The Cuban Missile War Timeline

[Thande]

That's true but you also get the affect where perhaps a good idea was discarded in favor of other theories for whatever reason (funding was given over to this method over that one, dislike of a certain tenured professor, etc.). Also with the change in population makeup it is possible that the different crop of children might produce a very gifted person that propels a field in advancement.

That's a good idea, but while pruning scientific orthodoxy can be a good thing, this basically breaks the continuity from teacher to student in a whole host of areas. Records will survive, as will scientists from countries not involved of course, but it's going to be a major setback.

It really comes down to 'yeah some stuff is going to be retarded, and some stuff is going to be more advanced'. In a case like this it is really up to the author of the story and if done right it will be believable.

Of course, you're right.

 

[Shadow Knight]

That's a good idea, but while pruning scientific orthodoxy can be a good thing, this basically breaks the continuity from teacher to student in a whole host of areas. Records will survive, as will scientists from countries not involved of course, but it's going to be a major setback.


Of course, you're right.

Honestly if AV wrote it in a believable way I could see certain technologies decades in advancement of our own even if I personally might think it would have been lagging for decades.

 

[Glen]

Amerigo, I don't think that the science and technology of this world is likely to be advanced in ANY area over our own overall.

The massive loss of life means also the loss of a lot of your brainpower.

This will, well into the foreseeable future, be a much much poorer world economy. There just won't be the resources available to dedicate to pure science or even development of practical ideas.

Once you have the world population recover to more OTL levels (and there is likely to be eventually some increases in population enough to offset the losses, even if it takes a few generations, previous die offs due to war and plague have shown this to happen), then we might see the pace of technological development pick up.

Even areas where this world is more incentivized to develop, like technologies related to the aftermath of nuclear war, are not likely to be more advanced. They might barely keep up with OTL levels given the concentrated investment and brainpower likely to be devoted to it, but even that is in question. More likely people just have to suck up the negative after-effects and move to less damaged areas for a few generations.

Well, the problem is that your statement so general that it's almost certainly wrong. Some areas of technology -- radiation protection, fallout cleanup techniques, burn care, blast-resistant architecture, cancer treatment, and dozens of other things that don't immediately come to mind -- are going to be advanced over OTL.

Others, such as computer and space technology, are likely to be comparatively retarded. The problem with saying something like "technology set back x number of years" is that our current technological paradigm arose out of a very specific set of conditions. Change one little thing, and you'll get vastly different results -- and this is no small change.

The long-term forecast for this TL will be vastly different than anything we're even vaguely familiar with, and I'm not even going to attempt to predict anything specific -- it'd simply be an effort in futility.

Hell, there's even the possibility that we'd see a more-advanced genetics paradigm come out of this TL. With so much funding going into cancer, burn, and other cures, you're going to see leaps and bounds in medical care. This naturally leads to chemistry and genetics, and until the last decade, genetics was something explorable by small laboratories. As you approach today in the ATL, you run into roadblocks posed by the lack of computational power, but in the decades following the war, I could easily see genetics benefiting in this ATL.

 

[Glen]

On genetics in particular....

I don't know that we are likely to see much of a breakthrough here ITTL. While I agree that there is a chance that computer science may not be as retarded as one might at first assume, the application of that science is likely less so do to costs. So there's likely to be a slight retardation of computerized tools for genetic analysis.

However, that's not likely to be the big problem. The development of Polymerase Chain Reaction is. PCR revolutionized genetic science, and likely put us a few decades ahead of where we'd be without it. However, it was the brainchild of one guy who was studying thermophile bacteria. I have a hard time imagining that there will be a lot of people ITTL with enough funding to go off studying hot springs bacteria (raditation resistant bacteria, sure, but not hot springs stuff). Therefore I think it highly likely that we do not see PCR developed until much, much later than OTL, and thus genetics too will be slowed in its developments.

 

[Thande]

However, that's not likely to be the big problem. The development of Polymerase Chain Reaction is. PCR revolutionized genetic science, and likely put us a few decades ahead of where we'd be without it. However, it was the brainchild of one guy who was studying thermophile bacteria.

Yup, and he did it in the corner of a fumehood in my lab building - the Chemistry department - while the nascent biochemistry rivals hadn't got a clue

I should know, I was lectured by one of his workmates two years ago, and he emphasised the fact that this was one of those genius breakthroughs that 'seemed obvious once it was explained to you, but you'd never have thought of it yourself in a million years'.

 

[Michel Van]

The trouble with predicting scientific "progress" after WWIII ...

let say this way is gona be "differently"

example SR-71 vrs Mig-25

Lockheed had utilized titanium for their SR-71 series aircraft

the MiG-25 would largely be constructed of nickel alloy steel.
The steel components of the MiG-25 were formed by a combination of
spotwelding, automatic machine welding and hand arc welding methods!

In MiG-25 the majority of the on-board avionics were based on vacuum-tube technology, not solid-state electronics Transitors like in SR-71

But the MiG-25 flys and the SR-71 stand in Museum....

and wat has that to do with Post atomicwar World ? Alot !
first they try to Rebulid there the destroyed states.
i think that takes 10 year for State with manpower, brains and recourse
for State with with low manpower or low recourse it take longer...

NO. first each state for itself, then help the others. and they use technolgy they have

in 1970´s
there will be State on level of 1962, others on Lower level like 1940 or even Middle Ages in former USSR

now start the scientific "progress" like in radiation protection, medicine, Robotics, Communication, synthetic food.

its depends if there a new "Cold War" between USA and revengeful Europe... wat accelerated the progress

1980´s
Robots not like Robbie, but Semi-intelligent Automatic Factory.
Communication network in form of primtiv Internet like Frencs Minitel

if revengeful Europe builds ICBM they gona test
launch first a Satellite later first, Europe Kosmonaut
ends this in a new Moon Race or World War IV ???

 

[Thande]

If I remember correctly, the Soviet use of thermionic valves (aka vacuum tubes to Americans) was because they're much less vulnerable to the effects of EMP than transistors, important in an assumed nuclear war.

 

[Amerigo Vespucci]

A
This will, well into the foreseeable future, be a much much poorer world economy. There just won't be the resources available to dedicate to pure science or even development of practical ideas.

I disagree. The vast majority of commercial and industrial products we have today did not develop from what you refer to as "pure" research. The vast majority of today's consumer and industrial goods came from commercial laboratories, not government-funded research institutes or university labs. Where goes the funding, so goes development.

Take a look at two differing OTL technology sets -- the space industry and computer technology. In space, you have an almost-entirely government-run system of operation. You have things like the International Space Station, a monumental succes, but only in comparison to the complete lack of progress in other areas. You've got the space shuttle, a twenty-year-old piece of equipment made in a thirty-year-old design and the Soyuz spacecraft, similarly ancient. The most spectacular achievement in space -- the network of thousands of communications satellites orbiting the Earth -- is almost entirely the product of commercial ventures.

Now examine the computer industry. At first, you had a few small, government-run projects (Colossus, ENIAC, DARPAnet -- they're not contemporaries, but they illustrate the government-funded first stage of development). However, unlike the space program, the computer industry didn't stay restricted by government. Companies like IBM, Apple, Commodore, Dell, and hundreds of other household names picked up that technology and ran with it. Though governments funded the initial steps, it is thanks to commercial progress that we have today's Internet and a computer in (nearly) every household, not to mention dedicated computers in nearly every bit of consumer technology sold today. Without that commercial interest, we'd be where we were in the early 1980s, stuck with slow, balky machines attached to a slow, university and government-funded limited network.

The comparisons don't stop there -- examine the differences between the jet engine and the nuclear reactor. Both were developed at roughly the same time, but only the commercial product -- the jet engine -- can be seen everywhere in the world. The nuclear industry, on the other hand, was largely limited to government and very limited commercial use. When restrictions on nuclear reactors were relaxed, you got the TRIGA, the most profitable nuclear reactor in the world. There were more of those produced than every other nuclear reactor type in the world. Combined. And it was a commercial, not governmental venture.

Basically, this all boils down to a single argument -- technological development doesn't come so much from government-funded labs, but from the massive investment that comes from the commercial sector of a free economy. Far more money is available from the commercial sector than the government sector. Kids dream of becoming rock or sports stars -- they don't dream of becoming government bureaucrats.

The development of Polymerase Chain Reaction is. PCR revolutionized genetic science, and likely put us a few decades ahead of where we'd be without it. However, it was the brainchild of one guy who was studying thermophile bacteria. I have a hard time imagining that there will be a lot of people ITTL with enough funding to go off studying hot springs bacteria (raditation resistant bacteria, sure, but not hot springs stuff). Therefore I think it highly likely that we do not see PCR developed until much, much later than OTL, and thus genetics too will be slowed in its developments.

And of course, that development came from a commercial lab -- that of the Cetus Corporation in California, not from a government lab.

Without PCR being developed as early as it was, yes, the study of genetics will be retarded greatly. But who's to say that you won't get an equally-fundamental breakthrough in some other area of genetics as a butterfly from the war? We simply can't predict such things. It's easy to say that something won't happen (and I agree with you that it won't happen the way it did in OTL), but it's nearly impossible to say that something will happen in a certain way this far from the POD.

Forex, we could easily have someone make a breakthrough with D. radiodurans far earlier than in OTL. After all, it was discovered in 1956, and I can easily see a commercial lab trying to splice that radiation resistance into crops. The payoff would be in the billions of dollars -- imagine vast fields of radiation-resistant grain growing across the blackened soils of Russia and Europe. You're going to see millions thrown at this and other problems that aren't present in OTL (water and air filtration, environmental recycling, and others) and many of these projects will create breakthroughs that again, aren't present in OTL. Even with the "brain damage" (if you'll allow me to coin a phrase) of thousands of scientists killed, you can't stop progress.

It's just silly to say that everything is going to be retarded technologically.

 

[Glen]

I disagree. The vast majority of commercial and industrial products we have today did not develop from what you refer to as "pure" research. The vast majority of today's consumer and industrial goods came from commercial laboratories, not government-funded research institutes or university labs. Where goes the funding, so goes development.

Fair enough, except that there's not a lot of money there either in this timeline.

Take a look at two differing OTL technology sets -- the space industry and computer technology. In space, you have an almost-entirely government-run system of operation. You have things like the International Space Station, a monumental succes, but only in comparison to the complete lack of progress in other areas. You've got the space shuttle, a twenty-year-old piece of equipment made in a thirty-year-old design and the Soyuz spacecraft, similarly ancient. The most spectacular achievement in space -- the network of thousands of communications satellites orbiting the Earth -- is almost entirely the product of commercial ventures.

Now examine the computer industry. At first, you had a few small, government-run projects (Colossus, ENIAC, DARPAnet -- they're not contemporaries, but they illustrate the government-funded first stage of development). However, unlike the space program, the computer industry didn't stay restricted by government. Companies like IBM, Apple, Commodore, Dell, and hundreds of other household names picked up that technology and ran with it. Though governments funded the initial steps, it is thanks to commercial progress that we have today's Internet and a computer in (nearly) every household, not to mention dedicated computers in nearly every bit of consumer technology sold today. Without that commercial interest, we'd be where we were in the early 1980s, stuck with slow, balky machines attached to a slow, university and government-funded limited network.

I find this comparison somewhat spurious. The amount of up front investment and the return on investment are nowhere near comparable between these two fields. Other than satellite services and space tourism, I don't see a financial incentive great enough for further innovation on the part of the commercial sector in the near future.

The comparisons don't stop there -- examine the differences between the jet engine and the nuclear reactor. Both were developed at roughly the same time, but only the commercial product -- the jet engine -- can be seen everywhere in the world. The nuclear industry, on the other hand, was largely limited to government and very limited commercial use. When restrictions on nuclear reactors were relaxed, you got the TRIGA, the most profitable nuclear reactor in the world. There were more of those produced than every other nuclear reactor type in the world. Combined. And it was a commercial, not governmental venture.

On this one, I'd say it is fear of nuclear technology that has most hampered its growth. Government regulation is just one manifestation of that.

Basically, this all boils down to a single argument -- technological development doesn't come so much from government-funded labs, but from the massive investment that comes from the commercial sector of a free economy. Far more money is available from the commercial sector than the government sector. Kids dream of becoming rock or sports stars -- they don't dream of becoming government bureaucrats.

Fair enough. However, I would also argue that if you dig deeply enough a lot of that technological innovation you speak of still needed some element of basic science as precursors before getting off the ground. The kind unfortunately that neither private industry nor governments fund nearly enough.

Also, for the purpose of discussing the development of technology within this timeline, whether it is government or private sector innovation is not relevant, as you yourself just mentioned it was 'massive investment' that is needed to keep innovation occuring. There's just not as much wealth in this world for the rest of the twentieth century compared to OTL. Doesn't matter if we're talking public or private sector.

Without PCR being developed as early as it was, yes, the study of genetics will be retarded greatly. But who's to say that you won't get an equally-fundamental breakthrough in some other area of genetics as a butterfly from the war? We simply can't predict such things. It's easy to say that something won't happen (and I agree with you that it won't happen the way it did in OTL), but it's nearly impossible to say that something will happen in a certain way this far from the POD.

True, but given the damage done to the world economy, and the loss of so much talent and probably some knowledge at least (though there is a lot of redundancy still in terms of knowledge, so only very niche knowledge is likely to be lost), it is unlikely for any area of technology to really be more advanced in this timeline. They may have the incentives, but they don't have the resources. I think what you can say is that where they have the incentive to spend their lesser resources are the most likely to keep close to OTL at best.

And while you can always posit a new breakthrough not of OTL, that's a matter of personal taste. I don't think it a high probability event, however. (Actually, I don't think PCR a very high probability event, so in some ways I think OTL got 'lucky'.).

Forex, we could easily have someone make a breakthrough with D. radiodurans far earlier than in OTL. After all, it was discovered in 1956, and I can easily see a commercial lab trying to splice that radiation resistance into crops. The payoff would be in the billions of dollars -- imagine vast fields of radiation-resistant grain growing across the blackened soils of Russia and Europe. You're going to see millions thrown at this and other problems that aren't present in OTL (water and air filtration, environmental recycling, and others) and many of these projects will create breakthroughs that again, aren't present in OTL. Even with the "brain damage" (if you'll allow me to coin a phrase) of thousands of scientists killed, you can't stop progress.

It's just silly to say that everything is going to be retarded technologically.

Sorry, saying it's 'just silly' isn't an argument. I am not saying that everything will be retarded technologically. I am saying that most probably everything will be retarded technologically, though not to the same degrees.

Your proposed breakthrough with D. radiodurans is an interesting idea, except for the fact that there is likely to not be much of a genetic engineering science to do that, and also that even if they made the grains resistant, they'd still be inedible due to uptake of radioactive materials from the soil (at least any soil so radioactive to need such growth).

 

[Thande]

Well, the effects of all that radiation on flora and fauna might well produce some interesting mutation effects which could lead to an earlier understanding of gene knockout, overexpression and so forth - but without PCR there's no chance of being able to do any work to put that into context. And in my view PCR is a one-in-a-million idea. It would be discovered again, of course, but maybe not for a hundred years.

 

[Michel Van]

Well, the effects of all that radiation on flora and fauna might well produce some interesting mutation effects which could lead to an earlier understanding of gene knockout, overexpression and so forth - but without PCR there's no chance of being able to do any work to put that into context. And in my view PCR is a one-in-a-million idea. It would be discovered again, of course, but maybe not for a hundred years.

the joke of history ist, PCR was Discover twice !
in 1970 the Norwegian Kjell Kleppe at labs of doctor Har Gobind Khorana at MIT
Kleppe Paper on PCR mar 1971

But that was forgotten until
1983 Kary Mullis at company Cetus Corporation discover PCR
nasty is that Mullis got the the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1993 and not Kleppe !
wikipedia over Kary Mullis

so if PCR is Discover twice in OTL, why not in CMW time line also ???

 

[Amerigo Vespucci]

Well, the effects of all that radiation on flora and fauna might well produce some interesting mutation effects which could lead to an earlier understanding of gene knockout, overexpression and so forth - but without PCR there's no chance of being able to do any work to put that into context. And in my view PCR is a one-in-a-million idea. It would be discovered again, of course, but maybe not for a hundred years.

Well, I'm not planning to explore the idea. As glen said, there's no way to tell how technological development would progress in this TL, not without a massively expensive (in both time and money) study, and I'm in no position to do that on my own. It's an interesting point of debate, but it's not a question I can do credit towards.

 

[tom]

There may be technophobia too. We have some of that in OTL. I don't think it will go to the extreme of Walter Miller's Simplification but it might slow things down considerably.

 

[Michel Van]

here a Link from www.nuclearfiles.org

Over 20 Mishaps That Might Have Started Accidental Nuclear War

on Oktober 1962 were 9 Mishaps

we are very lucky that we Survived

 

[tom]

Kurzeil's The Singularity Is Near mentions Kennedy estimated a 33-50% of nuclear war at the time. And unless I overlooked it, I did not even see our POD on the list!

 

[Michel Van]

back to Technology
wat about Luddite ?
there will be Groups of Survivors, who blame it on technology
More ironically point is they need technology to survive in devastated zones!
makes Luddite a luxury movement for South America or Australia and Asia

Religion
who gonna react major Religions? wat happen to they believe, Fait ?
Christians, Muslem, Jews belief in the Last Judgment and establishment of the physical Kingdom of God.
and a lot of WW III Survivors gona belief that is happing !
But after the Last Judgment there is NOT Kingdom of God ... but hell on Earth.
(exept Mormon declare US staate UTAH to new Kingdom of God after the war .)

I think after big run to the many standing Churches pray to God for survive the Worldwar III
the Peopel People will be heavily disappointed and "losing they Religion"
and Christians, Muslem, Jews belief disintegrates
there will be small groups of Believers but no Big Movement like Islam today OTL

Hinduism and Buddism on other side gona make it good after War !
they belief on cycle of destruction and rebuild, also on Concept of reincarnation.
for them WW III ist just Fait and the next life will be better....

Confucianism and Taoism ist not a Religion but a ethical and philosophical system
the The afterlife is not a primary concern in those system ; much more on fitting into this world, instead of preparing for the next!
(that point of view include also Shintoists religion)

there will be New Religion after War to Compensate the death old ones.

other Question
will be the Vatican be a Target of a Sowjet Nuke ? they are ideological Enemies !

and if we talking already over the Devil

who will be Nikita Khrushchev and John F. Kennedy postum see by the Survivors ?
as martyrs or biggest mass murderer since Adolf Hitler?
or simply The Devil ?

i can belief that the Name Kennedy or Khrushchev gona be used as a deadly offense/Curse by the Survivors
like "you son of Khrushchev" or "Go to Kennedy"

 

[Matt Wiser]

A couple of nits to pick:

1) There were no Shaddock coastal-defense missiles in Cuba. There were Sailish and Samlet cruise missiles in-country, with the Sailish designated by Ivan as the FKR-1, with nuclear capability, and the nuclear warheads were in Cuba for the FKRs, as per the book Operation Anadyr. The Samlets were pure antiship missiles, and those in Cuba were not nuclear-capable. Neither system had the range to reach the Florida Keys, so 350 KT on Key West or Homestead-Miami isn't likely. Their flight profiles were high-altitude cruise, so the Nikes and Hawks in South Florida have a chance at killing them. FKR's max range was about 40 miles. Samlet's range in the antiship mode was about 20-30 miles, depending on the guidance radar's line of sight.

2) The Soviet MRR in Eastern Cuba didn't have a FROG battery assigned. Unless the Soviets or Cubans can get an FKR down to launch range of Gitmo (possible but not likely given the major USAF, USMC, and USN air activity that they'd have to run a gauntlet of), hitting Gitmo isn't likely to happen. That regiment was commanded by Col. Dimitry Yazov, who IRL was a plotter against Gorbachev in the Aug 1991 Putsch.

 

[Matt Wiser]

One other nit: It's now known that there were no SS-5s based within range of Alaska (all basing was made known via the INF treaty). So the IRBM strikes on Alaska are not likely. DA strikes with Tu-16s, though, are.

 

[Michel Van]

Question to Matt Wiser

were do you find that Inforation ?
I looking Years in Internet after that data !

 

[Amerigo Vespucci]

One other nit: It's now known that there were no SS-5s based within range of Alaska (all basing was made known via the INF treaty). So the IRBM strikes on Alaska are not likely. DA strikes with Tu-16s, though, are.

Yeah, I have to admit a bit of authorial license on that part. I was trying to figure out a way to hit Alaska, and fudged it a bit. I'll have to change that. The strikes on Japan and South Korea also, I think.