11 ms·

A Sneak Peek at Eric Schlosser's New Book on Nuclear Weapons

123 points by edw519 13y ago

DanielBMarkham 13y ago
Thanks Ed! It's going in my stack.
tptacek 13y ago
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_military_nuclear_accidents http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_military_nuclear_accide...
- arethuza 13y ago
  I can recommend this book that describes the history of the Rocky Flats plant just outside Denver and the various accidents that happened there: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Making_a_Real_Killing:_Rocky_Flats_and_the_Nuclear_West http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Making_a_Real_Killing:_Rocky_Fl...
- js2 13y ago
  One of my favorites: The Tybee Island B-47 crash was an incident on February 5, 1958, in which the United States Air Force lost a 7,600-pound (3,400 kg) Mark 15 nuclear bomb in the waters off Tybee Island near Savannah, Georgia, United States. During a practice exercise, the B-47 bomber carrying the bomb collided in midair with an F-86 fighter plane. To protect the aircrew from a possible detonation in the event of a crash, the bomb was jettisoned. Following several unsuccessful searches, the bomb was presumed lost somewhere in Wassaw Sound off the shores of Tybee Island. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1958_Tybee_Island_mid-air_collision http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1958_Tybee_Island_mid-air_colli...
  - bun-neh 13y ago
    We actually lost a nuclear weapon just off the coast of Spain. Even scarier is that these are not the only two instances in which nuclear weapons have gone (and still remain) missing due to negligence or accident. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1966_Palomares_B-52_crash http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1966_Palomares_B-52_crash
mikevm 13y ago
Book link: http://www.amazon.com/Command-Control-Damascus-Accident-Illusion/dp/1594202273 http://www.amazon.com/Command-Control-Damascus-Accident-Illu...
at-fates-hands 13y ago
Nice anti-nuke story. I know people want us to give up our Nukes, but with a host of middle eastern countries within grasp of nuclear technology, doing so would be asinine. It's also interesting to note no where in the article do they talk about how the US has continually reduced its nuclear stockpile, or that we've been at the forefront of promoting non-proliferation. What's also missing from the article is several policies from the Bush Administration which sought to update the technology we already have to keep the technology a lot safer and easier to maintain like the Reliable Replacement Warhead program: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reliable_Replacement_Warhead_Program http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reliable_Replacement_Warhead_Pr... "The Reliable Replacement Warhead (RRW) was a proposed new American nuclear warhead design and bomb family that was intended to be simple, reliable and to provide a long-lasting, low maintenance future nuclear force for the United States. Initiated by the United States Congress in 2004, it became a centerpiece of the plans of the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) to remake the nuclear weapons complex. In 2008, the Congress denied funding for the program, and in 2009 the Obama administration called for work on the program to cease."
- HarryHirsch 13y ago
  Nice anti-nuke story. I know people want us to give up our Nukes, but with a host of middle eastern countries within grasp of nuclear technology, doing so would be asinine. Not sure. Nuclear weapons serve a purpose in war, that is to take out a large installation, an air force or a navy base, say, with just one hit. Then you send in ground troops. But whatever "host of middle eastern countries within grasp of nuclear technology" there may be, they still have no capability to invade North America. On the other hand, the United States have the capability to invade any Middle Eastern country. The scenario is very unlikely. The real risk is false alarms, and the true heroes are Vassili Archipov and Stanislav Petrov. These, and their unknown American, British, French, Chinese, Indian, Pakistani and Israeli counterparts.
  - Thrymr 13y ago
    > Nuclear weapons serve a purpose in war Not really, in a tactical sense in any war short of WWIII. No one can really use them without the threat of massive reprisal. No rational player would use them to take out an air force base. Strategically, they're only really good for holding a gun to everyone's head (including your own). That can apply on a scale from the small and crazy (North Korea) to the huge, dysfunctional, and bankrupt (USSR).
JamesArgo 13y ago
Stories like this make me brood on quantum immortality.
adam-f 13y ago
I don't understand why an accidental detonation of a warhead would produce "lethal" fallout. Yet there's comparatively little concern (and rightfully so) over the 2000+ intentional test detonations done around the world so far? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LLCF7vPanrY http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LLCF7vPanrY
- arethuza 13y ago
  A 3.8 megaton H-bomb exploding at ground level would have created a lot of fallout - most tests were careful to explode high yield weapons high enough that fall out wouldn't be a problem. Where tests of large H-bombs were done at ground level there were huge amounts of fallout created. However, these tests were usually in very remote places with nobody around in the few hundred miles downwind. However, there were still serious problems with fallout: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Castle_Bravo http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Castle_Bravo
- rosser 13y ago
  St. George, UT, downwind of the Yucca Flats test site, had a markedly increased cancer rate among the people who lived there at the time. A friend's aunt had her thyroid removed as a teenager, presumably consequent to fallout exposure from nuclear weapons testing. (Naturally, the government made her and her family agree never to say, or even speculate aloud about why it was done when they paid for the surgery...) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._George,_Utah#Nuclear_contamination https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._George,_Utah#Nuclear_conta...
  - malandrew 13y ago
    "Naturally, the government made her and her family agree never to say, or even speculate aloud about why it was done when they paid for the surgery..." I find it shocking that we afford the government the unilateral right to gag an individual from talking in exchange for treatment owed. I would hope that our judicial system would review such an arrangement and nullify a non-disclosure clause in this incident. Near as I can tell it sounds like your friend's aunt never entered into a binding legal relationship with those that contributed to her cancer until after it had been demonstrated that they were at fault. How those responsible can get a judgement or arbitration that includes such a non-disclosure when that party is so obviously wrong and at fault is simply mind-boggling.
fiatmoney 13y ago
The only reason to keep nuclear weapons on hair-trigger alert is if you're worried you might have to use them or lose them in a first strike. Now that we have almost impossible-to-target (in quantity alone) nuclear submarines with missiles capable of serving whatever strategic purpose you'd need, there's no reason to be spreading the risk around to land- and air-based systems as well.
- rdl 13y ago
  I'm not sure if I believe this, but the US argument for retaining the triad is this: We need to at least retain the land ICBM because they are responsible for most of the aim points for an enemy counter force strike. They are basically the size of several states, and sink hundreds or thousands of missiles, making a first strike implausible for anyone except the Russians. With the SSBN force, they are pretty safe while at sea, but supported from two bases, each of which could be destroyed by a single missile. If you had 10 weapons, you could basically take out all long term US strategic forces, except for at-sea SSBN, if you got rid of the land ICBMs. The submarines would then be in a horrible position of "use them or lose them." I think you could accomplish this by keeping the entire force on lower alert, which has largely been the case since the fall of the USSR.
  - malandrew 13y ago
    I would hope that most of these first strike targets sit at the bottom of deep valleys, so that if a missile strike were to hit them that much of the resulting damage was buffeted and contained by the valley walls. I imagine that much of the fallout would also be captured by valley itself and that any future rains would funnel all contaminated material to the lowest point in the valley. In essence, every single one of these first strike targets should be designed to be massive sinks for radioactivity. On your second comment, I'm actually surprised that those two bases are that vulnerable. I was under the impression that they would be fortified the same way Russian naval bases like Object 825 GTS, one of the bases for nuclear armed submarines, is.
    - ak217 13y ago
jlgreco 13y ago
"The two propellants were extremely efficient" This is not particularly true. Hypergolic fuel mixes are less efficient than LOX/LH2 (which is nontoxic (exhaust is water vapor) though still hazardous of course) and LOX/RP-1 (more or less nontoxic again. RP-1 is just fancy kerosene). The only real reasons to use them in first stages^ is that you can store them in the rocket (problematic with cryogenic fuels/oxidizers like LH2 and LOX since they will boil off over a short period of time) and the ignition system is simpler (not really a big deal). LOX/RP-1 was actually used with earlier ICBMs like the Soviet R-7, the American Atlas. Storable hypergolic fuel mixes followed these, though now modern ICBMs are solid fuel rockets (storable, and safe for people on the ground). Hypergolic fuel mixes have caused issues for non-military rockets too. During Apollo-Soyuz there was a leak of N2O2 into the Apollo capsule. Not a very good situation at all, but for that application they are really the best tool for the job. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo-Soyuz_Test_Project#Re-entry_and_aftermath http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo-Soyuz_Test_Project#Re-en... ^ Hypergolic fuels are also useful in engines that you need to start/stop multiple times, and in upper stages that need to store their fuel for a while.
- arethuza 13y ago
  Seems like a good place to mention: "Ignition - An informal history of liquid rocket propellants" http://www.amazon.com/Ignition-informal-history-liquid-propellants/dp/0813507251 http://www.amazon.com/Ignition-informal-history-liquid-prope...
  - icarus_drowning 13y ago
    Also, if you're looking for a short, but surprisingly informative video on the matter, Scott Manley's "WTF is rocket fuel anyway" video is fantastic: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jI8TuufCp0M http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jI8TuufCp0M
  - mikeash 13y ago
    This is a great read and I highly recommend it. I was greatly entertained despite no particular background in chemistry. There is a PDF available here, since it's a wee bit hard to get from Amazon: http://www.sciencemadness.org/library/books/ignition.pdf http://www.sciencemadness.org/library/books/ignition.pdf
johnchristopher 13y ago
Mandatory Star Trek clip: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bPBzj90Su8A http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bPBzj90Su8A
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
rsync 13y ago
... obligatory recommendation of the book "Normal Accidents" if you want to see this trend discussed across a broad range of threat vectors, from nuclear plants to shipping disasters ... and the common threads that link them all.
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
- malandrew 13y ago
  So there is still a nuclear weapon sitting in salt water just off the US coast corroding away? [0] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1958_Tybee_Island_mid-air_collision http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1958_Tybee_Island_mid-air_colli...
  - js2 13y ago
    Yes. Ugh, sorry I deleted the comment on you... I moved it under tptacek's link.
dominik 13y ago
Tangential, but I just finished reading _A Canticle for Leibowitz_. Amazing sci-fi book that deals with the aftermath of nuclear war.
rwmj 13y ago
If you want to read another terrifying book (about Russian biological weapons) I highly recommend: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biohazard_%28book%29 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biohazard_%28book%29
grannyg00se 13y ago
"The warhead had a yield of nine megatons—about three times the explosive force of all the bombs dropped during the Second World War, including both atomic bombs" My god. That alone is enough to scare me. Why on earth would you create a single weapon so powerful when you aren't limited to only one? I guess I don't fully grasp the concept of an arms race because no matter how I think about it that just seems grossly irresponsible.
- chiph 13y ago
  The Soviets had (and the Russians still maintain) the one anti-ballistic missile system allowed by treaty. It's emplaced all around Moscow. In addition, Soviet leadership had constructed a series of deep bunkers and transport systems under Moscow -- there is/was another subway system underneath the civilian Moscow system for Kremlin leadership to use. So should a missile (of several targeted against Moscow) make it through the ABM system, it would still have to destroy a very hard target. And so you need a big bomb to ensure destruction.
  - grannyg00se 13y ago
    Interesting. That sounds like urban myth material - a special subway under the subway. But from my limited knowledge, bigger and bigger nukes wouldn't make a difference against deep hardened bunkers since they don't penetrate before detonation. When you look at pictures of atomic bomb damage you don't see deep craters, you see a wide area of surface level damage.
    - enraged_camel 13y ago
      >>Interesting. That sounds like urban myth material - a special subway under the subway. You need to watch Ghostbusters II. :)
    - cynwoody 13y ago
      There was a special subway line, Metro 2†, which ran from the Kremlin to Khodynka Airfield, Moscow's downtown airport, next to GRU HQ. In the event of an imminent threat, the Soviet leadership would have hopped onto Metro 2, been transported to Khodynka, and been flown from there to a secure command post somewhere in the Urals. †http://books.google.com/books?id=rsB-5-e0RwgC&pg=PA65&dq=subway+kremlin+khodynka&hl=en&sa=X&ei=tHg2UpqrAba14AP3qoDoBQ&ved=0CDIQ6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q=subway%20kremlin%20khodynka&f=false http://books.google.com/books?id=rsB-5-e0RwgC&pg=PA65&dq=sub... Also see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metro-2 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metro-2
adsr 13y ago
This was a fascinating read, and disturbing. Make sure you read the interview as well at the end of the story. http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2013/09/interview-eric-schlosser-command-control-nuclear-weapons-accidents http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2013/09/interview-eric-s...

123 points by edw519 13y ago

Thanks Ed! It's going in my stack.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_military_nuclear_accidents http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_military_nuclear_accide...

arethuza 13y ago
I can recommend this book that describes the history of the Rocky Flats plant just outside Denver and the various accidents that happened there: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Making_a_Real_Killing:_Rocky_Flats_and_the_Nuclear_West http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Making_a_Real_Killing:_Rocky_Fl...
js2 13y ago
One of my favorites: The Tybee Island B-47 crash was an incident on February 5, 1958, in which the United States Air Force lost a 7,600-pound (3,400 kg) Mark 15 nuclear bomb in the waters off Tybee Island near Savannah, Georgia, United States. During a practice exercise, the B-47 bomber carrying the bomb collided in midair with an F-86 fighter plane. To protect the aircrew from a possible detonation in the event of a crash, the bomb was jettisoned. Following several unsuccessful searches, the bomb was presumed lost somewhere in Wassaw Sound off the shores of Tybee Island. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1958_Tybee_Island_mid-air_collision http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1958_Tybee_Island_mid-air_colli...
- bun-neh 13y ago
  We actually lost a nuclear weapon just off the coast of Spain. Even scarier is that these are not the only two instances in which nuclear weapons have gone (and still remain) missing due to negligence or accident. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1966_Palomares_B-52_crash http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1966_Palomares_B-52_crash

mikevm 13y ago

Book link: http://www.amazon.com/Command-Control-Damascus-Accident-Illusion/dp/1594202273 http://www.amazon.com/Command-Control-Damascus-Accident-Illu...

at-fates-hands 13y ago

Nice anti-nuke story. I know people want us to give up our Nukes, but with a host of middle eastern countries within grasp of nuclear technology, doing so would be asinine. It's also interesting to note no where in the article do they talk about how the US has continually reduced its nuclear stockpile, or that we've been at the forefront of promoting non-proliferation. What's also missing from the article is several policies from the Bush Administration which sought to update the technology we already have to keep the technology a lot safer and easier to maintain like the Reliable Replacement Warhead program: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reliable_Replacement_Warhead_Program http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reliable_Replacement_Warhead_Pr... "The Reliable Replacement Warhead (RRW) was a proposed new American nuclear warhead design and bomb family that was intended to be simple, reliable and to provide a long-lasting, low maintenance future nuclear force for the United States. Initiated by the United States Congress in 2004, it became a centerpiece of the plans of the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) to remake the nuclear weapons complex. In 2008, the Congress denied funding for the program, and in 2009 the Obama administration called for work on the program to cease."

HarryHirsch 13y ago
Nice anti-nuke story. I know people want us to give up our Nukes, but with a host of middle eastern countries within grasp of nuclear technology, doing so would be asinine. Not sure. Nuclear weapons serve a purpose in war, that is to take out a large installation, an air force or a navy base, say, with just one hit. Then you send in ground troops. But whatever "host of middle eastern countries within grasp of nuclear technology" there may be, they still have no capability to invade North America. On the other hand, the United States have the capability to invade any Middle Eastern country. The scenario is very unlikely. The real risk is false alarms, and the true heroes are Vassili Archipov and Stanislav Petrov. These, and their unknown American, British, French, Chinese, Indian, Pakistani and Israeli counterparts.
- Thrymr 13y ago
  > Nuclear weapons serve a purpose in war Not really, in a tactical sense in any war short of WWIII. No one can really use them without the threat of massive reprisal. No rational player would use them to take out an air force base. Strategically, they're only really good for holding a gun to everyone's head (including your own). That can apply on a scale from the small and crazy (North Korea) to the huge, dysfunctional, and bankrupt (USSR).

JamesArgo 13y ago

Stories like this make me brood on quantum immortality.

adam-f 13y ago

I don't understand why an accidental detonation of a warhead would produce "lethal" fallout. Yet there's comparatively little concern (and rightfully so) over the 2000+ intentional test detonations done around the world so far? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LLCF7vPanrY http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LLCF7vPanrY

arethuza 13y ago
A 3.8 megaton H-bomb exploding at ground level would have created a lot of fallout - most tests were careful to explode high yield weapons high enough that fall out wouldn't be a problem. Where tests of large H-bombs were done at ground level there were huge amounts of fallout created. However, these tests were usually in very remote places with nobody around in the few hundred miles downwind. However, there were still serious problems with fallout: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Castle_Bravo http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Castle_Bravo
rosser 13y ago
St. George, UT, downwind of the Yucca Flats test site, had a markedly increased cancer rate among the people who lived there at the time. A friend's aunt had her thyroid removed as a teenager, presumably consequent to fallout exposure from nuclear weapons testing. (Naturally, the government made her and her family agree never to say, or even speculate aloud about why it was done when they paid for the surgery...) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._George,_Utah#Nuclear_contamination https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._George,_Utah#Nuclear_conta...
- malandrew 13y ago
  "Naturally, the government made her and her family agree never to say, or even speculate aloud about why it was done when they paid for the surgery..." I find it shocking that we afford the government the unilateral right to gag an individual from talking in exchange for treatment owed. I would hope that our judicial system would review such an arrangement and nullify a non-disclosure clause in this incident. Near as I can tell it sounds like your friend's aunt never entered into a binding legal relationship with those that contributed to her cancer until after it had been demonstrated that they were at fault. How those responsible can get a judgement or arbitration that includes such a non-disclosure when that party is so obviously wrong and at fault is simply mind-boggling.

fiatmoney 13y ago

The only reason to keep nuclear weapons on hair-trigger alert is if you're worried you might have to use them or lose them in a first strike. Now that we have almost impossible-to-target (in quantity alone) nuclear submarines with missiles capable of serving whatever strategic purpose you'd need, there's no reason to be spreading the risk around to land- and air-based systems as well.

rdl 13y ago
I'm not sure if I believe this, but the US argument for retaining the triad is this: We need to at least retain the land ICBM because they are responsible for most of the aim points for an enemy counter force strike. They are basically the size of several states, and sink hundreds or thousands of missiles, making a first strike implausible for anyone except the Russians. With the SSBN force, they are pretty safe while at sea, but supported from two bases, each of which could be destroyed by a single missile. If you had 10 weapons, you could basically take out all long term US strategic forces, except for at-sea SSBN, if you got rid of the land ICBMs. The submarines would then be in a horrible position of "use them or lose them." I think you could accomplish this by keeping the entire force on lower alert, which has largely been the case since the fall of the USSR.
- malandrew 13y ago
  I would hope that most of these first strike targets sit at the bottom of deep valleys, so that if a missile strike were to hit them that much of the resulting damage was buffeted and contained by the valley walls. I imagine that much of the fallout would also be captured by valley itself and that any future rains would funnel all contaminated material to the lowest point in the valley. In essence, every single one of these first strike targets should be designed to be massive sinks for radioactivity. On your second comment, I'm actually surprised that those two bases are that vulnerable. I was under the impression that they would be fortified the same way Russian naval bases like Object 825 GTS, one of the bases for nuclear armed submarines, is.
  - ak217 13y ago

jlgreco 13y ago

"The two propellants were extremely efficient" This is not particularly true. Hypergolic fuel mixes are less efficient than LOX/LH2 (which is nontoxic (exhaust is water vapor) though still hazardous of course) and LOX/RP-1 (more or less nontoxic again. RP-1 is just fancy kerosene). The only real reasons to use them in first stages^ is that you can store them in the rocket (problematic with cryogenic fuels/oxidizers like LH2 and LOX since they will boil off over a short period of time) and the ignition system is simpler (not really a big deal). LOX/RP-1 was actually used with earlier ICBMs like the Soviet R-7, the American Atlas. Storable hypergolic fuel mixes followed these, though now modern ICBMs are solid fuel rockets (storable, and safe for people on the ground). Hypergolic fuel mixes have caused issues for non-military rockets too. During Apollo-Soyuz there was a leak of N2O2 into the Apollo capsule. Not a very good situation at all, but for that application they are really the best tool for the job. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo-Soyuz_Test_Project#Re-entry_and_aftermath http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo-Soyuz_Test_Project#Re-en... ^ Hypergolic fuels are also useful in engines that you need to start/stop multiple times, and in upper stages that need to store their fuel for a while.

arethuza 13y ago
Seems like a good place to mention: "Ignition - An informal history of liquid rocket propellants" http://www.amazon.com/Ignition-informal-history-liquid-propellants/dp/0813507251 http://www.amazon.com/Ignition-informal-history-liquid-prope...
- icarus_drowning 13y ago
  Also, if you're looking for a short, but surprisingly informative video on the matter, Scott Manley's "WTF is rocket fuel anyway" video is fantastic: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jI8TuufCp0M http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jI8TuufCp0M
- mikeash 13y ago
  This is a great read and I highly recommend it. I was greatly entertained despite no particular background in chemistry. There is a PDF available here, since it's a wee bit hard to get from Amazon: http://www.sciencemadness.org/library/books/ignition.pdf http://www.sciencemadness.org/library/books/ignition.pdf

johnchristopher 13y ago

Mandatory Star Trek clip: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bPBzj90Su8A http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bPBzj90Su8A

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]

rsync 13y ago

... obligatory recommendation of the book "Normal Accidents" if you want to see this trend discussed across a broad range of threat vectors, from nuclear plants to shipping disasters ... and the common threads that link them all.

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]

malandrew 13y ago
So there is still a nuclear weapon sitting in salt water just off the US coast corroding away? [0] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1958_Tybee_Island_mid-air_collision http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1958_Tybee_Island_mid-air_colli...
- js2 13y ago
  Yes. Ugh, sorry I deleted the comment on you... I moved it under tptacek's link.

dominik 13y ago

Tangential, but I just finished reading _A Canticle for Leibowitz_. Amazing sci-fi book that deals with the aftermath of nuclear war.

rwmj 13y ago

If you want to read another terrifying book (about Russian biological weapons) I highly recommend: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biohazard_%28book%29 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biohazard_%28book%29

grannyg00se 13y ago

"The warhead had a yield of nine megatons—about three times the explosive force of all the bombs dropped during the Second World War, including both atomic bombs" My god. That alone is enough to scare me. Why on earth would you create a single weapon so powerful when you aren't limited to only one? I guess I don't fully grasp the concept of an arms race because no matter how I think about it that just seems grossly irresponsible.

chiph 13y ago
The Soviets had (and the Russians still maintain) the one anti-ballistic missile system allowed by treaty. It's emplaced all around Moscow. In addition, Soviet leadership had constructed a series of deep bunkers and transport systems under Moscow -- there is/was another subway system underneath the civilian Moscow system for Kremlin leadership to use. So should a missile (of several targeted against Moscow) make it through the ABM system, it would still have to destroy a very hard target. And so you need a big bomb to ensure destruction.
- grannyg00se 13y ago
  Interesting. That sounds like urban myth material - a special subway under the subway. But from my limited knowledge, bigger and bigger nukes wouldn't make a difference against deep hardened bunkers since they don't penetrate before detonation. When you look at pictures of atomic bomb damage you don't see deep craters, you see a wide area of surface level damage.
  - enraged_camel 13y ago
    >>Interesting. That sounds like urban myth material - a special subway under the subway. You need to watch Ghostbusters II. :)
  - cynwoody 13y ago
    There was a special subway line, Metro 2†, which ran from the Kremlin to Khodynka Airfield, Moscow's downtown airport, next to GRU HQ. In the event of an imminent threat, the Soviet leadership would have hopped onto Metro 2, been transported to Khodynka, and been flown from there to a secure command post somewhere in the Urals. †http://books.google.com/books?id=rsB-5-e0RwgC&pg=PA65&dq=subway+kremlin+khodynka&hl=en&sa=X&ei=tHg2UpqrAba14AP3qoDoBQ&ved=0CDIQ6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q=subway%20kremlin%20khodynka&f=false http://books.google.com/books?id=rsB-5-e0RwgC&pg=PA65&dq=sub... Also see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metro-2 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metro-2

adsr 13y ago

This was a fascinating read, and disturbing. Make sure you read the interview as well at the end of the story. http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2013/09/interview-eric-schlosser-command-control-nuclear-weapons-accidents http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2013/09/interview-eric-s...