US Nuclear policy. Don't know how true that is mind.
I live fairly close to Chicksands which at the time was a major US base so I expect we'd have been ash which would have suited me just fine!
The US version http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0085404/ wasn't quite as grim but I've read somewhere that it affected Reagan and changed his mind on US Nuclear policy. Don't know how true that is mind.
I live fairly close to Chicksands which at the time was a major US base so I expect we'd have been ash which would have suited me just fine!
Pugster said:
Did anybody really believe stuff like "Protect and Survive?"
I was always skeptical, but what if the unkown unknows came into play, and only a few weapons reached their targets, or malfunctioned resulting in ground bursts on cities rather than airbursts? Being perhaps overly optimistic, Protect and Survive *could* have made the difference between society being wiped out, or surviving.Pugster said:
I remember watching "Threads" as a teenager and it completely scared the crap out of me for months after. Such a grim film. I've seen it since and it still stands up.
The US version http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0085404/ wasn't quite as grim but I've read somewhere that it affected Reagan and changed his mind on US Nuclear policy. Don't know how true that is mind.
I live fairly close to Chicksands which at the time was a major US base so I expect we'd have been ash which would have suited me just fine!
I still cannot bring myself to watch this, eventhough I downloaded it...The US version http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0085404/ wasn't quite as grim but I've read somewhere that it affected Reagan and changed his mind on US Nuclear policy. Don't know how true that is mind.
I live fairly close to Chicksands which at the time was a major US base so I expect we'd have been ash which would have suited me just fine!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dead_Man's_Letters
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