SUBSIM Radio Room Forums - View Single Post - North Carolina was very lucky back in 1961

Oberon · 09-21-13, 08:20 AM

Actually, no.

The winds on that night would have pushed the fallout out to sea, and the area itself that the bomb fell on was fairly rural. You're probably looking at 5,000 dead and over 20,000 injured, and massive panic.
Not likely that it would have been mistaken for a Soviet attack, especially when the rest of the eastern seaboard failed to burst into flames, but it probably would have made the bombers and boomers be flushed and silos put on readiness to launch, but when nothing else exploded and radar and sigint didn't pick up anything then it would have been recognised as a Broken Arrow.

But as Stealhead put it, very unlikely to have gone off, even though the technology was old, it was rugged and pretty reliable. Heck, part of the bomb is still there, the Uranium part I think, buried about 180 foot down, they tried to dig it up but flooding stopped it.

09-21-13, 08:20 AM	#9
Oberon Lucky Jack Join Date: Jul 2002 Posts: 25,976 Downloads: 61 Uploads: 20	Actually, no. The winds on that night would have pushed the fallout out to sea, and the area itself that the bomb fell on was fairly rural. You're probably looking at 5,000 dead and over 20,000 injured, and massive panic. Not likely that it would have been mistaken for a Soviet attack, especially when the rest of the eastern seaboard failed to burst into flames, but it probably would have made the bombers and boomers be flushed and silos put on readiness to launch, but when nothing else exploded and radar and sigint didn't pick up anything then it would have been recognised as a Broken Arrow. But as Stealhead put it, very unlikely to have gone off, even though the technology was old, it was rugged and pretty reliable. Heck, part of the bomb is still there, the Uranium part I think, buried about 180 foot down, they tried to dig it up but flooding stopped it.