Cold War Shivers

Comments

• Scottie_uk

  January 2008 edited January 2008

  That's going to be an interesting show.
  
  There are loads of bunkers etc dotted arround the country. Though I do beleive that this is the biggest declasified one:
  http://www.bbc.co.uk/wiltshire/underground_city/

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• Winston

  January 2008 edited January 2008

  Those bunkers probably never would have been that effective - I'm sure the Soviets had a multimegaton ground burst prepared for that site.
  
  Wonder if the telephone exchange (at least the automatic switching side) was used for normal calls during normal times.
  
  But it shows the difference between us and the privileged few (the very same privileged few who would have probably been the ones to start the nuclear apocalypse in the first place) - we get leaflets telling us how to make a lean-to in the dining room out of doors and matresses, and they get a huge facility with all the modern comforts deep underground. Which, I may add, was bought with our money. Personally, I don't think the leadership should have any bunkers - it'll make them think a bit harder when starting wars if their own hides are at risk.
• mile

  January 2008 edited January 2008

  Winston wrote: »

  Those bunkers probably never would have been that effective - I'm sure the Soviets had a multimegaton ground burst prepared for that site.
  
  Wonder if the telephone exchange (at least the automatic switching side) was used for normal calls during normal times.

  
  i read somewhere that the reds had a special 'big' bomb, 50 megatonnes or something especially for cheyene mountain. (to blow up SG1 i imagine)
  but i also read somewhere else that the reds never had as many nuclear missles that they claimed.
  

  Winston wrote: »

  Personally, I don't think the leadership should have any bunkers - it'll make them think a bit harder when starting wars if their own hides are at risk.

  
  i agree to a point, but if there is to be some sort of government after the war you need someone who knows what going on. to start to rebuild etc. well at least someone in there who knows how to make electricity from coal etc.
• Daren

  January 2008 edited January 2008

  The Commies had a Doomsday device (which is still armed and ready :-o ):
  
  http://blog.wired.com/wiredscience/2007/09/soviet-doomsday.html
• Winston

  January 2008 edited January 2008

  mile wrote: »

  i read somewhere that the reds had a special 'big' bomb, 50 megatonnes or something especially for cheyene mountain. (to blow up SG1 i imagine)

  
  It was called the Tsar Bomba, and was actually tested in the Arctic. The design was actually for a 100 megaton bomb, but they replaced the final fission stage with lead to limit the yield. It was the largest bomb ever exploded (the largest western thermonuclear test by contrast was "only" about 15MT).
  
  The Tsar Bomba however wasn't a practical weapon. It was far too big to put on a missile, and the bomber that could carry it had to have a modified bomb bay, so most of it was external - and in a war would have been shot down having barely left friendly airspace. It also had problems with "blowback" - if dropped in western Europe, the fall-out from the prevailing winds would have poisoned most of the Warsaw pact countries.
  
  Some chilling statistics about the Tsar Bomba - if it was dropped on London and burst at the optimum height, people in Birmingham exposed to the flash would have received third degree burns.
  

  i agree to a point, but if there is to be some sort of government after the war you need someone who knows what going on. to start to rebuild etc. well at least someone in there who knows how to make electricity from coal etc.

  
  That wouldn't be the politicians or civil service, then! The ordinary engineers who know how to make stuff would be left to perish in their dining room lean-tos. We expected from 200 megatons on up to fall on Britain, which would probably be the most heavily struck country in the world on megatons/sq. mile (the book "Square Leg", a government study of the expected nuclear strike on Britain in the late 1970s said "1000 MT would not be unexpected"). That scale of attack wouldn't leave an unbroken window in the land, even in sparsely populated regions. Churchill's quote springs to mind at this stage ("If you continue with this arms race, all you will do is make the rubble bounce". Indeed, if you watch 'Threads', after Sheffield is destroyed it is hit again, merely making the rubble bounce).
  
  In the case of a limited attack (for instance, a war that gets stopped fairly quickly) where you only lost, say, London - if the Westminster politicians perished, regional government would continue to exist - and things would continue.
• Winston

  January 2008 edited January 2008

  ...and on the Doomsday Device (which as described by Wired, isn't simply a bomb, but a way of making a strategic launch), from the Theatre Europe manual for the ZX Spectrum game of the same name:
  

  The Reflex system is an attempt to simulate the 'Automatic Computer-Controlled
  Reaction System' that is currently gaining favour in the Pentagon (see
  'Science Digest' - March 1985). The less said about this the better. The
  concept of allowing a computer to launch nuclear strikes, with no human
  intervention, shows there are apparently no limits to human insanity.
  
  The targeting of the computer's nuclear strikes in the game caused us some
  sleepless nights. As did the thought that somewhere someone is doing the same
  for real.
• guesser

  January 2008 edited January 2008

  Winston wrote: »

  The targeting of the computer's nuclear strikes in the game caused us some
  sleepless nights. As did the thought that somewhere someone is doing the same
  for real.

  
  Especially if they're using a spectrum!! :-o

  My rubbish website including the redrawn Amstrad schematics and the Sinclair Wiki.
• guesser

  January 2008 edited January 2008

  Winston wrote: »

  It was called the Tsar Bomba, and was actually tested in the Arctic. The design was actually for a 100 megaton bomb, but they replaced the final fission stage with lead to limit the yield. It was the largest bomb ever exploded (the largest western thermonuclear test by contrast was "only" about 15MT).
  
  The Tsar Bomba however wasn't a practical weapon. It was far too big to put on a missile, and the bomber that could carry it had to have a modified bomb bay, so most of it was external - and in a war would have been shot down having barely left friendly airspace. It also had problems with "blowback" - if dropped in western Europe, the fall-out from the prevailing winds would have poisoned most of the Warsaw pact countries.
  
  Some chilling statistics about the Tsar Bomba - if it was dropped on London and burst at the optimum height, people in Birmingham exposed to the flash would have received third degree burns.
  
  
  
  That wouldn't be the politicians or civil service, then! The ordinary engineers who know how to make stuff would be left to perish in their dining room lean-tos. We expected from 200 megatons on up to fall on Britain, which would probably be the most heavily struck country in the world on megatons/sq. mile (the book "Square Leg", a government study of the expected nuclear strike on Britain in the late 1970s said "1000 MT would not be unexpected"). That scale of attack wouldn't leave an unbroken window in the land, even in sparsely populated regions. Churchill's quote springs to mind at this stage ("If you continue with this arms race, all you will do is make the rubble bounce". Indeed, if you watch 'Threads', after Sheffield is destroyed it is hit again, merely making the rubble bounce).
  
  In the case of a limited attack (for instance, a war that gets stopped fairly quickly) where you only lost, say, London - if the Westminster politicians perished, regional government would continue to exist - and things would continue.

  
  there was no need to panic though, if a city had been destroyed by nuclear weapons, the army would send in the auxiliary fire service in their green goddesses and put the fires out and cover it up. Presumably claim there had been a 200 megaton gas explosion :)
  
  :lol:

  My rubbish website including the redrawn Amstrad schematics and the Sinclair Wiki.