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Calling a film about nuclear war “best” seems odd, because this is a sobering topic. Many of these films and documentaries are quite entertaining, while others are so bleak and horrifying that one viewing is enough. I hate nuclear weapons and wish I could wave my magic Harry Potter wand and make them all disappear, forever.
This list concerns movies, movie-length documentaries, and films that dealt with the immediate consequences—or pending events—of nuclear war. Therefore, I don’t include such post-nuclear holocaust movies as Nausica or The Planet of the Apes. It was also hard to narrow it down to even 15, so T2, Akira, Wargames and several others didn’t quite make the cut. Also, please note that this list is about TV and theatrical movies (with one exception), so please, no cries of “What about Jericho??”
May the days depicted in these films never come (again).
A virtually unknown and unsung movie, Miracle Mile stars Anthony Edwards as a young man who receives a panicked phone call that warns him WWIII is less than an hour away. He spends the rest of the movie trying to find the love of his life—whom he recently met—before the end comes. Some parts are just plain silly, and parts of the movie scream 1980s schlock, but the build-up works well. The clip is the trailer.
This animated picture shows an elderly English couple slowly dying of radiation poisoning following a nuclear war. In the clip, the couple — a product of an earlier age — don’t fully understand the extent of the devastation that they initially survived.
This 1986 John Kessel play was made into a 1-hour show as part of the short-lived Masters of Science Fiction program. Sam Waterston plays the president, who has lost all memory of the day the world died—or did he? (One of the finest roles Waterston has played.) The clip looks like a promo for the program.
Sure it’s satire, and the picture of Slim Pickins riding a nuke like a bronco is ridiculous — but that’s the point. The clip is that famous scene.
This sober Japanese movie shows how the atomic attack on Hiroshima affected one fictional family. (This is the only movie on the list I haven’t seen yet, but it is highly praised and won/was nominated for several awards. I may move it up after viewing.) The clip is from the Siskel and Ebert review. (I miss Gene Siskel.)
What would happen if the president and much of the government were gone and an unstable man in the chain of succession decided that the only response to a mistaken nuclear attack was to win WWIII? The clip is the last 10 minutes, so don’t view it if you want to see the whole film.
An American bomber squadron receives mistaken orders to bomb the Soviet Union, and all “fail-safe” methods to turn the back aren’t successful. George Clooney directed and starred in a terrific live broadcast version of the original movie. The clip is from the DVD release.
Although the science is more suspect, I like the original Gregory Peck version better than the updated Armand Assante version. In both, nuclear war has devastated the northern hemisphere, and the fallout cloud is heading to a doomed Australia. An American nuclear submarine tries to find survivors. The clip is a rather silly trailer for such a grim subject.
This documentary, narrated by William Shatner, traces the development of nuclear weapons from the very first in 1945 through the first Chinese test in 1964. Most of the major test explosions are shown. The clip shows several test explosions set to the music of William Stromberg, which gives a hauntingly beautiful veneer overlaying the true horror beneath.
A Californian small-town family survives a nuclear exchange, only to experience the decay of everything that once was. Their desperate attempts to return things to normal of course fail miserably. The clip is from a movie review from 1983. It starts about 1.35 into the clip.
This HBO documentary features interviews with survivors of the attacks as well as a few Americans who were in/with the bomber crews. Would that in another 60 years, we won’t be making another documentary with survivors from another nuclear attack! The clip is the trailer.
This BBC documentary uses CGI and more to recreate the attack. Very hard to watch. Even Malcolm McDowell’s notation is chilling. The brief clip is of the black rain that fell on the devastated city, which was horribly lethal to the parched survivors.
Though not as strong as the previous films (and definitely weaker than the next two), The Day After is high on this list because of its impact. The horror portrayed is tame compared to things that make their way on TV and in the theaters today, but this film remains an important cultural milestone. When it was first on, my Dad sent me to bed just after the nuclear attack, and I never saw the rest until 2 decades later. The clip is the attack scene.
This superb Japanese animated film follows a family in 1945 Hiroshima. The tension of the buildup to the bombing on Aug. 6, 1945, is chilling and incredibly done. The attack itself is slowed-down to show gruesome details as only anime can do. Horrifyingly unforgettable. (Think Grave of the Fireflies for emotional impact.) The clip is the attack scene.
This is the bleakest and most depressing movie ever made (outside of, perhaps, Grave of the Fireflies). The BBC made this TV movie that depicts Sheffield, England, just before, during, and well after the nuclear war. There is absolutely no hope or happiness in this movie whatsoever. All is destruction, death, and terrible decline of what remains. The clip is the attack scene.
Buy the DVD at Amazon [Non-US version]
Contributor: STL Mo
. I havent laughed so hard for a long time .
December 5th, 2008 at 1:58 am
good list
December 5th, 2008 at 1:58 am
I don’t like nuclear war movies. I’ve only seen two of these (Dr Strangelove and the Day After) but I didn’t really like either.
December 5th, 2008 at 2:00 am
havent seen any of these films!! Cant see much going on a movie after the nuke goes off :S
December 5th, 2008 at 2:11 am
Depressed now. Boo! ;(
December 5th, 2008 at 2:46 am
I didn’t mention that I’d seen exactly none of the substance abuse movies. I now mention it and add that I’ve never seen any of these nuclear war movies, either. Obviously substance abuse and nuclear war are not on my list of things to see before I die.
December 5th, 2008 at 2:47 am
I saw Threads and The Day After when I was a neurotic gothic moody teenager and these films DID NOT HELP!!! I’m pretty sure there’s no such thing as a good film about nuclear war and I avoided any films on the topic after that. They all suck. Having said that, this is one list that doesn’t inspire me to seek out any of the films .
December 5th, 2008 at 2:49 am
Just another list of films for me to download
Cheers
December 5th, 2008 at 2:59 am
And I thought I got angsty as soon as December hit. Depressing list
December 5th, 2008 at 3:04 am
ligeia: how could you not love Dr Strangelove? It is hilarious!
pyderz: you would be surprised
astraya: if you only see one film from those two lists, see “the day after” from this one – it is a fantastic film.
December 5th, 2008 at 3:04 am
I loved Miracle Mile – but no one else I know ever heard of it!
Threads haunted me for years after I saw it on television. I assumed it was a series at first but it just got bleaker… and bleaker…
December 5th, 2008 at 3:08 am
Didn the little girls in Grave of the Fireflies die from radiation?
December 5th, 2008 at 3:13 am
jfrater: maybe I’m getting it confused with something else, to be honest I can’t really remember it very well. I guess that’s what happens when you watch too many films and smoke too much dope.
December 5th, 2008 at 3:31 am
Hey, erm i’m not exactly the biggest terminator fanboy but i was pritty disapointed to that none of the Terminators were included to this list. I mean the first two Terminators were two of the greatest films of the 90’s and they both focus in on the ultimate inevitable nuclear holocaust.
December 5th, 2008 at 3:37 am
I have only seen a few of these but I agree about Threads. If this is the future after a nuclear war, then I hope I am sitting under ground zero and get it over with right away.
December 5th, 2008 at 3:37 am
Trinity and Beyond is one of my favorite documentaries. It dares to express that there is something hauntingly beautiful about atomic explosions.
December 5th, 2008 at 3:41 am
BTW Ava Gardner starred in “On the Beach” and later said that Melbourne was the perfect place to make a movie about the end of the world.
December 5th, 2008 at 3:54 am
astraya – Whilst I don’t have her exact words to hand, in his autobiography the well-known Australian-born art critic Robert Hughes (author, Time magazine staff writer etc) quoted Gardner as saying : “If they wanted to make a movie about the ends of the earth, they sure chose the right fucking place…”
Enamoured, she obviously was not.
December 5th, 2008 at 4:16 am
Is there any place that sells Threads that will play on a North American DVD player? So far I’ve only found UK and AUS/NZ format.
December 5th, 2008 at 4:26 am
Uh, Nineteenth!
I was forced to watch “On the Beach” while working at a Cold War Museum. It was sad, but should have ended about a half hour before it did- it dragged on way too much.
December 5th, 2008 at 4:35 am
From the infallible-pedia:
“It has often been claimed that Ava Gardner described Melbourne as ‘the perfect place to make a film about the end of the world’. However, the purported quote was actually invented by journalist Neil Jillett, who was writing for the Sydney Morning Herald at the time. His original draft of a tongue-in-cheek piece about the making of the film said that he had not been able to confirm a third-party report that Ava Gardner had made this remark. The newspaper’s sub-editor changed it to read as a direct quotation from Gardner, and it was published in that form. It entered Melbourne folklore very quickly.” and the rest of Australia, too!
December 5th, 2008 at 4:45 am
I’m not sure Black Rain really belongs on this list. The Nuclear War is a very small back story. Otherwise I like the choices.
December 5th, 2008 at 4:48 am
I wonder if “White Light / Black Rain had interviews with any Australians?
One of our neighbours – he passed away about 3 years ago, now was an Australian P.O.W. held in a camp in mainland Japan in the hills behind Hiroshima. On August 6th, 1945 he and all other P.O.W’s were driven into the city at bayonet-point to assisit with the ‘clean-up & rescue’ work post-attack.
His experiences in the city over the next two weeks or so (until the surrender after which they were finally released) drove him to become, at first reclusive and then into overt alcoholism. He eventually “straightened out” – after some years and helped form one of Australia’s (and I believe Melbourne’s first) Alcoholics Anonymous during the late 40’s/early 50’s and remained sober until his passing in 2006.
He occasionally talked about it with me and described the sound of the bomb, the wave of heat and the terrible wind which hit the hills but he would only, rarely mention some of the sights he witnessed on those devastated streets.
One of his admissions to me was – “When I was fighting in the army and a P.O.W., I hated the Japs – not so much the people, but their inhumane military. But after Hiroishima, all I could think about for years was – those poor bastards; how could humans do this to other humans?” He wasn’t blaming the A mericans; he was laming warfare in general and the lengths we will go to succeed at all costs.
Mick died of cancer born of his days in those ‘clean-up crews’ – all his mates from those crews are now dead as well – from the same cancer. Mick was the last
I miss ‘Mick’ – he was a true gentleman with never a bad word about anyone – not even the Japanese!
Wonderful list Stl-Mo – very moving. As you mentioned in your intro to the list and I heartily endorse: “May the days depicted in these films never come (again).”
Amen and Amen
December 5th, 2008 at 5:30 am
JFrater, I thought you weren’t going to make anymore movie lists? Also, I haven’t seen any of these.
December 5th, 2008 at 5:31 am
T-1000 – please read the intro.
Barabas – the little girl in Firelies died of starvation. (I had to check, though, when making the list. It had been a while since I had that movie, so I watched it just to make sure; if it had been radiation, then Fireflies would have been an automatic #1.)
All, yes, it is a very depressing list. But I felt compelled to put it together when I stumbled upon The Day AFter clip on You Tube while looking for The Day After Tomorrow. One thing led to another.
Besides, even though the Cold War is over, sadly the threat of nuclear holocaust remains. Makes me want to hug my family all the tighter.
Thanks, Jamie, for putting this up.
December 5th, 2008 at 5:33 am
Muttley – Wow! Thanks for sharing Mick’s story!
December 5th, 2008 at 5:40 am
A good list. I haven’t seen some of these movies but will try to now. But I don’t see how you can add a movie to this list you haven’t even seen. Sounds like you’re relying on other peoples opinion.
.9 jfrater
astraya: if you only see one film from those two lists, see “the day after” from this one – it is a fantastic film.
I disagree. See all the movies you can and draw your own conclusion. Sometimes the best movies to show human carnage are more subtle, on a much smaller scale and without all the special effects.
December 5th, 2008 at 5:46 am
The Day After was all hype. I watched it when it was first on and then watched it again many years later and it didn’t get any better.
December 5th, 2008 at 5:49 am
i remember watchin number 14 in school
December 5th, 2008 at 5:51 am
I am sitting in South Korea (about 50 km from the border), which (if North Korea has developed nuclear weapons) is on a list of possible targets. There is strong theory that states that if the north does have and use (a) nuclear weapon(s), then the target will be Japan, not the south. Japan has been the enemy since at least the 16th century, and particularly during the period 1910-1945, about which feelings still run high.
December 5th, 2008 at 5:52 am
people really melt that way after nuclear bomb radiation? (as in the hadashi ni gen/n0.2)?
December 5th, 2008 at 6:13 am
great list, I am fond of watching movies of this kind. I will take time to have these to watch. \
Thanks for the list.
December 5th, 2008 at 6:30 am
“When the Wind Blows” has some wonderful music in it by Roger Waters of Pink Floyd.
I saw it just for that and found the story to be sad and touching.
December 5th, 2008 at 6:31 am
My top choice for this list would be “The War Game” produced by Peter Watkins in 1965. It’s a pseudo documentary in gritty British B&W style, and I think presents the post-war environment in a way that is not apocalyptic but extremely chillin never the less.
December 5th, 2008 at 6:33 am
Well now I want to see the Top Ten Most Depressing Movies for the overlap.
December 5th, 2008 at 6:38 am
Hadashi no Gen is pretty cool, the guy who made it also appeared in White Light Black Rain, which is a great documentary
the lists just keep on staying great!
December 5th, 2008 at 6:39 am
While nuclear war is something horrible I could never get myself to feel sorry for the japs as victims of Nuclear warfare. I always saw it as a way of watering down their own faults and taking the victim role. A great example of this is the basically every person from the West (as in anglosaxon countries- that includes Australia and New Zealand) heard about Dresden, Hiroshima and Nagasiki rarely anyone knows about German and Jap war crimes such as the bombings pf Rotterdam, Warsaw or Belgrade, massacre of Nanking and Manilla, Black Christmas, Comfort Women not even going into operation Sanko, concentration camps and the Warsaw Ghetto uprising. Tere were many cities that suffered more (Warsaw being the prime example as after the Warsaw uprising – not to be confused with the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising – the city was burned to the ground and became the most devastated city of World War II (85% of buildings destroyed). Further more the Japs and and especially the Germans had it rather good at the home front for quite some time (especially the germans whose standard of living up until 1944 was higher than before the war – the japs weren’t so lucky but up until 1943 also didn’t have it so bad). I also think this stems from the fact that neither England, USA or Kangarooland and NZ were in fact eever occupied by the axis. England did have the bombings but compared to eastern europe or china it’s barely worth mentioning. America and Down under lands suffered minor inconviences at best. The axis killed more people in Poland, Ukraine or Byelorussia in a year the in GB through out the entire war. And even then it was mostly soldier casaulties, while in Eastern Europe and Asia it wss mostly civilians. While the Germans behaved in Western Europe in the East they let loose. The japs also didn’t hold back in Asia. So it’s pretty hard to feel any sort of sympathy when you walk through a city where on every wall you have a plaque that says here Germans shot 50 Poles or here Germans shot 40 Jews. China and Poland suffered higher loses than the axis and no one cares. There are hardly any known movies about Nanking or the Warsaw uprising (the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising is also unlucky – the pianist is way overrated) . I also didn’t mention the USSR on purpose as for any Eastern European like me they are the same category as the axis only with a different ideology. Not to mention the fact that the Russians count the deaths of Ukrainiens, Byelorussians and other “voluntary” members of the USSR as their own.
But apart from what I wrote above this an interesting list. I’ll have to watch some of these movies. I read the manga barefoot Gen and there is no difference from the movie. I’d even say it’s more terryfing. Also the black rain is freaking scary.
December 5th, 2008 at 6:42 am
Good Job Stl, You have been doing a really good job. Im happy your a fellow st louis native.
December 5th, 2008 at 6:45 am
well, i was having a good day. now i’m depressed…to not see Terminator on this list!!!!
December 5th, 2008 at 6:54 am
why in hells name are the people in the bbc series drinking the god damn rain?
December 5th, 2008 at 6:56 am
Excellent list… although my favorite nuclear war TV memory is the infamous Twilight Zone episode where Burgess Merideth
breaks his glasses.
December 5th, 2008 at 7:13 am
Okay list… though I question the choice of “Trinity and Beyond,” which is a great documentary, yes, but is mainly about atomic bomb testing, not so much war itself. A better choice there might have been “The Atomic Cafe.”
Also missing are the many cheesy flicks from the Fifties and Sixties about atomic war and its aftermath, but as most of these are just that–cheesy–it’s sensible that they don’t appear alongside the likes of films like “Threads” and “Fail Safe” and “Doctor Strangelove.”
I’m thinking of films like “Panic in the Year Zero,” and “Children of the Damned” and such.
However, one truly weird film I’d have inserted here: “The Bedsitting Room,” a British film from the late sixties about the aftermath of WWIII in Britain. Not serious at all–a black comedy/satire more than anything else–but still interesting.
“The Day After” I remember distinctly. I was 18 when that was shown on television, just graduating from high school. It wasn’t the best–”Testament” was far better–but something about “The Day After” got to a lot of us. Scared the beejeezus out of many of my friends at the time.
I’ll say one thing about this, in that vein. What some of these films can do, horrible as their subject matter is, is to teach the younger set out there—those that are in their teens and twenties now, some even in their early thirties–what it was like for us who grew up in the midst of the Cold War. And I wasn’t even there for the truly tense part of it, in the Fifties, and just missed being alive for the Cuban Missile Crisis by a couple years. But even so, growing up in the late Sixties, Seventies and early Eighties was at times filled with a terrifying tension for which kids these days have no concept. The atomic-air-raid drills at school… the constant worry you’d feel when international tensions ran high over some crisis or other–the Middle East, for instance, or Eastern Europe… the concern that it could at any time get out of hand, and get away from us. The fear that maybe the Russians were nutty enough to try a first strike in Europe–we *knew* they could grind right through Germany if they wanted to, in no time–and we’d have to respond with nuclear weapons, and that would be it… the chain reactions would begin, and it’d be the end. It was no joke, and no movie, and it wasn’t funny or romantic or interesting, the way “normal” war can seem to kids, when they see it at a distance.
Now that fear is all gone. I can go home today and turn on the news, and it can be very bad, yes–terrorists can kill hundreds in Bombay or thousands in New York–we can be involved in seemingly-endless conflicts in Asia and the Middle East…there can be constant unrest in and around Israel or Africa… there can be a nut-job totalitarian throwback like Hugo Chavez in South America… and as bad as it all gets, it still never feels like it could spill over into the End. Even with North Korea and Iran trying to get nuclear weapons… even if they could explode one somewhere (please no) killing thousands or millions—it wouldn’t be the same as those years of Mutual Assured Destruction. It may not SEEM better, but in that one sense, it is.
It isn’t just that there isn’t a cold war stalemate between two superpowers anymore, though of course that’s most of it. It’s that we HAD that, we lived through it, for 50-odd years… and we didn’t let it happen. We were sensible enough to step back from the edge. Let’s remember something about that–NEVER in human history–NEVER–have two closely-matched and deeply antagonistic enemies stood face to face like that for SO LONG, and then backed away without destroying each other. There were idiots and whackos on both sides during the Cold War, but it’s reassuring to know that in a larger, more important sense, Americans and Russians were equally sane about it, and we both managed to take a step towards life and the future rather than death and the end. Good for us. That says something nice about the entire human race. Presented with the means to annihilate ourselves, we who have always been self-destructive and erratic at times, as a species, didn’t go for it. We showed restraint and sanity.
December 5th, 2008 at 7:15 am
“On the Beach” has always been my favorite of the bunch. So, in typical Listverse fashion, I read the list title, though of “On the Beach,” and found it on the list. Therefore, this list is stamped with the warrrreagl 100% A+ approval sticker.
December 5th, 2008 at 7:29 am
dr. stranglelove seems like its too low on the list
December 5th, 2008 at 7:42 am
Wow. This is a very depressing subject. But it is a (very important) part of history. Kudos on the list.
Hadashi no Gen is gruesome and horrifying, but that’s because those things actually did happen when the bomb went off. Even though it’s animation, it’s pretty accurate. Definitely not fo those with a weak stomach.
Also, I thought Dr. Strangelove was gonna be higher up, but to be honest I haven’t seen most of the other films and documentaries, so perhaps it’s okay where it is.
December 5th, 2008 at 7:48 am
Wow. So I just watched When the wind blows on youtube after reading this list and it made me cry: ( Animated movies with serious messages really bum me out more then normal films! Great list though!
December 5th, 2008 at 8:22 am
what, no Boy & His Dog?
joke, joke.
gotta love a post-apocalyptic movie staring don johnson trying to get into the pants of every living female left, though.
December 5th, 2008 at 8:27 am
dammien karras – Yes indeed, that was a great Twilight Zone episode.
Lalalilo – I was waiting for someone to bring that up, though I’m a little surprised it took 36 comments.
The Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings were unique in the way that the cities were bombed — but not unique in the scale of destruction. As you alluded to, the Allied firebombings of Tokyo, Hamburg, etc. and the German bombings of London produced widespread destruction and loss of life. In 1945, AT THAT MOMENT, the atomic bombs were seen as a much more efficient way to do something that took fleets of aircraft and thousands of incindiaries and HE.
When putting together this list, I both looked backwards to the atomic attacks from the comfort of 2008, and also kept in mind what an old Marine vet of the Pacific war told me. He said, when I interviewed him about 15 years ago, that he would have been among those who would have had to invade the Japanese home islands. He was absolutely certain that the atomic bombs saved not only his life, but the lives of hundreds of thousands of Americans AND millions of Japanese. With the intensity of the Pacific war only getting worse, he said, if Truman had a way to end it before an invasion needed to happen, then halleluiah.
And while it may seem hard for you to feel sympathy for citizens of Imperial Japan and Nazi Germany, keep in mind that the events in August 1945 were a milestone in human history, and the only — thus far, thank God — episodes of the use of nuclear weapons.
December 5th, 2008 at 8:30 am
Lark
!!
December 5th, 2008 at 9:19 am
T-1000, The Terminator was released in 1984. T2, 1991.
December 5th, 2008 at 9:27 am
Well you don’t have to worry because a lot lot of whats in these films is technically rubbish. Certainly it wouldn’t be nice to be anywhere near a nuclear explosion especially within the outer lethal zone but to portray nuclear war as the ‘end of the world’ was always a lie.
Ironically the most accurate film about nuclear war was probably Akira because it takes society about 20 to 40 years to recover afterwards. In a real war a lot would die – up to 200 to 500 million people, plus another 50 to 100 million from remote radiation poisoning, and the US certainly wouldn’t recover very easily. But many nations wouldn’t even been have hit and at least half the worlds population wouldn’t even be threatened.
As for nuclear winter its all a bit of a fantasy – 100 years ago Mt Krakatoa put 10 cubic kilometers of ash into the atmosphere, as much as thousands of nuclear bombs, and the Victorians survived. As a Gen Scientist I have done environmental analysis of nuclear war and the bitter truth is that in most cases it is actually much greener than modern society.
December 5th, 2008 at 9:30 am
“The Day After” received more hype than any TV movie before or after. Professional counselors and psychologists all chimed in regarding who should watch it, what to do if somebody faints, warnings against watching it alone, how parents should talk to their children, etc. In the end it wasn’t any more powerful than “The Towering Inferno.” The most compelling movie on this awful subject is, IMHO, “Testamant.” The intimate anguish of that film delivers a very powerful blow.
December 5th, 2008 at 9:37 am
Talking about WWII I heard that the biggest military crime of the war was the US fire-bombing of Tokyo. By some estimates it killed in one night more than both atomic bombs put together and more than died in Britain in the whole war. I could also point out that the Nagasaki bomb was particularly ugly because the Japanese were already preparing to surrender and America knew it. They were basically testing their new weapon.
The Nazi’s have the excuse that they were fascists, but we have to face the fact that in the end days of the war both Britain and the US fire bombed civilians en-mass – and largely not even for military reasons.
December 5th, 2008 at 9:45 am
Threads.. I was around 13 when that was shown. Scared the daylights out of me.
It was so ordinary…then suddenly everything went wrong..
It was a scary time, the cold war.
December 5th, 2008 at 10:02 am
lucien: the problem isn’t that the damage isn’t extensive enough, at least for those outside of the immediate blast area. the problem is for the inevitable return volley that is sure to follow.
it would be surprising if a single bomb exploded in the future.
December 5th, 2008 at 10:22 am
I personally think Fail-Safe should be higher (probably number 1) because it’s just so good and where is War Games a British documentry style programme from the 60’s that the government banned at the time and was first shown on the 80’s.
December 5th, 2008 at 10:26 am
*hadashi no gen*
so damn depressing
December 5th, 2008 at 10:27 am
There’s a lot of anti-US hatred on this board. No surprise there. I’ve seen it at this site often. Japan was NOT on the verge of surrender before the first bomb. If they were, how come it took TWO bombs to make them surrender? After the first, they figured that’s all we had and no surrender was on it’s way. After the second they figured we meant business and took the US more seriously. I guess some folks here LIKE the idea of a million Americans dying in an invasion. BTW, good list but DR Strangelove s/be higher.
December 5th, 2008 at 10:29 am
I have to admit, at first I was shocked that Dr. Strangelove placed so low, but after I saw the inclusions of all the documentaries, it made sense. Not sure if I agree exactly with the order, but still a very well through out, researched list.
39. warningdontreadthis: First, whomever the bombs didn’t kill were extremely dehydrated. The bombs evaporated a lot of moisure in the air. Secondly, this was the first time this had ever happened and they had no idea what radiation was. In that position, if I had no water and I was dying of thirst, I may want to risk drinking black rain if I had no idea it was contaminated.
I’ve only seen two on the list (the other being White Light/Black Rain), which saddens me because it’s a topic I am fascinated with. The pikadon classification that came later in Japanese society really intrigued me.
December 5th, 2008 at 10:56 am
I knew Threads would be number 1. I remember the horror of this film 25 yrs on. Cormac McCarthy’s The Road is set to be released next year. I hope it does justice to the book!
December 5th, 2008 at 11:06 am
asmz…………. I think computers are region free in terms of dvds. Not sure I’d recommend Threads though. A scary and thought provoking film, but not exactly a recommendation for an enjoyable evenings viewing. Similarly The Road, when it hits cinemas, not sure I’ll be there. Too grim on a big screen.
December 5th, 2008 at 11:07 am
threads came to mind when i saw the name
December 5th, 2008 at 11:27 am
No Terminator? Sure it wasn’t a purely based Nuclear War flick, but it still featured the devastated, post nuclear Apocalypse world that this list is all about.
December 5th, 2008 at 11:31 am
I saw “When the Wind Blows” when I was quite young. Young enough to be haunted, old enough to know what was going on in the movie. I’m pretty sure it has effected my entire personality since. There are few things I can remember as vividly after so long.
December 5th, 2008 at 11:38 am
Hiroshima Mon Amour is a rather wonderful French New Wave film (in conjunction with a Japanese network) that deals with the bombings of Hiroshima in the only way possible: by avoiding recreation, and displaying the futility of its representation.
December 5th, 2008 at 12:02 pm
I was a freshman at the University of Kansas when they shot “The Day After” there. I finagled an extras part as a “survivor” — they asked us to not shave or bathe for 5 days and wear old, dirty clothes for the part — all easily done as a college freshman. One dorm mate was paid $50 to let them chop his hair up so it looked like it came out in clumps. When they aired the film the following year, Carl Sagan and other radioactive fallout “experts” were on campus to debate nuclear winter, etc. after the movie played — I think on “Nightline.” As someone mentioned, there was a lot of debate about showing the film or not — nightmares and suicides will surely ensue.
As I recall, there were no commercials shown after the attack. It was interesting to see the film show missiles launching from areas of Lawrence that couldn’t possibly be nuclear missile silos. (Or could they…?) This film also ushered in the age of VCRs for my family as my dad bought a top-loading, 100lb unit to record his son’s major network acting debut.
December 5th, 2008 at 12:15 pm
Lucien:
You’re dead wrong on a few points. So listen up.
“…to portray nuclear war as the ‘end of the world’ was always a lie.”
Oh, Lucien? Funny how you’re WAY in the minority in this opinion. The fact is that most military and government analysts long ago admitted that a full-scale nuclear war would devastate upwards of 80% of the habitable areas of our world–we’re not talking about the dropping of a FEW bombs here, but THOUSANDS. Thousands of thermonuclear weapons, the average yield of EACH of which is about 5 MEGATONS.
I’m guessing, Lucien, that you’re a kid. In your 20s perhaps? At any rate, it’s clear you haven’t a clue or a concept. If you’re older, say.. my age… you should be ashamed of yourself. You ought to know better.
“…many nations wouldn’t even been have hit and at least half the worlds population wouldn’t even be threatened.”
WRONG. You clearly know nothing about the established policy of both nuclear superpowers towards the end of the Cold War period. The fact is that Mutually Assured Destruction meant just that–that a war between the US and the USSR was going to be considered a war between the free West and the communist totalitarian states, and if such a war began (with the expected nuclear exchange between NATO and the USSR and/or the Warsaw Pact) then ALL associated countries were going to be considered viable targets–and WERE in fact targeted. This meant that the myth of Australia, for instance, being spared destruction, was just that–a myth. In such a war, all the countries of Europe, Japan, China, Australia, all of Southeast Asia, Latin America, the Middle East and much of Africa were going down with the two superpowers. The Soviets had ALL western nations targeted, as the US had China, Cuba, North Korea, etc. etc. targeted along with the Warsaw Pact nations. In a full nuclear exchange, there is no question that no major city or military installation anywhere in the world was going to be spared. Part of this also had to do with the fact that western installations were all over the planet, and allies of both nations were in each hemisphere.
To deny this is ridiculous; it’s a policy that was well-established and considered the natural course of things should such a war begin–and both American and former Soviet commanders have admitted this.
Your nonsense about Nagasaki is also dead wrong. Japan was no more prepared to surrender when Nagasaki was bombed than it had been when Hiroshima was destroyed.
Clearly, Lucien, you need some major lessons in history. Get them before you go around on the net shooting your mouth off.
December 5th, 2008 at 12:20 pm
I recently watched ‘When the Wind’ blows, a truly amazing film.
December 5th, 2008 at 12:48 pm
Dr. Strangelove has to be much higher, come on have a sense of humor everyone dies sooner or later, I don’t mean that a nuclear holocaust would not be horrible but that’s a hell of a dark comedy one of the best movies period that I’ve ever seen
December 5th, 2008 at 1:11 pm
Two things: About Terminator movies, please see my intro. If I had expanded the list to 20, T2 would have been on it. But as good as the T movies were, the others were better, which is why T2 didn;t quite make it.
Second, Strangelove is great — which is why it’s on the list — but it’s not the best. And yes, it’s definitely better than The Day After, but I placed the latter one so high because of its immediate impact.
December 5th, 2008 at 1:38 pm
41. Randall:…what it was like for us who grew up in the midst of the Cold War. And I wasn’t even there for the truly tense part of it, in the Fifties, and just missed being alive for the Cuban Missile Crisis by a couple years. But even so, growing up in the late Sixties, Seventies and early Eighties was at times filled with a terrifying tension for which kids these days have no concept. The atomic-air-raid drills at school… the constant worry you’d feel when international tensions ran high over some crisis or other–the Middle East, for instance, or Eastern Europe… the concern that it could at any time get out of hand, and get away from us….
****
Randall, I touched on this subject on another list, and the way it has affected my psyche, my way of relating to the world and my own mortality. I grew up in a time where even 8 year-olds were aware of their own mortality.
We were the generation of the Summer of Love, the “hippies”. We were programmed, in a way, to accept the lie of “sex, drugs, and rock and roll”, because we didn’t expect to reach adulthood. No one I knew, including myself, expected to live to 25.
Death was a foregone conclusion.
I can’t watch any of these movies to this day. I still carry the horror of my childhood and adolescence like a touchstone.
December 5th, 2008 at 1:55 pm
What doesn’t seem to be mentioned is that the The Day After was set up to deliberately influence Reagan administration policy and that after the movie there was a panel discussion involving various Sec’ys of State and others, including Henry Kissinger (on NBC, I think). What I remember of it was that was there was no real agreement and Kissinger called the movie itself “silly”. I agree with that. It was a heavy handed attempt to stampede public opinion, probably in favor of unilateral disarmament, which was a hobby horse of the left. Didn’t work since no treaty was sign until the ’90s. I don’t remember exactly so someone correct me if I’m wrong. I don’t think its impact was all that great, overall, other than a brief Count Floyd moment (“Oooooooooh…veddy SCAIREE, boys and girls!). Another in a long line of manipulative movies aimed at pushing an agenda, including this movie’s almost-namesake The Day After Tomorrow, which was the best comedy I’d seen in years.
As for Fail Safe, both the original and the live remake were great, especially the live one. Only a couple of negatives. Richard Dreyfuss as the president? And I won’t spoil it but the ending was ridiculous. I can’t imagine a decision like that being made. Liberals + alcohol (or other) + writers meetings = crass emotional manipulation. Nuclear war is a dead serious subject. Nuclear war movies are mostly not.
December 5th, 2008 at 2:03 pm
Wow. It is appalling to understand just what people are capable of doing to other people.
I was reading comment #41, and the last paragraph really struck me. I read it over several times, and I was amazed at how much sense it made, and I wondered why I had never thought of it that way before. I thought I would send the whole comment to my brother to hear his opinion. Then I scrolled up to see who had written it, and OF COURSE, it was Randall. Thanks for sharing with us. You are an amazing thinker and always add so much to any discussion.
Next time, don’t stay away so long. Welcome back, Randall!
December 5th, 2008 at 2:07 pm
I remember when I saw “When the Wind Blows” a few years ago.
Whew. Just blew my socks clean out the door. Very, very strong movie.
As for “On the Beach”, my wife seldom cries, but she cried several times while watching it a year or so ago.
Also a favorite movie of mine.
December 5th, 2008 at 2:08 pm
Ralph – I though I had implied that, because The Day After is on this list because of its impact.
December 5th, 2008 at 3:04 pm
Had seen the Hadashi no Gen clip before, but didn’t know what the movie was called. That was disturbing.
December 5th, 2008 at 3:12 pm
Clip #14 with the old man and his wife their innocence and naivete mix with the horror of their situation creeped me out.
December 5th, 2008 at 3:31 pm
Can’t sleep…nuclear bombs will get me…can’t sleep…nuclear bombs will get me…
December 5th, 2008 at 3:49 pm
“Oh, Lucien? Funny how you’re WAY in the minority in this opinion. The fact is that most military and government analysts long ago admitted that a full-scale nuclear war would devastate upwards of 80% of the habitable areas of our world–we’re not talking about the dropping of a FEW bombs here, but THOUSANDS. Thousands of thermonuclear weapons, the average yield of EACH of which is about 5 MEGATONS.”
Such arrogance the ignorant have, you sound like a Wikipedia editor. I assume the 80% of Earth you are talking about is that imaginary Earth in the heads of most simple people? a few hundred miles in diameter? The real Earth is 6000Km in diameter with 150 billion km square land surface area. So your 80% damage figue would require some 400,000 five megaton bombs (though radiation would kill all life at between 50,000 and 100,000 warheads).
Ur Randal a few points – Firstly most of that “Mutually assured destruction” stuff was propaganda invented by Thatcher, why would anyone attack countries like Kenya or Sudan or China? In a war between the US and Russia shooting at China would double the number of missiles shot back at you. The truth behind MAD was that the US and USSR were playing a little game where instead of taking the brunt of attack themselves they could pass it off on Europe. It also saved them a lot of money because those orbital space born ICBMs were just too expensive. Not only did the missiles cost a lot but the fuel they needed only lasted a few years before needing to be recycled. In short the number of orbitally delivered warheads was more like 10 or 20 for America and less for Russia.
What they really had was lots of mid range missiles like Cruise and Scud, the SS-20 the Polaris and Trident etc. These are far smaller and carry smaller warheads, they carry multiple small bomblets of 10 to 50 kilotons (sensible because individual warhead reliability is as low as 10 to 30%). Those 5 megaton bombs you talk about are huge things and weigh at least 10 tons and need a big missile or plane delivery.
Those ‘thousands of warheads with an average yield of 5 megatons’ were just a PR lie. Most of those big missiles were already dismantled by the early 80’s.
If you look behind the layers of lies its pretty easy to see that in a real war America would have won, in fact in a first strike Russia might not even have been able to hit back. Russia had basically admitted this publicly since the 70’s, or earlier. The final straw though was the collapse of the Soviet empire after which they simply couldn’t afford such weapons any more. Today America has dismantled much of its remaining arsenal too, again mainly due to cost.
——————————————————-
The funny thing about propaganda and its effect on people is that is that the danger of nuclear war is greater today than its ever been – its just that it wont be that big total war called World War Three. Look at tensions between India and Pakistan, at North Korea, at Israel and Iran, and let us not forget Putin’s Russia. But the biggest danger is from first strike weapons like the B2 and stealth submarines, which push all sides towards firing.
December 5th, 2008 at 3:55 pm
I saw a lot of information films at school in the 80s on what to do in the event of an attack, along with a film that I couldn`t remember the title of but was so powerful it stayed with me and it is the only film I have ever seen that has had such a huge impact on me. For years,( and I was in my teens ) when I heard a plane at night I was sick with fear that it was a missile..
I was then on a quest to find out what this film was, and it was Threads.
Randall, you would definitely be on my “must pick thier brains list
December 5th, 2008 at 6:30 pm
Nuclear war is definitely something I do not want to be a survivor of.
December 5th, 2008 at 6:57 pm
Nice list! My favorite on the list besides Dr. Strangelove of course is Testament. My wife hates depressing movies and still won’t forgive me for making her watch it. I guess she was waiting for a happy ending.
I will have to check out Threads. I think I will ask my wife to watch it with me.
December 5th, 2008 at 7:34 pm
There is something about some things, that connect to memories, when first experienced.
Like Gene Siskel said,”You can only see a movie for the first time once”.
There is a connective tissue that runs back for me, when I was young and watched “The Day After” on Television. I have thought about it over the years but have never seen it again since. The impact was such that for me it was equivalent to a child’s first thoughts of about death, and nothingness, and God, and Santa Claus.
I have only seen three others on your list STL Mo… Which is good. Peeks interest, regardless of subject matter. Broadens the pallet.
Don’t know if it has been mentioned, but, Peter Watkins’s “The War Game from 1965 would make a likely addition.
A couple others that come to mind: maybe “The Atomic Cafe”,
Akira Kurosawa’s “I Live In Fear” or one of his two more abstraction shorts in “Dreams”(the one about the traveler meeting the once-human horned demon and the one titled, “Mount Fuji In Red”).
Culturally, most all 1950’s B-movie monster/aliens films ( of which the like 1990’s Hollywood blockbusters reflected) are nuclear war films, to some degree.
December 5th, 2008 at 7:39 pm
hiroshima mon amour is also pretty good
December 5th, 2008 at 8:02 pm
Wtf no godzilla
the very epitome of the dangers of nuclear weapons
December 5th, 2008 at 8:48 pm
Very interesting list, but I was disappointed that La Jetee was missing!
Opinions?
December 5th, 2008 at 8:58 pm
Nice list. I remember The Day After coming out when I was in the first grade. I distinctly remember the people turning into skeletons before they flashed away. I also remember a few days later when one of our vocabulary words in class was either “disaster” or “catastrophe.” I asked the teacher if this movie would be a good example. She had not seen nor heard of it, so there I am, in my 6-yr-old innocence, trying to explain this and watching the teacher trying to comprehend what I had seen.
Years later, when I understood the film and its meaning, I saw it on SciFi Channel. The final scene stuck out at me. The old man trying to reclaim something of his wife’s (a clock or a watch?) from a looter. There was so much helplessness in that scene.
The year when “Threads” came out, my older brother wouldn’t let me watch it, telling me it’s not the kind of movie I would have liked. I suppose, like “The Day After,” I probably would not have fully understood what I was seeing at that age. Perhaps now that I’ve been reminded of it, I should finally see what I’ve missed.
I remember coming across the Waterston show at random. His acting, as usual, was superb, although somewhat diminished by everyone else’s subpar acting abilities. It was really a great storyline to watch the doctor try to draw a confession from him.
Post 41 about how the Cold War affected us…Yeah, I missed the worst of it (’50s, ’60s), but there was just enough of it in my developmental years of the ’80s that it will always be a part of my psyche. Whenever I hear that a rogue nation like North Korea is developing nuclear weapons, or a terrorist group someplace getting their hands on something like that, I think back to those skeletons I saw on “The Day After.”
December 5th, 2008 at 9:35 pm
RANDALL,
Lucien’s rebuttal shows that he does have many facts behind his argument. He did not respond to any of the personal attacks you aimed at him ( assuming you knew his age and background – therefore assuming he had less life experiences than one our age) His rebuttal was well thought out and replied to most of your objections. I truly love these debates. (Still need to do more research, but I am leaning toward Lucien right now. Spent a few years on a nuclear ballistic submarine in my earliest career, so it does hit close to home)
December 5th, 2008 at 10:16 pm
I was in my 20`s in the 80`s and as I live in Sheffield,threads had a BIG effect on me,when you see a mushroom cloud appear at the end of Fargate (the street they were all running about in blind panic) it does bring it home to you.Talking of the things people used to worry about,I remember listening to Radio luxenbourg and thinking if the Russians attack that will go off the air and I would get an early warning of something happening,also I work for BT (British Telecom) and was involved in putting the lines in that activated the sirens,so I knew where they all were located and I used to think,I wonder which one I will hear when it all kicks off.I concur with the earlier comments that it really was a time of worry..
December 5th, 2008 at 10:31 pm
78. Lucien
“The funny thing about propaganda and its effect on people is that is that the danger of nuclear war is greater today than its ever been – its just that it wont be that big total war called World War Three. Look at tensions between India and Pakistan, at North Korea, at Israel and Iran, and let us not forget Putin’s Russia. But the biggest danger is from first strike weapons like the B2 and stealth submarines, which push all sides towards firing.”
I really think this is one of the most intelligent observations I have seen anywhere. The cold war was about mutual destruction, and that concept really no longer exists. Many nations now have tactical nuclear weapons and can use them as political portrayal of there right to existence. The mutual destruction deterrent really no longer exists. We have a few countries who possess the capability of deploying nuclear weapons and we should be wary of the political climate in these countries. Can we control what happens? Obviously not, but we can have an influence.
December 5th, 2008 at 10:42 pm
Randall, Segue; Funny thing – we’re of an age Randall, we live not far from one another, – and I spent my teen years, aware of the threat, but not terrified. We didn’t have unnecessary (and ineffectual) bomb raid sirens, or a constant exposure to doom and gloom. I wonder how much of the perceived threat was just that, perceived. An even more troubling thought is just how much of it was propaganda on both sides, propaganda used to justify insane defense spending?
December 5th, 2008 at 11:05 pm
90. Mom424
I have been watching the dialogue on listverse for a while. You normally support Randall, and I normally agree with you and Randall.
I do think that the personal attacks on Lucien by Randall were unwarranted and I admire the reply did not address these, and stuck to the facts.
Randall is quick to discourage disparaging remarks without backup from reliable sources. Yet, in the above opinions, he provided no sources other than his opinion. I appreciate anyone’s opinion, but Randall hates anyone expressing an opinion that can not be backed up by another source. I looked through the previous posts and found only Randalls opinion. Is this allowed? Yes!! I do appreciate anyones opinion.
December 5th, 2008 at 11:28 pm
I saw threads in 11th Grade History class… very powerful film. From what I heard that threads was a response to the Hollywood The Day after tomorrow. Not surprised it was number 1.
December 5th, 2008 at 11:30 pm
Your nonsense about Nagasaki is also dead wrong. Japan was no more prepared to surrender when Nagasaki was bombed than it had been when Hiroshima was destroyed.
Clearly, Lucien, you need some major lessons in history. Get them before you go around on the net shooting your mouth off.
December 5th, 2008 at 11:55 pm
The above comment was due to my lack of familiarity with this forum. It was a copy of of a previous post that had nothing to do with my opinions.
December 6th, 2008 at 12:10 am
I have tried to get rid of the above two comments because they were caused with the unfamiliarity of posting to this site .Comments 92 and 93 were a mistake.
December 6th, 2008 at 12:21 am
Dang- now I am depressed. I hope my babies never have to live through this stuff…
December 6th, 2008 at 1:43 am
I just finished watching when the wind blows, it is truly haunting, very sad. I watched bare foot gen a few years ago, and that movie tremendously effected me at the time. The world must never use these weapons, not ever again.
December 6th, 2008 at 1:47 am
Oh, and Randall, you are a demi-god in my self made religion, and my friend is your high preist, if you don’t mind the worship. I wholly agree with you on the issue of the use of the atomic bomb on Japan, and I am of japanese descent. Fight the good fight Randall!
December 6th, 2008 at 2:58 am
Another vote for “Atomic Cafe”. My father used to make nuclear weapons. I was raised during the cold war, influenced by this and books such as Frank’s, “Alas, Babylon” and Miller’s, “A canticle for Leibowitz” Movies such as these, hopefully raised the level of consciousness in a few people, but, sadly, the world will likely see more of the same and probably in “documentary” fashion after the next great tragedy (If anyone is left to hold the camera).
“Science has tasted Sin.”
More’s the pity.
Nice list all the same.
December 6th, 2008 at 4:18 am
Previous experience working at Canada’s government Cold War Bunker tells me:
-Hiding under your desk in the event of a nuke is laughably useless.
-In the 1950s/60s, Canada was worried about 5 megaton bombs dropping on the Capital- so they put the bunker about a 30-40 minute drive out of town and 50 feet underground. Even then, if a 5 megatonner dropped right on that spot or near it, that bunker would have been history despite 40 feet of dirt and concrete, and 3 foot thick concrete walls.
-With eastbound prevailing winds, the bunker was placed west of the city. Hull and Montreal were screwed (apologies to anyone reading this from there), but eventually the cloud would disperse enough so as not to kill everyone in its path.
-The government had a shelter built that could hold 500ish government and military officials-but not their families- for 30 days. After that, hopefully it would be safe enough to come out again. If the bad guys caught on and staggered their bombing, we were screwed.
-Nowadays, bombs are MUCH bigger and MUCH more powerful- the specific numbers escape me at the moment, but there are nukes in existence that can crack the earth’s crust. That means powerful enough to break the freaking planet. Ain’t no one living through that.
I could write a book of useless nuclear trivia I learned while working at that place for four months. But in response to the idea that nuclear war would not doom the planet: maybe not in the 1950s, but these days even if you live through nuclear war, your day to day life would be altered in a fundamental way.
And guess who now lives in one of the industrial centres of North Korea’s dubious ally!
December 6th, 2008 at 4:46 am
“(Think Grave of the Fireflies for emotional impact.) ”
“This is the bleakest and most depressing movie ever made (outside of, perhaps, Grave of the Fireflies)”
After what Grave of the Fireflies did to me, I don’t think I want to watch the last two films on this list!
December 6th, 2008 at 6:59 am
STL Mo,
Sorry, I didn’t read all of the posts, just skimmed. Evelyn
Wood would be ashamed of me.
December 6th, 2008 at 8:09 am
What, no “Damnation Alley”?
Interesting list. Bit depressing watching some of the clips.
December 6th, 2008 at 10:25 am
The title of the list is presently wrong. Until January 20th, the word is “Nuke-u-lur”. After that date, reason and intelligence return to political affairs.
December 6th, 2008 at 11:59 am
Shadow: I don’t exactly know what the question is. Is what allowed?
I usually agree with Randall because he is usually right. Quite the annoying habit he has. That said, I have been known, on occasion, to disagree with him (his music tastes are horrid; loves namby pamby 80’s crap, the kind that disaffected university students listened to while figuring out how Reaganomics was gonna save the poor. While the rest of us were trying to keep a roof over our heads.), and even to chastise him when his reaction has been inappropriate or over the top. I don’t see that here. A little forceful maybe, but I think that is more impatience than nastiness. If you’ve read any of the previous lists you will see that this is far from the first time that Randall has had to correct someone about Hiroshima/Nagasaki and the rationale behind it. He is right-on correct about it btw. It was necessary at the time and it ended the war quickly and efficiently. There would have been many more deaths without it.
December 6th, 2008 at 12:29 pm
#105 The ultimate goal of the bombing was achieved and you are correct in assessment that it very likely would have led to far more horrific bloodshed had the decision been to not use the bombs. This was, at the time, understood to be a decision that would be second-guessed throughout eternity. The decision must be viewed in the context of its time and place. Many more lives were saved than were lost, an extremely bloody and costly war ended at least six months earlier than it would have. It must not be forgotten that this was, above all, a war for the survival of decency and sanity against what turned out to be very evil men who had preempted humanity in their nations.
December 6th, 2008 at 1:01 pm
Lucien:
The ignorant, Lucien? No, try again, putz. I note with interest that you didn’t admit to your age. It further confirms my suspicions that I’m addressing some kid who hasn’t got a REAL clue of what he’s talking about. My sense is that on this topic you’re operating on fumes, and fumes that have been handed down laced with a good dose of BS. Your prattle about propaganda should perhaps be turned in your own direction, since between the two of us, you’re spouting something much more akin to it.
“So your 80% damage figue would require some 400,000 five megaton bombs (though radiation would kill all life at between 50,000 and 100,000 warheads).”
Splitting hairs is no way to win arguments, Lucien. No one ever said that every square inch of the earth itself had to be devastated for it to be a global disaster. What we’re talking about is the annihilation of a large chunk of humanity and the maintenance of what we would call “civilization”… this does NOT require that the entire globe be broiled into kingdom come. YOU were prattling on in your original post about how MOST of the world (presumably meaning most nations and the bulk of humanity as a species) would not be targeted and would not have suffered from a nuclear war—and that statement of yours remains bullshit no matter how much you try to skirt and squirm around the issue now. Presenting the mere fact that the blast and heat damage from thousands of nuclear weapons would not have touched every single inch of ground IS NOT a negation of what I was saying. Rather, it’s a desperate ploy on your part to shore up your bogus reasoning, which was not only illogical, but untruthful to boot.
“…most of that “Mutually assured destruction” stuff was propaganda invented by Thatcher,”
BULLSHIT. Mutually assured destruction was only a TERM that was brought into being later in the Cold War. (as for it being invented by Margaret Thatcher, that too is in error–last I knew it was coughed up originally in the State Department during the Nixon administration). IN FACT, the policies ON BOTH SIDES had been in place since the 1960s–guaranteeing that in a FULL nuclear exchange, allies and associated nations would be targeted–particularly when such nations harbored military bases of one of the superpowers. If you don’t believe this, you need an education. I suggest you go read up in some old copies of Foreign Affairs, THE journal on such matters, as well as The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, which had several articles on the subject back… oh… I think it was in the 70s.
Propaganda? Hardly clown.
“…why would anyone attack countries like Kenya or Sudan or China?”
I never mentioned Kenya or Sudan. China shouldn’t require explanation. But I already explained the policy. Allies, associated nations… particularly those with bases.
“In a war between the US and Russia shooting at China would double the number of missiles shot back at you.”
More ignorance on YOUR part. China, during most of the Cold War, had only rudimentary ICBM technology.
“The truth behind MAD was that the US and USSR were playing a little game where instead of taking the brunt of attack themselves they could pass it off on Europe.”
This is just outrageous silliness. Are you suggesting that in a full nuclear war the US and USSR would not have been devastated? What lives between your ears besides air?
“It also saved them a lot of money because those orbital space born ICBMs were just too expensive.”
In fact, orbital nuclear weapons were banned by treaty, not abandoned out of expense.
Sadly I’m too short on time to continue. More later.
December 6th, 2008 at 1:41 pm
Heart-wrenching stuff. BTW, a sarcastic thank you to many of the earlier posters for making me curious, so I watched Grave of the Fireflies. Never before have I been more depressed.
Having said that, though, the Hiroshima/Nagasaki bombings, while tragic, resulted in fewer deaths than if America had gone ahead with its original plan for an invasion of the Japanese mainlands. It was speculated that, had the American forces actually gone through with such an invasion, many Japanese citizens were willing to give their lives to defend their country and Emperor. The death toll of such an invasion was estimated (by the Americans) to be around one million dead; I’m not sure if that’s for the American forces or if it was a combined estimate for both Japan and America.
Further more, by that point in history, the technology was in place for a nuclear attack. Eventually, a nuclear weapon was going to be used; it was simply a matter of time and place. And, as Randall pointed out earlier (as he is wont to do), ever since the bombings, there has never been another nuclear attack between warring nations. The Eastern and Western powers can yell and rant and make accusations and even become incredibly hostile towards one another, but, having seen what happened at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, there has never been an attempt to provoke nuclear war by either side.
The bombings were necessary, yet tragic. And for the record, I am a 21 year old college boy, just to get that out there.
December 6th, 2008 at 2:06 pm
A BOY AND HIS DOG
How could you miss that one? ;]
December 6th, 2008 at 3:45 pm
Duh!
For a start Randal ‘braniac’ all ICBMs are orbital weapons since they put their warheads in an orbital trajectory and use that to transport them around the earth. Orbital SATELLITE weapons are totally different because they are a first strike weapon and would have pushed everyone towards firing
Secondly the thing about nuclear attack was that both America and Russia only ever had few actual functional long range missiles. Until they started using titanium nitrate fuel they had to use liquid fuel and the missiles took days or even weeks to get ready for launch. The US kept around THREE missiles fueled and ready to launch, but like any spacecraft once fueled they could explode at any instant, and the fuel was highly corrosive so it would rot through the fuel tanks in a few weeks or months meaning that that these missiles would then have to be thrown away.
Even Titanium Nitrate isn’t very nice and only lasts a few years.
The real killer for you though is the warheads 100 kilotons is 50 times smaller than 5 megatons. But more than that the small modern warheads use a different technology that can’t be scaled up. Like I said a 5-10 megaton warhead weighs at LEAST 10 tons – a whole Trident missile only weighs about 10 to 20 tons.
Like I said most real warheads are on mid and short range missiles and guess what very few are in range of the US only a few Russian submarines, if there was a war in the 80’s the Russians were planning to fire mostly at western Europe which they could actually hit. America had weapons everywhere so Russia and eastern Europe were very vulnerable.
To me and my generation MAD appeared in the 80’s and at about the same time as all the stuff about Nuclear winter. Put simply 1000 of the huge test bombs from the 50’s probably would have caused a Nuclear Winter. But 1000 modern warheads is equivalent to only about five or ten of those bombs – about three Chernobyl’s.
By the way I saw When the Wind Blows, Threads et al and so on when I was a kid and was very disturbed by them but the science behind all these films was fundamentally flawed. After Chernobyl they discovered that humans are often much more resilient to radiation. The fears of mutation were also based on an obsolete science.
As for me I’m around 37 a General Scientist specializing in Computing and AI, rocket and space science and Relativity, and as well as this ecology and genetics. I am a ‘futurist’ so a lot of the work I do is speculative. As for my knowledge of all things nuclear my main sources are probably FAS, Wikipedia, and New Scientist plus physics books and other sources – and of course over many years the BBC. Many years ago I did a course that included military physics including nuclear and radiation physics. I also like look in odd places and have many oddments of old data (including some considered extremely classified). Apart from all this I have done quite a bit of research into propaganda and have quite extensive knowledge of politics and secrecy.
From your arrogance I guess your either American or Australian, probably very conservative, probably a supporter of George W Bush? ‘Conservatives’ often seem to be especially gullible about things like government ‘truth’ and propaganda. but then again – do you believe that the Earth was created in 7 days? hmmm..
December 6th, 2008 at 4:13 pm
well…my momma can make a great chocolate cake.
December 6th, 2008 at 6:15 pm
110. Lucien
“As for my knowledge of all things nuclear my main sources are probably…Wikipedia…”
I figure it’s only fair to warn you that you are going to be destroyed for that statement. Oh, and Randall is an admitted liberal (ex-conservative though), but has proven time and again that he has a good grasp of the topics he is discussing.
He’s also ruthless
You’ve been warned
December 6th, 2008 at 6:20 pm
lucien: wow, you were doing good as far as rebutal without raising any hockels. but that last paragraph, just from what i have learned about randall over the past year and change, is going to cause the nuclear bomb of randall’s wrath to fall on you.
you called him several things that i’m sure he will find offensive; conservative, gullible, a literal biblical creationist, and possibly worst of all a W supporter.
heads up.
December 6th, 2008 at 6:59 pm
Hey I was just doing my boring science bit and this rabid dog suddenly leapt at me. I admit some of my facts are a bit flaky but his are ten times more. I’ve been on the internet more than long enough not to like this kind of fight, I guess I should just have shut up but his 5 megaton thing just got to me. I’ve only really noticed Randall here and he does sound very like W supporter.
December 6th, 2008 at 7:52 pm
lucien: it should be entertaining at least. from what i know of him, he might see that as the worst possible thing someone could call him.
December 6th, 2008 at 8:31 pm
I have a bit of morbid curiosity but I suspect Grave of the Fireflies would be too much for me… Sounds intensely disturbing.
December 6th, 2008 at 8:39 pm
116. Nicosia
Forgive me for asking, but when you watch movies, are you a cryer? I gave into morbid curiosity and watched the film on Youtube today…and I assure you, if you are a cryer, you will be bawling your eyes till they dehydrate.
Take all our words for it. It might be the most depressing movie I’ve ever seen. See it if you must, but it’s not going to be pleasant
December 6th, 2008 at 9:17 pm
A crier? LOL I was audibly weeping in the theater when I saw Titanic! I read the description on Imdb… I have a daughter the same age as the main character and couldn’t imagine her suffering through that. I’ll take your advice and skip this one… Extra Zoloft, please!
December 6th, 2008 at 10:48 pm
Kind of a rambling post, but I just wanted to share-
My ancestors were the first settlers in a small town near Hiroshima. They had lived there for many centuries (I’m not hugely familiar with the details), and members of my family and close friends were killed with the bomb. My grandfather somehow managed to survive, but his eye sight was severely damaged. He never talked about the bombing or the friends and family members that were lost. To this day I have no idea how many of my family were killed. To make matters worse, a good portion of my family who were not in Japan lived 10 minutes away from Pearl Harbor. My dad was standing outside watching the Japanese planes bombing the Harbor. If I’m not mistaken, I think he even mentioned that one of the Japanese planes fired bullets at him and his friends. There were also members of my family in California who were placed in camps. And despite everything that happened, my uncles still went and fought in the US army in the 442nd, one of the most decorated units in American military history. My family is still affected by what happened. We have been trying to sell all our land in Japan, but the records to the land were incinerated with the bomb and my uncles who served in the army suffered nervous breakdowns. Somehow, there is no anger in my family for what has happened. I have been to Hiroshima, and as far as I could see, there was no animosity towards the US. I could be wrong, but that was my experience. What has happened was terrible, yes, but what would have happened if it didn’t take place? I’m sure many more people would have died, and I don’t think Japan would be anything like it is today had Japan not surrendered and had the US occupy and help rebuild it. Plus, I will admit that the Japanese themselves were no angels and who knows what they would have done if they were not stopped. I’m not saying that the bombings were 100% the right thing to do, but something had to be done.
I have not seen any of these movies and I don’t think I ever can. If I watch them, I would imagine my family suffering those terrible things. It was hard when I was going through the Hiroshima museum and seeing the exhibits there. Each time I would wonder “Was that person part of my family?”
And has anyone else here have watched the show “Cities of the Underground” on the History Channel when they were in Hiroshima? If I remember correctly, I believe there was one woman who escaped the bombing unscathed because she was in a bunker deep below the city. She had no idea of the devastation until she went outside and saw all the people dying and suffering around the city. She was so struck by what she saw, that she would repeatedly apologized to the dying because she felt so guilty to have escaped from the ordeal unharmed.
December 7th, 2008 at 10:43 am
Has anyone here ever seen “the bed sitting room” its a british comedy set in post nuclear war britan. I think that should have been on the list lol
it shows how they are trying to keep their civilization even after the attack which in the movie everyone calls “the big nuclear misunderstanding” they do things like have a wandering bbc reporter who sticks his head into empty tv frames to give the news, cars being pulled by horses and the catholic church becoming a race of underwater dwellers lol
also people mutate into parakeets and furniture.. and the nation is powered by a excercise bike. it really is a unique and funny film
December 7th, 2008 at 1:02 pm
#110 Lucien
“From your arrogance I guess your either American or Australian…”
As a human being, I take offense at that statement. Are all Irish people drunks or all Polish people stupid or all Jewish people misers? Bigotry is a sure sign of ignorance and only adds fuel to the fire that causes war and the use of nuclear weapons. You need to broaden your horizons and to just grow up. An intelligent “general scientist” would know that you can’t make qualitative conclusions based on such spurious assumptions. You, sir, are a bigot.
And by the way, the correct word after “I guess” is “you’re,” not “your.”
December 7th, 2008 at 1:08 pm
Getting back on the topic, could people really be able to walk around with their eyeballs hanging out like that or was that just an anime touch? I’m talking about Barefoot Gen, of course.
December 7th, 2008 at 5:41 pm
Lucien (50)
But many nations wouldn’t even been have hit and at least half the worlds population wouldn’t even be threatened.
Lets see, All of Europe, All of North America (don’t think that Canada can escape the collateral damage to the US), Russia, China, then just because they also have nukes, India, Pakistan, Israel (which means most of the middle East as collateral or retaliatory). Please where are the remaining three billion people?
As for nuclear winter its all a bit of a fantasy – 100 years ago Mt Krakatoa put 10 cubic kilometers of ash into the atmosphere, as much as thousands of nuclear bombs, and the Victorians survived.
Lets see comparing a singular event on the opposite side of the world at a time when the majority of the world’s dominant technological civilization was on the opposite side of the planet to a widespread event that will cover not only the technological centres but most of the major agricultural areas of the world. Hmm?
(110) *all ICBMs are orbital weapons*
More semantic obfuscation Lucien as your original statement (78)was * orbital space born ICBMs*
*To me and my generation MAD appeared in the 80’s and at about the same time as all the stuff about Nuclear winter. *
Maybe to a youngster like yourself, however your friend Wikipedia has the following to say about Mutually Assured Destruction *This was not fully understood until the 1960s when the strategy of mutually assured destruction was first fully described, largely by United States Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara* ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mutual_assured_destruction )
*a 5-10 megaton warhead weighs at LEAST 10 tons *
Really? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B53_nuclear_bomb
8136 lb = 4.068 US tons
I must say that for a Scientist you really are much looser with your facts than our resident *braniac*
Cheers
Lee
December 7th, 2008 at 8:32 pm
Pray not to be in any kind of these. If these happens, may God, if there is God, Bless your souls, you have a soul.
December 7th, 2008 at 9:06 pm
Have to disagree with your choice of On the Beach .
It’s on my list of worst movies ever. How many times can you listen to Waltzing Matilda ? Yeah I get it already they’re in Australia !!
December 8th, 2008 at 12:20 am
Just a little correction Japna did not surrender because of the Hiroshima nad Nagaskai bombings. Contrary to western historians Japan surrendered because the USSR declared war and the invasion of Japan by them was seen as something much worse then surrendering to the US and beging nuked.
December 8th, 2008 at 7:42 am
On August 10, 1945, after the invasion of Manchuria by the Soviet Union AND the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki by the United States, Japan’s leaders at the Imperial conference (gozenkaigi) decided, in principle, to accept the uncompromising terms the Allies had set down for ending the war in the Potsdam Declaration. It was after several more days of behind-the-scenes negotiations and a failed coup attempt that Emperor Hirohito gave a radio address to the nation, the Imperial Rescript on Surrender, announcing the acceptance on August 15. On August 28, the occupation of Japan by Supreme Commander of the Allied Powers began. On September 2, the Japanese government signed the Japanese Instrument of Surrender, which officially ended World War II.
December 8th, 2008 at 10:00 am
Lucien:
You’re unbelievable. I’ve met a lot of disingenuous, squirmy, amateur polemicists on the internet over the last 15 years who thought they were hot shit and could dazzle the gullible with their bullshit… but you are the first one to ever make such incredibly retarded and utterly senseless assessments of my political leanings on the basis of not only NO evidence whatsoever, but the also get it SO outrageously wrong–when if anything MY statements regarding nuclear weapons policy would have probably been taken, by the average NORMAL person, to support a more or less “liberal” view on the subject—while yours, if anything, could easily be characterized as vaguely supportive of whacko right-wing (or at least ultra-hawkish) views that nuclear war was “winnable” and suchlike.
But let’s get this straight, Lucien, since your logic is so hard to follow (apparently I’m not the only one to think so, gauging from the response you’ve had from some of comrades and friends here) …so it’s your argument that only Americans and Australians can be “arrogant?” Arrogance is a vice confined only to these nationalities eh? Interesting, if only for the absurdity value of the whole thing. The French alone are conspicuous by their absence in your declaration for who is “arrogant” in the world and who isn’t, but that’s just pure comedy, after all… the fact is that arrogance is a failing all humanity can lay claim to, but the fact that you attribute it solely to Americans and Australians says more about YOU than me, sir. I’d almost be interested to hear what axe you have to grind against Yanks and Aussies, odd coupling that they are… but my interest in you is, I’m sad to say, severely limited by the lack of respect you engender in me due to the poor quality of your arguments. Frankly my judgement is that you’re just another blowhard on the internet who has bizarre opinions most likely based on some personal/cultural grudge or bias, rather than on historicity or science… a deplorable matter since you claim to be a scientist yourself. But then, working in the academic world myself, I’ve seen this kind of thing before. Some people are smart enough to stick to their field of expertise, and on other matters are willing to admit that they’re really not much smarter or better informed than the average person, and speak accordingly, and are accordingly careful with their opinions. Others have just enough specialized focus on a single subject to assume that they are wiser on ALL subjects than anyone else they could possibly talk to. I have a strong sense this is you.
It’s amusing that you’ve once again attempted to saddle me with accusations of gullibility (i.e., that I have swallowed some kind of “propaganda”–presumably of a right-wing, kooky American variety) when I am clearly no such lightweight. You, on the other hand, are quick to blunder into shrill pronouncements (the usual error made by people who dislike being challenged by someone they can’t bullshit) of this nature with nothing to back it up. It’s laughable, in fact, that you accuse me of swallowing propaganda when I very helpfully suggested you read up in “Foreign Affairs” and “The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists”… two entities that are A) not known for “propagandizing” and B) are not associated with “right wing” idiocy, nor are they cited by people who truck regularly in nonsense.
In short, your opinions about ME are as lunkheaded and off the mark as your statements about nuclear weapons policy and Cold War history are. You’re an admitted generalist (one wonders if you in fact even possess an advanced degree in any particular topic—you were careful not to admit to one) which ordinarily is a fine thing to be, I think—too many specialists in this world, particularly in the world in which I move—but as occasionally happens, it seems like you’ve come to respect only your own voice and those you hearken to, rather than listening to others.
“all ICBMs are orbital weapons since they put their warheads in an orbital trajectory”
And again, this is more of your (repeated) squirming around a subject. As someone else already pointed out to you–this is not what you had originally referred to (seemingly). Either you express yourself very poorly… or you are shamelessly disingenuous. I suspect it’s quite a bit of both.
“Secondly the thing about nuclear attack was that both America and Russia only ever had few actual functional long range missiles.”
This is just ridiculous. You are attributing a state of affairs that was extant during a PART of the Cold War to the Cold War OVERALL. Missile technology during the Cold War certainly evolved, and you cannot play the game of trying to push your argument by skirting around this fact. You very conveniently bring up titanium nitrate fuels, (as if to impress us) and then speak dismissively about the technology… clearly an attempt at a shell-game form of argument in which you’ll leave the impression that the ICBM capabilities of the US and USSR remained primitive throughout the entire period of the Cold War.
“The real killer for you though is the warheads 100 kilotons is 50 times smaller than 5 megatons.”
This is no “killer” at all, Lucien, as I never maintained that ALL warheads possessed by the US and USSR were thermonuclear in nature (and were thus in the 5 megaton rage). (I believe I said ON AVERAGE or something similar). Again, though, this is entirely disingenuous of you… you are simply attempting to push your flawed reasoning and ill-conceived argument by playing another shell game. Certainly, yes, there are great differences in degrees between the damage and destruction level wrought by an ordinary fission weapon, on the one hand, and a thermonuclear one on the other. But hundreds or thousands of “ordinary” atomic weapons will still devastate and destroy at an untold and unprecedented level, and few cities or infrastructures will survive such destruction without outside help in the aftermath. And the point *I* was making was that in a general, widespread nuclear exchange, the OVERALL infrastructre and support system in the target countries would have been SEVERELY and horrendously compromised–almost certainly to the point of general and total collapse. (And this doesn’t even take into account the effects of fallout, etc. which would further hampen matters). YOU were making the ridiculous claim that a general nuclear exchange wouldn’t have done that much damage and that the world would have easily recovered. This is the statement, quite simply, of someone who doesn’t know what the hell he’s talking about… but is convinced he does.
“But more than that the small modern warheads use a different technology that can’t be scaled up.”
This is simply not so. Though it depends, I suppose, on your definition of “scaled up.” In any case you’re being loose with it and loose with the facts.
“Like I said a 5-10 megaton warhead weighs at LEAST 10 tons”
WRONG. Your information is ridiculously out of date… clearly what you’ve done is read about the ORIGINAL stats on the first thermonuclear weapons, and have made the mistake of believing that this remained the state of affairs throughout the cold war. The FIRST hydrogen bombs were, yes, hugely complex and heavy affairs–the very first, I believe, was in fact a “wet bomb” using liquid hydrogen fuel. But this primitive technology was quickly superseded and improved, and by the 1970s had been perfected. You obviously don’t know this and are simply raising the curtain on your ignorance—which is okay, everybody makes mistakes–but you’re doing to support your own bullheaded belief that you are RIGHT and simply cannot be wrong–the very kind of arrogance which you accused me of so blithely and clumsily.
“To me and my generation MAD appeared in the 80’s”
I can’t help your mistakes and misperceptions. The fact is that MAD as a policy can be traced back at least the Nixon administration, if not earlier. This is, as I say, a fact. It is one of the very REASONS that sparked attempts at Detente and the SALT talks in the first place, Lucien.
Again, you don’t know your history. But you’re all too ready to spout off at the mouth about it.
And I’m not clear… were you denying Nuclear Winter now, as a concept? Or what?
“I am a ‘futurist’ so a lot of the work I do is speculative.”
Which is also, by the way, a good way to describe your grasp of history and policy. I suggest you look more to facts and open up your mind to them.
December 8th, 2008 at 10:08 am
Lucien:
I also note that you admitted to Dischuker that some of your facts are “flaky.” Yes, they are. But one would think you’d ask yourself WHY you would rely on “flaky” facts and then pretend to speak with authority on a subject… and then ADMIT to it!
December 8th, 2008 at 10:40 am
Well of course the atomic bombings also played a huge part in the japanese surrender but not in the way it is shown in the west. With the possibility of invasion by the SU, the Japs where afraid that the atom bombs would leave the country defenseless against the commies and sought peace to what was in their eyes much more favorable (surrendering to America – can’t say I blame them) conidtions.
I just always feel so bitter that Poland despite being an allied nation from the start, was betrayed and sold for the peace of mind of the west. Japan despite all its done went on to become an economical superpower and everyone knows the bombings. Rarely anyone has heard of the Warsaw uprising and even then it is commonly mistaken with the Jewish Gehtto uprising (a beautiful tale in itself too). It hurts my national ego, we won the war, were on the good side yet – lost polish territory and polish cities, lost 6 million citizens, our cultural diversity, our capital and on top of that were subject to 50 years of communist oppession. Japan was on the wrong side, killed millons of people, commited countless atriocities yet everyone feels compassion for Hiroshima and Nagaski and now are a global power. It just makes one wish that we could have lost the war the same way.
But like i said the list is very neat and I did enjoyebarefooted gen. I didn’t like grave of the fireflies or fail safe so much. I also remember when I was little I cried for an hour after wtaching a show on Nostradamus that showed world war III which was supposed to last for 27 years and be filled with nukes flying left and right.
December 8th, 2008 at 11:51 am
Randall, I’ve been following the Randall/ Lucien “debate” with interest for some time now. I have come to the conclusion that you have as much chance of getting through to him as you would cutting a cube of Iridium with a butter knife.
And welcome back. I missed you.
December 8th, 2008 at 12:02 pm
Yeah, but it was really, really funny to hear Lucien a conservative. I shat myself on that one.
December 8th, 2008 at 12:17 pm
#132 Lucien call Randall a conservative, that is.
December 8th, 2008 at 12:47 pm
segue:
Thank you. It’s nice to be missed. Missed you too.
December 8th, 2008 at 3:06 pm
Randall you call me disingenuous and arrogant – I will admit to excessive of the later but not the former. and I admit I play a bit wide with the facts and make use of guesswork. But you’re hardly shy of that yourself -
“nuclear war would devastate upwards of 80% of the habitable areas of our world–we’re ”
(I suppose the ‘habitable’ world doesn’t include Africa, South America, Large parts of Asia and rural China, etc. There are even large parts of the US that would be very hard to hit – including most rural populations.)
“–we’re not talking about the dropping of a FEW bombs here, but THOUSANDS. Thousands of thermonuclear weapons, the average yield of EACH of which is about 5 MEGATONS.”
(No modern missiles carry such large warheads, if 5 megatons was the average how big were the biggest?)
This answers the questions on size -
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_weapon_yield
“I also note that you admitted to Dischuker that some of your facts are “flaky.” Yes, they are. But one would think you’d ask yourself WHY you would rely on “flaky” facts and then pretend to speak with authority on a subject… and then ADMIT to it!”
And you could say exactly the same about yourself 10 times over. (BTW I was being lazy, but I still stand by the assertion that ‘MAD’ was at least partly a lie.)
The first rule of military strategy is ‘lie to the enemy’, if you can convince you enemy you have over 1000 missiles ready to fire when you have 100 then you win both ways. In an actual war you can still completely devastate them, but far better you win the peace. By not building all those missiles and keeping them on alert you save tens of billions, while your enemies go to the wall trying to compete.
And Randall its just your huge self satisfaction that makes you sound like a Neocon. As for nationality, you speak English to well to really be anything else except English, American, or Australian (a far smaller choice). No one French would speak as impolitely as you.
And segue, all he has to do to get through to me is speak with sense and logic and intelligence and politeness, so I guess you were right about that iridium cube.
December 8th, 2008 at 3:24 pm
buc, thanks for keeping me up to date on the state of your digestive tract.
December 8th, 2008 at 3:34 pm
lucien (135)
I admit I play a bit wide with the facts and make use of guesswork.
So in essence the reader can not take any of your Statements at face value?
Cheers
Lee
December 8th, 2008 at 3:36 pm
Thank you, Randall.
December 8th, 2008 at 3:58 pm
In the words of joshcka fischer “Russia?? please, they dont even have money for the fuel”.
December 8th, 2008 at 5:06 pm
An excellent list, perhaps inspired by the recent “Your View” topic comments about the worst human invention?
I have not seen the full film of any of these shorts, but the shorts themselves were powerful enough. I am also too young to have lived during the Cold War, but I imagine that for those who did these films have an even greater impact.
Well done STL Mo
December 8th, 2008 at 7:13 pm
Dr. Strangelove should be #1.
December 8th, 2008 at 8:22 pm
By the way, there is another s(S)hadow commenting on this site.
I am shadow, the other Shadow has done nothing to denigrate my name, but his opinions are slightly different than my own.
I hesitate to interject on the Lucien/Randall debate, but here goes. Both sides have an opinion and I believe they are both supporting it with facts. The idea of MAD is highly complex and highly political. There are numerous sources to support both sides of this argument. Most of the information is (or was – some may now be de-classified under the Freedom of Information Act) Classified, so many of the sources are an opinion based on what was thought at the time. I was involved in this MAD situation while it was occurring the early 1980’s(an officer on a ballistic missile sub). There were many personal and moral issues involved in this. I believed I was supporting my country and peace (MAD was creating this false – or maybe not – sense of peace). I was privy to what was classified and I believe that both sides had enough weaponry to ensure the other would not risk a first strike.
This argument is about what would happen if this weaponry was used in a first strike scenario. Would all weapons be delivered immediately upon a first strike – I think not. Would both sides immediately use all weapons and strike against all targeted opponents as Randall proposed. I Quote:66. Randall -
“WRONG. You clearly know nothing about the established policy of both nuclear superpowers towards the end of the Cold War period. The fact is that Mutually Assured Destruction meant just that–that a war between the US and the USSR was going to be considered a war between the free West and the communist totalitarian states, and if such a war began (with the expected nuclear exchange between NATO and the USSR and/or the Warsaw Pact) then ALL associated countries were going to be considered viable targets–and WERE in fact targeted. This meant that the myth of Australia, for instance, being spared destruction, was just that–a myth. In such a war, all the countries of Europe, Japan, China, Australia, all of Southeast Asia, Latin America, the Middle East and much of Africa were going down with the two superpowers. The Soviets had ALL western nations targeted, as the US had China, Cuba, North Korea, etc. etc. targeted along with the Warsaw Pact nations. In a full nuclear exchange, there is no question that no major city or military installation anywhere in the world was going to be spared. Part of this also had to do with the fact that western installations were all over the planet, and allies of both nations were in each hemisphere.”
I agree this is one scenario, and a great portion of the civilized world would be affected. Even if only major populated areas were targeted the effect on the world economy would be disastrous.
I enjoy the debate and personalities involved in this discussion. Please continue this discussion and try not to make it an argument.
December 8th, 2008 at 8:43 pm
Sorry about the second post, but I had to look up the Neocon reference used by Lucien in post 135. Don’t like comments made just to get under someones skin, but I am sure this comment surely will get Randalls’ ire.
December 9th, 2008 at 4:41 am
Hi shadow Re :143 I should point out Randall’s insults were far stronger than mine and he threw first, and I get the impression thats pretty normal for him.
As for your post, you are far more reasonable and logical and I am sure you are right MAD as a threat was a very effective way of stopping war. Part of the reason I have such a different opinion to others is that I did something of a workup from a green perspective to try to build up a comparison between having a war and continuing as we are now. I was looking at various catastrophic last ditch methods of population control including various types of war. My analysis was very crude in many ways but even so it showed a lot. Nuclear war didn’t actually kill enough people (1 billion) to hugely affect long term population but it would do so much damage to infrastructure that it would have brought society to its knees. If that sounds vicious climate change is predicted to kill up to 2 billion people, while eco-collapse is capable of killing all of us (about 6.5 billion)
I was never saying nuclear war would be fun, especially for those living in cities – but even in Britain today 50% of the population live in rural areas. In America its more like 60 – 70% live in small towns and probably half of them are more then 50 miles from any city. Ironically for Japan its the opposite and Japan is one of the most vulnerable countries on Earth.
December 9th, 2008 at 5:30 am
i hate wars…yet people create wars to make wealth. How can we justify the killings of fellow human beings?
December 9th, 2008 at 6:43 am
Lucien/Randall: There is a branch of Economics called Game Theory popularised by John Nash which was able to interprete the MAD. In Game Theory, there are what we call zero-sum games and non-zero sum games. I think reading this would help sort out a few points.
December 9th, 2008 at 9:52 am
Lucien:
Again, it’s statements like this one below where you show your failure to grasp the science behind collateral damage from nuclear explosives:
“I was never saying nuclear war would be fun, especially for those living in cities – but even in Britain today 50% of the population live in rural areas. In America its more like 60 – 70% live in small towns and probably half of them are more then 50 miles from any city.”
This statement is so rife with things to pick at that I don’t know where to begin.
First of all, you evidently believe that when talking about a full nuclear exchange, the main targets we have to concern ourselves with are cities. Wrong. Yes, most–if not all–major cities were targeted, and thus millions in these cities would have died. But in point of fact, the foremost target were those of military consequence, and in particular nuclear missile silos and air bases from which attacks could be launched. And all of these were located and are located in the very rural areas you dismiss. Now, yes, fewer people are going to be vaporized in Nebraska, for instance (location of not only nuclear missile silos, but a key command center of the American military) than in Washington, D.C. and New York, both of which would have surely been targeted as well. But there were still going to be multiple strikes in the rural areas and near the smaller cities and towns of the west and midwest of the United States (same goes for the vast tracts of the USSR, for the same reason). Moreover, it was known that while the US had strived for precise targeting to “ensure” destruction of Russian nuclear missle sites and bases (how precise has remained largely classified), the USSR, with less sophisticated technology to work with, had instead headed in the direction of overwhelming force to destroy the American counterparts–therefore, warheads with larger yields, and multiple strikes on single targets.
The result, then, would have been multiple and high-yield strikes on targets scattered around the American hinterland… Nebraska, Montana, Arizona, Utah, etc. with attendant damage not only to infrastructure, but also producing great clouds of fallout, the hypothetical tracks of which were plotted numerous times over the years, and were considered certain to bring about the slow but misery-laden deaths of many, many more people than the explosions themselves would have originally killed, and over a MUCH larger area. Fallout, it’s true, is a factor much dependent on the weather–the most dangerous and most highly damaging particles would fall to earth closer to the site of the original explosions in low or light winds, naturally. But we’re also not talking about one or even a handful of nuclear detonations here–but *hundreds* at least. I’ve seen multiple studies of potential fallout damage caused by multiple strikes in the US, and no matter how conservative the estimates, the bottom line is that additional thousands, perhaps millions would have died from the attendant fallout. Add these figures to the counts of those who would be suffering from the near-total destruction of infrastructure that supports civilization (which is a fragile thing indeed) and the picture is OBVIOUS that a full nuclear exchange would have killed an enormous segment of the population but even more would have left the survivors living in a very bleak world with little chance of anything even remotely like short-term recovery. Naturally all of this would have been true in the USSR and Europe as well, and in large parts of Asia and in other parts of the globe to a lesser extent. Add in the possible dangers of nuclear winter, famine, disease and other horrors that would accompany the collapse of infrastructure and civilized life, and it’s easy to see that it’s even possible it could have led to the extinction of our species eventually. Yet YOU were the one who started all this argument with your nonsensical pronouncements about how nuclear war wouldn’t have been so bad and how most of the world wouldn’t have even been affected.
Blast damage isn’t all there is to nuclear weapons, not by a long shot. And while radioactivity and fallout are wild cards (the effects and spread of alpha, beta and gamma particles being very different) the simple fact is that no matter what, the cumulative effects add up to near total disaster for the entire world any way you look at it.
The fact that you dismissed this truth, known for decades, shows right off the bat that you don’t have a grasp of what you’re trying to talk about.
December 9th, 2008 at 10:05 am
Lucien:
Another point. You were, again, being fast and loose with figures. It all depends on how one defines “rural.” The truth is that at present about 20% or so of the US population is what we would call “rural.” These are people living in country settings or in towns with populations up to about 2500. I do not have figures for the former USSR, but one can imagine that for Europe the figures for rural population are in fact even lower.
It’s been known for quite some time now that the population of the globe overall has been becoming more and more urbanized. While this was somewhat less so during the Cold War, it’s also true that the Cold War encompassed a period from roughly 1948 – 1990 or so. A period of some 40+ years, during which the move to urban areas was happening at a pace in the US as well as Europe.
Bottom line: the destruction of the major cities in the US, Europe and the USSR alone would have meant the instant or near-instant death of very significant chunk of the global population. And as I already pointed out, the eventual policy that reigned was that cities in other nations were to be targeted as well. The death count, then, would have risen even more steeply.
You also expressed doubt that these other locales were, in fact, targets. But what you also failed to consider was an additional piece of logic behind it: namely, that it was fully expected that a full nuclear exchange between the superpowers and their allies would have done extensive damage to both sides, leaving each extremely vulnerable. The assumption being that one is going down hard along with one’s opponent, you aren’t going to leave yourself open to attack from other enemies who would view this as a possible opportunity. Moreover, it could never be reliably guessed as to who would attack whom, and when, once the heated stage of war would have reached the point where it was beyond control. Hence it was considered foolhardy to not pre-emptively deal with the possibility, once it was clear that we had started irrevocably down the path anyway.
December 9th, 2008 at 10:41 am
Lucien:
I note with interest, also, that you actually failed to answer ANY of the salient points I raised in opposition to your earlier pronouncements.
“I admit I play a bit wide with the facts and make use of guesswork. But you’re hardly shy of that yourself”
How so? I began this entire thing because YOU had made ridiculous pronouncements about not only the survivability of nuclear war, but also how (evidently this is your belief) the threat of it was vastly overplayed and exaggerated all throughout the Cold War. To support this absurd view, you then brought up out-of-date data and facts which did NOT reflect the state of events throughout the ENTIRE period of the Cold War–and tried to make it sound as though they DID remain the state of things throughout. A totally disingenuous tactic OR a grave and glaring error. There is no third choice here.
“I suppose the ‘habitable’ world doesn’t include Africa, South America, Large parts of Asia and rural China, etc. There are even large parts of the US that would be very hard to hit – including most rural populations.”
AND AGAIN, as I’ve already pointed out, you are conveniently ignoring the FACT that damage from a full nuclear exchange is NOT confined only to immediate BLAST damage. This is, on your part, quite simply and purely IGNORANT.
Yup, in a total, global thermonuclear war, I’d rather be living somewhere in Peru than in Manhattan. But that is slim consolation if a large chunk of the world has been reduced to radioactive wasteland, and the world’s infrastracture has been severely damaged. AND possibly with clouds of fallout from upwards of THOUSANDS of nuclear detonations waiting to drift down god knows where. (Not to mention attendant disease, etc.) The point is that we DON’T KNOW fully or surely what it would have meant, in the end, to the world as a whole. YOU, however, were dismissing the dangers, recklessly and stupidly. The policy makers and analysts, both military and civilian–on both sides–did not, in large measure, agree with you. Rather, what WAS assumed was that the dangers would have been disastrous and, yes, global.
“No modern missiles carry such large warheads,”
Wikipedia is a dangerous source to rely on, Lucien. The recommended path of action is to always verify what one reads on there.
Now, in point of fact the USSR DID maintain, for a time at least, missiles with warheads of large yields. But we are ALSO not ONLY talking about MISSILES here. YOU are stuck on missiles. American military planning, however, was based on a triad, as was the strategy of the USSR to a similar extent. This means not only missile-based warheads on ICBMS and submarine ballistics, but carried by aircraft as well.
But then all this is immaterial. What exactly is YOUR point? What difference does it make if it’s hundreds of multi-megaton warheads and hundreds of lower-yield bombs, vs. thousands of multi-kiloton warheads with a few larger yields accompanying? Between the two, what ARE you getting at? What’s evident is that, again, you were dismissing the effects–a gross and ridiculous error.
“I still stand by the assertion that ‘MAD’ was at least partly a lie.”
When one stands by assertions, one ought to have logical and factual support for them, otherwise one looks foolish. I suggest you get some then.
MAD was NOT solely an American concept. While it was not CALLED that, it was just as surely a view of Soviet policy and planning as well. Now yes, during the time of the Cold War there was disinformation, misinformation, errors and even propanganda about “missile gaps” and such. But all of this largely centered around DELIVERY of nuclear weapons. And the clear result is that, in the end, no one could be sure, precisely, of what would happen and what could be prevented from happening should war erupt between East and West. The bottom line is that there is no mistake about the number of nuclear warheads possessed by both sides–which if memory serves exceeded some 25,000 (and I can’t recall now–the figure may even have been much higher) with rougly 5000-6000 considered “deliverable” at any given time, on either side. That’s around 10,000 warheads (both sides combined)that could be reliably considered as capable of being brought to a target. Given a slow buildup to conflict, one might assume even more would have come into play.
“The first rule of military strategy is ‘lie to the enemy’,”
You’re speaking like a child. The “enemy” strives in every way to gain intelligence on your capabilities and is often successful in obtaining said intelligence. There’s no way for the US or USSR to have “fooled” the other in any long term sense as to the strength of each side’s nuclear arsenal.
December 9th, 2008 at 10:45 am
sugen:
A friend and colleague here where I work (university) is, in fact, an expert on game theory. So I have some idea of what you’re referring to.
December 9th, 2008 at 12:09 pm
I’m very tired of this debate, and I point out again that I’m not the one throwing insults like I’m in a school yard.
Firstly on death by fallout I have one word for you ‘Chernobyl’. At some estimates Chernobyl produced some TEN THOUSAND times the radiation of a nuclear bomb – that is why it killed some 2 to 5 million Russians and up to 100,000 Europeans. Oh no! hang on it killed almost no one. Your fear science has been dead for over a decade Randall.
And I know you don’t really read what I am saying but 5 megatons is still fifty times bigger than 100 kilotons.
And you keep bringing up the number of warheads as 10,000 but this ignores the actual number that get through.
(this is based on a war with todays tech) For America missile reliability is roughly 50% to 70%, but then each missile releases multiple reentry warheads to maximize the number of incoming targets. Individual bomblet warhead reliability is only around 20% but that is the price of extreme miniaturization. Now assume the Russians destroy 5 to 10% with anti-missile defences, that gives an overall penetration ratio of approx 10% so out of 10,000 launched 1,000 get through.
For the Russians the figures are much worse, even if they achieve 10% – 20% reliability their technology is more primitive and far more vulnerable to being shot (by Americas far more advanced missile defences), so the final figure might be below 1% and will approach zero. Like I said Russia’s only real chance of hurting America is with short range sub-based missiles, and even then their tech is far behind. Think of Patriots vs Scuds.
December 9th, 2008 at 12:34 pm
Planes Randall? America wouldn’t need to send planes while Russia’s planes wouldn’t stand a chance, if you can shot a missile at 1500 miles an hour you can shoot a far larger plane at 200.
As you finally asked about what the point was I was trying to make – I could ask the same of you. I agree, no one sane thinks they would have, or will fire. It was always more likely that some kind of EM accident or an unknown object could trigger something – what would have happened if there was another Tunguska event (15 megatons).
Today even that wouldn’t push the red button.
December 9th, 2008 at 1:04 pm
Lucien:
Lucien, surely, you are to bullshit what Coke is to addictive carbonated sugar-water beverages.
“Firstly on death by fallout I have one word for you ‘Chernobyl’.”
And in response I have four words for you: Grow The Fuck Up.
You claim to be a “scientist,” Lucien, but my doubts about that are even more strongly ensconced now. No scientist would make the gravely stupid error of trying to equate the accident (as bad as it was) at Chernobyl with an ACTUAL FREAKING NUCLEAR DETONATION.
To begin with, what happened at Chernobyl was a mass release of radiation and a radioactive cloud, the impetus of which was an explosion caused by, to grossly simplify, a massive buildup of heat and steam within the reactor core, in turn caused by a loss of control over the reactions in the core. This was, yes, a big boom—that can’t be underplayed. But as “booms” go it was nowhere near the explosive power of an actual NUCLEAR explosion via a “runaway” chain reaction, such as what happens in the detonation of a nuclear warhead. The fact that you are trying to compare the two, as if they have ANYTHING to do with one another, is either more of your shameless disingenuousness, or you are simply a flat-out moron whose mouth is way bigger than his brain.
Have you ever read the well-established and published blast studies on nuclear weapons detonations, Lucien? Clearly you haven’t. Let’s just talk about one factor touched upon in those studies: blast force and how it relates to the production of fallout.
Fallout, Lucien, is not simply quantified by the amount of radioactive particles released by an explosion–it is quantified also by how those particles are transported and find their way into the biomass. A multi-megaton blast–or even a more sedate multi-kiloton blast–say, along the lines of the standard “boosted” fission weapons of the US or USSR–is going to produce (primarily out of the blasted and vaporized soil and other debris from the blast zone) a cloud of ultra-fine particulate matter of immense quantity. This is to be expected in an explosion that we’re measuring in the equivalent of thousands of tons of TNT.
Chernobyl, on the other hand, while a terrible disaster, did not produce an explosion anywhere near comparable. (Yet it still released a radioactive cloud which some studies have established as having travelled around the world). As such we wouldn’t EXPECT a fallout production anything LIKE an actual nuclear detonation–and in fact that is not what we got.
“At some estimates Chernobyl produced some TEN THOUSAND times the radiation of a nuclear bomb”
WHERE are you getting this? I have NEVER heard such a figure, and I’m growing more and more suspicious of the “facts” you’ve peddled around on this site. It’s funny, Lucien… a mere cursory glance around the net, and I find this:
“The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) alleges that, while the Chernobyl disaster released as much as 400 times the radioactive contamination of the Hiroshima bomb, it was 100 to 1,000 times less than the contamination caused by atmospheric nuclear weapons testing in the mid-20th century.”
This “400 times” estimate is larger than the ones I’d seen elsewhere, which alleges it to have been no more than 200 times that of BOTH atom bombs dropped on Japan combined. As far as I can tell and as far as I’ve heard, there hasn’t been much consensus on just how much radiation Chernobyl actually produced. But the idea that it caused 10,000 times the radiation of a nuclear bomb is just ridiculous. I’ve never heard this in all the years since Chernobyl happened, and in fact I can’t see how it would even be possible for Chernobyl to have produced that much radiation.
The pattern I see with you, Lucien, is that you obfuscate and distort things you’ve picked up here and there so that they will support your claims, and it seems occasionally even make shit up to make yourself sound more authoritative.
In short, Chernobyl had neither the blast force or the radiation-production power of a nuclear weapon. Hence its effects are not at all comparable.
“Your fear science has been dead for over a decade Randall.”
Afraid not, Lucien. Truth and facts aren’t “fear science.” But at least I AM dealing in science, where you, on the other hand, are dabbling in… something else. The question is why—but only you know the answer to that.
“And I know you don’t really read what I am saying but 5 megatons is still fifty times bigger than 100 kilotons.”
And again, WHAT OF IT? What IS your point? We are NOT talking about SINGLE detonations of single nuclear or thermonuclear devices but MASS detonations of the same. You keep wanting to downplay these as though the effect of hundreds are equivalent to one. It’s ridiculous.
“And you keep bringing up the number of warheads as 10,000 but this ignores the actual number that get through.”
THAT, Lucien, was the number of DELIVERABLE warheads (which as I said, may even have been far higher given time and preparation). There has never been a way to shoot down a ballistic missile reliably, though supposedly these days we’re now there.
“For America missile reliability is roughly 50% to 70%”
AGAIN–where do you get this figure? You throw things like this out there as though no one is supposed to question them. What time period is this drawn from? Where’s the support for it? Where’s the science to back it up?
“Now assume the Russians destroy 5 to 10% with anti-missile defences”
To my knowledge, the USSR had no such anti-ballistic missile defenses. Our own, here in the US, has not been even remotely reliable until just very recently.
“For the Russians the figures are much worse, even if they achieve 10% – 20% reliability their technology is more primitive”
This is amusing. Two countries that routinely fired rockets into space–with a small percentage of failures once the technology was perfected–and you maintain the missiles of both countries–the ones reserved for MILITARY purposes–which are FAR more serious–were in fact not worth shit, in essence. Rubbish.
I have been looking around on the net for a while now, trying to find anything even close to these figures you’ve spat out, and I can find nothing to support them, even remotely. The picture I’ve seen, rather, supports what has been known for quite some time–that through the 60s and 70s, missile technology was improved and perfected on both sides… certainly not to 100% reliability, but nothing like the dire and pathetic figures you’ve tossed out here. Such miserable performance would have in fact negated the entire strategy! What’s the use of a core component of your defense if it’s guaranteed to fail most of the time, and possibly fall back on your own territory? Ridiculous. There’s clear evidence, rather, that missile technology of both sides was, while not foolproof, more than adequate to the task set to it—and that, despite American prattle about “star wars” in the 80s, there was little progress made towards RELIABLE anti-missile defense systems until just recently. Bottom line: most of the missiles on both sides WERE going to get through, and most would have. Add to that the number of bombers and other delivery means, and it adds up to the very kind of devastation that every defense expert I’ve ever read about has attested to.
I can’t fathom what problem you have with this, Lucien, or what your agenda about it is. Apparently, from what I’ve gleaned from your statements, it’s to paint the entire arms race of the Cold War as largely some kind of American plot to demonize the Russians, who, in your view, were technological clods who couldn’t put a missile up, or on target, to save their lives. According to you, American technology was little better, but both sides colluded to maintain the illusion—apparently so that they could build more of these useless weapons systems. Theories like that usually come in tandem with tinfoil hats.
Whatever else could be the axe you have to grind here, I don’t know.
December 9th, 2008 at 1:16 pm
Lucien:
“Planes Randall?”
Yes, Lucien, planes. Don’t even start with me on this. I am the son of a military pilot. If you think none or very few of the planes within the fleets of aircraft maintained by both sides wouldn’t have gotten through, you’re sadly mistaken. Now I’ll grant you, under good conditions, more American planes would have found their way to their targets than Russian planes–probably a lot more. But there is no way to reliably shoot out of the sky whole fleets of aircraft hell bent to get at you. If you’re lucky you’ll get most, but even that isn’t certain.
“if you can shot a missile at 1500 miles an hour you can shoot a far larger plane at 200.”
AGAIN… who SAYS ANYONE could reliably shoot at a missile going that fast and hit it? It has only been done RECENTLY, after all the years of experimentation and hard work.
Not to mention the fact that aircraft are piloted and can employ various countermeasures which missiles are not, to my knowledge, usually equipped with.
“As you finally asked about what the point was I was trying to make – I could ask the same of you.”
You first, Lucien, since you spoke first. MY point is simply to respect the facts and the truth and to make sure they’re conveyed accurately. That is all. So what’s yours?
And it’s nice that you’re so confident that no incoming large meteor or other could trigger a nuclear war today. Given the lowered tensions in the world, it’s a safe bet. But again—you speak CERTAINLY, which is crude and ill-considered. The fact is that even now things still come in from space and are not seen until they’re upon us–it’s happened more than once even in the last year–though admittedly nothing very large, certainly nothing to rank with the Tunguska blast (though such a blast did apparently occur off the coast of South Africa in the 80s). But it isn’t hard to imagine it happening, and in a period of high tension which we can’t foresee right now–but could easily imagine–such a tragic accident could still occur.
You like to dismiss these things out of hand. I keep wondering why. But again and again, it seems to come down to bad science on your part, and a poor grasp of the information and the facts.
December 9th, 2008 at 4:49 pm
That`s it.I want Randall for my lawyer !!
December 9th, 2008 at 5:10 pm
Hey I was not criticizing either the US or Russia, the technology to put even a primitive ICBM into service is pretty steep.
As for reliability even normal space launches are not 100%. NASA (and all maned) launches achieve nearly 100% reliability but only by following extremely elaborate careful safety protocols and their launches are hugely expensive and take months of preparation.
ICMBs do get care and attention but they can’t do engine tests and the like. They use solid rocket motors so launch is a one-off do or die thing. Given all that and that they are stored for years before use 60% to 70% is pretty good, it is only a guess because the real figures are classified.
As for Chernobyl the comment about that was only repeating what I had heard and read, my original source was New Scientist. You mentioned university, well they should have a New Scientist database so why not look it up.
Unlike you I don’t dismiss anything out of hand rather I am simply arguing that the common perceived wisdom may not be 100%. No real scientist likes 100% answers, especially in an environment of high variability, or where there is contradiction. A rule of thumb in science is that answers perceived as certain have a very long habit of being wrong.
I suppose I should apologize for writing a few lazy posts without checking facts adequately or tying in the time-line precisely but I had no idea I was facing a board of enquiry.
December 9th, 2008 at 5:11 pm
Lawyer? No.
I wish I’d had him as a history professor in Uni. I’ve always loved history, and had to teach myself more than half of what I know because the prof in American History couldn’t be bothered most of the time. I was luckier in Russian History, but I’ve spent all the years since Uni reading American History to make up for the idiot who couldn’t be bothered to teach!
December 9th, 2008 at 7:09 pm
What, no Quiet Earth?
What kind of list is this!
December 10th, 2008 at 8:13 am
How do I get the list to STOP sending me notifications of followup comments?
December 10th, 2008 at 8:34 am
“As for reliability even normal space launches are not 100%.”
I never said they were. I also never said that nuclear-tipped ICBMs would have achieved such reliability on either side–in fact, I went out of my way to say that surely the reliability WASN’T anything like 100%. AGAIN, you are the one who made these wild statements of certainty about percentages of success and so on, and apparently without any basis in fact. Particularly when such data is still classified.
“Unlike you I don’t dismiss anything out of hand”
Lucien, I don’t mean to keep picking on you, but I swear sometimes you sound delusional. *I* have not dismissed anything out of hand except your tendency in this thread to blithely throw around data and “facts” which it evidently turns out you had no support for in the first place. I think you didn’t expect to get challenged on the stuff you *assumed* but didn’t KNOW to be fact, and when you WERE challenged, you’ve shifted and backpedaled and skirted around the questions.
You, in fact, began all this by dismissing out of hand the the potential for global devastation of a full nuclear exchange between the US and the USSR–something for which, it turns out, you had no real evidence to back up your opinions. Now, I don’t know what it is you feel *I’VE* dismissed “out of hand,” because I’ve certainly never made any statements to indicate that I believed that global destruction was CERTAIN, nor have I said that the Cold War went down precisely as our governments and military would have us *believe* it went down. In fact, I have no doubt that in many instances our governments and military (in both the western nations AND the east) not only misled us, but also deluded *themselves* on this or that point or other. But YOU were making much broader and more sweeping statements, the nature of which was, it seemed, that you believed the Cold War to have been nothing but some kind of propaganda scare engineered by the United States, and you accused ME of buying into it. And then you proceeded to burp out all this faulty information to support your stance.
Again, I don’t know what your agenda on this topic is; I can only assume, as I said earlier, that given some of your statements, you have some kind of axe to grind in general against the US. If this is not so, then it’s your own fault for leaving such an impression, because some of those statements were pretty clear. And while you made the ridiculously mistaken assumption that I was some kind of jingoistic right-wing cheerleader for American policies (I am not and am far from it) neither do I ignore facts and truths, something which all too many people in this world–including apparently yourself–find all too easy to do. I consider that to be a very bad intellectual habit which poses a danger for our civilization, since a respect for the truth is one of the pillars that supports it. The US was FAR from squeaky clean during the Cold War (or for that matter, is it today) but the idea that it engineered the fears and terrors of said Cold War on the basis of some hidden agenda is quite simply absurd.
“rather I am simply arguing that the common perceived wisdom may not be 100%. No real scientist likes 100% answers,”
I agree. And yet the point is, you spoke repeatedly in terms of certainty without a basis of support.
“I suppose I should apologize for writing a few lazy posts without checking facts adequately or tying in the time-line precisely but I had no idea I was facing a board of enquiry.”
I don’t know what you’d think you WOULD face, when you openly and freely offer up your opinions on matters in public, and present figures and data to support those opinions, which in fact turned out to be challenge-able and in many cases distorted or flat-out wrong.
Sorry you feel defensive about this, but when you present yourself on a public forum like this, I think you should expect it. Personally, I invite it. I’ve learned a lot from discussions and debates with many interesting people on the net over the years.
December 10th, 2008 at 9:37 am
Sigh, I’m new on this site so I don’t want to go stepping on any toes, but I’ve been reading the arguments for a while here and I feel I need to just say something. My age is in the upper 20’s and my background is in engineering, that’s all you really need to know because what I’m about to say education and age doesn’t matter, just simple common sense.
Lucien:
“Planes Randall? America wouldn’t need to send planes while Russia’s planes wouldn’t stand a chance, if you can shot a missile at 1500 miles an hour you can shoot a far larger plane at 200″
I guess first I want to start off with what you said about aircraft. If what you said about aircraft being able to be shot down so easily were true, we wouldn’t be using them in war today would we? Ok, done with that because it needs no further comment cause it’s just so stupid for you to have even said that.
“Such arrogance the ignorant have, you sound like a Wikipedia editor.”
You just denounced your own source here, a shitty one I might add and just single handedly proved your own stupidity and inconsistency with your argument.
Next, using Chernobyl as a basis for a nuclear bomb attack is rediculous. Chenobyl was an accident. It’s not like it was planned to have a meltdown and they did everything they could to stop it. True, nuclear chemicals did get into the air, and fallout did occur, yet the death toll was still low. Why? Because they evactuated everyone within a 30km radius. Some people were affected mostly clean-up workers and a some towns people however most did survive. But this does not prove the idea that if there were a global nuclear war with GUIDED BOMBS (NOT ACCIDENTALLY EXPLODING REACTORS WITH CLEANUP CREWS)hitting multiple cities people would survive and only a small percentage of the world would be affected. That’s just stupid.
“The point is that we DON’T KNOW fully or surely what it would have meant, in the end, to the world as a whole. YOU, however, were dismissing the dangers, recklessly and stupidly. The policy makers and analysts, both military and civilian–on both sides–did not, in large measure, agree with you. Rather, what WAS assumed was that the dangers would have been disastrous and, yes, global.”
Randall:
I couldn’t agree with you more here. I read both your arguments and the main point it comes down to is that Lucien is down-playing the truth of what could really happen in a global nuclear war. If what we are saying here, just ot be clear, if country A and country B were to destroy each other would the end of the world come about. If they were 2 super powers like the US and USSR (was), yes there’s a high chance. For arguments sake you guys listed thousands of bombs, lets reduce that to every major city in the country and every state capitol. That’s about 100 to 150 give or take:
1. The global economy would be crushed. Contry’s that rely on either country for trade, allied support, whatever are either gonna hurt or be finished.
2. Any neighboring countries will feel the effects; Canada, South America, Europe, Asia.
3. Any surving family members with realtives in the countries destroyed would be devestated greatly decreasing human morale and with a country as large as the US or Russia you can only imagine how many people we’re talking not to mention those who just feel bad because of the loss of human life.
4. The fallout danger won’t be just from radiation, water can be contaminated, the earth’s climate, and who knows what else.
So again Lucien these are just some simple facts, nothing crazy. No one really knows if the world the full effects of a nuclear war, but it’s hard to argue that it would not mean the end of the world. I’m not claiming to be a scientist and I didn’t get my facts off of Wikipedia, it’s just common sense.
December 10th, 2008 at 12:28 pm
Mike D – Um, It’s a list about nuclear war movies. The Quiet Earth movie and book were not about nuclear war, but a disaster from a scientific experiment.
December 10th, 2008 at 12:32 pm
“Special Bulletin,” a 1983 TV Movie, was a fairly interesting movie about nuclear war. It’s entirely from the point of view of a local news station and is done in the style of a “breaking news” segment. The plot concerns a group of anti-nuclear activists who hijack a boat and threaten to blow up a nuclear bomb in Virginia.
December 10th, 2008 at 12:43 pm
Peter:
I remember that one. Another one that scared the poop outta me.
I can’t recall now if it was really any good though. Have you seen it recently?
December 10th, 2008 at 1:54 pm
Thanks for the list I watched The Day After & Threads one after the other. Interesting films realistic and frightening.
I preferred threads as I felt it best demonstrated what “after” could be like
Paul
December 10th, 2008 at 2:04 pm
History repeats. The real deal will probably be the packys. Not to long ago US intell found one of their planes with a nuke waiting on the tarmack for India. Somehow they listened an didn’t. Threemile Island and other Nuclear accidents help define domestic saftey,surly it’s been along time since the WW2 generation. Will anyone be around to make a documentary of the next nuclear statment?
December 10th, 2008 at 2:40 pm
By the way anyone know where I can find Threads? All the DVD versions say U.K. players only and I don’t have one.
Thanks
December 11th, 2008 at 12:37 pm
when the genie gets out of the bottle, it’s often impossible to get him back in…such is the case with nuclear weapons.
J. Robert Oppenheimer seemed to understand what he helped to unleash, he’s quoted as saying “I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds”.
December 12th, 2008 at 10:56 pm
A “full” nuclear exchange between the superpowers would not involve thousands of warheads. There would likely be several hundred fired from each side, probably no more than four or five hundred, because they’d have to take into consideration their future defensive capablilties.
Then you’d have to figure that maybe 5%-10% of the exchanged ICBM’s probably wouldn’t detonate due to technical malfunction. Remember these rockets and their aging warheads have been maintained (but not tested) for decades.
Nonetheless, it would be a horrific turn of events, with hundreds of millions of people being killed outright, and hundreds of millions more dying of radiation sickness and disease for decades afterward. Then you have to consider reproduction and the problem of sterility.
The question is, would humankind survive such an insult? Probably, although not unscathed. Genetic mutations would ensue and change the DNA of humans forever. Let’s hope we never find out the truth.
January 2nd, 2009 at 7:41 pm
WoW! I remember the first time I has seen the movie “Threads”.
It was back in high school. Couldn’t be leave they would show that movie in school.
I am also surprised nobody had bothered to memtion this movie.
A documentary called “Countdown To Looking Glass” 1984
January 5th, 2009 at 9:55 pm
As someone who used to be in the ‘delivery business’ – I found “The Day After” particularly hard to deal with. I used to drive by the missile silos in North Dakota, and wonder what I would do if I saw the door slide away and the missiles arc over the poles. This is the single most horrifying image that “The Day After” portrays, IMHO. Everytime I see that movie, I have nightmares for days afterward.
For the idiots who believe that we would have won in a general nuclear exchange, I offer this observation. I live near the site of the recent railroad accident in Chatsworth, CA, just north of downtown Los Angeles. About 50 people were injured in this accident, and they swamped the hospital facilities for miles around. Instead of 50 people, try to imagine how any city might handle 50 thousand people, with injuries ranging from minor cuts and bruises on up through severe radiation poisoning and burns. There is no way in the world we’d be able to deal with that, our system would collapse completely. Not discounting of course, that many of those hospitals themselves would be destroyed/damaged in the exchange.
We’d also have to deal with the loss of infrastructure. The boards for “Jericho” tried to discuss some of those problems, based on the target list that the series generated. Look for any city greater than maybe a hundred thousand people, and you are looking at a target for at least one weapon. Big cities would get more. Where would our economy be without Boston, NYC, Chicago, Dallas, Denver, LA, New Orleans, San Francisco, Seattle/Tacoma…
Short answer: There are no winners, and there would be precious few survivors. Those that did survive, would be so busy trying to stay alive that they’d hardly have time to do anything else, except maybe to tear the government fools who allowed this to happen limb from limb once they come out of their secret mountain redoubt at Mount Weather, West Virginia.
To go back to the list. “On the Beach” definitely belongs on the list. The rest? Hit or a miss, none of them had the impact of either of those two movies.
January 13th, 2009 at 3:14 pm
I always believe to logic and to scientist way of thinking.
Randall here and of caurse Jongleur were absolutely wright.
What is my ideological behavior has nothing to do with the subject.
The two super powers , because Russia is still super power and only idiots they dont understant this, are far from the all the others in nuks and can destroy airth not ones bt several times.
They never stop to dvelop their nuks and their boosters.
They have absolutely perfect booster rockets now with perfect targeting systems.
Both.
Read about at some very good astronaftik sites.
There isnt a possibility even one to million for war bet. this two countries.
all the dargets they could hit both sides.
There isnt so perfect antimissile system for both.
Nearly 100% of the war heads they ll hit.
And we speak for thousents of warheads.
Read read..and learn about the Soviet space systems and war stations and the anericans also.
Very acurate and precise hits going with Lazer targeting systems and other high energy particle weapons.
Learn about Velihov and the real monstrews experimental of Soviets in Surry Sagan Region and KaPUSTIN Yar and many other regions in former big soviet territory, the bigest in the world.
Learn about POLYOT sytem with lazer and nuk weapons.
The superpowers have the ability to put now if they want about 200 tons in LEO.
No other nation can do this for the moment.
Because no other nation or country gave these trillions for space and weapons.
And blood…..to much blood both.
January 16th, 2009 at 3:31 pm
In my belief nuclear weapons are one of the great ironies as I truly believe if they had not existed then the US and Russia would have gone to war and causes WW3. As it is no state would dare ever use them. Why? Because if they do then their dead too.
I do however fear that a terrorist organisation may get hold of one for they don’t have a state to bomb and are mad enough to do it.
January 26th, 2009 at 7:46 pm
sweet!!!!! death, destruction and mayhem! What more can you ask for in a movie! Does anyone recall a movie about poeple in a bomb shelter made in the 70’s or 80’s it was good just can not remember the name!
January 28th, 2009 at 1:18 am
I’ve seen “When the wind blows” and “Threads”.
I recommend people watch When the wind blows as a powerful yet managable to watch film. Showing the life of an elderly/retired couple really brings an endearing and positive outlook when all hope of survival is lost.
Threads, on the other hand, is a very real interpretation of this grim subject. It’s the film that the powers that be should watch. I’m sure it would prevent a nuclear war because Threads holds no punches. If you really want to see the effect of a nuclear war, then watch Threads. I’ll warn that Threads is not for the faint hearted. Very powerful and very sad.
Let’s hope it never happens.
March 28th, 2009 at 7:05 am
I just saw Threads, a truly ‘warts and all’ view of the cold war. I was particularly impressed with the folowing of the Protect and Survive leaflets on how to build a bomb shelter in your house, I remember those, also remember the leaflets coming through the door with the post codes of cities and the estimated damage from nuclear attack, and finally I joined the military working in communications against the Soviet Union. This film only seen today re-awakened these memories. When I was a child, during the late 70’s I remember also the air raid sirens going off across the whole of wakefield (UK) and we were stood in the streets, other groups stood there all silent apart from the sound of the sirens…. middle of the night with the sirens going…. scary… the closest thing to that feeling was Threads.
March 28th, 2009 at 7:53 am
Just one more thing, I have stood at Ground Zero Nagasake, and looked up at the sign that shows the original ground level. I will not throw facts and figures around like some, but it is a matter of a few moments to consider how much lower the new ground level is…… Where did it go? fall out is the answer… so how much fall out would be created from a larger device? I have walked the peace park and spent time in the bomb museum at Nagasaki and would say to those people here who are arguing over the facts and figures Nuclear War would not be good! It needs to be avoided at all cost. And finally M.A.D. exists / existed. Not Propaganda not a lie, it was real. I Know this for a fact, not because I read it in a book, but because I was there and lived it and followed orders. Thank god I never had to follow that order!
April 9th, 2009 at 9:46 pm
Superb list–though surely the 1965 BBC film “Wargame” goes in there with its progeny “The Day After” and “Threads.” Growing up from the late 1940s through the whole Cold War time, there was never relief from the nuclear terror hanging over us; only antiwar activism in the late 1960s shelved it for awhile, and 1989-1991 finally put it . . . well, away, but for how long? Perhaps most frightening is how close we came; some of us drove up the coast, one of those mid-October nights in 1962, not knowing when the Polish ships would, outside Cuba, meet the U.S. blockade, or what would happen when they did. No one knew; it was not decided, until it happened. Sometimes I wonder if the Kennedys had seen and been affected (Navyman that JFK was, after all) by On the Beach. And whether The Day After was, to some extent, as a friend said of it, “the film that ended the Cold War.” People who see these films as “depressing” perhaps don’t get their purpose, or don’t care. But the reality would be, for the few surviving it, considerably more depressing.
April 9th, 2009 at 10:02 pm
I meant, of course, by “Sometimes I wonder if the Kennedys had seen and been affected (Navyman that JFK was, after all) by On the Beach,” that perhaps the Kennedys saw this film and were appalled enough to seek harder to avoid a shoot-out confrontation over Cuba. As for those of you less concerned how nuclear war might affect humanity and, indeed, the world, there is an excellent sci-fi book, “Evolution,” by Stephen Baxter. Makes Threads, and perhaps even Planet of the Apes, look nearly hopeful.
April 9th, 2009 at 10:09 pm
One more–a question. A film, in the form of live television news being broadcast from a studio, in which an alien attack is met with four or five attacks on their spaceships, which they then meet with ten or twenty attacks, to which the “hardhitting” generals reply with maybe 100 missiles, at which the aliens’ missiles are found to be coming in from everywhere, and the woman newscaster turns to the screen and addresses her kids. I don’t remember if the missiles are nuclear bombs, though, or asteroids. I’m very anxious to find the name of the film (or television film).
April 16th, 2009 at 3:26 am
Well I have read this whole thread and I must say that Randall DOES have his facts straight, while Lucien seems to come off as an idiot that WANTS to believe that a nuclear exchange between Russia and the US would not be “so bad”!But what he wants to believe and what is FACTS are two seperate things! Exactly How “bad” he thinks it would be, is based on articles he read from wikipedia as he admits. Scary, very scary!
I am just glad this idiot does not have his finger on the nuclear trigger! He would have blown the world away a long time ago…after all…the world would be back to normal after 20 or 30 years…right? HOW STUPID CAN YOU BE Lucien?
How this idiot could be so foolish as to assume this, I do not know. Maybe if he read something besides Wikipedia and read REAL atomic data published by the International Atomic Energy Agency, he might find out that what he ASSUMED about global nuclear war, was complete GARBAGE!
I am also glad he was not John F Kennedy when he sat down with his advisors during the cuban missle crisis! Or we may not be on the internet right now.
I was very proud of John F Kenmnedy when the news played a secret recording of that meeting that was recently de-classified by the US government. In it, you can hear Kennedys resolve in NOT using Nuclear weapons when he told the generals and military sitting around him that they had better come up with another option besides using nuclear weapons and that they were going to STAY AT THAT TABLE until they thought of another way out of that crisis! THAT is real leadership! Not some idiot that thinks that nuclear war is not so bad and would not mind blowuing up the world
GROW UP LUCIEN! Nuclear war is not a game!
The supercomputer at the end of the movie “War Game” said it best….the only way to win a game of nuclear war is simply NOT TO PLAY!
Amen!
May 10th, 2009 at 11:59 pm
“As a Gen Scientist I have done environmental analysis of nuclear war and the bitter truth is that in most cases it is actually much greener than modern society”- Lucien….what a load of bullshit, a post nuclear war ravaged world would be no place worth living in. everyday would be a horrible struggle for the most basic survival. lawlessness looting for anything that could aid in your survival. you try to make it seem as if everything would just fall back into place, but sadly it would not, life itself would be fucking miserable
May 31st, 2009 at 12:23 am
As a kid, I saw Threads, Testament and The Day After and all 3 scared the CRAP out of me. I had panic attacks for years when I heard a plan fly overhead or the Emergency Broadcast System buzz. And, whenever I heard that Beatles song from Testament, All My Loving, same reaction. I saw Fail Safe in college and found it fascinating, probably more for the actors than anything else. And, I managed to learn to appreciate the dark humor from Dr. Strangelove. Bottom line, I don’t want to survive this horror.
June 18th, 2009 at 9:32 pm
i saw the day after at my school after having to read alas babylon (blarg!!! horrible book) any way, when we where watching the attack scene in the day after i got all sad because of the horse and stuff, then i got even more sad because everybody dies in that movie!!!
July 30th, 2009 at 4:06 pm
terminator 1 or 2 should be there.
August 6th, 2009 at 3:06 pm
nukem all
August 10th, 2009 at 1:02 pm
Jessy
December 6th, 2008 at 4:18 am
“-Nowadays, bombs are MUCH bigger and MUCH more powerful- the specific numbers escape me at the moment, but there are nukes in existence that can crack the earth’s crust. That means powerful enough to break the freaking planet. Ain’t no one living through that.”
*Facepalming*
Except for time travel and psychic blast, “Terminator” and “Akira” are way more realistic than “At the beatch”, why? Because they at least didn´t FAIL THEIR PHYSICS!
August 10th, 2009 at 2:22 pm
No, just no. It wouldn´t have been “the end of the world”. An all out thermonuclear war in the 80s(worst case scenario) would have directly destroyed hundreds of millions and nuclear winter wipe out hundreds of millions to a billion more but there would still be billions of survivors. Most of the Earth WOULD remain livable, most of the continents(30% of the Earth) would remain livable after the nuclear winter. Only densely urbanised/industrialised countries would become mostly unlivable (england, belgium, Holland) but even there, there would still be millions of survivors although among the least favourised ones. Many would fall like flies, granted but certainly not all, the grimest momments of history teaches that. Be it from WW2, 80s Ethiopia or Germany of the 1660s (where 50% of the population perished in the old ways of warfare, swords and gunpowder).
Things similar to nuclear winter HAVE happened in the past (at least one during the age of prehistorical hunter-gatherer tribes). One is preparing under Yellowstone right now. So life would go on, in fact, with drastical reduction of population/developpement/pollution/exploitation, nature would be better off in the long run.
Given decades new cities would be built, within 50-75 years, some would be quiet comparable in size and individual landmarks as our world´s major cities.
But such world would be an alien one, different mentalities, philosophie, societies etc. They might admire or hate the time before but their view óf it would be completely different than the ones we know.
September 14th, 2009 at 4:58 am
i only saw threads once back when it was broadcast the first time on bbc. it scared the life out of me then, it did again when i watched this clip! my heart was racing. its your worst nightmare and the film captures it brilliantly!
September 23rd, 2009 at 4:33 pm
Ok I’m clearly mad. I bought threads and watched it today. I still can’t get to sleep I’m crapping it so much! It truly is a disturbing film and I got to thinking the reality would be even worse as chances are my little old country wouldn’t take too many hits to be totally obliterated. It doesn’t reassure me tjhat the ussr I’d no more. China and north Korea are way scarier! Plus, sorry to offend my cousins across the pond, the USA spends too much time and effort provoking other nations instead of keeping their noses out! What’s worse is our uk govnment goes along with them . Here I cite Iraq and Afghanistan! The worlds still a scary dangerous place. Would this happen? Probably not but it could. It takes one looney in the whitehouse with an itchy trigger finger. I am more assured with obamas rhetoric to reduce nuclear arms but still there’d be enough nukes to facilitate M.A.D
September 26th, 2009 at 9:20 am
I’m a former defence and intelligence analyst who worked on NATO/Warsaw Pact war scenarios during the 1980s. I have to agree with posting 188 (‘Maniacalnuker’) that, no, even an uncontrolled nuclear exchange (euphemistically called a ‘Spasm’) would not have heralded the ‘end of the world’. Europe, the former Soviet Union, North America and possibly China/SE Asia (if they got involved) would have suffered huge levels of damage. However, the rest of the world would have remained intact, although with severely disrupted economies. My own small country, the UK, would have suffered very, very badly – the movie ‘Threads’ is pretty accurate I think. Note however that even in Threads, UK society continued, albeit at levels of extreme poverty like the worst of the Third World today. And this sort of nuclear exchange was always unlikely. Nuclear war is of course awful – but its not the end of everything. Conventional war, remember, is also dreadful – it was conventional war that gave us the bombing horrors of World War Two, Vietnam and subsequent so-called ‘peacetime’ operations against Iraq , etc. Also you don’t need nuclear weapons to be beastly; a machete will do. Think of the Rwandan genocide. And people will always fight wars; we’re programmed to use violence when it suits us. So forget about trying to ban war and avoid possible use of nuclear weapons by playing the ‘end of the world’ or ‘too dreadful to contemplate’ arguments; concentrate instead on inculcating personal morality so that our individual behaviour is as good as we can get it whether or not we’re in a war.
October 29th, 2009 at 12:26 pm
Interesting bit of trivia on “The Day After”: During the signing of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty at Reykjavik, Meyer received a telegram from President Reagan that said, ‘Don’t think your movie didn’t have any part of this, because it did”
November 13th, 2009 at 9:10 pm
So many uninformed people posting here… It’s almost as entertaining as the movies themselves.
I wont go into tons of detail, just contest a few laughable comments.
1. “5 megatons is NOTHING! We haz bombs now to crack the world’s crust!”
Completely false and opposite from the truth. The size of warheads grew through the 50s and part of the 60s for one reason. Inaccuracy. Older missles had a CEP (circular error probability) measured in KILOMETERS! They were expected to hit miles off target, therefore had to have a huge warhead to have any chance of destroying hardened targets at a distance.
US warheads started DEcreasing in the late 60s, continuing on the trend as our CEP grew smaller until with the advent of the Trident 1 in the 80s, we hit what is known as “first strike” capability. That means we had confidence of our missles hitting their missles before they could launch, on the dime.
Think we have 5 megaton missles? Nope. Trident has a CEP of 5 meters, and 100k (1/10 a megaton) MIRV warheads.
The soviets continued with larger warheads for a time into the early 80s as they lagged in CEP, the largest being the SS-18 “Satan” with a 25MT single warhead. They were decommissioned early because they were a maintenance nightmare, and thought the warhead was large, they were inaccurate and completely pointless in modern deterrance.
2. “ICBMS are a myth. Propoganda. We dismantled ours in the 80s. They were only good for a few years, fuel had a shelflife”
This one is amusing. I guess you missed the new class of ICBM the US developed and fielded in the 80s then, the MX Peacekeeper, of which at last count, we have over 200 active silos and 1600 warheads. Or the Trident D5 SLBM, which was mid 80s and stands as an entire 3rd of our current nuclear deterrent.
I’ve seen them, touched them, know people involved in building them. No myth, I assure you.
In regards to fuel, there’s 2 kinds. Liquid, which is older technology, and was used the the USSR through most of the Cold War (and the US into the 80s) isn’t even IN the missles until shortly before launch. It’s not one piece, can be changed easily.
Solid propellant, which must be what you are talking about, can last decades before generating cracks that might make the missle unstable.
I’m sure I missed some here, but the two people going back and forth here just made me laugh with how clueless they both were.
Now, for the reason I was even here, thanks for the list! I saw By Dawns Early Light when it came out, have been trying to think of the name for years now so I could torrent it and watch again!
November 30th, 2009 at 5:10 pm
Hmmm….
I’m an avid fan of Cold War movies, you did miss out on some important films:
1. The War Game-The BBC documentry from the 1960’s circa Cuban Missile Crisis
2. Special Bulletin-Spoof TV news report
3. Taiyō o Nusunda Otoko / The Man Who Stole the Sun (1979)
4. Jericho (2006)
5. This is Not a Test (1962)
6. The Last War (1961 Japanese film)
Threads is by far and away the best film for sheer emotional impact and the overall depection of possible conflict. Dr Strangelove is good, but it is afterall a satire.
As for those arguing for the inclusion of Terminator, I would argue that Wargames, Red Dawn or The Stand should also be included if you want the list to be a more comprehensive “the worlds going to hell in a handcart” list.
November 30th, 2009 at 5:13 pm
On a final note to our two “experts” on nuclear warfare and the Cold War.
You really ought to leave Wikipedia alone
November 30th, 2009 at 5:23 pm
mobius999
Quite right!
Although the SS-18 (mod 6) is still operational.
November 30th, 2009 at 5:28 pm
Final post
Somebody have placed clips on You Tube from Trinity and Beyond to “Rocket Falls on Rocket Falls” by Goodspeed you Black Emperor!
Excellent stuff
December 15th, 2009 at 5:35 pm
Now you can add “The Road” to this list. It’s not overtly about a nuclear exchange, but the devastation wrought upon the planet appears pretty accurate on-screen.
December 17th, 2009 at 5:32 pm
Thanks for the list! Just a follow up on post 192: In Reagan’s diary he says that he saw “The Day After” on TV. He had no idea what nuclear warfare entailed and was deeply troubled by the movie. He says he was depressed for several days afterwards. Too bad he didn’t press harder with Gorbachev to eliminate nuclear weapons once and for all!
December 23rd, 2009 at 3:03 pm
Good list but where is the boy and his dog
January 1st, 2010 at 11:31 am
I remember a movie which is about crew of a submarine which when they come up from sea they find out all the living on earth is gone due to nuke war and they are only survivers on earth!!
I want to watch that movie but cannot remember its name of anything lead to it in search engines. HELP PLEASE!!
alireza.yami {a} gmail
Regards
January 1st, 2010 at 10:03 pm
This list is very bad you got no idea about movies
January 3rd, 2010 at 11:16 am
men i can’t wait till we blow up the world
January 6th, 2010 at 11:57 am
what about the film a boy and his dog and the upcoming film the book of eli which looks like fallout 3.
January 9th, 2010 at 5:25 pm
Great list. No question that Threads tops it because it’s probably the most realistic assessment ever of how a nuclear attack would unfold, and its probable aftermath.
However, you missed an equally sobering look at nuclear war called The War Game (1965). This independent British production was so realistic and disturbing that the BBC refused to air it. Eventually they relented, and aired it sometime in the 1980s.
I remember seeing it for the first time in 1976 when I was in high school. It haunted me for months afterwards.
Shot in black and white, it was substantially more gruesome in its portrayal of attack-related injuries than Threads, but didn’t offer the same detailed damage and casualty assessment. On the other hand, Threads offered a pretty good look at how unprepared governments of the day then were in dealing with a nuclear attack.
January 17th, 2010 at 4:53 am
i am so happy someone finally mentioned the Miracle Mile.
I’m also pissed it ranked at the very end. The movie was genius. A perfect in for a nuclear scare, so simple, yet so panic-inducing.
Although what you’d call schlock i’d simply call the 80’s. People stole stereos, and yeah, they were big devices.
What made the film so edge of your seat was the continuous chain of trouble this guy got into. When time counts at a point where you’re the only one aware of it, the usual crap you get from people becomes astronomically foolish and rage-inducing.
Either way, I found it incredibly realistic and brilliant, and actually cried at the end. I’d love to do a remake on this movie, where word-for-word encounters are still very much doable.