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I went down a rabbit hole of archival recordings (on archive.org) of insane material from the Cold War era, including this gem called "The Complacent Americans"

I went down a rabbit hole of archival recordings (on archive.org) of insane material from the Cold War era, including this gem called "The Complacent Americans" which aimed to instruct Americans on how to survive a nuclear blast. It's really quite mental to listen to: https://archive.org/details/lp_the-complacent-americans_larry-blake-robert-connelly-jack-f-fuller https://archive.org/details/lp_the-complacent-americans_larr... It inspired me to make an EP about the same topic, utilizing samples from that material plus some others, called Leader of all Nations. You might like it if you're into slower-paced dubstep / Boards of Canada stuff, it's on Soundcloud (https://soundcloud.com/taaapes/sets/leader-of-all-nations https://soundcloud.com/taaapes/sets/leader-of-all-nations) plus all the usual places. It's strange to me that some of the basic principles of what to do in the event of a nuclear explosion are no longer taught, despite the fact that the risk of nuclear war is arguably just as high as it once was. For instance, I bet if a bomb went off in the middle distance, most people would look at it: bad move! If you see a big flash, you should actually (it's a cliche, but true), "duck and cover". Duck to avoid flying debris. Cover to avoid burns. I didn't know this until I dug into the archival material making this EP but it's genuinely odd to me that this is not widely known. (I'd heard the phrase before, but had no idea what it really meant.)

nancyminusone 1y ago
It does bother me that people think duck and cover is completely useless. It is if the bomb explodes directly above you, but if you're a few miles away, it's pretty much the same situation as a tornado, and we still have drills for those.
- unyttigfjelltol 1y ago
  A tornado leaves only local destruction. Duck-and-cover implies that with proper preparation, total thermonuclear war is survivable by a society, which is not the correct mindset.
  - slt2021 1y ago
    it is survivable according to the Soviet doctrine, which denied the concept of MAD. Soviets focused on the survival of small military command in hardened bunkers, rather than survival of entirety of civilian population. This doctrine allows unlimited pre-emptive nuclear strikes to achieve decisive victory over the enemy, and avoid attrition-style prolonged nuclear war
    - compass_copium 1y ago
      Hmm, I remember reading that the Soviets had significantly better preparations for civilian protection in nuclear war than the US (including more bunkers in cities), but I'm struggling to remember where. Possibly Raven Rock (subtitle: The Story of the U.S. Government’s Secret Plan to Save Itself–While the Rest of Us Die) by Garrett Graff.
      - slt2021 1y ago
        Moscow subway (many other subways and bunkers throughout the country) are the underground bunkers that could shelter the Soviet elites in the event of nuclear war
      - bigyabai 1y ago
        Moscow in particular has a few low-hanging-fruits that can be mentioned; the Metro bunkers[0] and A-135 system[1]. Both were designed to make the city deeply survivable in the event of a targeted conflict, but it's questionable how well they would have worked. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metro-2 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metro-2 [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A-135_anti-ballistic_missile_system https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A-135_anti-ballistic_missile_s...
        arethuza 1y ago
        Moscow had, at least at one point, 179 DGZs (Designated Ground Zeros) from the US alone - with, I would imagine, at least another 20 or so from the UK and France. Moscow was the most overkilled places on the planet - doesn't matter if you were in a bunker - all that would do is delay your death a bit.
- JKCalhoun 1y ago
  Not sure. My understanding is that it made sense before the hydrogen bombs. After Teller did his magic, the bomb shelter (etc.) became laughable.
  - LorenPechtel 1y ago
    It depends on how far from the bomb you are. For any reasonable bomb there's a distance where duck and cover helps. It takes less overpressure to kill you with flying debris than to kill you directly. When the bomb is big enough this no longer applies, but in this realm adding more power to the boom doesn't do much to increase the damage area. There's no point in such a bomb unless you detonate it at high altitude--that means rockets, and you need a lot of rocket to lift such a bomb.
  - lupusreal 1y ago
    It's not simple; with large bombs the lethal blast radius grows faster than the lethal prompt radiation radius, but the thermal damage grows fast too. You can duck and cover to survive flying glass and falling roofs, but if you're in line of the thermal pulse you're cooked. In any case, massive bombs being used in "counter-value attacks" (euphemism for targetting civilians) aren't the most likely way for a nuclear war to start. Both the Soviet Union/Russia and America invested heavily in tactical nuclear weapons, designed for battlefield use (e.g. "counter force".) Additionally, other nuclear powers like France have counter-force first strike as part of their nuclear doctrine. Any semi-rational way to start a nuclear war would be to target the oppositions ability to respond in kind, not to attack cities right off the bat. Strikes against cities are a reaction, a threat meant to deter, but starting the war out that way is just an elaborate form of suicide. Point is, it's a good idea to assume that civilians will have at least some period of disturbing escalation as warning to get the fuck out of urban areas. When you hear about the US military setting off nukes in the Fulga Gap to stop Soviet tanks, that's when you GTFO.
    - jbm 1y ago
      As someone who normally would not take such anti-life positions, I legitimately cannot understand why anyone would want to survive a nuclear attack. You'd survive just to starve. From that perspective, duck and cover is trading a quick death for a long one.
- red369 1y ago
  I'm getting quite off-topic, but this reminds me of the original Fallout game manual: https://cdn.akamai.steamstatic.com/steam/apps/38400/manuals/Fallout_manual_English.pdf https://cdn.akamai.steamstatic.com/steam/apps/38400/manuals/... It contains a section describing the effects of a nuclear explosions. There was a cartoon I really liked with the caption "if you see the flash, duck and cover!". I interpreted it as clearly tongue-in-cheek, but I was never sure whether that was intended to be an accurate representation of what was thought to be best practice in the '50s, or just made up in imitation of it. Looking at it now, it might even have just been good advice with a silly picture! Edit: Just re-reading, I'm surprised how much detail they went into on the effects of nuclear explosions. Also, did anyone ever cook the recipes from either the Fallout or Fallout 2 manuals? :) There have been a lot of great manuals over the years that included huge amounts of info that was entirely unnecessary for the game, but really added to the experience. As well as the small instructions for the game, Hellcats over the Pacific included a huge manual with info which Wikipedia tells me was taken from the F6F pilot's manual or an FAA flight training manual.
croisillon 1y ago
cool music, somehow reminiscing me of http://poudoum.free.fr/Stupid.mp3 http://poudoum.free.fr/Stupid.mp3
- adriand 1y ago
  Thanks for the kind words I appreciate it. That was a great listen. Unexpected ending, especially at the volume I was listening at! What artist is that?
  - croisillon 1y ago
    i can't say really, i know this website with those 4 songs since forever, it has never been updated...
TrainedMonkey 1y ago
The risk of a nuclear war is fairly low compared to historical flash points. From memory there were at least 2 instances where if people followed orders to the T we would have had a nuclear exchange. First one was cuban missile crisis that had a lot of escalation, but most poignant was probably dropping depth charges against submarines armed with nuclear torpedoes (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuban_Missile_Crisis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuban_Missile_Crisis). On that front - thank god Khrushchev chickened out. Second one was a false detection by Soviet early warning system which should have triggered an immediate retaliation, but was stopped by one person with critical thinking skills (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1983_Soviet_nuclear_false_alarm_incident https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1983_Soviet_nuclear_false_alar...).
- bryanlarsen 1y ago
  And situations like that could happen again. Experts put the odds of a nuclear war at around 1-3% per annum, and that feels about right. The odds of it happening in any particular year is fairly low, but the odds of it happening during a person's lifespan becomes quite high. 70 years of those kind of odds make it more likely than not. We've landed on "not", but the kind of close calls you called out indicates that "more likely than not" feels about right, and that we landed on "not" has a huge component of luck.
- OkayPhysicist 1y ago
  I think the closest call we've had since the end of the Cold War was the Russian cruise missile that crashed in Poland near the beginning of the war in Ukraine. There was a world where that hit something more important (or at least the Russians thought it did), which would potentially lead to an Article 5 call, which if the Russians anticipated, the rational move could well be a preemptive strike. But as you said, that's miles from the "One act of open defiance by a subordinate from armaggedon" type scenarios.
  - jopsen 1y ago
    An article 5 call wouldn't trigger an invasion of Russia. Besides the best response is to simply gift more toys to the Ukrainians.
deleted 1y ago
[deleted]

nancyminusone 1y ago

It does bother me that people think duck and cover is completely useless. It is if the bomb explodes directly above you, but if you're a few miles away, it's pretty much the same situation as a tornado, and we still have drills for those.

unyttigfjelltol 1y ago
A tornado leaves only local destruction. Duck-and-cover implies that with proper preparation, total thermonuclear war is survivable by a society, which is not the correct mindset.
- slt2021 1y ago
  it is survivable according to the Soviet doctrine, which denied the concept of MAD. Soviets focused on the survival of small military command in hardened bunkers, rather than survival of entirety of civilian population. This doctrine allows unlimited pre-emptive nuclear strikes to achieve decisive victory over the enemy, and avoid attrition-style prolonged nuclear war
  - compass_copium 1y ago
    Hmm, I remember reading that the Soviets had significantly better preparations for civilian protection in nuclear war than the US (including more bunkers in cities), but I'm struggling to remember where. Possibly Raven Rock (subtitle: The Story of the U.S. Government’s Secret Plan to Save Itself–While the Rest of Us Die) by Garrett Graff.
    - slt2021 1y ago
      Moscow subway (many other subways and bunkers throughout the country) are the underground bunkers that could shelter the Soviet elites in the event of nuclear war
    - bigyabai 1y ago
      Moscow in particular has a few low-hanging-fruits that can be mentioned; the Metro bunkers[0] and A-135 system[1]. Both were designed to make the city deeply survivable in the event of a targeted conflict, but it's questionable how well they would have worked. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metro-2 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metro-2 [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A-135_anti-ballistic_missile_system https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A-135_anti-ballistic_missile_s...
      - arethuza 1y ago
        Moscow had, at least at one point, 179 DGZs (Designated Ground Zeros) from the US alone - with, I would imagine, at least another 20 or so from the UK and France. Moscow was the most overkilled places on the planet - doesn't matter if you were in a bunker - all that would do is delay your death a bit.
JKCalhoun 1y ago
Not sure. My understanding is that it made sense before the hydrogen bombs. After Teller did his magic, the bomb shelter (etc.) became laughable.
- LorenPechtel 1y ago
  It depends on how far from the bomb you are. For any reasonable bomb there's a distance where duck and cover helps. It takes less overpressure to kill you with flying debris than to kill you directly. When the bomb is big enough this no longer applies, but in this realm adding more power to the boom doesn't do much to increase the damage area. There's no point in such a bomb unless you detonate it at high altitude--that means rockets, and you need a lot of rocket to lift such a bomb.
- lupusreal 1y ago
  It's not simple; with large bombs the lethal blast radius grows faster than the lethal prompt radiation radius, but the thermal damage grows fast too. You can duck and cover to survive flying glass and falling roofs, but if you're in line of the thermal pulse you're cooked. In any case, massive bombs being used in "counter-value attacks" (euphemism for targetting civilians) aren't the most likely way for a nuclear war to start. Both the Soviet Union/Russia and America invested heavily in tactical nuclear weapons, designed for battlefield use (e.g. "counter force".) Additionally, other nuclear powers like France have counter-force first strike as part of their nuclear doctrine. Any semi-rational way to start a nuclear war would be to target the oppositions ability to respond in kind, not to attack cities right off the bat. Strikes against cities are a reaction, a threat meant to deter, but starting the war out that way is just an elaborate form of suicide. Point is, it's a good idea to assume that civilians will have at least some period of disturbing escalation as warning to get the fuck out of urban areas. When you hear about the US military setting off nukes in the Fulga Gap to stop Soviet tanks, that's when you GTFO.
  - jbm 1y ago
    As someone who normally would not take such anti-life positions, I legitimately cannot understand why anyone would want to survive a nuclear attack. You'd survive just to starve. From that perspective, duck and cover is trading a quick death for a long one.
red369 1y ago
I'm getting quite off-topic, but this reminds me of the original Fallout game manual: https://cdn.akamai.steamstatic.com/steam/apps/38400/manuals/Fallout_manual_English.pdf https://cdn.akamai.steamstatic.com/steam/apps/38400/manuals/... It contains a section describing the effects of a nuclear explosions. There was a cartoon I really liked with the caption "if you see the flash, duck and cover!". I interpreted it as clearly tongue-in-cheek, but I was never sure whether that was intended to be an accurate representation of what was thought to be best practice in the '50s, or just made up in imitation of it. Looking at it now, it might even have just been good advice with a silly picture! Edit: Just re-reading, I'm surprised how much detail they went into on the effects of nuclear explosions. Also, did anyone ever cook the recipes from either the Fallout or Fallout 2 manuals? :) There have been a lot of great manuals over the years that included huge amounts of info that was entirely unnecessary for the game, but really added to the experience. As well as the small instructions for the game, Hellcats over the Pacific included a huge manual with info which Wikipedia tells me was taken from the F6F pilot's manual or an FAA flight training manual.

croisillon 1y ago

cool music, somehow reminiscing me of http://poudoum.free.fr/Stupid.mp3 http://poudoum.free.fr/Stupid.mp3

adriand 1y ago
Thanks for the kind words I appreciate it. That was a great listen. Unexpected ending, especially at the volume I was listening at! What artist is that?
- croisillon 1y ago
  i can't say really, i know this website with those 4 songs since forever, it has never been updated...

TrainedMonkey 1y ago

The risk of a nuclear war is fairly low compared to historical flash points. From memory there were at least 2 instances where if people followed orders to the T we would have had a nuclear exchange. First one was cuban missile crisis that had a lot of escalation, but most poignant was probably dropping depth charges against submarines armed with nuclear torpedoes (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuban_Missile_Crisis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuban_Missile_Crisis). On that front - thank god Khrushchev chickened out. Second one was a false detection by Soviet early warning system which should have triggered an immediate retaliation, but was stopped by one person with critical thinking skills (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1983_Soviet_nuclear_false_alarm_incident https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1983_Soviet_nuclear_false_alar...).

bryanlarsen 1y ago
And situations like that could happen again. Experts put the odds of a nuclear war at around 1-3% per annum, and that feels about right. The odds of it happening in any particular year is fairly low, but the odds of it happening during a person's lifespan becomes quite high. 70 years of those kind of odds make it more likely than not. We've landed on "not", but the kind of close calls you called out indicates that "more likely than not" feels about right, and that we landed on "not" has a huge component of luck.
OkayPhysicist 1y ago
I think the closest call we've had since the end of the Cold War was the Russian cruise missile that crashed in Poland near the beginning of the war in Ukraine. There was a world where that hit something more important (or at least the Russians thought it did), which would potentially lead to an Article 5 call, which if the Russians anticipated, the rational move could well be a preemptive strike. But as you said, that's miles from the "One act of open defiance by a subordinate from armaggedon" type scenarios.
- jopsen 1y ago
  An article 5 call wouldn't trigger an invasion of Russia. Besides the best response is to simply gift more toys to the Ukrainians.

deleted 1y ago

[deleted]