marathag
Banned
That takes care of some of the DEW line, but sill had the Mid-Canada and Pinetree Line
If the Cuban Missile Crisis became nuclear war, which large cities would survive?
That takes care of some of the DEW line, but sill had the Mid-Canada and Pinetree Line
marathag
Banned
Four Atlas D Squadrons
Three Atlas E
Six Atlas F
Six Titan I
Six Titan II(not ready)
Eight Minuteman, one Squadron equipped
Vandenberg AFB
Most squadrons had between 6 to 12 missiles each.
on November 3rd there were these at the ready
24 Atlas D
27 Atlas E
70 Atlas F
53 Titan 1
8 Minuteman 1A
Now these numbers fluctuated, as fuel needed to be drained and maintenance for the LOX systems.
Vandenberg had one Atlas F, three Titan I and five Minutemen fitted with warheads by October 30
Navy had five Boomers, each with 16 Polaris A-1 missiles on patrol, one with the A-2 missile, with two more that started patrols as the crisis started that would also have the new A-2 version.
Three diesel boats with a total of 8 Regulus cruise missles were on patrol in the Pacific, with a nuke and another diesel boat refitting during the crisis.
16 Mace cruise missiles and four Regulus were at Okinawa
48 Mace were in Europe, that had replaced the older Matador missiles that year. Around 100 Thor and Jupiters were also in Europe
A couple dozen hits is still enough to annihilate every major city over a hundred thousand people in the US. Even this strikes me as optimistic though because it firstly ignores the missiles on Cuba and that the US was unaware that those missiles were already operational. This latter fact meant that American planning to actually attack those sites was not overly concerned with ensuring their destruction.
Hnau
Banned
It seems to me that the climate models have moved consensus back to predicting nuclear winter would be an existential risk, either for our species or civilization. The smoke clouds would dissipate throughout the atmosphere, in two weeks even Argentinians would be looking up at a global smog effect. You'd be looking at a decade of cold summers and colder winters, and the ozone layer would be depleted, increasing ultraviolet radiation.
http://climate.envsci.rutgers.edu/pdf/RobockToonSciAmJan2010.pdf
Considering higher rates of undernourishment in the 1960s, the lower level of infrastructural development in the Third World, and the unavailability of agricultural technologies that could make crash programs feasible, I think half of the world's population surviving to 1975 would be a best-case scenario. Keeping even more than a billion humans by that would be an impressive achievement for the species. Even a regional nuclear war with only 100 Hiroshima-size explosions today would likely cause a billion deaths, but if a wider-scale exchange happens in the 1960s with hydrogen bombs... that's the kind of event that could knock out industrial civilization as we know it.
http://www.psr.org/nuclear-weapons/nuclear-famine-report.pdf
What we know nothing about is 1962 Soviet targeting strategy for its missiles and bombers. So, we have no idea whether the missiles in Cuba were aimed at military targets or cities. The same goes for the ICBMs and bombers. At best, anything in this area is an educated guess. For instance, it is probably a good bet that the targets for bombers were a mix of counterforce and countervalue targets, bomber bases and cities, but unless the target list surfaces in some archive, it will remain a guess.
Some targets seem a bit more clear: it seems very probable that New York, Washington, Chicago, Philadelphia, Cleveland, Pittsburgh and Detroit would be targets; all are cities with large populations and high economic importance. Similarly, on the West Coast, the Seattle, San Francisco and Los Angeles areas would be likely targets due to their population and military and economic importance.
Military targets like SAC bases and missile silos seem like obvious targets, but if the thinking was that they'd already have launched their missiles and bombers, they might be bypassed in favor or population and economic targets.
All this aside, though, is the fact that even though New York is an obvious target, it is not at all clear that it would be hit. If 10% of missiles and bombers reach their targets, the odds of New York being hit if it was scheduled for two warheads is still pretty low. At a straight 10% chance of a warhead getting through, the chance that both don't get through is a pretty decent 81% (.9*.9). Not all of the most obvious targets are going to get hit, which leads to some interesting potential outcomes where what one would expect doesn't necessarily occur. So, to wrap up this post, 24 warheads getting through does not ensure that every big city in the US gets hit. Some likely will, but the randomness of outcomes means that you could see everything from all the big cities get wiped out to they all manage to escape unscathed.
marathag
Banned
Nike Hercules had secondary ABM capability, tested in 1960 with a HE warhead, not its normal nuke against a Corporal, and against another Nike- Hercules at 11 miles up in 1961. No decoys or countermeasures on 1st gen Soviet warheads.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MtKZAJE2Ylw
All these site could potentially have a bite at that apple coming in to NYC
NY-03/04 Mt. Nebo/Orangeburg, NY
NY-04R Orangeburg, NY
NY-09 Kensico/White Plains, NY
NY-15 Fort Slocum, NY
NY-20 Lloyd Harbor, NY
NY-23 Oyster Bay, NY
NY-24 Amityville/Farmingdale, NY
NY-25 Rocky Point/Brookhaven, NY
NY-29/30 Lido Beach, NY
NY-49 Fort Tilden, NY
NY-53 Middletown, NJ
NY-54 Holmdel/Hazlet, NJ
NY-55DC Highlands, NJ
NY-56 Fort Hancock, NJ
NY-58/60 Old Bridge, NJ
NY-60R South Amboy, NJ
NY-65 South Plainfield, NJ
NY-73 Summit, NJ
NY-79/80 Livingston/East Hanover, NJ
NY-80R Morristown, NJ
NY-88 Wayne, NJ
NY-93/94 Franklin Lakes/Mahwah, NJ
NY-99 Ramapo/Spring Valley, NY
I do agree with your earlier posts saying the US will take some serious hits, but that's not correct on either count. The top 100 cities in the US in the 1960 Census all had populations greater than 100000.
Also, the CIA assessment of 27.10.1962 states at least 5 MRBM sites are thought to be operational - see CIA assessment 27.10.1962. The tactical weapons were not detected at the time.
Really excellent post. Agreed that the big difficulty is the lack of info regarding Soviet targeting strategies. My hunch is that the missiles were primarily countervalue with a few key counterforce targets (Omaha/SAC, Colorado Springs/NORAD) added in.
I think the 10% success rate is a bit low, but your point on the possibility for even the big US cities getting missed is a good one, especially if the bombers are chasing missile silos and air defenses. I could see Canada taking a lot of hits as well, with Soviet bombers either misidentifying cities or releasing weapons in desperation if the air defenses are too strong.
Nice SciAm article, had browsed the primary sources but that's a nice overview. One big issue with their model is no one knows (thankfully!) just how much soot and smoke gets produced with a modern city is hit with a nuclear weapon. That said, I have no reason to doubt their basic assumptions. In practical terms the same group predicted drops in US corn output of 10-40% and soybeans of 2-20% in the same 100 bomb scenario (ref).
The US would probably avoid widespread famine depending on how bad the disruption was from direct nuclear effects. But you are definitely right that the rest of the world would suffer significantly, especially with the US unlikely to be a net exporter of food.
Nike Herc can definitely clean up any stray Soviet bombers, might even be able to get good odds on the SS-4s if any launch from Cuba, but expecting it to defend against an ICBM RV is nigh-impossible, even with the nuclear warhead. Both tries against the Redstone RV (Mach 5.5) failed, and when they tried against a Pershing RV (Mach 8) the tracking radar was unable to lock on. The Mk3 RV of the Atlas and Titan 1 re-entered at Mach 10, can't find any data on the Soviet RVs but would assume similar. And that is without the problem that the first nuclear detonation is going to blind the radars of the other Nike Herc batteries!
marathag
Banned
True, it's last ditch, and the tests were with HE, rather than the 20kt nuke.
Also, none of those tests were incoming towards the battery. RVs getting close to the target are slowed greatly by time they are in the Stratosphere, but more important, any nuke going off in the path ahead of the incoming RV has three things going for it, the neutron pulse to overheat the Pu in the warhead, and the thermal pulse to weaken/overstress the heatshield, and last, any debris will tear up that heatshield, given the high speed.
Low chance still beats waiting for that 3 Mt warhead going off over the nearby metro area
Essentially, it's a case of 'heck, if we die then at least we went out in style, and if it works then we're heroes'. The strategic warfare equivalent of charging the machine gun that's pinning your squad down.
My best guess for a US first strike is 75% of strategic forces in the USSR are destroyed on the ground, and all of those in Cuba. Guantanamo and maybe Key West will get it from tactical forces, but that's life.
That gives 26 bombers, 14 Tu-95K missile carriers, and 9 or 10 ICBMs successfully launched. Of those, 20% of the aircraft are intercepted (matching the best ever performance of an air defence system) and one-third of missiles don't work properly. That gives you 21 bombers carrying 42 gravity bombs, 7 Kh-20 missiles and 6 ICBMs reaching their targets. Some of those will be double-targeted, but the losses are bad enough that most will be one device per target, and a lot of targets not getting serviced.
For a Soviet first strike, the figures look worse - the 75% attrition doesn't take place, but we can probably assume something like 15% unserviceable. The end result is 140 gravity bombs, 26 Kh-20 missiles, 22 ICBMs and 23 IRBMs delivering nuclear weapons against the United States. Based on British estimates of what it would take to bring down the USSR, that's probably enough to cause a breakdown of the United States.
Americans will have the solace, though, of knowing that their alert force is capable of bouncing the rubble of the Soviet Union. Some Brazilian or Australian historian - the Soviets don't have the capability to nuke everyone who looks at them funny yet - will probably declare that, theoretically, the United States won the war.
Essentially, it's a case of 'heck, if we die then at least we went out in style, and if it works then we're heroes'. The strategic warfare equivalent of charging the machine gun that's pinning your squad down.
My best guess for a US first strike is 75% of strategic forces in the USSR are destroyed on the ground, and all of those in Cuba. Guantanamo and maybe Key West will get it from tactical forces, but that's life.
That gives 26 bombers, 14 Tu-95K missile carriers, and 9 or 10 ICBMs successfully launched. Of those, 20% of the aircraft are intercepted (matching the best ever performance of an air defence system) and one-third of missiles don't work properly. That gives you 21 bombers carrying 42 gravity bombs, 7 Kh-20 missiles and 6 ICBMs reaching their targets. Some of those will be double-targeted, but the losses are bad enough that most will be one device per target, and a lot of targets not getting serviced.
For a Soviet first strike, the figures look worse - the 75% attrition doesn't take place, but we can probably assume something like 15% unserviceable. The end result is 140 gravity bombs, 26 Kh-20 missiles, 22 ICBMs and 23 IRBMs delivering nuclear weapons against the United States. Based on British estimates of what it would take to bring down the USSR, that's probably enough to cause a breakdown of the United States.
Americans will have the solace, though, of knowing that their alert force is capable of bouncing the rubble of the Soviet Union. Some Brazilian or Australian historian - the Soviets don't have the capability to nuke everyone who looks at them funny yet - will probably declare that, theoretically, the United States won the war.
I wonder about that 20% figure for intercepting bombers. Was US capability that bad or Soviet evasion/ECM ability that good? Between multiple radar lines, a ton of air defense interceptors armed with nuclear-tipped weapons and a slew of BOMARC and Nike SAM sites, I should think the US would do better against a fleet of slow and large Bear turboprop bombers.
Air defence is just that hard.
In the 1950s, NORAD reckoned on being able to take down 30% of attacking aircraft, and in the 1980s SAC reckoned on taking about 25% losses attacking the Soviet Union. Those figures are fairly consistent with WW2 and Vietnam experience. Even on the worst day of LINEBACKER II, when the B-52s flew in straight and level on predictable flightpaths with no ECM, they still only took about 10% losses to the most hostile air defence environment ever flown against.
The B-52s most definitely did use ECM during Linebacker - in fact the worst losses were on the B-52Gs with the older ECM system - ref.
I do agree that best case air defense in this scenario is less than 50% intercept, probably something like 25-30%. A lot depends on how good the Soviet ECM suite was in the Bears and Bisons. Radars didn't really have frequency hopping capabilities so were quite vulnerable to jamming. For reference, see the SkyShield exercises where RAF Vulcans using Western ECM had 7/8 aircraft NOT intercepted.
Think your scenario above is a bit too optimistic for the Soviets - missile + warhead reliability probably more like 50% and a US first strike probably gets 80-90% of launchers - no evidence that the Soviets ever implemented a strategic alert during the crisis. Agree that with a USSR first strike that the US would be lucky to survive as an intact polity.
Thanks for the response. It's an interesting though rather macabre subject.
Working through the numbers, then, if 50% of the 160 bombers were caught on the ground and 70% got through, that would be around 56 bombers getting through, which is a very substantial hit. Not as bad as what Europe or the Soviet Union would go through, but still a powerful blow with a devastating effect on the US.
marathag
Banned
SPS-1 / SPS-2
ECM systems fitted to the Tu-16SPS. 42 had SPS-1 and 102 had SPS-2. SPS-1 created 50-120W interference in 20-300cm band, while SPS-2 created 250-300W interference in the 9.5-12.5cm band. They were manually operated, with a dedicated operator who had to determine the radar to be jammed, work out its frequency, using the SRS-1BV and SRS-1D radio reconnaissance systems, and then tune the jamming transmitter to the appropriate frequency. Even well- prepared operators needed about 2-3 minutes to carry out this task, which could mean the enemy aircraft getting close enough to burn through the jamming. They were also ineffective against multichannel or retunable radars.
Now for Nike sites
Hercules sites (with the much longer missile range) needed a much longer range surveillance radar.
Two general types of longer range surveillance radars were supplied:
- the very large HIPAR radar that had a large control building. There was very sophisticated pulse generation, and multi-channel receivers with unique moving target indicators (MTI) and great deal of anti-jamming capability.
- or a less sophisticated "Alternate Battery Acquisition Radar" (ABAR) radar usually either AN/FPS-69,-71 or -75.
Hercules sites also usually had a LOPAR radar.
Want to know more ?
http://ed-thelen.org/ifc_acq.html__________________________________________________
Not so good for Bears or Bisons in 1962, ECM wise, for a site not using the backup LOPAR Radar, that the Soviet jamming may have worked against
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When the Soviet arsenal was an order of magnitude or more larger than in 1962. Two orders of magnitude if it's a functional American first strike - and given the state of Soviet command & control, there are plausible scenarios where the Soviets fire the first nuclear weapons without Moscow knowing about it until the first Atlas and Titan RVs initiate over their heads. In this situation, the United States will be heavily damaged but recover; it's broadly comparable in death toll and loss of industrial base to Soviet losses in WW2.
A Soviet first strike would inflict mortal, but just about survivable, damage to the United States. Most cities of any significance would be destroyed, along with a significant proportion of the population killed and organs of government rendered ineffective. Some would survive through sheer luck and provide the nucleus of recovery. That would be very unlikely in the later Cold War when arsenals were much larger.
Interestingly, there were those (I'm looking at you, General Power) who thought that the US could identify signs of a Soviet first strike being readied through intelligence channels, and launch the alert force in a preemptive strike in time to destroy it on the ground. The rest of SAC would be along to bounce the rubble a few hours later. Now that's a theory I'm quite happy not putting to the test!
That map looks to be mainly a map of military targets, primarily missile sites and SAC bases. What would actually be hit would be far greater. By the 1980s, the Soviets had thousands of deliverable warheads that could be launched at CONUS that were more reliable and more accurate. Every population center, every airport, every military base, every transportation junction, every substantial economic asset could be targeted. Plus every missile silo, of which there were many. For instance, in the FEMA map, southeastern Michigan is not depicted. Detroit may have been in decline in the 1980s but it had a major commercial airport, the metro area had a large population and there still existed a formidable industrial capacity. In any reasonable scenario, Detroit would have been a target or, more accurately, several targets.
Compared to the early 1960s, there is some overlap, but there are some major differences. For instance, the sites in central Missouri are Minuteman sites (the same ones as in the film "The Day After") that were not yet operational in 1962. Some things do overlap; the sites along the northern tier of states are mainly SAC bases and missile sites that existed in 1962. There were also many more SAC bases in 1962 than in the 1980s. The 1980s map also fails to include Atlas and Titan missile bases that had been decommissioned by the 1980s.
There are also some major military target omissions in the map. For instance, Barksdale AFB (Louisiana), as in 1962, was a major SAC facility. Omaha, was, of course, SAC headquarters and does not appear to be depicted, nor does the NORAD complex at Cheyenne Mountain, CO (which was not operational in 1962).
So, while the map is helpful as something of a rough guide, it is not entirely accurate nor does it completely reflect the situation of 1962 as facilities opened and closed over the years.
Deleted member 93645
If nuclear war had happened in 1980 or later instead of 1962, would it lead to a full-blown Ice Age due to the greater number of targets and greater accuracy in hitting those targets (creating more dust)?
It might accelerate a descent into an Ice Age that was about to start, but it couldn't initiate one without there already being strong orbital drivers for one - which aren't present.
To get an Ice Age, you need cold summers that allow survival of winter ice, reflecting summer sunlight and increasing albedo, allowing the ice to expand further in the winter and thus reflecting more sunlight in the summer. Geologically that's driven by orbital variations that operate on timescales of hundreds/thousands of years. Stratospheric dust falls out in a matter of years, so the nuclear cooling would only last a few years, too little for ice advances and summer albedo reductions to be significant.
Climate responses are typically strongly non-linear though, so you could imagine a situation where the climate is on the brink of switching from the present stable interglacial state to another stable glacial state, and that the nuclear cooling is just enough to make the transition. But we aren't in such a state.
To get an Ice Age, you need cold summers that allow survival of winter ice, reflecting summer sunlight and increasing albedo, allowing the ice to expand further in the winter and thus reflecting more sunlight in the summer. Geologically that's driven by orbital variations that operate on timescales of hundreds/thousands of years. Stratospheric dust falls out in a matter of years, so the nuclear cooling would only last a few years, too little for ice advances and summer albedo reductions to be significant.
Climate responses are typically strongly non-linear though, so you could imagine a situation where the climate is on the brink of switching from the present stable interglacial state to another stable glacial state, and that the nuclear cooling is just enough to make the transition. But we aren't in such a state.
How bad would Europe be hit? I assume an escalation scenario which is imho the most probable one. Germany would be glassed most probably, but what of peripheral nations like Ireland, Portugal or Greece? Neutrals like Switzerland or Sweden? The attacks would come from IRBM's and bombers I suppose: but how many detonations are we talking about? Can a rough estimate be done, so that we can think of what European cities might have survived? Also, would Israel and its principal Arab enemies be hit?
In any case the survivors are going to face famine on an apocalyptic scale most likely: unless improbable American aid comes in soon, civilisation might breakdown even in western Europe, not only in Warsaw pact countries...
In any case the survivors are going to face famine on an apocalyptic scale most likely: unless improbable American aid comes in soon, civilisation might breakdown even in western Europe, not only in Warsaw pact countries...