World War Three breaks out in April 1951

Paul MacQ

Donor
For Russian Targets
How Many Reactors did the Russians have at this point ? And are they in Range ?

Basically Russia is in Range of Nuc's But the US is only a Probable at this point other than a Suicide mission ? good luck with that with the US mass of cover they getting so much warning before you get to the continental US

Alaska not a large Population. Would the US survive probably

I can also see Britain becoming a primary Target. Main thing going for her is allot of experience in Night Fighters and Good Radar Coverage, Smaller Target, But also less Airspace to cover

Things like the Ilyushin Il-28 was available for the Russians but the Nuclear armed version was not on line till 53.
 
Wouldn't the Russian strategists recognize the suicidal nature of a troop advancement into western Europe that might trigger an atomic response from the US? Is there a chance the Soviets themselves would defy Stalin to prevent a war? I am not calling for a second Russian revolution, just a coup against Stalin.

On another subject, if WWIII levels the USSR in 1951, what happens to the space race? The cold war is gone. In OTL, the space race provided the primary impetus to the miniaturization of electronics that led to several generations of microchips, personal computers in the eighties and today's communication infrastructure. There would probably not have been a moon landing. What about satellite based weather forecasting? At what OTL level would technology be today: 1980? 1990?
 
I don't think the Soviet troops would rebel. For one, you're talking about Soviet troops under Stalin, a man who created one of the worst atmospheres of fear in the entire history of world.

Secondly, the ramifications of nuclear warfare had simply not hit yet. For many years after the end of World War II, people in the United States believed that nuclear weaponry simply meant that they didn't need as large of an army, because they could just nuke the crap out of their enemies. We didn't understand the effects of fallout or nuclear radiation to the level we do today.(A level which is full of misunderstandings and mistaken ideals, but understandings nevertheless.)

MAD as we think of it did not exist yet. Therefore there is no specific compulsion to prevent war in that regard.
 
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CalBear

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Troubles would be enormous, I agree, but PVO would nevertheless execute a heavy toll on SAC effort.

Absolutely, which is where the 40% failure rate comes into play

Then there's the issue about how many bombs would be enough? Not all bombs would hit targets, it's 1951 over USSR and not 1945 above Japan. Functional equivalents of thousands of 1951-vintage A-bombs were dropped on Germany and the bombing campaign surely had an effect but only on top of ground offensive coming from two fronts and with overwhelming superiority.

200 nukes would be enough to destroy the main Soviet cities (Leningrand, Moscow, Kiev, Minsk, etc.) completely, along with the major ports, Army and air force bases, and the "closed" cities, along with tactical usage against supply lines and birdgeheads. If that would be enough to end the war, is an open question, but it would absolutely be enough to end the Soviet ability to exercise command and control over deployed forces and to totally disrupt the logistical flow to the Soviet motor-rifle divisions.

It is also important to remenber that a 2 mile miss with a 30kt nuke is close enough to destroy the target & that the USSR would absorb, in a week, more damage than the Germany took in 5 1/2 years of war.
 

CalBear

Moderator
Donor
Monthly Donor
For Russian Targets
How Many Reactors did the Russians have at this point ? And are they in Range ?

Basically Russia is in Range of Nuc's But the US is only a Probable at this point other than a Suicide mission ? good luck with that with the US mass of cover they getting so much warning before you get to the continental US

Alaska not a large Population. Would the US survive probably

I can also see Britain becoming a primary Target. Main thing going for her is allot of experience in Night Fighters and Good Radar Coverage, Smaller Target, But also less Airspace to cover

Things like the Ilyushin Il-28 was available for the Russians but the Nuclear armed version was not on line till 53.

The U.S. would survive even if all ten of the Soviet weapons made it to the CONUS, which is an impossibility. The Soviets simply didn't have enough weapons to be decisive.
 
It is unlikely the Russians would risk a commodity as important as a Bomb to try and get very many to the United States. If the allies take out Leningrad, they might try to fly a bomber to New York. Suppose such a bomber is forced down in eastern Long Island, taking out a relatively small community. Americans will get a first hand view of the impact of an atomic war. The attack would be the only one on North America. Likewise, most of western Europe (outside of Germany) and Britain will be spared.

The aftermath comes quickly: the USSR is crushed. Economies will be strained as massive aid is needed to rebuild East Germany, Poland, Belarus, Czechoslovakia and the like. Most of all, the cold war is over, 40 years before OTL. See my post at #22 for a mention of the impact on the space race and technology.

Another result: perhaps when the US deploys the 15 megaton nuke on Bikini Atoll in 1954, they keep it a military secret and the public never knows about the hydrogen bomb. After all, do we really know that the neutron bomb described during the Carter administration was nothing more than a proposal on the drawing board?
 
200 nukes would be enough to destroy the main Soviet cities (Leningrand, Moscow, Kiev, Minsk, etc.) completely, along with the major ports, Army and air force bases, and the "closed" cities, along with tactical usage against supply lines and birdgeheads. If that would be enough to end the war, is an open question, but it would absolutely be enough to end the Soviet ability to exercise command and control over deployed forces and to totally disrupt the logistical flow to the Soviet motor-rifle divisions.

Offtackle strike plan, April 1950:

- 32 targets in first strike
- 123 targets within first 30 days

That's enough for cities but not enough for major bases, closed cities etc...

It is also important to remenber that a 2 mile miss with a 30kt nuke is close enough to destroy the target & that the USSR would absorb, in a week, more damage than the Germany took in 5 1/2 years of war.

I would disagree, for example a 30kT nuclear weapon missing target by some 2 miles will damage, but not destroy, an industrial facility for example. (2.5 PSI will result in windows and doors broken). Industrial facilities were very difficult to destroy as the USAAF found out when bombing Germany.

Nuclear bombing campaign will break the back of USSR, but it would not have had broken the back quickly as, for example, ca. 1955 and so...
 
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