Operation drop shot war-best possible USSR performance

Status
Not open for further replies.
Prinze Eugen was over a km from the epicenter of the blast radius comparing a ship to a city is not a fair comparison. As for the nukes well do you know what happens when a 10 megaton nuke goes off in Moscow yeah I don't either Moscow, Leningrad, and Stalingrad and all their industry survived because they were evaced and moved behind the Urals. That won't be happening here. Masses of American bombers will hit every major industrial center with a mix of atomic and HE bombs military bases, marshaling centers, troop concentrations and everything in between will be hit by nukes. The Red Army will do nothing once its logistics are nonexistent when they are being pounded by atomic weapons when communications are lost when every major town in the USSR is left nothing but glass and ash. The Wallies win and they win massively.


maybe in your dreams but that's about all!
 

SsgtC

Banned
You're overlooking the fact that even though Prinz Eugen wasn't severely damaged by the blast, the radiation alone would have killed the crew. Some immediately, the rest within a few days. The ship would be a ghost ship

Do you know what happened to the Prince Eugen after it was nuked....nothing , just radio active for some months.
 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Dropshot

looks like a pre-emptive strike on USSR air-force & associated industries. I guess they had not digested the lessons of USSBS. It would not prevent a response against NATO. Land army was always there specialty and it could roll over NATO in a matter of weeks even without nukes.

it would run out of gasoline and other fuel long before it got to the Rhine. The Soviets generally had sufficient stocks for a few days operations and that was it. The target list includes every major Soviet refinery. Throw in the attacks on transportation nodes and very quickly the Red Army has reached the end of its logistical rope.

It would be lucky to make it to the Rhine, and getting to Paris is a fantasy
 
Your best bet for getting the USSR to perform well without the risk of nuclear retaliation (or at least a reduced form of it) is to somehow have the USSR bent on making a very anti-air defense and the USA somehow reducing its nuclear arsenal (though it would be unlikely at this period in time), or at least having a decent buildup of conventional forces prior to hostilities breaking out (likely by keeping Eisenhower from getting elected in office).
 
Masses of American bombers will hit every major industrial center with a mix of atomic and HE bombs military bases, marshaling centers, troop concentrations and everything in between will be hit by nukes.

Because magically all those MiG-17's and MiG-19's capable of breaching and surpassing most American jet bombers ceiling heights just ceased to exist? Magically the Soviets just happen to not detect the massive scores of bombers heading their way? You seemed to forget the Soviets had an entire air force that's capable of meeting and countering strategic bombers... what they were designed to do, especially the former ones.

The Wallies win and they win massively.

'Win' by ejecting tonnes of soot and radioactive particles across the Northern hemisphere. Hooray, nuclear radiation and crop failures for everyone!
 
Because magically all those MiG-17's and MiG-19's capable of breaching and surpassing most American jet bombers ceiling heights just ceased to exist? Magically the Soviets just happen to not detect the massive scores of bombers heading their way? You seemed to forget the Soviets had an entire air force that's capable of meeting and countering strategic bombers... what they were designed to do, especially the former ones.



'Win' by ejecting tonnes of soot and radioactive particles across the Northern hemisphere. Hooray, nuclear radiation and crop failures for everyone!
I was thinking of that- the ecological and economic consequences of a "destroy the commies" campaign. I doubt those consequences of nuclear war were known at the time.
 
Because magically all those MiG-17's and MiG-19's capable of breaching and surpassing most American jet bombers ceiling heights just ceased to exist? Magically the Soviets just happen to not detect the massive scores of bombers heading their way? You seemed to forget the Soviets had an entire air force that's capable of meeting and countering strategic bombers... what they were designed to do, especially the former ones.

Can they shot down every single bomber SAC has? No some will get through and when you have nukes all you need is one not to mention the interdiction campaign by the USAF and USN assets. The USSR will still be crippled some targets may escape unscathed but enough should be destroyed to do heavy damage to the USSR not counting Britains V-force and units in Europe. Just my 2 cents
 
Because magically all those MiG-17's and MiG-19's capable of breaching and surpassing most American jet bombers ceiling heights just ceased to exist? Magically the Soviets just happen to not detect the massive scores of bombers heading their way? You seemed to forget the Soviets had an entire air force that's capable of meeting and countering strategic bombers... what they were designed to do, especially the former ones.



'Win' by ejecting tonnes of soot and radioactive particles across the Northern hemisphere. Hooray, nuclear radiation and crop failures for everyone!

a couple of things

SAC was going to use "Bomb as you go".. in other words, the initial attacks destroy the outer defenses (with the help of some land based missiles), the next series of attacks destroys the next layer etc. SAC had a couple of thousand bombers, assumed at worse 50% losses (probably fair) and that means they still have bombers when the Soviets run out of interceptor bases. At which point the final series of attacks takes care of the inner targets. Bomb as you go also takes out the strategic targets as it moves inward.

At the end of it, SAC is wrecked as a combat force but they have achieved the mission outcome planned.

As to the radiation thing... remember that the intertropical covergence zone will keep most of the Northern Hemisphere winds (and thus fallout) out of the Southern Hemisphere

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intertropical_Convergence_Zone

So an excellent time to live in Chile
 
Can they shot down every single bomber SAC has? No some will get through and when you have nukes all you need is one not to mention the interdiction campaign by the USAF and USN assets. The USSR will still be crippled some targets may escape unscathed but enough should be destroyed to do heavy damage to the USSR not counting Britains V-force and units in Europe. Just my 2 cents
You most definitely need more than one nuke when you're attacking hard targets; high altitude dumb bombs just don't have the CEP for assured direct hits, and there's always a large chance of duds. The British calculated that they'd need about 32 warheads to destroy Moscow, and that's with ballistic missiles, not bombers. Plus, if the Soviet conventional invasion succeeds, it's possible they can extract enough resources from conquered Western Europe to rebuild the Soviet Union.
 
You most definitely need more than one nuke when you're attacking hard targets; high altitude dumb bombs just don't have the CEP for assured direct hits, and there's always a large chance of duds. The British calculated that they'd need about 32 warheads to destroy Moscow, and that's with ballistic missiles, not bombers. Plus, if the Soviet conventional invasion succeeds, it's possible they can extract enough resources from conquered Western Europe to rebuild the Soviet Union.

go here

https://nuclearsecrecy.com/nukemap/

type in Moscow

pick airburst, 4 MT (typical warhead carried by a B52, B58 or B47 of that era)

click detonate

3 million dead, 4 million injured (half will likely die) in Moscow from an airburst

you only need ground bursts if you are going for bunkers

there are pre sets, but you can pretty much enter anywhere on the planet and you can vary the yield, altitude and even go for multiple weapons bursts

I really don't miss the Cold War
 
go here

https://nuclearsecrecy.com/nukemap/

type in Moscow

pick airburst, 4 MT (typical warhead carried by a B52, B58 or B47 of that era)

click detonate

3 million dead, 4 million injured (half will likely die) in Moscow from an airburst

you only need ground bursts if you are going for bunkers

there are pre sets, but you can pretty much enter anywhere on the planet and you can vary the yield, altitude and even go for multiple weapons bursts

I really don't miss the Cold War
Lots of targets need groundbursts; airfields, railroad marshaling yards being particularly tricky example, and most military installations are hardened. You have to account for bombers shot down, dropping duds, and missing when it comes to allocating targets; when the British reckoned Soviet interception a serious threat, they ditched bombing altogether for SLBMs, reducing their target list from over 200 to 48 (and then to one when when they got ABM defenses). Not to mention, a lot of the U.S. nuclear arsenal was in fact in the dozens KT range; a 1 MT device detonated in the center of London would leave about 95% of the economic assets intact, and 4 MTs isn't 4 times as powerful. Online calculators are one thing, but actual nuclear strategists did not claim 'you only need one.'
 
Being generous and crediting B-52 with CEP of km @ 500nm waypoint dropped from 20,000ft that's going to require 776 x 2 ton bombs to achieve target destruction on any given target [28,000 bombs/776= 36 targets destroyed...assuming the target is 500 acres . If bombing altitude is 50,000 ft, the CEP is going to be 0.6% of range. If we generously assume 500km way point that's 3km CEP. That should require 6900 bombs to achieve destruction, now you are down to 4 targets destroyed.

no idea about nuke destruction but is no a fantasy weapon. it has real limitations. bombing from 50,000 feet will have the same poor accuracy of B-52.
 
Last edited:
Being generous and crediting B-52 with CEP of km @ 500nm waypoint dropped from 20,000ft that's going to require 776 x 2 ton bombs to achieve target destruction on any given target [28,000 bombs/776= 36 targets destroyed...assuming the target is 500 acres . If bombing altitude is 50,000 ft, the CEP is going to be 0.6% of range. If we generously assume 500km way point that's 3km CEP. That should require 6900 bombs to achieve destruction, now you are down to 4 targets destroyed.

no idea about nuke destruction but is no a fantasy weapon. it has real limitations. bombing from 50,000 feet will have the same poor accuracy of B-52.
Thing about nukes is that to knock out a target like a railyard, an airstrip, a bunker, hardened bases, etc., you want the radius of total destruction to be larger than the CEP; 100kt groundburst has a RTD of about 800 yards.
 
Its funny how this forum reduced USSR to a weakest state in the history. Next thread will be: could USSR beat African Zulu tribes?

USSR was a nation familiar with hardships of war and nuclear war would make their moral higher. Especially if US starts the war first. Maybe first and second wave of bombing would be successful but USSR by that time would relocate in Ural bunkers and retreating some divisions into Siberia. In such scenario USSR could just wait and rebuild. Once the snow settles down, Siberian divisions would go into reconquest.
 
Use biowapons on CONUS to wreck the starting point of the supply chain. In the end, both titans will be mortally wounded.

My dear friend, have you read the posts in this thread? In particular the one informing you that the Soviets have no ICBMs, no submarine-launched missiles, and a very limited, if any, capability for long-range aircraft delivery to the CONUS?

If you haven't read the above, do so.

Now, you could still argue that bioweapons can be delivered in the terrorists' m.o.: agents who infiltrate the target area and deliver the weapons clandestinely.

Fine (so to speak), but the point of Operation Dropshot was to carry out a preemptive operation. Organizing multiple non-conventional bioweapon attacks in the CONUS would take weeks, if not months - in peacetime. Now it's war, and the US outlook while at a nuclear world war in the late 1950s will be one of some serious suspicion towards all foreign tourists. Add that the main B weapons facilities will have been on the US to-hit list.

Some secret facility or depot will have survived, naturally. And some Soviet capability will have survived. It will be sort of like the dead man's revenge, though, at most.
 
My dear friend, have you read the posts in this thread? In particular the one informing you that the Soviets have no ICBMs, no submarine-launched missiles, and a very limited, if any, capability for long-range aircraft delivery to the CONUS?

If you haven't read the above, do so.

Now, you could still argue that bioweapons can be delivered in the terrorists' m.o.: agents who infiltrate the target area and deliver the weapons clandestinely.

Fine (so to speak), but the point of Operation Dropshot was to carry out a preemptive operation. Organizing multiple non-conventional bioweapon attacks in the CONUS would take weeks, if not months - in peacetime. Now it's war, and the US outlook while at a nuclear world war in the late 1950s will be one of some serious suspicion towards all foreign tourists. Add that the main B weapons facilities will have been on the US to-hit list.

Some secret facility or depot will have survived, naturally. And some Soviet capability will have survived. It will be sort of like the dead man's revenge, though, at most.
Against the formidable spypower of the Soviet Union, getting a preemptive attack in would not be easy.
 
The armor will not be incinerated or the cities. Their will be pockets of radiation and a lot of dying people,

Such as, all the personnel of a Soviet tank regiment at bottleneck locations. Irradiated and radioactive tanks, weighing tens of tons and unable to move on their own power, will also roadblock those bottlenecks. look up the W-9 warhead, usable both as a super-heavy artillery projectile and as a land mine waiting for that first tank regiment.
 
Lots of targets need groundbursts; airfields, railroad marshaling yards being particularly tricky example, and most military installations are hardened. You have to account for bombers shot down, dropping duds, and missing when it comes to allocating targets; when the British reckoned Soviet interception a serious threat, they ditched bombing altogether for SLBMs, reducing their target list from over 200 to 48 (and then to one when when they got ABM defenses). Not to mention, a lot of the U.S. nuclear arsenal was in fact in the dozens KT range; a 1 MT device detonated in the center of London would leave about 95% of the economic assets intact, and 4 MTs isn't 4 times as powerful. Online calculators are one thing, but actual nuclear strategists did not claim 'you only need one.'

All of those installations have work forces, and an air burst wipes out that work force.

You don't have to eliminate them as geographical features, you just have to eliminate them as functional installations and facilities.

Duplication of targeting has (had) more to do with expected losses of strike aircraft (and missile failures) than concern that more than one weapon was needed.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Top