The president's address at the end..
do you think their was a peace treaty because they really did decide to stop, or because both sides were out of nukes?
shareI am sure they had a cease fire. There is no way they were out of nukes. Back in the early 80's, the U.S. and Soviet Union had thousands of more nukes than now.
"We're paratroopers lieutenant. We're supposed to be surrounded"
Captain Winters, Bastogne, 1944
But with all the bombings and the EMPs, wouldn't that have rendered them useless?
I would love to see them do a movie where Russia uses it's dead hand missles. I hear they are salted or something and will kill everything.
But with all the bombings and the EMPs, wouldn't that have rendered them useless?By the time the Soviet warhead had detonated over KC, the American missiles had already been launched.
I would love to see them do a movie where Russia uses it's dead hand missles. I hear they are salted or something and will kill everything.On the Beach is such a movie.
However, an OTB scenario, the idea that an advancing 'cloud' or whatever, of radiation will bring about the end of all human and animal life on earth is not scientifically feasible. Cobalt is usually the material mentioned in this scenario, and there is simply too much surface area on the earth to make this possible.
Normal radiation after an atomic detonation decays fairly quickly. You can figure the rate by what is called the 7:10 rule of thumb. For every sevenfold passage of time, the radioactivity decays by a factor of ten. If the radiation emitted immediately after the detonation is 1000 rads per hour, in seven hours, it will be down to 100 rads per hour. Forty-nine hours after detonation, it will be ten rads, and 343 hours (a little less than two weeks) after, it will be one rad.
Now cobalt does decay at a much lower rate, but that also means that the amount per unit time will be a lot less.
But the only purpose for using cobalt would be as a deterrent, and there is no real point to having them if you keep it a secret. Besides, there has just been one cobalt weapon even tested, by the British in South Australia in 1957 and that test reportedly was a failure.
The fact that neither the Soviets nor the West has announced that they have cobalt or 'dead hand' devices, as you refer to them, tells me that neither side has them.
There is more on this by both a gentleman called CGSailor and yours truly, both here and on the OTB board. Check it out if you are interested. share
Gary, I've seen your posts on this topic in the past and appreciate your knowledge and expertise as well as your efforts to present information in a way that's appropriately serious but not scare-mongering nonsense. It's amazing how many people are unshakably convinced that any nuclear war means death for all humanity or that severe, prolonged nuclear winter is a proven fact that would inevitably result from even a limited nuclear war. You can't even talk to some of these folks. If you point out that a limited nuclear war would be a ghastly, awful catastrophe worse than anything any of us has every experienced but would not mean the end of civilization or even of the United States, their eyes go blank and they just sort of chant "no, no, it's death to everyone, DEATH to EVERYONE, I say!" It's like they want to believe the worst.
Anyway, I did want to say that, when the OP refers to "dead-hand" devices, I think he's talking about fail-deadly launch systems like Perimeter in the USSR - supposedly still operational in Russia today. The detail about salting the bombs is not true, as you say, but I thought Perimeter was proven to exist.
Didn't we have something similar with our SSBNs? Wasn't there a rule that, if they surfaced and got no response from command (indicating a loss of government due to war), they were supposed to launch? Or is that something I read in a nuclear war novel that isn't true? It seems terribly risky, so I've probably misunderstood it or mixed fact and fiction.
the end of all human and animal life on earth is not scientifically feasible. Cobalt is usually the material mentioned in this scenario, and there is simply too much surface area on the earth to make this possible.
Actually it is a feasible scenario. The number of nukes back in the 1980s was calculated to end all human life several times over.
Even several thousand megatons would wipe out several billion when blast, radiation, nuclear winter and the effects on food production/environment were calculated.
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But with all the bombings and the EMPs, wouldn't that have rendered them useless?
A number of sites would have been destroyed and you have to remember the vast majority of weapons including nukes would be stockpiled not in bombs loaded on aircraft or missiles ready to be launched.
As for emps the military is less protected from emps then people think. So yes a good portion of the military would be unable to work until repairs were made.
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