Cuban Missile Crisis

[terrywhite]

Red November by W.C. Reed (Harper Books) is not only a mine of information about Soviet subs (nuke or diesel) but makes it stunningly clear how close the world came to destruction during the Cuban Missile Crisis.

[JU_88]

Yeah Im glad I wans't around for all that.... 'Duck and cover' indeed!

[Radioshow]

At the time the Soviets were massivley outgunned on the ICBM front. They only had a handfull of SS7's/8's(maybe a couple dozen) and they were liquid fueled and took a long time to prepare for launch. This is why they needed Cuba to get their shorter range IRMB's within reach of the US.

The Soviets still had a large bomber force but few if any SLBM submarines and those that had SLBM's were limited in number(3 each i think) and had to surface to launch because the missiles were in the sail.

The Soviets backed down because the US caught them before they were ready and had no choice. It may have turned out different though if the Soviets had another 3-4 days to get all the missile regiments ready as only 1 I believe was operational at the time of the UN slam dunk by Adlai Stevenson. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adlai_Stevenson_II)

[Kapitan]

The bit your missing is that the USA came to an agreement with the soviets to remove missiles from turkey which they did.
at the time the russians had a mixture of zulu V and golf and hotel class boats so a good mix

[Stealhead]

Very true it seems that many people like to forget about the missiles in Turkey which was why the Soviets put the missiles in Cuba in the first place.

They may have had the weaker nuclear force at the time but it still would have killed millions of people had the USSR and US used them against each other.I know a few old guys that where on active duty in the military during the crisis and they said it was by far the worst times in their careers even worse than Vietnam.

[Radioshow]

Ya I didnt forget about the old Thor and Jupiter misslies in Italy and Turkey.

They were obsolete and were to be retired soon anyway. That was the kicker. They made a deal to remove them and they were going to remove or replace them anyway.

And yes if it came down to launch time the Soviets still could have done some damage. They had a massive bomber fleet and some of the biggest warheads around. They're warheads were generally of a higher yield than the US by a couple MT or more usually.

[vienna]

I remember the Cuban Missle Crisis very well. I was 2 months shy of my 12th birthday at the time. I was living in San Francisco and attending a private Catholic school. We spent days having multiple "drop drills" during the entire period of the crisis and shortly thereafter. There were rumors about that San Francisco was potential prime target due to the presence of nearby US Navy facilities and a number of missle emplacements around the Bay Area. Being in a Catholic school, we were encouraged to pray by the nuns and the priests. I was quite interested in science at the time and had seen quite a few documentaries and read a few books about the effects of an atomic blast. I was not fully convinced prayer was going to be effective deterrent to being blasted into molecules by a Russkie bomb and neither was running into the school hallway, crouching down, and covering my head with my hands. From the photos of Hiroshima and Nagasaki I had seen, there weren't a lot of intact hallways at ground zero.

Going home in the evening was no further reassuance. The few television channels available at the time were constantly showing grave faced members of the government making even graver statements, experts and scientists exhibiting various aerial photos of missles either in Cuba or on the way to Cuba, and public announcements of what to do in case of an attack (other than kiss one's posterior goodbye). It was a rather frightening yet also interesting experience. I have often felt the Crisis was where what would become the anti-war movement in the late 60s had its real birth.