Fallout 0.9

[Skybird]

http://einestages.spiegel.de/external/ShowTopicAlbumBackground/a29428/l0/l0/F.html

A picture series about the bunkers US citizens used to build from the 60s to early 90s in expectation of a nuclear war with Russia.

By today's knowledge the level of naivety was surprising. Who would have liked to survive just to face a contaminated environment and nuclear winter afterwards? No air exchangers with adequate filters? Food reserves for 2 weeks? The truth probably is that almost nobody really knew what nuclear war would have been about. And that would have been a bit more grim than just cleaning up the Ponderosa ranch.

I wonder if the German concepts of mass bunkers in the cities could be seen as a better solution. I think I would not have liked to "survive" in them.

I think some disasters are such that you really are better off not to survive them, yes. Life sometimes can be worse than death.

[Herr-Berbunch]

All I can see are the words Beton and Grab. Betonov grabbing is much scarier than any fallout. :03:

Nice to see Melvin and Maria who featured in at least one of those photos survived to the modern day - http://www.conelrad.com/atomic_honeymooners.html

[Platapus]

We were teaching children to kneel under their desks and place their hands behind their neck - Duck and cover! I was one of those children.

Why?

Because there is not much else one could do. :nope:

It gave people something to think about that could help them emotionally handle the thought of nuclear war.

Same thing about the bunkers. People feel better if they can do something (anything) when faced with the risk of a terrible event they have no control over.

By being given a tiny bit of control (duck and cover) or six feet of compressed dirt in your backyard, it can help.

I can only speak for my family and my experiences growing up in the cold war -- no one had fantasies of surviving. A bunker was a place to die with your family. :yep:

[August]

A picture series about the bunkers US citizens used to build from the 60s to early 90s in expectation of a nuclear war with Russia

Actually that would be the 1950's to the early 1960's as all 23 pictures in the series show. Of course Der Speigel never misses a chance to make the US look as bad as possible right? :03:

By today's knowledge the level of naivety was surprising.

That naivety which was pretty much eliminated by the early 60's, about the same time that family fallout shelters lost popularity. Like Platapus I remember Air Raid drills in school but by the mid 60's they were pretty much a thing of the past.

[Platapus]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_B6-ZWBx4Zw

Almost interesting trivia. Why was the CD turtle named Bert? :D

[Oberon]

We had 'Protect and Survive' a rather bleak public information series that would have been broadcast in the build-up to war. They showed you how to make a fallout shelter out of your door and a load of pillowcases filled with sand. Which would be useful if you weren't near a target, in which case you were pretty screwed. I don't think our schools bothered to do duck and cover, not much covering you can do in less than four minutes, nor would it have been likely that the schools would have been open in the build-up to war, although they'd probably become rest-centres in the aftermath.
As nations go we had quite a well thought out system, a series of reporting posts to spot both nuclear blasts and enemy aircraft, council bunkers and the continuation of power system, but in regards to public shelters, afaik there were none, the public just had to find their own shelter or die. There was a good Panorama series in the late 1970s which explored the effectiveness of various shelters that you could buy, but if you were still in London when the bombs started falling, well, you were screwed. I suppose many would have tried to shelter in the Underground system, and their charred and mummified remains would probably have been found there decades later, perhaps a handful of people might get lucky...but then as Skybird put it, just how lucky would they be?

[Wolferz]

A nuclear war will be a death sentence for the planet and everything on it.

I think you'd be better off getting burned into a wall when the first strikes hit.
The aftermath will be long and lingering. Shelters? There's no earthly way you can stock enough provisions for ten thousand years of radioactive contamination from the troposphere down to the ground.

No liver no spleen no afrosheen
If you want to eat buy Soylent Green

You'll positively glow.

[Stealhead]

I did a contract job about a year ago at an old middle school the original section of the school having been constructed in the 1930's.Some time in the 50's it had been converted to house the local CD fallout shelter.A rather sturdy building actually the walls in some places must be about 6 feet thick.

Anyway we had to go up into the "attic" above the cafeteria to run some electrical and refrigeration lines.Well they had tossed all the Civil Defense stuff up there at some point lots of tins of biscuits made by Nabisco upon shaking they sounded like dust inside they where dated to expire in 1972.There where also several kits containing medical supplies.

All a waste of time if you ask me you do not want to survive an all out nuclear war better to be at the epicenter of one of the blasts nice and quick that way.

[August]

Sure if every nuke in both arsenals were lit off that would definitely destroy most if not all life on the planet but in the 1950's and early 60's there was no real guarantee that this would happen.

The possibility existed and perhaps still does that good air and sea defenses might keep all but a small fraction of nukes from reaching their targets, especially the bombers.

In that scenario a small family bunker out in the burbs might not be an unreasonable insurance policy, at least in the thinking of the times.

[Madox58]

The 70's saw a spike of break-ins on civil fall-out shelters.
Seems there was coke and other drugs in many?
:haha:

[Stealhead]

Sure if every nuke in both arsenals were lit off that would definitely destroy most if not all life on the planet but in the 1950's and early 60's there was no real guarantee that this would happen.

The possibility existed and perhaps still does that good air and sea defenses might keep all but a small fraction of nukes from reaching their targets, especially the bombers.

In that scenario a small family bunker out in the burbs might not be an unreasonable insurance policy, at least in the thinking of the times.


I beg to differ.For starters the air defense network never actually got put to the full test so we really have no idea how effectively or poorly it would have actually performed.

Today the threat from a bomber would be from an air launched cruise missile much harder to kill the parent aircraft in time and then much much harder to kill the cruise missile.Not to mention the ICBM threat which is still very real targeting your vital military locations but cutting off the head of the US military would make us very very weak.

Once the ICBM came into common use by the early 60's the likely hood gets even lower because some of the first targets after know silo locations would have been every major airbase that SAC had and also every airbase that F-101B(including RCAF),F102,F-106s flew from meaning that if they got up in time they would only be able to fly one sortie because their base would get vaporized.

From the late 50's to well just in the past 10 years there was nothing that could stop a MIRV and the ICBM being the big daddy and two parts of the triad USAF silos and US Navy subs that should make it pretty clear that the only real defense was to make it clear that we would deliver a decisive blow against the USSR that does not mean that a few hundred nukes would hit us anyway.The current ballistic missile defense system has not been put to the full test either and for every counter there is a counter.I'm sure some loose lipped sell out has given the Russians info on it.

Have you spoken to anyone that was in SAC or the NORAD end of TAC back in the day? I suspect not as they would not have you feeling so optimistic.Not to say that those folks did not try their best but it was what it was.

Just the few hits that would make it threw in the most "ideal" exchange back in the day would have covered or vital mid-west bread basket with fallout which means starvation for millions for generations.

You seem to have forgotten an event that occurred in October of '62.In 1962 USAF SAC had 203 ICBM type warheads ready for action today the USAF have 500.

It does not matter anyway because the Indians and the Pakistanis are going to use their nuke are each other sooner or later and they have several hundred each so that fallout alone will rain on our parade.

[Oberon]

Well, we had a good bash at the system during Skyshield, and a few US cities did not fare well from it. So, it was probably just as well the Russkies weren't using Vulcans....

[Stealhead]

And that was only eight Vulcans and civil air traffic was grounded.Not very impressive for NORAD.Back in 1962 this all was imagine how much harder it would be even then when you would have the skies full of normal flights.

And today.

Honestly the whole "we will get must of them" thing be it back in the day bombers or modern ICBMs they say that to keep the flock unafraid.

At any rate back in the day the US would have "won" simply because we had a lot more ICBMs than Ivan did of course if Ivan could pull off a preemptive strike they could in that case have killed enough of our command and control,Silos,subs,and airbases to make us unable to strike back and destroy all of their assets.In the early 1980's the Soviet inner circle was very mindful of this.What I find funny is in the late 70's and early 80's there was a missile gap in NATO favor with cruise missiles (IRBMS and SRAMS) and today the gap is well in the Russkies favor.They are thinking long term me thinks, kill a component of the BMD especially the sites in Poland even via an airstrike using continental weapons and the BDM only deals with IRBMs not ICBMs.

[Skybird]

Actually that would be the 1950's to the early 1960's as all 23 pictures in the series show. Of course Der Speigel never misses a chance to make the US look as bad as possible right? :03:


Bunker building has seen a little revival in the 80s or 90s, and that includes the Reagan years, so little surprise there. Spiegel says in the article therefore that such bunkers were build from the 50s or 60s, until the 90s.

Let's split hairs. It's so very important to give a paper you dislike for not matching your views a bad name over nothing.

I posted this just for the images.

[Betonov]

All I can see are the words Beton and Grab. Betonov grabbing is much scarier than any fallout. :03:



I see that with a good looking wife there comes a paranoia, that a late 20's boat and windmill builder will drive 3000km in a Japanese rustbucket just to grab something :O:

[August]

Bunker building has seen a little revival in the 80s or 90s, and that includes the Reagan years, so little surprise there. Spiegel says in the article therefore that such bunkers were build from the 50s or 60s, until the 90s.

Let's split hairs. It's so very important to give a paper you dislike for not matching your views a bad name over nothing.

I posted this just for the images.

If you posted this just for the images then why argue for the accuracy of Spiegels claim that private fallout bunker building was popular into the 1990's?

I'll tell you why. Because you just can't stand to have your bias pointed out so you feel you must defend it even to the point of trying to tell Americans what is happening within their own country based on an article from an obviously anti-American magazine. Why don't you just quote Al Jazeera? Oh that's right you hate Muslims more than you hate Americans. :roll:

[August]

Have you spoken to anyone that was in SAC or the NORAD end of TAC back in the day? I suspect not as they would not have you feeling so optimistic.Not to say that those folks did not try their best but it was what it was.

Optimistic? No Bub, I only explained that it wasn't so obvious to people in the 50's and early 60's that a personal fallout bunker was a waste of time. As you point out in the rest of your post by the mid 60's the advances in ballistic technology made it a lot clearer. That's why air raid drills stopped and personal bunker building fell off in popularity.

Here's a question for you and every other American who reads this. How many people do you know built a personal fallout shelter in their yard after 1965? Do you believe like Skybird that the American people were busy building them right through the 1990's?

[the_tyrant]

Optimistic? No Bub, I only explained that it wasn't so obvious to people in the 50's and early 60's that a personal fallout bunker was a waste of time. As you point out in the rest of your post by the mid 60's the advances in ballistic technology made it a lot clearer. That's why air raid drills stopped and personal bunker building fell off in popularity.

Here's a question for you and every other American who reads this. How many people do you know built a personal fallout shelter in their yard after 1965? Do you believe like Skybird that the American people were busy building them right through the 1990's?

Aren't the Swiss still building them today?:O:

[August]

Aren't the Swiss still building them today?:O:


:) It took me awhile to figure out what you meant!


Air raid, get into the bunker! :)

http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/69484000/jpg/_69484020_beforedrivingintooneofthe%27sexboxes%27. jpg

[the_tyrant]

:) It took me awhile to figure out what you meant!


Air raid, get into the bunker! :)

http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/69484000/jpg/_69484020_beforedrivingintooneofthe%27sexboxes%27. jpg


:har:

I was actually thinking of this lol: http://thecasualtruth.com/story/switzerland%E2%80%99s-bizarre-nuclear-bunker-law

[Armistead]

We were teaching children to kneel under their desks and place their hands behind their neck - Duck and cover! I was one of those children.

Why?

Because there is not much else one could do. :nope:

It gave people something to think about that could help them emotionally handle the thought of nuclear war.

Same thing about the bunkers. People feel better if they can do something (anything) when faced with the risk of a terrible event they have no control over.

By being given a tiny bit of control (duck and cover) or six feet of compressed dirt in your backyard, it can help.

I can only speak for my family and my experiences growing up in the cold war -- no one had fantasies of surviving. A bunker was a place to die with your family. :yep:

When I was a kid we use to play in a mans bunker, made a nice clubhouse.

Yea, I can remember the nuke drills in school in the 60's and 70's, really silly. Get under your desk, put you head between your legs and at the sight of the flash, kiss your arse goodbye.

[Oberon]

Protect and Survive:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m6U9T3R3EQg

and the documentary I mentioned, it wasn't Panorama it was QED:

QED: A Guide to Armageddon
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mb7EO1e62IQ

[Betonov]

Shame we don't have a fallout shelter.

It'd make an excellent hydroponics lab :D

[Jimbuna]

Shame we don't have a fallout shelter.

It'd make an excellent hydroponics lab :D

I should imagine quite a few are used to grow cannabis...I certainly used to know of one in my area.

[Betonov]

I should imagine quite a few are used to grow cannabis...I certainly used to know of one in my area.

Confiscate it all !!!!!! Damn toasted punks

And then I'll PM you my adress :D

[Jimbuna]

Confiscate it all !!!!!! Damn toasted punks

And then I'll PM you my adress :D

LOL....wish I could :)

[Oberon]

Funny that underground factories should be mentioned:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-23934312

Read this the other day, some impressive work. :yep:

[Jimbuna]

Funny that underground factories should be mentioned:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-23934312

Read this the other day, some impressive work. :yep:

Small fry...try this :)

http://www.burlingtonbunker.co.uk/

[mapuc]

In the 80'ies where we saw lots of demonstration in Europe against the placement of these new minuteman(or what they were called)

Even our TV-program was about nuclear war and what could happen and how to survive it by hiding in a bunker. Even there they said you need food and water for about 14 days.

I remembered thinking. 14 days what about all this fallout some of them will be there for decades and maybe hundred of years.

So I tried to calculate what 1 person need to live underground in about 45-50 years

The person needs:
Water
Food
oil/gas/or whatever that is needed to run some of the equipment
Play stuff(to the times where there's nothing else to do)
Read stuff(same here)
and a lot more.

A person need about 2-3 Liters of water drinking. water to keep a person somehow clean about 5-10 liters(really not sure) Water to make food. 1-2 liters

I Even estimated that some of the water could be cleaned and reused again as water to the washing machine

To keep the water clean and not sour I need it to be mixed(don't know the real word for it) and for that I need electricity/power.

So make the calculation
3+10+2x50x365= about 273 cubic meters of water for 1 person
I could have calculated wrong.

However that how long you need to stay underground if I have understand it correctly

Markus

[vienna]

Depending on where you were located geographically, the availabilty of fallout shelters was really quite useless. If you were in a "high-value" target area, the amount of destruction would have been so enormus and the lingering effects afterwards so unlivable, instant death would be far more preferable, as noted above by a previous poster. In my hometown of San Francisco, at the time of the Cold War, the city was the headquarters of the U.S. 6th Army, a major U.S. Naval port, and had in the areas surrounding several "hidden" missle installations. If a full-fledged atomic war broke out, the city was toast. Most of us in the city just kind of ignored the threat and just went on with life as usual (or as ususal as life can be in San Francisco)...


<O>

[Platapus]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ybSzoLCCX-Y

[u crank]

Once the ICBM came into common use by the early 60's the likely hood gets even lower because some of the first targets after know silo locations would have been every major airbase that SAC had and also every airbase that F-101B(including RCAF),F102,F-106s flew from meaning that if they got up in time they would only be able to fly one sortie because their base would get vaporized.

I spent my entire childhood on Canadian air bases. Even as a nine year old I figured out that if the next one started we would be a target. Hasn't affected me a bit. :()1:

[Oberon]

IIRC once the airforce bases were gone the plan was to use motorways/freeways to rearm and refuel on. There would likely have been supply trucks in hidden locations, and the pilots would have been given a designated stretch of freeway to come down on to be rearmed and refuelled. Even then it'd probably have to be done in MOPP4 conditions, so the pilot would not be getting out of his cockpit for a leak. :haha:
IIRC our Vulcans would probably have ditched somewhere in Scandinavia, those that didn't get eaten by Soviet air defences, a couple might have made it home. The little Canberras would have been suicide runs though, since they'd be dropping nukes to create pathways for the Vulcans to get through.
At home, well a lot of our airforce would be smouldering ruins in what's left of Germany (about two square foot of highly radioactive shrubland I'd wager) and the rest would also likely be using motorways for emergency landing spots and/or civil airfields.

http://www.thunder-and-lightnings.co.uk/jaguar/motorway-trials.jpg
Here's a SEPECAT Jaguar on the M55 motorway, the aircraft landed on the motorway, was rearmed, refuelled and then took off again.

Before it all went nuclear, many aircraft would be using the autobahns in Germany for rearming and refuelling, since the main airforce bases would likely be under near constant attack by Soviet aircraft or missiles.
Here's a pic from Exercise Highway '84 in West Germany:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/b/b0/Thunderbold_II_A10_landing_on_autobahn_1984_DoD_DF-ST-84-09440.jpg/1024px-Thunderbold_II_A10_landing_on_autobahn_1984_DoD_DF-ST-84-09440.jpg

Finland also had a similar system, but they went one step further and installed arrestor wires to help the aircraft lose speed, obviously these were taken out during peace-time, although knowing how good the Finns are at off-road courses I'm sure that a few wires would not have slowed them down in the slightest.

[Wolferz]

If it's any comfort, a nuclear war will only last about twenty minutes.
If you ain't underground, you ain't.

[Jimbuna]

Here's a SEPECAT Jaguar on the M55 motorway, the aircraft landed on the motorway, was rearmed, refuelled and then took off again.



In moving pictures:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kAVDOBWtBuU

[Stealhead]

IIRC once the airforce bases were gone the plan was to use motorways/freeways to rearm and refuel on. There would likely have been supply trucks in hidden locations, and the pilots would have been given a designated stretch of freeway to come down on to be rearmed and refuelled. Even then it'd probably have to be done in MOPP4 conditions, so the pilot would not be getting out of his cockpit for a leak. :haha:


The thing with all that to me is when you know that your family and friends are dead and so is most of the world why bother fighting any more.I think the desire for most military members to fight would be gone after an exchange was known to have occurred on a large scale assuming they even survived.

Heck the instructions to missile silo crews after their launch and a certain time span was to walk to a prearranged meeting point through an of course highly irradiated area thanks to the many nukes that would have gone off trying to kill the silos.which of course means that most of the silo crews would be dead anyway.Telling you to walk to a meeting point through an irradiated kind gives you clue that it is all over.

It would have been the shortest war in history four or five hours give or take.

That was the thing though it was a fairly effective deterrent for a conventional war.The problem during the Cold War anyway was if had ever gone hot in the conventional manner Pandora's box would have been opened because one side or the other would loose face in the case of a defeat or even a near defeat and that would have been that.Furthermore the finger triggers would be very itchy and one side or the other might have said screw lets go all out because the other side is going to and we may as well make a per-emptive strike.

[mapuc]

In moving pictures:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kAVDOBWtBuU


If some one ask you how many military airfield does England have.
You just say thousands of them
Well every country have thousand of them, it depends on what you classifier as an airfield

Markus

[August]

The thing with all that to me is when you know that your family and friends are dead and so is most of the world why bother fighting any more.I think the desire for most military members to fight would be gone after an exchange was known to have occurred on a large scale assuming they even survived.

I think that's an assumption not really backed up by history. For example Japanese soldiers have hidden out in remote jungles for years, decades even, long after all sign of their army had disappeared. A soldiers sense of duty can be very strong and so can the human habit of clinging to forlorn hopes and causes.

[August]

Another comment i'd like to make is about preparing for possible eventualities. Ever hear someone try to excuse their lack of planning by saying "I never expected to live this long"?

So the choice I think comes down to this:Prepare and perhaps die anyways or not prepare and definitely find oneself short if they do happen to survive.

Like I said earlier, everyone is just assuming that in a nuclear war the destruction would be total and maybe they're right. But what if they're wrong? What if the destruction turns out to be, because of any number of scenarios, less than total? Does anyone want to look into their starving families eyes and say "I never expected to live through it so I didn't bother doing what I could have done to prepare?"

[Oberon]

In moving pictures:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kAVDOBWtBuU

The narrator of that film sounds a lot like William Morgan Sheppard, I would have linked to that last night but the machine I was on has youtube blocked. :nope: But now that I'm on my home machine I also have these two bits of footage from Germany:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kwo2QprI4R8

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qx7Meo7w-pY

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j8A_QSIucpY

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5aWCN08H1BQ

The thing with all that to me is when you know that your family and friends are dead and so is most of the world why bother fighting any more.I think the desire for most military members to fight would be gone after an exchange was known to have occurred on a large scale assuming they even survived.

Heck the instructions to missile silo crews after their launch and a certain time span was to walk to a prearranged meeting point through an of course highly irradiated area thanks to the many nukes that would have gone off trying to kill the silos.which of course means that most of the silo crews would be dead anyway.Telling you to walk to a meeting point through an irradiated kind gives you clue that it is all over.

It would have been the shortest war in history four or five hours give or take.

That was the thing though it was a fairly effective deterrent for a conventional war.The problem during the Cold War anyway was if had ever gone hot in the conventional manner Pandora's box would have been opened because one side or the other would loose face in the case of a defeat or even a near defeat and that would have been that.Furthermore the finger triggers would be very itchy and one side or the other might have said screw lets go all out because the other side is going to and we may as well make a per-emptive strike.

Many probably would have decided to take a long walk into the deep sea, am I right in thinking that they issued sidearms to bunker personnel, supposedly in case of Spetsnaz attacks or something similar, but primarily because as soon as the missiles had left the silos their lifespan was measured in minutes rather than hours?
Reminds me of the scene in 'The Day After' with the guys arguing over what to do now that the missiles have launched.
Others though, as August has mentioned, would fight on with even more fierceness, particularly as the bombers would be bringing more nukes to attack targets that might not have been nuked already, heck I wouldn't have been surprised to see ramming attacks when missiles ran low.
After that though, when the Bears stop coming, when the dust has settled, that's when it'd hit home for the survivors, and that's when you'd get the second wave of suicides most likely.

Bloody glad we never had to go through it.

[Jimbuna]

Amen

[Stealhead]

I think that's an assumption not really backed up by history. For example Japanese soldiers have hidden out in remote jungles for years, decades even, long after all sign of their army had disappeared. A soldiers sense of duty can be very strong and so can the human habit of clinging to forlorn hopes and causes.


That is true but only handful of Japanese hung on for decades or chose to keep fighting at all.The majority either accepted defeat or killed themselves.So even in that case where there was much indoctrination most did not carry on only handful did.I think the Japanese and how the typical solider reacted at the end of the war validates my opinion.Handfuls of guys out of over a million men in uniform at the end of the war shows that most accepted the end.

[kraznyi_oktjabr]

That is true but only handful of Japanese hung on for decades or chose to keep fighting at all.The majority either accepted defeat or killed themselves.So even in that case where there was much indoctrination most did not carry on only handful did.I think the Japanese and how the typical solider reacted at the end of the war validates my opinion.Handfuls of guys out of over a million men in uniform at the end of the war shows that most accepted the end.True, but in Japanese case their Empire had surrendered. Most soldiers simply followed orders. What would situation be in case there would be no such order? What if there is no clear evidence that other side has been hit as hard as you and is just as incapacicated as you are? Would you be ready to take risk of lowering your weapons and allowing them to continue attack with more conventional means (strategic bombers, with or without nuclear bombs etc.)?

[August]

That is true but only handful of Japanese hung on for decades or chose to keep fighting at all.The majority either accepted defeat or killed themselves.So even in that case where there was much indoctrination most did not carry on only handful did.I think the Japanese and how the typical solider reacted at the end of the war validates my opinion.Handfuls of guys out of over a million men in uniform at the end of the war shows that most accepted the end.

Well most didn't carry on because they were ordered to surrender by their own commanders at the end of the war. The reason why I think the holdouts are so significant is because they hung on in the absence of orders, not because they didn't want to quit fighting the war. Nobody told them to quit so they didn't. I think in the event of a nuclear war there will be folks in those bunkers and missile silos that will also carry on.

Besides if there is one group of survivors then that means there could be other groups out there. Hope springs eternal.

[vienna]

I think in the event of a nuclear war there will be folks in those bunkers and missile silos that will also carry on.


It's just that once they leave those bunkers, they very likely won't survive the new environment...


<O>

[Stealhead]

Well if your command and control got hit in a nuclear exchange it would be over as you would have no more orders coming down telling you what to hit next.

Without such orders you have no way to know what target should be hit next.Do you expend your now possibly last warheads against the assigned target not knowing if it has been already been destroyed.


And in the case of the Japanese those guys in most cases heard that the surrender had occurred but thought it was a ruse.In the case of a nuclear war what with all the communication networks you would know if your unit survived the situation if all was cut then you already know that all is said and done as far as a war are concerned.

Your only real action then would be to try and maintain what you have and help start over again after all the enemy will have been hit just as badly or near so.

In a nuclear war the silo are done deals each had several enemy warheads targeted upon it so for them it is over the best they can do is carry out the order and wait to die because they will die.The rule in the US was launch on waring which means upon detection of a Soviet attack SAC and the navy boomers would have received their orders and launched in this time the Soviet warheads are already coming so for 90% of the silos that will be their only act of the war before they are hit.

To fight when there is still a chance of victory is honorable to fight when all is lost is simply foolish.

Anyway we have an obvious difference of opinion and I am not going to convinced that mine is incorrect nor will you guys that yours.I say that because I get the feeling that an attempt is being made to convince me other wise.Sorry but I have spoken with too many people that really worked on the "Big Stick" end of things to think other wise.

[Platapus]

A good chunk of my military time was at SAC HQ. We always figured that there were going to be 4-5 SS-18s with our name on it. At least I would not have suffered.

[vienna]

During the Cold War, in the early 1970s, a friend was stationed in West Germany, just a bit over the border wuth the East. (Oddly, he had volunteered for duty in Vietnam, but was given duty in West Germany; a barracks mate of his applied for duty in West Germany and was sent to Vietnam.) When he arrived on base, the new troops were given an orientation. During the orientation, the officer in charge told the men the Soviet troops just to the other side of the border outnumberd them, had more tanks, more artillery, and more tactical nukes. He said if a full scale war broke out, the troops of both sides would be wiped out in minutes, if not seconds. This was the prevailing belief during his whole time in West Germany. Damocles sword, indeed...


<O>

[Oberon]

Some good statements in this thread (http://www.pprune.org/archive/index.php/t-447673.html) I found over at pprune a while ago. My favourite has to be this one:

I remember when our F3 squadron was given a secondary role of AD over Central Europe, and our life expectancy was apparently 24 minutes in the event of a 'big push'. That's progress I thought, 4 minutes better than WWI in 70 years.

[Platapus]

Oddly, he had volunteered for duty in Vietnam, but was given duty in West Germany; a barracks mate of his applied for duty in West Germany and was sent to Vietnam.

For those of us who have served in the military, there is nothing odd about this. :haha:

[Stealhead]

What they do is they have this monkey and they give him a dart and he throws it at this dart board that has all the possible postings in the military where the dart lands is where you go.


At least back in Vietnam in the case of the US Army and Marines mostly draftees went to Vietnam.

Also by the early 70's Vietnam was over for the US so far as ground forces where concerned anyway.The peak for ground forces was 1969 in 1970 the last major combat operation carried by Army infantry was in 1970 out they began the force reduction in 70 and Nixon wanted to pull one last ground operation while there will still enough troops to pull one by 1971 the numbers had been reduced by a very large amount and by 72 there where only a very small number of ground forces mostly advisers to the ARVN,aircrew,support for aircraft and general support personal.So if you asked for Vietnam duty by 1970 or later and you where in another vital area such as West Germany you would have stayed.

Of course even during a RIF some people are going to be added to a unit that is about to re-deploy.

In fact during the entire Vietnam War the defense of Western Europe was still a considerable concern and an important area to also locate your forces.if you got posted to West Germany you would have to wait until your tour was complete there and then if you had Vietnam on your dream sheet you would get but in the middle of a tour no.Like wise if you where in South Korea and you wanted Vietnam you would not be allowed a request to go until your tour in ROK was completed.


Some argue that this was one of the problems in Vietnam was that many of the forces had come from the draft pool and not the professional pool the guy that where career military.This would apply more to the Army and Marines than the USAF and Navy where most of the combatants where not draftees.

[Platapus]

It is not called a "dream sheet" for nothing. :up: