Your Favorite Abandoned Cold War Projects

AMF · Jul 24, 2007

For an early British Anti-Ballistic-Missile capability project Violet Friend:
http://www.skomer.u-net.com/projects/violetfriend.htm

If the SR-71 is still too slow, have a look at the Isinglass and Rheinberry projects:
http://www.secretprojects.co.uk/forum/index.php/topic,382.0.html

On a less spectacular note: plastic pipes buried in strategically placed West German fields, filled, in case of a WP attack, with liquid explosives and blown up to create anti-tank ditches.

Ivan Druzhkov · Jul 24, 2007

I've got an old Popular Science issue from the mid-1990s that has a bunch of declassified plans from the Soviet space program. One of the more alarming ones they included was a sketch of a Saylut space station armed with nuclear missiles. I don't think it ever entered the blueprint stage, but it did become the basis of a James P. Hogan novel.

I also have a soft spot for the Buran space shuttles, though I don't know how useful they'd actually be.

Dr Pervez Hoodbhoy · Jul 29, 2007

Berra · Jul 29, 2007

I think under water cities would be cool.

FinalWish · Jul 30, 2007

Someone might have already said this, but I'm too lazy to read.

Tsar Bomba. The Soviets tested one, then never made it again, deciding it was too destructive for practicial use, and they didn't have a plane that could fit it.

That one bomb had half the force of what the real one would've had, and its shockwave was measured on its 3rd pass around the world. If the Soviet Union had mass produced Tsar Bomba, it could have the world at its feet.

Douglas · Jul 30, 2007

FinalWish said:
Someone might have already said this, but I'm too lazy to read.

Tsar Bomba. The Soviets tested one, then never made it again, deciding it was too destructive for practicial use, and they didn't have a plane that could fit it.

That one bomb had half the force of what the real one would've had, and its shockwave was measured on its 3rd pass around the world. If the Soviet Union had mass produced Tsar Bomba, it could have the world at its feet.

But what could carry a Tsar Bomba any significant distance? It weighed 25 tons!

Although, interestingly enough, its radius of destruction if it were dropped on, say, London, would cover all of the UK south of Birmingham.

Fenwick · Jul 30, 2007

fenkmaster said:
But what could carry a Tsar Bomba any significant distance? It weighed 25 tons!

Although, interestingly enough, its radius of destruction if it were dropped on, say, London, would cover all of the UK south of Birmingham.

A cargo ship? Say a cargo ship in Los Angeles, or New York harbor?

Douglas · Jul 30, 2007

Fenwick said:
A cargo ship? Say a cargo ship in Los Angeles, or New York harbor?

Yes. A Soviet Tsar Bomba in a cargo ship at, say, Baltimore would have pretty interesting effects if WW3 began right afterwards...

Fenwick · Jul 30, 2007

Plus this is assuming the Soviets keep the Tsar Bomba at 50MT, and not the 100MT that it orginaly was supposed to be.

So...

50MT
-Blast range 4.6km
-Fireball seen 1,000 km away
-Possible third degree burns 100 km away from ground zero
-mushroom cloud was about 60 km high and 30–40 km wide.
-Atmospheric focusing caused blast damage up to 1,000 km away.

100 MT
-Blast range 9km
-Fireball seen 2,000 km away
-Possible third degree burns 200 km away from ground zero
-mushroom cloud was about 120 km high and 60–80 km wide.
-Atmospheric focusing caused blast damage up to 2,000 km away.

If 100MT thats about the East coast right?

asnys · Jul 31, 2007

Thanks for all the replies!

Definitely going to use eraknoplane, although time constraints mean it'll probably have a pretty minor role. Definitely using some form of Safeguard/Sentinel, although I haven't decided on exactly what.

Tsar Bomba is very cool. I'm not sure if I can use it-at the moment I'm planning on having WW3 start conventional and only go nuclear later, so any pre-deployed Tsar Bombas would have been seized by then. But I may change my mind on that, in which case we can definitely expect a large chunk of the eastern seaboard to be vaporized. One thing: blast radius does not scale linearly, but as the cube root, so the full-strength Tsar Bomba would only have about 1.26 times the effect radius. Also, a cargo ship-born version of the Tsar Bomba would have a much smaller blast radius since it would be detonated at sea level rather than in the air; on the other hand, this would also make the fallout much, much worse.

general_tiu · Jul 31, 2007

Does the Russian "Caspian Sea Monster" hoverplane count?

Michel Van · Jul 31, 2007

fenkmaster said:
But what could carry a Tsar Bomba any significant distance? It weighed 25 tons!

Although, interestingly enough, its radius of destruction if it were dropped on, say, London, would cover all of the UK south of Birmingham.

the USSR build a Rocket for that
called Chelomei's UR-500 later nicname 'Gerkules' later Proton
more here http://www.astronautix.com/lvs/pron8k82.htm

a 100MT H-bom can Destroy a Country like Belgium TOTALLY and I mean TOTALLY Flat Blastet and Burnd
that so 49062,5 km2 !

Bulldawg85 · Aug 1, 2007

Orion Project

Mine is the Orion Project of course.

Larrikin · Aug 1, 2007

That "Thing"

NapoleonXIV said:
Damn, what in hell IS that thing, a real working ground-effect transport?

It must have been SO nice to be a dictatorship, and able to indulge these whimsies.

Is a 'wing in ground effect' craft, or in Russian terminology, and ekronplane. The Soviets made, IIRC, 3 different sized versions, and tested them extensively on the Caspian Sea, hence the nickname "Caspian Sea Monster".

The biggest one, which is the one illustrated was supposed to be able to carry 800 fully equiped assault troops at 400kts for 2,000km. They also armed, as in the photo, it with a battery of anti-shipping missiles to play with the 'Reforger' convoys.

Unfortunately, there is this problem on the open seas known as 'rogue waves', the sea equivalent of ground windshear, which can kick up to something like 150 feet with no warning, and they are evidently much more common than previously thought. Hitting one of them at 20' and 400kts is going to seriously ruin your day.

bekosh · Aug 1, 2007

Fenwick said:
Plus this is assuming the Soviets keep the Tsar Bomba at 50MT, and not the 100MT that it orginaly was supposed to be.

So...

50MT
-Blast range 4.6km
-Fireball seen 1,000 km away
-Possible third degree burns 100 km away from ground zero
-mushroom cloud was about 60 km high and 30–40 km wide.
-Atmospheric focusing caused blast damage up to 1,000 km away.

100 MT
-Blast range 9km
-Fireball seen 2,000 km away
-Possible third degree burns 200 km away from ground zero
-mushroom cloud was about 120 km high and 60–80 km wide.
-Atmospheric focusing caused blast damage up to 2,000 km away.

If 100MT thats about the East coast right?

Actually going from 50mt to 100mt you only gain about 25-50% not 100%. That is why multiple smaller bombs are more efficient than one large bomb.

50mt
Thermal (3rd degree burn) 58km
Blast (Widespread destruction) 26.3km
Blast (Near total fatalities) 9.9km
Radiation (500rem) 6.6km
Fireball (min radius) 2.1km

100mt
Thermal (3rd degree burn) 77.1km
Blast (Widespread destruction) 33km
Blast (Near total fatalities) 12.5km
Radiation (500rem) 7.5km
Fireball (min radius) 2.7km

Nuclear Weapon Effects Calculator
or for a mapping simulator.
HYDESim-High-Yield Detonation Effects Simulator

Krall · Aug 1, 2007

Darkest said:
Project Horizon, a lunar military base by 1967.

Wikipedia said:
The base would be defended against Soviet overland attack by man-fired weapons

Overland attack?! They're on the firkkin' moon!

alt_historian · Aug 1, 2007

bekosh said:
...

HYDESim-High-Yield Detonation Effects Simulator

Is there anything similar that shows London? I'm a Brit...

bekosh · Aug 2, 2007

alt_historian said:
Is there anything similar that shows London? I'm a Brit...

It's just a Google map, you can zoom out and drag the point of view anywhere in the world. Then click "move detonation point to view center".

Or copy and paste this into the Lat/Long box for London. Ground Zero, Westminster.
-0.12518, 51.49478

Ahh. The joys of blowing your hometown to smithereens.

Here's 20kt in downtown West Bend, pop. 30000

AMF · Aug 2, 2007

These are very impressive illustrations of impressive Soviet bomber projects that seem to fit your timeframe:
Tupolev Tu-135

Myasishchev M-20
The planing for the latter project seems to have started in February 1968, the design was finalized as a swing-wing aircraft in 1969.

AMBOMB · Aug 2, 2007

The XB-70.