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How to Survive a Nuclear War: The York Experiment
- ggm 8y agoDon't mistake this booklet for "protect and survive" which was handed out in the 1970s and 1980s. this was the precursor work. I was the lucky recipient of "protect and survive" in my terrace house in York in the 1980s. We blithly understood the staircase was our best bet, both for initial blast protection and ultimate entombment. The Raymond Briggs cartoon book "when the wind blows" felt more realistic to most of us. I did not enjoy watching Peter Watkins "the war game" which was with-held from general broadcast and mostly only seen in film societies. It wasn't exactly hyper realistic, but it was chillingly unpleasant. It was dated by the time I saw it (shot in B&W I believe, and in the sixties so over 15 years old by the time I first saw it)
- Jaruzel 8y ago> Don't mistake this booklet for "protect and survive" which was handed out in the 1970s and 1980s. this was the precursor work. They mention that further down the article. > The Raymond Briggs cartoon book "when the wind blows" felt more realistic to most of us. When The Wind Blows is a must read/watch in my opinion. Having first seen it just after it came out (I read the book much later), the emotional impact of it has never left me.
- nivertech 8y agoIs there a connection between: "When The Wind Blows" and "When Shit Hit The Fan" (SHTF) ?
- andyjohnson0 8y agoWhen the Wind Blows is a allusion to the children's nursery thyme "Rock-a-bye Baby" [1]: Rock-a-bye baby On the tree tops, When the wind blows, The cradle will rock When the bough breaks, The cradle will fall, and down will come Baby, Cradle and all. In the context of Brigg's book/film, its seems clear that the bough (tree branch) that breaks is the disaster of nuclear war and the cradle/baby is us/civilisation falling down. I guess that a child-like reference emphasises the horror of the subject by way of contrast. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rock-a-bye_Baby https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rock-a-bye_Baby
- setquk 8y agoTrailer for when the wind blows here: https://youtu.be/4h1lRqUBuSI https://youtu.be/4h1lRqUBuSI This was devastating at the time as it was about right. Incidentally if you’re UK based or in the UK, a good day out is Kelvedon Hatch “secret nuclear bunker”. Protect and Survive is everywhere. Lots of scary information video feeds throughout it as well.
- jsmith99 8y agoI saw some of The War Game at a nuclear bunker near Cheshire. I think it ended with the protagonist screaming as she saw her (presumably deformed) newborn. Hard to believe the BBC made this.
- agurk 8y agoI haven't seen The War Game, but that's the ending from Threads (and Wikipedia lists a different ending for The War Game). Threads is an interesting film from the 1980s, with a very bleak tone about the prognosis after a full scale nuclear conflict. I have read modern analyses of it that suggest it was perhaps too pessimistic in the long term effects.
- arethuza 8y agoAs I note elsewhere in this thread (!) while Threads might have been pessimistic about long term impact (e.g. nuclear winter) it is actually fairly optimistic about the scale of a Soviet nuclear attack on the UK.
- agurk 8y agoThat raises an interesting point that was not covered in the plot of Threads - the strategy behind the nuclear exchange and how it played out globally. You're certainly right, that at one stage the plans the Soviet Union had for the UK resembled what the UK did to Heligoland. In the film, if the West had initiated the exchange with a surprise counter-force first strike, they could have potentially disabled a significant proportion of the Soviet Union's strike ability. If this were the case, one of the morals of the film would have been that even if the majority of enemy warheads are destroyed, they'll still have enough to destroy you. Another scenario is that the Soviet Union went first with a limited strike, and the West retaliated destroying any further offensive capability. There are also scenarios where counter measures worked, devices were a lot less reliable than expected and so on. Thankfully none of this was ever played out, but there is a whole spectrum between nothing and everything (and the politics - MAD, et al) to go with it.
- neilwilson 8y agoI still have occasional nightmares about Threads (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Threads https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Threads). Mostly about the milk bottle melting. Possibly the scariest TV show I've ever watched - largely because it was set just down the road in Sheffield.
- arethuza 8y agoAnother one that literally gave me nightmares at the time was "QED: A Guide to Armageddon": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9GJttnC8PoA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9GJttnC8PoA You almost got the idea that the BBC didn't approve of nuclear warfare. NB A thing worth noting about Threads is that is based on a nuclear attack scenario that is regarded as rather optimistic - a real Soviet attack would probably have been much worse: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Square_Leg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Square_Leg
- secfirstmd 8y agoThreads is outstanding. I rarely if ever had a nightmare after watching something but that movie is so frightening and depressing that the first time I watched it I could barely force myself out of bed the next day. Incredible work by the BBC.
- andyjohnson0 8y agoSame with me. I was seventeen in 1984 when it was first shown but didn't see it at the time. I finally watched it a few years ago and had a night of unusually disturbed sleep followed by two days that were mentally tinged with vague feelings of doom and contamination. Not something I'd want to experience again.
- 7000skeletons 8y agoI was born after the Berlin wall came down, so I got to miss all the fun of living under constant threat of looming nuclear annihilation, but Threads still had a profound effect on me when I watched it. It may be dated now, sure, but it still hits with a hell of a force.
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- tragomaskhalos 8y agoPerhaps it's a British thing, but fear of nuclear war was always intertwined in the culture with a deep cynicism about the clear inadequacy of the advice given to the population in the event of an attack; the 'core' in the article, viz a lean-to made out of a door with stuff piled on top, brings to mind the protagonists in 'when the wind blows' obsessively trying to remember to remain in this alleged sanctuary even as radiation poisoning destroys them.
- InclinedPlane 8y agoAlso an American thing. People assumed it would all just be over if there was a big nuclear exchange and all the talk about "duck and cover" was just to make people feel like they had a chance when they didn't.
- eecc 8y agoHow about Threads? (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0090163/ https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0090163/) I watched it just a couple years ago and ffs it got me into a sombre mood for a month at least...
- twic 8y agoPeter Watkins has made some amazing films. Although also often rather long and hard going (one of them, Wikipedia tells me, is the longest non-experimental film ever made!). Punishment Park is worth seeing. I liked Evening Land, although i wouldn't recommend it unless you really, really like union politics.
- lexxed 8y agoWell it seems like people go crazy just 2 days in a bunker
- VLM 8y agoWe've had a few decades of evolutionary pressure for cubicles and open offices... modern results might surprise.
- ryanmercer 8y agoThis. I hate travel, I get 26 days of vacation a year. I'll take a week off at a time and sometimes not leave the apartment at all over the course of 8-9 days, or even look out a window for that matter. I imagine I'm far from alone. And when I went aboard U-505 recently, my first thought was "I could totally live in here", a fried that went aboard her with me agrees that we could both happily live on a sub/spaceship/bunker for extended periods.
- mothsonasloth 8y agoI wonder if silicon valley has any bunkers? Surviving a nuclear attack is doable, provided you are: Outside the flash zone Outside the shockwave / concussion area Sheltered from fallout radiation Have access to a constant source of uncontaminated water Can survive the following saturation nuclear attacks (from SS18s etc) Able to survive the civil unrest Disease Dwindling food source Have I missed anything?
- thomaslutz 8y agoFormatting.
- Gibbon1 8y ago> silicon valley has any bunkers? Maybe. During the cold war most people in the valley assumed they would die immediately if there was a nuclear war.
- VLM 8y agoThose factories supplying America's war machines are now all in China, I wonder if SV is off the target list now. Certainly hitting Oshkosh Wisconsin or Lima Ohio would damage the countries military capabilities vastly worse than hitting SV today.
- TheOtherHobbes 8y agoAs the OP points out, there might be one or two issues with morale too.
- sdrothrock 8y ago> Sheltered from fallout radiation It might be included in this, but you'd also want to have an air supply isolated from fallout.
- brohee 8y agoFiltering air intake thru a HEPA filter is plenty good enough, fallout is dust.
- burfog 8y agoIt's like surviving any kind of disaster: You need the mindset that you will survive, instead of staying unprepared because you are too fearful to plan for disaster. The whole country of Switzerland is protected by law. Everybody has shelter that will withstand a 12 megaton strike at a distance of only 700 meters. Very few warheads are that large. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fallout_shelter#Switzerland https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fallout_shelter#Switzerland A few other countries, mainly in northern Europe, have lower-quality shelter. Impoverished countries have an excuse, plus they tend to not be targets. The rest of us are being irresponsible.
- snarfybarfy 8y agoIf nukes start to really hit Switzerland then it will look pretty grim everywhere else as well. Might as well just get it over with and enjoy the light show.
- ahje 8y agoThis. I live less than 30 km from a large military base (although not in Switzerland). If we actually reach the point where someone decides to nuke that base, then I'm toast reagardless of whether I survice the blast or not. A quick ending is preferable to slowly dying from radiation poisoning I guess...
- credit_guy 8y agoNot clear why you think that. 30km is quite far. [1] is a pretty good site to play around and get an idea how far the nuclear blast reaches. For example the Russian Topol SS-25 (800 kT TNT) has an air blast radius (5psi) of 6.5 km. This is quite a large bomb. For comparison, most US warheads are W76, with a 100kT yield and a blast radius of 1km. The largest currently deployed warhead is the Chinese Dong-Feng-5, which at 5MT has a blast radius of 12 km. [1] https://nuclearsecrecy.com/nukemap/ https://nuclearsecrecy.com/nukemap/
- ahje 8y ago
- m-i-l 8y agoIt is easy to forget nowadays how much fear of nuclear war there used to be always lurking in the background. One anecdote to illustrate: My secondary school was built on top of the region's nuclear bunker. They were short of classrooms so we sometimes had lessons inside the bunker. At the start of these we were grimly advised that if nuclear war broke out during the lesson we would have to evacuate the safety of the bunker to make way for the local dignitaries who had been assigned spaces there, i.e. doctors, the local MP etc. (Not exactly helpful for building a sense of self-worth in the impressionable young.)
- lugg 8y agoFeelings of self worth are transient and alterable. That lesson about self worth vs reality will last a lifetime.
- m-i-l 8y agoIndeed. As easy as it was to grow up hating "the system", with the benefit of perspective it has to be said that a good selection of well-trained doctors, well-connected councillors etc. are likely to be more useful in a post-nuclear-holocaust recovery scenario than a bunch of school kids whose survival story would probably end up reading more like Lord of the Flies.
- dghf 8y ago> It is easy to forget nowadays how much fear of nuclear war there used to be always lurking in the background. Not as good as your story, but I was walking home from school when the air-raid siren went off, sounding exactly as it does at the start of "Two Tribes". I was briefly very, very scared indeed, and very relieved to survive the next four minutes without being blown to atoms or fatally irradiated.
- Tsubasachan 8y agoNATO alone had 3000 nuclear weapons stored in Europe ready for a Soviet invasion. If things really went to hell nobody was going to survive.
- brobdingnagians 8y agoIf you want a good, full book on nuclear survival, it's worth checking out Cresson H Kearny's book on it from research at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. I'm not planning on using any of the information, but it's fairly enjoyable to learn about some of the particulars. It's like thinking of how you would survive a zombie apocalypse. It is fairly optimistic about survival if you aren't in the blast radius and is chock full of useful information, including what sort of attacks would be most likely and what to do in each phase. He makes a real point of saying that it wouldn't be the end of the world and is very survivable; people get a much more depressing and fatalistic view sometimes. Cheer up. [ https://www.amazon.co.uk/Nuclear-War-Survival-Skills-Instructions/dp/1634502973?SubscriptionId=AKIAILSHYYTFIVPWUY6Q&tag=duc08-21&linkCode=xm2&camp=2025&creative=165953&creativeASIN=1634502973 https://www.amazon.co.uk/Nuclear-War-Survival-Skills-Instruc... ]
- arethuza 8y agoPerhaps fine for a large less densely populated country and small scale attacks. Somewhere like the UK in the early 1980s facing a realistic Soviet attack (e.g. the one that almost happened in Autumn '83) then almost all of the people in this country would have been in serious trouble with little prospect for long term survival. NB The UK government was always rather more "realistic" about the actual impact of a war than the US.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- sehugg 8y agoReminds me of that episode of "Benson" where they game out a nuclear attack scenario in the basement (bonus: first mention of ARPANET on TV): https://www.paleycenter.org/collection/item/?q=benson&p=3&item=B:05045 https://www.paleycenter.org/collection/item/?q=benson&p=3&it...
- ryanmercer 8y agoFor those interested in this article, there's a book worth reading about this general subject: Raven Rock: The Story of the U.S. Government's Secret Plan to Save Itself--While the Rest of Us Die by Garrett Graff https://www.amazon.com/dp/B010MHAG72/ https://www.amazon.com/dp/B010MHAG72/ .
- sureaboutthis 8y agoIn the eighth grade (1966), our teacher gave a talk about what we were to do if the air raid sirens went off. He said we would all be taken to the basement of the building and the doors to the outside would be locked. "Even if your mother and father are outside trying to get in, we won't let them in", he said. I remember that to this day.
- steveax 8y agoAnd here we are in 2018 on the cusp of what is looking to be a new nuclear arms race. It’s two minutes to midnight: https://thebulletin.org/2018-doomsday-clock-statement/ https://thebulletin.org/2018-doomsday-clock-statement/
- EADGBE 8y agoJust like in 1953. https://thebulletin.org/doomsday-clock/past-announcements/ https://thebulletin.org/doomsday-clock/past-announcements/ Fear mongering at its best.