By what means would the USSR nuke Britain in the event of an exchange in the 1980s?

Now for some Sanity...

...A relevant quote I came across about CND is 'Megadeaths they need and megadeaths they will have.'

Most exercises were designed to give the nationwide spread of the Royal Observer Corps/UKWMO something to train with. To use 'Square Leg' and 'Hard Rock' as target maps is to abandon reality. Even Kruschev could make a joke.

I rate Tony's intelligent assessments more highly than CND's lack of intelligence, having seen what was good and what was bad in Civil Defence preparations.
 
Back in the 1980s...

...I was an Emergency Planning Officer. My best boss (a former RAF Group Leader) estimated that Britain then had no more than ten nuke-worthy war-fighting targets, all in Eastern England. He told me that he and his colleagues expected a mix of a few IRBMs and gravity bombs, with Soviet High Explosive and Chemical warhead cruise missiles and bombs delivered to lesser targets. Those apparently included most naval base targets, although Devonport and Faslane would probably have been nuked.

"Remember that fallout tends to go east." He reminded me. I studied some meteorology as a Scientific Advisor and realised that Jet Stream dynamics make it so. Excessive use of nukes is disastrous for the Warsaw Pact.

Hope this helps.

Sounds like my old chemistry teacher. Far too many years ago to remember anything of what he taught me (or at least tried to), one of the few things that stuck in my mind from that day on (being a kid that liked all thinks that went bang) was his claim that if you had the winds in your favour, you didn't need dozens of missiles to render Britain effectively dead. I think he claimed 5 or 6 would do the job; I know it wasn't many. Mind you, he used to hit railway fog signals with a hammer to watch them go bang, so his judgement was sometimes a tad suspect!
 

hipper

Banned
You mean civil defense exercises Square Leg, here is a 1981 the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament published a map based on the Square Leg scenario.

Map: Soviet strike, nuclear targets across the United Kingdom

Cordite man beat me to it most of the exersize planning had bombs everywhere to let all 5he posts have a turn at reporting,

However in a real strike every target would be hit by a number of warheads to ensure the targets were hit
 
Cordite man beat me to it most of the exersize planning had bombs everywhere to let all 5he posts have a turn at reporting,

However in a real strike every target would be hit by a number of warheads to ensure the targets were hit

No one knows, or will admit just how reliable the various missiles and bombs would actually be in use. No one really knows how many birds will leave the silo's or sub's and then explode, go off course or how many warheads will actually detonate or just fizzle. In a book I read there was an example of an attack on an airbase outside Berlin in the early 1960's that had it being attacked by IRBMs from the UK, then a F84 then another IRBM and then yet another airstrike by a Canberra, all in a 17 minute timespan.
 
@corditeman

Maybe I'm misreading your comment but I find it hard to believe the Soviets would only use ten nukes on the UK in a full exchange. I would think leaving such a close ally economically and socially intact would not be an option for them.
 

Wimble Toot

Banned
However in a real strike every target would be hit by a number of warheads to ensure the targets were hit

Widespread MIRV-ing in the 1970s (instead of just MRV-ing) lead to targeting bloat.

The submarine VLF station near where I live was to receive an airburst and groundburst simultaneously in the first wave of SS-20 launches.

The base closed and the antenna were demolished in 1981-2.

It was removed from the Strategic Missile Troops target list in the mid 1990s.
 
Wrong ideas!

The very large number of warheads was partly due to duds, but also because the nuclear powers worried who would try to take charge if they blew one another up. To give an example, none of the front-rank nuclear powers would like North Korea in charge. To hold enough weapons to fight WW3 parts 1 to 5 or more had become a problem that helped disarmament.

'Front rank' : USA, Russia, PRC, UK, France, possibly Israel.

I do not care for the chances of NK or Iran in WW3, or of India and Pakistan.

The excess weapons thus become leverage in negotiations during WW3, which is a good argument for not annihilating the top governing elite of each side.

I never said I liked this attitude. As an EPO I had to work out ways to keep alive as many as I could contrive after an attack. And Kruschev's 25 would be about right for the 70% reliability level ascribed to Soviet-era weaponry, applied to about a dozen targets with a few in reserve. Since then, improvements in accuracy have made high kiloton yields better than multimegaton yields.
 
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WILDGEESE

Gone Fishin'
No one knows, or will admit just how reliable the various missiles and bombs would actually be in use. No one really knows how many birds will leave the silo's or sub's and then explode, go off course or how many warheads will actually detonate or just fizzle. In a book I read there was an example of an attack on an airbase outside Berlin in the early 1960's that had it being attacked by IRBMs from the UK, then a F84 then another IRBM and then yet another airstrike by a Canberra, all in a 17 minute timespan.

I don't know if this helps you or the rest of the posters here but this is taken from Salamanders "Illustrated Guide to Strategic Weapons" . . .tbh, I have know idea where the author got his info from.

Systems deployed in late '80s and it's availability.

ICBM's

Minuteman I . . . 442 . . . . 85%
Minuteman II . . .536 . . . .85%
Minuteman III . . . .14 . . .85%

SS-11 . . . 440 . . . 85%
SS-12 . . . .60 . . . 85%
SS-17 . . . 150 . . .90%
SS-18 . . . 308 . . .90%
SS-19 . . . 360 . . .90%
SS-25 . . . .72 . . . 95%

SLBM's and their platform

Poseidon . . . 96 . . . 55% (Lafatette/Franklin)
Trident C1. . .96 . . . 55% (Lafayette/Franklin)
Trident D2 . . 120 . . 66% (Ohio)

SS-N-6 . . . 96 . . . 30% (Yankee I)
SS-N-8 . . . 82. . . .30% (Golf III/Hotel III/ Delta I/II/III)
SS-N-!7 . . .12 . . .30% (Yankee II)
SS-N-18 . . 64 . . . 30% (Delta III)
SS-N-20 . . 20 . . . 40% (Typhoon)
SS-N-23 . . 16 . . . 40% (fielded Delta IV)

Typical Assessment of Reliability of ICBM 1st RV Missile System (UNITED STATES ONLY)

1st stage motor fires successfully . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95%
Missile leaves silo . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95%
2nd stage motor fires . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98%
2nd stage separation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .98%
2nd stage motor terminates correctly . . . . . . . . . . .98%
Nose shroud separates . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98%
Post-boost vehicle separates . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98%
PBV despatches all RV's correctly . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95%
RV penetrates atmosphere and arrives on target . . . 90%
Warheads detonates correctly . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95%

OVERALL SYSTEM RELIABILITY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66%

I hope this has helped

Regards filers.
 
Widespread MIRV-ing in the 1970s (instead of just MRV-ing) lead to targeting bloat.

Dick Cheney, for all of his faults, once noted the absurdity back around the turn of the century of a declassified SIOP from the 1970s or 80s which, among other things, decided to lay a few dozen warheads on a single Soviet early warning radar dish in Siberia... as in, the dish was all there was. The only other thing of note in the region was a adjacent helipad for Soviet maintenance crews to come in. Otherwise, nothing but hundreds of miles of Siberian wilderness.

Systems deployed in late '80s and it's availability.

Quick disclaimer to note that this data is derived from singular tests of the Minuteman system. No one has ever tested any of their weapon systems en-masse... let alone in concert with other weapon systems... to say nothing of combining it with a test of the relevant C3I apparatus. Which is just as well, since such a test would be indistinguishable from the real thing. But that uncertainty is why the "broken back war" scenario is considered a possibility.

That said, leaving outside the uncertain possibility of such a massive systemic failure, I would expect a Soviet all-out nuclear attack on Britain to be somewhere in the triple digits, with between 1/2 to 3/4ths successfully detonating. The idea that Britain only has ten nuke-worthy targets must depend on a ludicrously stringent definition of "nuke-worthy", because I don't believe for a moment that Britain has less then ten total combination of major airports, seaports, train depots, army bases, nuclear launch sites, submarine sites, steel mills, oil refineries, chemical plants, military airfields, radar stations, administration centers, defense manufacturing centers, and other sorts of targets that would feature on any realistic mixed counter-value/counter-force strike. Particularly given the Soviet's lack of belief in restraint when it came to nuclear matters. Hell, even if Britain only had one of each of the types of targets I did manage to real off totally from the top of my head, to say nothing of the sort of list I could compile if I actually bothered dragging out my books on nuclear strategy, then they indeed have more then ten "nuke-worthy" targets.

More limited attacks would see strikes in the dozens or even singles but over the course of a protracted limited exchange those could add up over time. And of course there's the scenario where a protracted limited engagement escalates into a full-blown exchange.

"Remember that fallout tends to go east." He reminded me. I studied some meteorology as a Scientific Advisor and realised that Jet Stream dynamics make it so. Excessive use of nukes is disastrous for the Warsaw Pact.

If the Warsaw Pact is engaging in a all-out nuclear assault on Britain, then they have much more immediate fallout concerns from all the NATO nukes landing on their own soil that makes whatever long-term fallout which manages to last long enough to drift into WarPac territory part of the background noise, not any sort of genuine concern.
 
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I live just outside Cardiff in the UK. This is a list of nuke worthy targets in and around the city in the 1980's.

Royal Ordinance factory - made components for the UK's Trident warheads.
British Telecoms command centre for Wales.
Cardiff Port - troop port.
Barry Port - Ammo & Logistics
RAF St Athans - major RAF repair and storage depot
Rhoose Airport (now Cardiff Wales)
Assorted adminstrative offices.

I could easily see the WARPAC hitting St Athans & Rhoose (very close to each other) and Cardiff and Barry Ports.
 
Obsessed Nuker...

...Nukes are expensive and difficult to make, so tend to be kept for 'counterforce' warfighting targets or glamour targets like capital cities. To quote a wise old friend of mine, "You don't nuke warehouses full of ration packs and Army boots." For that you use cruise missiles with incendiary warheads, if you do so at all.

I notice that many amateurs re-fight WW2 in their target lists, conveniently forgetting that it you fight a nuclear war, you fight with what you have, not relying on a factory, mine or oil-well to produce warfighting material months down the line. Most of your 'target list' is therefore unsuitable - to take one example, a refinery is better dealt with by incendiary munitions, as industrial equipment (as the Russians and ourselves discovered) is remarkably blastproof.
 
Obsessed Nuker...

...Nukes are expensive and difficult to make, so tend to be kept for 'counterforce' warfighting targets or glamour targets like capital cities. To quote a wise old friend of mine, "You don't nuke warehouses full of ration packs and Army boots." For that you use cruise missiles with incendiary warheads, if you do so at all.

I notice that many amateurs re-fight WW2 in their target lists, conveniently forgetting that it you fight a nuclear war, you fight with what you have, not relying on a factory, mine or oil-well to produce warfighting material months down the line. Most of your 'target list' is therefore unsuitable - to take one example, a refinery is better dealt with by incendiary munitions, as industrial equipment (as the Russians and ourselves discovered) is remarkably blastproof.
I seem to recall reading accounts critiquing earlier versions of the U.S. SIOP for targeting facilties such as fertilizer factories.
 
Watched it in '84 . . . still the best documentary regarding this subject. Way better than the US version "The Day After" which aired on UK tv unbelievably on over Xmas '83. If think it was on the 27th . . . the day after Boxing Day!

From what I've gathered and read about "Threads" though is that it is unfortunately based on a slightly dodgy war game plan called "Square Leg" in the regards to the attack profiles.

Threads was indeed much more affecting than The Day After. In defense of the producers of the latter film I will say that it was as "hardcore" a picture as was going to be allowed to be broadcast on American commercial television at that time.
 
I don't know if this helps you or the rest of the posters here but this is taken from Salamanders "Illustrated Guide to Strategic Weapons" . . .tbh, I have know idea where the author got his info from.

Systems deployed in late '80s and it's availability.

ICBM's

Minuteman I . . . 442 . . . . 85%
Minuteman II . . .536 . . . .85%
Minuteman III . . . .14 . . .85%

SS-11 . . . 440 . . . 85%
SS-12 . . . .60 . . . 85%
SS-17 . . . 150 . . .90%
SS-18 . . . 308 . . .90%
SS-19 . . . 360 . . .90%
SS-25 . . . .72 . . . 95%

SLBM's and their platform

Poseidon . . . 96 . . . 55% (Lafatette/Franklin)
Trident C1. . .96 . . . 55% (Lafayette/Franklin)
Trident D2 . . 120 . . 66% (Ohio)

SS-N-6 . . . 96 . . . 30% (Yankee I)
SS-N-8 . . . 82. . . .30% (Golf III/Hotel III/ Delta I/II/III)
SS-N-!7 . . .12 . . .30% (Yankee II)
SS-N-18 . . 64 . . . 30% (Delta III)
SS-N-20 . . 20 . . . 40% (Typhoon)
SS-N-23 . . 16 . . . 40% (fielded Delta IV)

Typical Assessment of Reliability of ICBM 1st RV Missile System (UNITED STATES ONLY)

1st stage motor fires successfully . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95%
Missile leaves silo . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95%
2nd stage motor fires . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98%
2nd stage separation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .98%
2nd stage motor terminates correctly . . . . . . . . . . .98%
Nose shroud separates . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98%
Post-boost vehicle separates . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98%
PBV despatches all RV's correctly . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95%
RV penetrates atmosphere and arrives on target . . . 90%
Warheads detonates correctly . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95%

OVERALL SYSTEM RELIABILITY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66%

I hope this has helped

Regards filers.
I seem to recall reading that part of the role for U.S. Nuclear detonation dection systems were to figure out which "designated ground zero's" had or had not had nuclear weapons detonated on or over them so that follow up strikes could be targeted appropiately.

My own personal theory is that as the ability of the major nuclear powers to figure out which targets had and had not been hit combined with enhancements in post attack command and control to facilitate the re targeting of the follow on forces, the need for "5 figure" warhead counts declined :) I suspect today's "4 figure" warhead count forces could destroy a surprisingly large number of targets vis a vis the larger Cold War era forces.
 
Threads was indeed much more affecting than The Day After. In defense of the producers of the latter film I will say that it was as "hardcore" a picture as was going to be allowed to be broadcast on American commercial television at that time.

Indeed, TDA was intended to be a lot more graphic than what made it to broadcast. There is a copy of the original script floating around the internet somewhere.
 
Post #38 is very familiar...

...The tabulated data published by Wildgeese looks like SIPRI (Stockholm Peace Research Institute) material I read in 1985. The 66% figure I recall from somewhere else.

Blue Cat, your personal theory is probably correct. By 1990, warhead sizes were back in hundreds of kilotons and accuracy (CEP) publicly published was much better. Commercial GPS systems are based on satellite targeting systems for cruise missiles. You could, these days, guide a missile past a sentry into the General's office (old 1960s cartoon joke).
 
Obsessed Nuker...

...Nukes are expensive and difficult to make, so tend to be kept for 'counterforce' warfighting targets or glamour targets like capital cities.

Yes, so expensive that the US and Soviet Union built stockpiles numbering in the tens of thousands, a considerable proportion of which were kept ready-to-use. In fact, the production figures for nuclear weapons from the mid-1950s onwards generally are the similar to the kind of figures you see for stuff like tanks and aircraft, with the US at it's peak cranking out as many as seven thousand+ in the space of a year. For it's part the USSR manufactured an average of 1,750 warheads a year between the mid-1960s to mid-1980s and that figure is not taking into account the need to make replacement warheads. And yes, this huge arsenal was expensive. So was the massive conventional arsenal that each side built along side it, yet I don't see people arguing that the conventional forces would limit themselves in such an absurdly restrained manner should it come to all-out war. If Dreadnought Syndrome was actually a thing for self-expending munitions, then we wouldn't use cruise missiles with the frequency we do.

So are nuclear weapons expensive and difficult to make? Sure. Are they so expensive and difficult to make that a country would find it prohibitive to use them against vital economic, administrative, and/or political targets even in the midst of a existential conflict in which each side believes (rightly or wrongly) that the very existence of their most cherished ideals are at stake? That I'm far more skeptical on.

I notice that many amateurs re-fight WW2 in their target lists, conveniently forgetting that it you fight a nuclear war

Generally, if it progresses to the point that your actually fighting a all-out nuclear war then you've really already lost. The whole point of nuclear strategy is to avoid getting to the all-out exchange point or ideally even the "use a nuke point", after all. Nukes aren't something you fight the enemy with so much as something you unleash upon the enemy.

you fight with what you have, not relying on a factory, mine or oil-well to produce warfighting material months down the line.

Which remarkably misses the point of counter-value, which is to inflict so much economic-humanitarian pain on the opposition that they stop doing whatever it is your fighting a nuclear war over... or failing that, critically undermine the ability for their country to function so it can no longer pose a threat. Granted, they'll be doing the same thing but c'est la vie. This is ignoring the very real potential of a "broken back war", mind you, in which case the destruction of those errant factories/mines/oil-wells could very much be the thing that decides the war several years or decades down the line.

to take one example, a refinery is better dealt with by incendiary munitions, as industrial equipment (as the Russians and ourselves discovered) is remarkably blastproof.

Well, gee, wouldn't it be remarkable then if a thermonuclear detonation was accompanied by some kinda massive pulse of heat at it's outset? A "thermal pulse", if you will...

And your still wrong, actually. As they are fire-hazards to begin with, refineries were built so as to minimize their ability to burn and even retain be able to be repaired rapidly. The Anglo-Americans discovered this in WW2 when they tossed plenty of both bombs and incendiaries at Japanese and German refineries only for them to keep on producing. Hence, refineries are best dealt with via a application of a mix of overwhelming blast and heat. Nuclear ordinance delivers that and does so in quantity. Detonate a conventional bomb inside of a refinery, I guarantee you that the refinery as a whole will still be there at the end of the day. Detonate a 400 kiloton warhead on the same spot, and all that's left of that refinery will be a pile of twisted, melted metal at best.
 
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