11 ms·
Young folks today just don't believe how downright surreal (and scary) the cold war was to live through. Look, just read this wikipedia entry about the British
by cstross 12y ago
Young folks today just don't believe how downright surreal (and scary) the cold war was to live through.
Look, just read this wikipedia entry about the British Blue Peacock nuclear device, and boggle:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Peacock http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Peacock
Yes. It's a chicken-heated atomic landmine. Not a joke: it was a Real Thing.
And so was this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Davy_Crockett_%28nuclear_device%29 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Davy_Crockett_%28nuclear_device...
The M-29 Davy Crockett tactical nuclear recoilless rifle. (Jeep-mounted, no PALs, the rocket's flight range was less than its lethal radius of effect: the crew were supposed to fire it over a hill then dive under their jeep for cover.)
People not only imagined these things, they built them and deployed them in the stone-cold expectation of using them in anger.
- pcrh 12y agoThat reminds me of the pigeon-guided missile. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Pigeon http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Pigeon
- mpweiher 12y agoI see your pigeon and raise you a bat. As in bat-shit-crazy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bat_bomb https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bat_bomb When they tested them, the bats incinerated an Air Force base.
- simonsarris 12y agoWars would be a lot better if guys would say to themselves sometimes "Jesus, I'm not going to do that to the enemy. That's too much." -Kurt Vonnegut
- paulhauggis 12y agoThe problem is that in some wars, if you don't, the enemy will strike you just as hard or harder.
- kjjw 12y agoSurely a self-fulfilling prophecy.
- dalke 12y agoYou have just described the philosophy behind the fire bombing of cities, nuclear escalation, and mutually assured destruction - which given Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse Five was surely what he was talking about when he made that comment.
- the_af 12y agoThe "guys" in the above sentence include your enemies.
- arethuza 12y agoFortunately the political leaders on both sides knew that they could never use nuclear weapons. Reagan was horrified and changed his policies, much to his credit, when he realised that the Soviets really were terrified of an attack from the West. Even Khrushchev, who had a lot of blood on his hands, couldn't sleep for days after he had been briefed on what a nuclear war would actually mean - he only calmed down once he realised that the things would never be used by either side.
- sitkack 12y agoThat is why I shoot their women and babies.
- mcguire 12y agoA large chunk of modern military training is explicitly to prevent guys from saying that reflexively.
- Bahamut 12y agoIt actually has toned down some, if you can believe it (at least in the Marine Corps).
- digi_owl 12y agoI guess it had to happen, given the "police actions" undertaken these days.
- Graham24 12y agoit's always been like that, step one is to de-humanise your enemy so your soldiers do not feel guilty for killing them.
- dbbolton 12y agoWhy couldn't they just bury the mine below the frost line?
- stonogo 12y agoBecause the problem wasn't "ice," the problem was "cold," especially when you're dealing with finicky moving parts regarding pressure switches and tilt switches. There are tons of components of the era that were subject to thermal variance: oil-and-paper capacitors, wire coils in transformers and inductors, etc etc. We take solid-state reliability for granted these days, but there was a time before.
- sitkack 12y agoFor once I applaud the British and their shitting engineering!
- joosters 12y ago...the rocket's flight range was less than its lethal radius of effect Reminds me of an old RPG called Paranoia, which featured nuclear hand grenade bombs. I never realised that weapons similar to that joke actually existed!
- mcguire 12y agoSend in the clones!
- HillRat 12y agoMy father commanded a heavy weapons company on the Fulda Gap that included M-29s. Despite the fact that the Davy Crockett was very patently a suicide machine, the military did not explain to its soldiers that the warheads' radius of effect was larger than the gun's maximum range. However, since the gun operators were chosen from the most academically-accomplished of the enlisted ranks[1], they figured it out pretty fast (as did the platoon officers, who resolved to be very, very far behind the FEBA if the war went hot). As my father pointed out, the concerns were really academic; if the Soviets did invade Western Europe, US war plans in the 1950s and 1960s involved so liberal a use of tactical and operational nuclear weapons that you wouldn't be safe anywhere between Bonn and Berlin. Victory measured out in teaspoons and kilotons. [1] As opposed to his heavy mortar platoons, one of whom managed to nearly drop a round on the command tent during an exercise after a private failed to understand the operation of a compass. At least, that was his excuse.... Addendum: I should point out that pretty much every warplan the US came up with in the 1950s was a variation on "use nucs to slow down the Soviets until the Turkish military can mobilize." It wasn't until the professionalization of Western European forces, public hostility towards turning Europe into a smoking crater, and the use of game theory to describe how mobilization could become nuclear escalation that nuclear weapons as a standard battlefield play went away. However, the Soviets never took the operational and tactical use of nuclear weapons out of their play book; Soviet blitz doctrine in the late 1980s still envisioned using widespread nuclear attacks to soften up NATO forces or deny ground in the face of NATO attacks.
- philwelch 12y agoIt seems a little troubling that the Turkish military was supposed to be the pivotal factor in World War III. Was there any particular reason for that, other than Turkey being right next to Russia and the Crimea? What if the Soviets went after Turkey first?
- HillRat 12y agoAfter WW2, the Turks were the largest standing army in NATO, had performed excellently in the Korean War, were a linchpin between Europe and the Near East, and had a longstanding historical antipathy towards Russia. Basically, the Pentagon trusted the Turks to be more effective war fighters than anyone else in NATO at the time, and to be able to get to any particular front line faster than any other ally. Eventually, the demilitarization of West Germany placed an effective front-line force in place, but in the early Cold War the NATO allies were not really very united.
- bane 12y agoI grew up right at the tail-end of it, the 1984 Red Dawn was a perfectly reasonable scenario. Whenever I think the hysteria was completely insane I think back to my parents and grandparents and some of the truly bizarre notions that happened during their youth: duck and cover, public bomb shelter drills, etc. People actually paid significant parts of their yearly salary to build, stock and maintain nuclear bomb shelters in their backyards...in places like Ohio. Something like this [1] was just seen as mildly eccentric, not something that would get you institutionalized with severe paranoia. 1 - http://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/this-1970s-underground-bomb-shelter-is-impeccably-designed-and-for-sale-4703792/?no-ist http://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/this-1970s-undergro... People, large numbers of them, actually believed (and it may have been true) that extinction-level global war was an accidental launch away. What's even more interesting is the long-term vestiges of these ideas have hung around, but without nuclear war being on the horizon they've morphed and latched onto other scenarios: a Republican-Democrat civil war, the Rapture, Zombie invasion, Disease outbreak, etc. These aren't just old shelters, these are brand new. http://alpinesurvival.com/survival-shelters-for-sale.html http://alpinesurvival.com/survival-shelters-for-sale.html http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/engineering/architecture/4325649 http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/engineering/archi... Though, I'm always struck with how everybody wants to outfit their end-of-the-world bunkers with modern living room entertainment centers complete with cable TV, wi-fi and comfortable home-office. In any other scenario, somebody who spends millions of dollars to build 7,500 sq ft of underground EMP shielded comfortable living area with hidden and barricaded entrance, independent filtered air and water and multiple years of emergency food [2] would be dragged into emergency psychiatric care. But instead these scenarios are talked about openly on major news networks, reviewed in popular magazines, and I can buy these supplies commercial and off-the-shelf -- there's industries that exist to do nothing but feed this demand! 2 - http://www.costco.com/32,000-Total-Servings-4-Person-1-Year-Food-Storage.product.11763436.html http://www.costco.com/32,000-Total-Servings-4-Person-1-Year-...
- philwelch 12y agoThat emergency food supply would feed a family of four for a year, that's not "multiple years" of emergency food if you actually have a family of four. If you have a family of six it won't even last one year. Emergency food supplies are also useful for things like earthquakes and other natural disasters where you might have to stay put for awhile but you won't be able to make it to the grocery store either. You might need a week of food instead of a year, but if you don't have one and your neighbor does you'd probably be grateful if he shares. Alternatively, you could just eat it and reduce your food expenses to less than $84 a month.
- ams6110 12y agoLet's keep in mind that people have actually not ony conceived but carried out heious atrocities including genocide with far more ordinary devices.
- stonogo 12y agoWhy? His point is to illustrate the depths of depravity to which cold-war weapons designers were allowed to dive. What is yours?
- mikeash 12y agoIf the Cold War had gone hot, it would have surpassed all prior genocides, wars, and other atrocities since written history began, combined.
- tomohawk 12y agoIt was bad enough just the way it was, with 80 - 100 million people being killed by the communists. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_killings_under_Communist_regimes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_killings_under_Communist_...
- PythonicAlpha 12y agoLiving in Middle Europe was not less surreal at all in this times. While the US people thought, that their Minuteman, other missiles and strategic bombers would give some protection, in Germany many people knew, that a third world war could not only start there, but also be the main place where it would be fought. When in some era (I think, it was in Reagan's era, maybe a little later), the Generals where thinking, that a third world war could be limited to some territory (meaning: Middle Europe/Germany) and thus would not be the end of the world -- it was a void feeling for many people, that knew, what that could mean for Germany -- to be the designated place of nuclear destruction for the bigger nations. In deed, it was a surreal time for the whole world it was. That is also one reason, that many in the 90s believed now humanity would rest in peace ....
- arethuza 12y agoSame for the UK - optimistic estimates for the impact of a nuclear attack on the UK had under 5% of the population surviving in the long term (NB Threads was very optimistic!).
- pmoriarty 12y agoThreads is probably the most chilling nuclear holocaust movie I've ever seen. Highly recommended (if you can find a good copy).
- arethuza 12y agoActually, the BBC did one documentary that was in some ways even scarier than Threads: Q.E.D. - A Guide To Armageddon: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9GJttnC8PoA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9GJttnC8PoA It goes through the details of what would happen if a 1MT bomb exploded the center London - which is, of course, completely catastrophic. Then it calmly mentions that London would have probably been hit by at least 30 bombs...
- RobertKerans 12y ago...and there's Peter Watkins' The War Game (BBC again), still an incredibly powerful and disturbing piece of filmmaking. Wiki: http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_War_Game http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_War_Game Clip here (first airburst over Kent): http://youtu.be/WcmZ1vhoqkY http://youtu.be/WcmZ1vhoqkY
- cyorir 12y agoTo be fair, the use of chickens in this project would have been perfectly reasonable. The chickens simply act as a heat source to protect the mechanism, they do not power it. An engineer today would likely make use of the thermoelectric effect to generate heat through electricity. Why use chickens instead? A few reasons might be: Materials were not as advanced then, so an electric mechanism would have been less reliable and more prone to failure; an electric mechanism would require its own power source, which could create its own problems; an electric solution could generate noise or otherwise be observable; a chicken is sufficient. Why would chickens be sufficient? In winter the temperature a small distance underground is reliably stable, and warmer than temperature above ground. They likely would have been able to get a good idea of what the operating temperature would be and what they would need to offset it. Luckily, the heat output of a chicken is also reliably measured/estimated. On the other hand, the whole notion of creating a nuclear mine is completely bad. No way to justify that.
- sitkack 12y agoIf this had been the states, why not make it a homeless shelter?
- bdunbar 12y ago> No way to justify that. Sure there is. Like this .. We need to be able to destroy a lot of Russian tanks, and logistic tail. We'd like to be able to do this when they are beyond artillery range. Rockets are unreliable. Airplanes can be shot down. Thus, nuclear land mine.
- harisamin 12y agoThat’s pretty amazing
- caf 12y agoThis is my favourite picture of the Davy Crockett: http://blog.nuclearsecrecy.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/DavyCrockett-W54-500x394.jpg http://blog.nuclearsecrecy.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/Da...
- jacquesm 12y agoIt's the bigger dick foreign policy at work. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CghWWWXSUUU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CghWWWXSUUU
- j_baker 12y agoI don't know. Our generation certainly had our fair share of military madness. What about the Gay Bomb? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gay_bomb https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gay_bomb
- jacquesm 12y agoThe Davy Crockett is one of the most scary devices ever made. You could smuggle that thing into just about anywhere with relatively little chance of detection. I assume they kept good track of where those ended up, that's as close to a suitcase nuke as there ever existed (as far as I know). That's a proliferation nightmare and the only good thing about it is probably that it's very hard to make a small nuke work reliably.
- diogenescynic 12y agoThe very existence of flamethrowers proves that sometime, somewhere, someone said to themselves, “You know, I want to set those people over there on fire, but I’m just not close enough to get the job done.” - George Carlin
- carelesslisper 12y agoThere's an excellent little book with those two and many others equivalently bizarre accounts on nuclear weapons and nuclear energy: http://www.amazon.com/A-Short-History-Nuclear-Folly/dp/1612193307 http://www.amazon.com/A-Short-History-Nuclear-Folly/dp/16121...
- e12e 12y agoI think the scariest part is the insistence on using the past tense. As if the US (and it's antagonists) can't still destroy the world several times over.