If the UK had ever been nuked...
Discussion
Oakey said:
Just to cheer you all up 
http://www.thebulletin.org/content/media-center/an...
WASHINGTON, D.C. -- January 10, 2012 -- Faced with inadequate progress on nuclear weapons reduction and proliferation, and continuing inaction on climate change, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists (BAS) announced today that it has moved the hands of its famous "Doomsday Clock" to five minutes to midnight.
What sort of fhttp://www.thebulletin.org/content/media-center/an...
WASHINGTON, D.C. -- January 10, 2012 -- Faced with inadequate progress on nuclear weapons reduction and proliferation, and continuing inaction on climate change, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists (BAS) announced today that it has moved the hands of its famous "Doomsday Clock" to five minutes to midnight.
kwit compares MMGW and nuclear war? Even if MMGW exists I know which I'd rather have.Oakey said:
Cheering Article said:
The world still has over 19,000 nuclear weapons, enough power to destroy the world's inhabitants several times over."
Didn't the W.O.P.R. teach us anything?I thought any Nuclear War was pretty much unwinnable?
...although how that translates to the mind of a loopy Dictator is anybody's guess...
nelly1 said:
Didn't the W.O.P.R. teach us anything?
I thought any Nuclear War was pretty much unwinnable?
...although how that translates to the mind of a loopy Dictator is anybody's guess...
Depends on your definition of 'win' really. I think the dodgiest stage of nuclear weapon history has probably passed. IMO it was pre widespread ICBM deployment by the US / USSR when they both had a lot of proper nukes but relied on heavy bomber delivery. It would have been a lot easier for someone to decide then that the safest option was to get them before they got us, and convince themselves that they could intercept all (or most) of the reprisal attack. It might actually have been feasible. You'd need to be totally mad to think that in the age of SLBM's though.I thought any Nuclear War was pretty much unwinnable?
...although how that translates to the mind of a loopy Dictator is anybody's guess...
'The Wizards of Armaggeddon' is good read. It's about the cold war thinking and tactics related to nuclear war, MAD etc.
hairykrishna said:
nelly1 said:
Didn't the W.O.P.R. teach us anything?
I thought any Nuclear War was pretty much unwinnable?
...although how that translates to the mind of a loopy Dictator is anybody's guess...
It might actually have been feasible. You'd need to be totally mad to think that in the age of SLBM's though.I thought any Nuclear War was pretty much unwinnable?
...although how that translates to the mind of a loopy Dictator is anybody's guess...
King Herald said:
Mutually Assured Destruction is anything but assuring. 
A true indication of the insanity that was going on back then.
It isn't meant in that way though, and rather than insanity, it is a very logical strategy. It also worked.A true indication of the insanity that was going on back then.
It isn't really about ensuring that you destroy everything in the world if you get attacked, but making sure the enemy can't remove your ability to destroy him, without in the process destroying himself. It's the ultimate game of Prisoner's dilemma.
We all came a baw hair from getting toasted in 1983, when the NATO excersise 'Able Archer 83' was misinterperated by the Soviets as an actual offensive. It was compounded by the fact that a Soviet 'first strike' warning sattelite reported a reflection from a cloud formation as a Nato missile launch. The Soviet guy with his finger on 'the button' defied orders to launch a counter strike, and we are all still here. It was bloody close though.
Gwagon111 said:
We all came a baw hair from getting toasted in 1983, when the NATO excersise 'Able Archer 83' was misinterperated by the Soviets as an actual offensive. It was compounded by the fact that a Soviet 'first strike' warning sattelite reported a reflection from a cloud formation as a Nato missile launch. The Soviet guy with his finger on 'the button' defied orders to launch a counter strike, and we are all still here. It was bloody close though.
Just read the wiki on that! 
There have probably been many occasions where it got within a gnat's of over-escalation.
Giant Lance was nothing more than extreme provocation on the part of Nixon and the panic that caused inside the V force in autumn of 69 has been referred to by some as 'not the RAF's finest hour'...
Then 10 years before that an extended period of anticyclone weather over NW europe resulted in thick fog and extreme troposcatter radio propagation. That caused the monitoring radar at Brockzetel to light up with significant returns from the other side of the border (probably light aircraft, trains etc). The net result was battle flight pairs of Hunters being launched with Arm Master wires cut and some of them flying 50km or so the other side of the curtain.
Giant Lance was nothing more than extreme provocation on the part of Nixon and the panic that caused inside the V force in autumn of 69 has been referred to by some as 'not the RAF's finest hour'...
Then 10 years before that an extended period of anticyclone weather over NW europe resulted in thick fog and extreme troposcatter radio propagation. That caused the monitoring radar at Brockzetel to light up with significant returns from the other side of the border (probably light aircraft, trains etc). The net result was battle flight pairs of Hunters being launched with Arm Master wires cut and some of them flying 50km or so the other side of the curtain.
We actually had a HÄNDEL nuclear warning alarm at home. It was a system connected in to the phone line and we used to have to respond to test calls every so often. In towns they were at police stations but out in the sticks most villages had someone with one. I don't think most people even realised the system existed. We even had a siren delivered (i seem to remember it was delivered in the late 80s so was there another near miss?) and we were supposed to spend our last 4 minutes winding the handle.
My propulsion lecturer at uni reckoned the first place to be hit in the event of nuclear war would have been Newport Pagnall Service Station. If an ICBM was launched out of Greenham Common and the main engine failed to start, that's how far the booster that lifts it out of the silo should get it
My propulsion lecturer at uni reckoned the first place to be hit in the event of nuclear war would have been Newport Pagnall Service Station. If an ICBM was launched out of Greenham Common and the main engine failed to start, that's how far the booster that lifts it out of the silo should get it
RizzoTheRat said:
My propulsion lecturer at uni reckoned the first place to be hit in the event of nuclear war would have been Newport Pagnall Service Station. If an ICBM was launched out of Greenham Common and the main engine failed to start, that's how far the booster that lifts it out of the silo should get it
No ICBM silos at Greenham. Only MRBM's and nuclear capable cruise missiles - all truck and bomber launched as far as I know. There was no point building silos in the UK because the warning time was so low that we'd never get them launched before we were toast.
IIRC during the 80's there were 3 times that it got to within 20 minutes of launch fro various reasons. The deployment of Pershing being one, it was considered a first strike weapon and the USSR decided they might want to take it out before it can be used.
I also heard that we got close since the cold war, mid-late 90's because operators on ones side mis-interpreted a rocket test on the other as a genuine launch.
I also heard that we got close since the cold war, mid-late 90's because operators on ones side mis-interpreted a rocket test on the other as a genuine launch.
AshVX220 said:
I also heard that we got close since the cold war, mid-late 90's because operators on ones side mis-interpreted a rocket test on the other as a genuine launch.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norwegian_rocket_incidentResearch rocket falsely interpreted as the carrier of a high altitude EMP weapon.
RizzoTheRat said:
In towns they were at police stations but out in the sticks most villages had someone with one. I don't think most people even realised the system existed.
There is a big siren on the roof of the town hall in the town where I grew up and a quick check of Google maps suggests it is still there but I don't know whether it is still operational. I definitely knew it existed as it was tested on a regular basis which always made me wonder how we would know if what we were hearing was a test or the real thing.My dad, who is not prone to flights of fancy, considered building a bomb shelter in the back garden.
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