The Cuban Missile War - Ideas and thoughts wanted...

[Chris]

Hi

Amerigo Vespucci and myself have started the long process of working out the plot to the first real AH book I will do, a novel set in the midst of the Cuban Missile War. What we need are thoughts and details that should be added into the midst of the story; names, people, ideas, details, and so on. Cameos will be possible, if people ask...

Chris

 

[BlackMage]

Well, as my continual harping on the subject probably implies, my specialty is Australian history. So here's just a few notes regarding how Australia could tie into a Cuban Missile War:

• At the time, the conservative government of Robert Menzies was in peril, having retained power by just a single seat at the previous election. It was kept aloft somewhat, however, by the fact that the Labor Party of the time were hardly the soft-left organisation of today-its leader, Arthur Calwell, was a 66-year-old socialist who remained the most fanatical devotee of the White Australia Policy. How could this tie in? Well, Menzies derived most of his long, long reign from open redbaiting: political vulnerability and a much more heated international environment could drive him to act even more hawkish than the Americans, perhaps spurring events further.
• At the time, Indonesia was led by Sukarno, who was at least nominally pro-Soviet. If a wider war breaks out, we could see conflict between staunchly pro-Western Australia and Indonesia.

But, of course, my area of expertise will play minimal importance in the development of my story. Just a few other general observations:

• America can nuke the Soviets into powder, yes. But will this necessarily lead to the demise of the Soviet government? I can't help but feel that, out of the ruins of the Soviet Union, the old party apparatchiks will survive. Bureaucrats are indestructable, you know. So if the Soviets survive, and if the Americans survive (as is generally accepted), what happens next? This is something that really needs to be addressed. Particularly, what happens in the peace treaty?
• Kennedy stayed in Washington during the crisis, so he's probably toast if war breaks out. Who can we realistically expect to survive a Cuban Missile War? What would a John McCormack, or a Carl Hayden administration?
  
  Actually, I think a fascinating thing you could do would be to have Kennedy, Johnson and John McCormack killed, and to have Carl Hayden, President pro tempore of the Senate, become President. He was 85 years old and widely regarded as senile-a commonly quoted incident is that he walked into a Senate cloakroom and said 'Up, please'. How does the US, after presumably a catastrophic attack, cope with a president who, despite having ascended to his position constitutionally, is just a few steps away from wearing his underpants on his head?
  
  I think a Hayden presidency itself would be worthy of a book.

 

[Max Sinister]

I think if the US nuked the Soviet Union to pieces, the people (incl. the army) would be damn angry at the apparatchiks. Their life is shitty, they have nothing to lose.

 

[Jared]

I think if the US nuked the Soviet Union to pieces, the people (incl. the army) would be damn angry at the apparatchiks. Their life is shitty, they have nothing to lose.

Yup. The scale of destruction which is likely means that a functioning national Soviet government would be improbable. Even if there was the semblance of control, it would be in a very precarious position...

 

[BlackMage]

I think if the US nuked the Soviet Union to pieces, the people (incl. the army) would be damn angry at the apparatchiks. Their life is shitty, they have nothing to lose.

It's not so much the leaders, as such; I expect them to go. It's the mid-level management type; the bureaucrats. Someone needs to regulate things, after all; any post-war government is going to have to involve the communist bureaucracy, simply because they've been in power for so long. So even if the upper hierarchy are removed, there's no one qualified to run the rest of the country. A 'deNazification' equivalent would be more or less impossible. Even if the face of the regime changes, the people working for it, in the lower levels at least, won't.

Yup. The scale of destruction which is likely means that a functioning national Soviet government would be improbable. Even if there was the semblance of control, it would be in a very precarious position...

Well, that is the big problem with my theory: there being any government left at all. But it's in the Americans' best interests that there be a reasonably surviving Russia, at least at this time; an anarchic Russia, with communist holdouts holding nuclear weapons and near-universal warfare, would be infinitely worse than a poor, authoritarian Russia, heavily bombed but still with a modicum of government, for the whole world.

And again, there's the problem of who could possibly replace them. The bureaucracy is the big thing: to be a bureaucrat is a fiddly, skilled, unwanted job, and to advance in the bureaucracy one has to be a member of the Party. You either have anarchy or you have a government dominated by (ex-)communists. Anarchy may be more likely, but it's not necessarily the only option.

 

[Max Sinister]

I'd rather guess a military dictatorship. The bureaucrats may have some experience (40 years after NEP ended, barely anyone will have the experience to run a firm), but the army has the guns.

 

[Jason]

There is a good book called "Resurrection Day" which deals with the Cuban Missile Crisis turning into a war and mostly the after-effects. What is particularly interesting is the war is largely a nuclear exchange between the USA and the USSR. The USSR ends up as a radioactive mess reduced to a medieval level and the USA survives but without several major cities and loses its 'superpower' status. For some reason I can't remember, China collapses as well. Europe comes out almost unharmed and the idea is the USA and USSR are replaced by the older European powers.

The biggest failing is it falls into that 'evil british' category of American fiction as there is a British plot to force the USA to join the Commonwealth

 

[BlackMage]

I'd rather guess a military dictatorship. The bureaucrats may have some experience (40 years after NEP ended, barely anyone will have the experience to run a firm), but the army has the guns.

Yes, but guns don't equal a civil service. A military dictatorship is probably likely, at first, but the bureaucracy, the civil servants, will all date from the communist years-you simply can't run anything resembling a country without a civil service. Grunts with guns simply cannot organise a country.

So even if it is a military dictatorship on the surface, there will have to be large amounts of organisational continuity-basic jobs in administration and organisation will have to be continued, and the only qualified candidates will pre-date the war. So any subsequent regime will be forced to rely on the communists, since (in both a flippant and a very real sense) they're the only ones who know how to run the country.

 

[DAv]

The biggest failing is it falls into that 'evil british' category of American fiction as there is a British plot to force the USA to join the Commonwealth

That and the fact the main character is practically a Mary-Sue.

 

[Chris]

That and the fact the main character is practically a Mary-Sue.

Could we get back on topic, please? I'm looking for titbits of information.

How do you think the US interior would handle the attack?

Chris

 

[Jason]

Could we get back on topic, please? I'm looking for titbits of information.

How do you think the US interior would handle the attack?

Chris

The book does give a good idea-a lot of chaos (I remember a bit talking about refugees being hung from lamposts, mothers selling theirs and their daughters sexual favours for a loaf of bread); a lot of resistance to the army and whats left of the federal authorities as they try to restore order; nucked cities being quarantined off; farmers objecting to their crops and animals being taken by the authorities to feed refugees and the surviving cities; in the aftermath travel restrictions for years...

seriously, read the book if you want a well thought out (apart from the stupid anti-British bit) of what could have happened if the crisis went hot. author Brendan Dubois

 

[BlackMage]

Could we get back on topic, please? I'm looking for titbits of information.

How do you think the US interior would handle the attack?

Chris

Well, the rural states will be better off in a 1962 nuclear war; with only a few dozen shots, the Soviets will be unlikely to risk hitting largely unpopulated areas.

So let's write off the Northeast, much of the west coast, and maybe bits of the Great Lakes. The US interior has fewer big cities, and as such rides out the war much better. But, of course, there's the nuclear launch sites in the West-Bill Bryson comments that Des Moines' proximity to Omaha would contaminate it with fallout in the case of a nuclear war.

But I think that the south-west, in any case, could ride out the war reasonably unaffected-after all, there's no major targets and it's sparsely populated. The same is true to a lesser degree for the West, except Colorado (because of NORAD), and probably the Deep South. Essentially the rural interior states without missile bases. Ironically, most of them are today's Red States-setting up good material for a sequel.

Where the new capital is would be highly variable. Most of the 'traditional' cities of the US are in the northeast, which in any nuclear war would be forfeit due to its high population and economic importance. Could Soviet missiles reach Chicago?

Actually, where could Soviet missiles reach?

 

[Amerigo Vespucci]

Actually, where could Soviet missiles reach?

Depends what missiles you're talking about. Soviet missiles in Eastern Europe are IRBM/MRBM types, with a range of a few thousand miles/kilometers. They'll range over pretty much all of Europe, but can't reach the United States. Except Alaska, of course, which is in range of the IRBM battery in Anadyr.

In terms of long-range assets, the Soviet Union, at best could muster 24 ICBMs and 200 nuclear-armed bombers with enough range to hit the continental United States. At sea, they've only got 8 Hotel-class nuclear ballistic missile submarines, 6 diesel-powered Zulu-class ballistic missile submarines, and 14 Golf-class ballistic missile submarines. That might seem like a lot, but each submarine could hold at most two missiles (most only had one), and they were little more than glorified SCUDs, with a range of no more than 250km.

To make matters worse, the submarines had to surface in order to fire their missiles, come to a complete stop, then wait 10-30 minutes as the missile gyroscopes were spun up. The missiles themselves had a CEP of roughly 4,000 yards -- over two miles. Warhead size I'm a little less sure about, but I've heard several different quotes, mostly ranging from 50kt to 1.1Mt.

Soviet ballistic missile submarines also did not perform regular deterrence patrols at this time, for the most part. There's evidence that a few may have been sent down the coast of the United States during the Cuban missile crisis, but a lot of the presumed tracking records are still classified.

 

[Grimm Reaper]

One obvious issue is key:

Does the war serve in a 'come as you are' capacity, in which case many of the Soviet(and American!) missles may not survive to launch or does Russia strike first, guaranteeing maximum damage to the US, or does the US strike first, which may mean much of the Soviet arsenal is destroyed on the ground.

 

[Grey Wolf]

Read "The Secret State" by Peter Hennessy for some very useful background on Britain's part in this war

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Secret-State-Whitehall-Cold-War/dp/0141008350

For example, having the V Bombers at the end of their runways but NOT at their dispersal fields OTL

And MacMillan to his dying days having nightmares about it all going wrong

There's also an intriguing aside on Penkovsky

And Britain's plans to get the government to shelter in the event of a nuclear attack

Fascinating stuff !

Best Regards
Grey Wolf

 

[Thande]

I like the turnaround idea of refugees from the southwestern US (California mainly) fleeing into Mexico...don't know if it's realistic though...

 

[Amerigo Vespucci]

Read "The Secret State" by Peter Hennessy for some very useful background on Britain's part in this war

Fascinating stuff, Grey Wolf! British involvement in the Cuban Crisis isn't something I've had a chance to study as much as I'd like, aside from the most basic information. I'll have to pick this one up when I get the chance.

 

[BCO]

The top officials in Washington were expected to survive. They knew how many minutes of warning there were, and the weapon's effects.
There were places under mountains to reconstitute the White House, Congress, and Pentagon after evacuation, as well as some standby's in the air.

The Soviets, at that time, planned to use bombers on one-way attacks, doubling their range.

 

[Amerigo Vespucci]

The Soviets, at that time, planned to use bombers on one-way attacks, doubling their range.

To be fair, most American planners did not expect the vast majority of aircrew to return to the United States, either. Badger, Bear, and Bison bombers would be the primary threat to the United States. The Bear is probably the most capable Soviet bomber -- it certainly has the longest range, but I imagine that regardless of the range of the bomber, most of the work is going to be done by missiles.

My thoughts go along the lines of a 10% success rate for the 200 Soviet bombers, 15-20% for NATO bombers, and 75-80% for both sides' land-based missiles. At sea is the greatest disparity, with only 5% of Soviet sea-based missiles hitting targets, and 75-80% of American sea-based missiles.

The difference at sea is due to the vast difference in missile and launching style. Soviet submarines have to surface within radar range of the American coast in order to launch their missiles. In addition, they must wait on the surface as the missiles' gyroscopes spin up. One can only imagine the tension during those 20 minutes between surfacing and launch. That's why I envision only a 5% success rate -- not only do the Soviets have to run an established ASW gauntlet, but they've got to survive surfacing and the time needed to launch their missiles. I predict that their only successes will come in the Pacific, where the deeper waters and wider area minimize Soviet disadvantages. Guam, Pearl Harbor, Okinawa, and likely many of the other island outposts can be hit -- with difficulty, but much less so than the continental cost.

American sub-based missiles, however, are a generation more advanced. The Polaris A-2, carried by most of the US's submarines at the time of the Crisis, can be launched underwater, doesn't require the submarine to expose itself, and can be 2700km (1500nm) from its target. That's roughly ten times the range of the missiles Soviet submarines are carrying.

 

[Tom_B]

Get thee to the archives go

Could we get back on topic, please? I'm looking for titbits of information.

How do you think the US interior would handle the attack?

Chris

You have been on this Board since 2004 and in that time Tom (not Tom_b) put a lot of effort into this very question and there was a very good debate with number of ICBM's and CEP's and reliabilty rates being discussed in good detail. I did think at that time period the role of bombers was being underestimated a tad.

So to paraphrase what Hamlet said to Ophelia:

Get thee to the archives, go!