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Start of the Cold War: The Marshall Plan or Soviets' exploding first atomic bomb

FortYorkRifleman said:
That sounds like a nightmare. I had always assumed nuclear war went hand in hand with the Air Force and never knew ground units were involved. I have very little knowledge of nuclear weapons and always assumed they just came out of silos. . . . . . I still have a long ways to go in regards to all of this on top of learning about CAF history, specifically Infantry regiments as I am currently applying as an NCM for the Regular Force (hopefully PPCLI)

If you are interested in the mindset of the times (well, mostly from the American military institutional viewpoint), this gem from youtube may help.  "The Big Picture" was a weekly program produced by the US Army and shown on US network television. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gr4o6CAeU1k

"Troop Test Smokey" referred to in the program included 43 Canadians, a platoon from 2nd Bn, QOR.

A report on the test is found at http://www.dtra.mil/Portals/61/Documents/1957%20-%20DNA%206004F%20-%20Shot%20SMOKEY%20-%20Operation%20PLUMBBOB.pdf
Describes the activities of DOD participants in the atmospheric nuclear
test, SMOKY, conducted on 31 August 1957 as part of the PLUMBBOB series,
The various levels at which DOD personnel participated within the Nevada
Test Organization and Desert Rock projects are described. Those projects
related to DOD mission activities are described as to purpose, agency,
results, operation, and radiological safety aspects.
 
Blackadder1916 said:
If you are interested in the mindset of the times (well, mostly from the American military institutional viewpoint), this gem from youtube may help.  "The Big Picture" was a weekly program produced by the US Army and shown on US network television. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gr4o6CAeU1k

"Troop Test Smokey" referred to in the program included 43 Canadians, a platoon from 2nd Bn, QOR.

A report on the test is found at http://www.dtra.mil/Portals/61/Documents/1957%20-%20DNA%206004F%20-%20Shot%20SMOKEY%20-%20Operation%20PLUMBBOB.pdf

Appreciate the link.
 
George Wallace said:
The 'nuclear battlefield' was (and is) quite complicated.  In the days of Old Sweat we had the Honest John which was capable of delivering nuclear warheads.  The Americans also had artillery of delivering nuclear rounds.  In my day, the Americans also had Special Forces who were capable of delivering "Backpack Nucs" behind enemy lines.  Delivery is limited only by the imagination, and sometimes "Hollywood" portrays reality.

Thankfully we don't have to worry too much about that anymore. Even though the Nuclear Age is essentially over the risk is always there and from what I understand there are safeguards to protect people from it. I never understood why WMD's were even thought of as a viable weapon given that the Cold War was no different than most conventional wars in that through a successful campaign a country was added to East or West. Destroying or making a nation unlivable seems counter productive to the idea that one ideology or another can benefit mankind
 
FortYorkRifleman said:
Thankfully we don't have to worry too much about that anymore. Even though the Nuclear Age is essentially over the risk is always there and from what I understand there are safeguards to protect people from it. I never understood why WMD's were even thought of as a viable weapon given that the Cold War was no different than most conventional wars in that through a successful campaign a country was added to East or West. Destroying or making a nation unlivable seems counter productive to the idea that one ideology or another can benefit mankind

On the contrary.  Not to be a 'Tinfoil hat wearing' conspiracy theorist or anything, but the fact is that there have been a large number of nuclear isotopes, and even weapons, gone missing, predominantly in the former Soviet Union; but in other places as well.  Hollywood movies present that danger, the danger of a small nuclear device or a dirty bomb, being brought to our cities.  It is, and will always be, a serious security concern.
 
George Wallace said:
On the contrary.  Not to be a 'Tinfoil hat wearing' conspiracy theorist or anything, but the fact is that there have been a large number of nuclear isotopes, and even weapons, gone missing, predominantly in the former Soviet Union; but in other places as well.  Hollywood movies present that danger, the danger of a small nuclear device or a dirty bomb, being brought to our cities.  It is, and will always be, a serious security concern.

I think they would have shown up by now, one way or another. I'm sure the FSB has a bullseye on anyone and everyone who knows anything and everything about WMD's from the Soviet Union. As crazy and aggressive as Russia is I doubt they want something from their arsenal, or at least a scientist culled from their programs in the 80's and 90's, showing up in the worst way in a major city after a attack
 
FortYorkRifleman said:
Thankfully we don't have to worry too much about that anymore. Even though the Nuclear Age is essentially over the risk is always there and from what I understand there are safeguards to protect people from it. I never understood why WMD's were even thought of as a viable weapon given that the Cold War was no different than most conventional wars in that through a successful campaign a country was added to East or West. Destroying or making a nation unlivable seems counter productive to the idea that one ideology or another can benefit mankind


It was a question of ground and numbers:

    1. The North German Plain the favoured invasion route for millennia is long and flat and (relatively) open: perfect for offensive operations by heavily armoured forces; and

    2. The Warsaw Pact outnumbered and outgunned NATO on paper and in fact by a huge ratio. Even when one factored in inept (corrupt) Russian logistics and lousy (Russian) maintenance (not the same low standards, by the way
        in the excellent East German and quite good Czech armies) the numbers were still, overwhelmingly, in their favour. Tactical nukes made good, sound military sense. The West germans were unhaoppy, to be sure, but ...

 
E.R. Campbell said:
It was a question of ground and numbers:

    1. The North German Plain the favoured invasion route for millennia is long and flat and (relatively) open: perfect for offensive operations by heavily armoured forces; and

    2. The Warsaw Pact outnumbered and outgunned NATO on paper and in fact by a huge ratio. Even when one factored in inept (corrupt) Russian logistics and lousy (Russian) maintenance (not the same low standards, by the way
        in the excellent East German and quite good Czech armies) the numbers were still, overwhelmingly, in their favour. Tactical nukes made good, sound military sense. The West germans were unhaoppy, to be sure, but ...

Didn't know NATO was outnumbered which makes sense now that I think about it; China, Soviet Union, North Korea yikes! Interesting still is what many who were involved with the Cuban Missile Crisis would later say regarding whether or not they would have actually used nukes or not. I don't think there's a point during the Cold War where it was so close to happening and, at least according to Soviet cables sent afterwards, they were really, really hesistant in doing so
 
Halifax Tar said:
Very interesting.  So hat the Cold War turned hot and your skills put to use would fighting have been conducted in the impact area ?  Or were these highly radioactive zones intended to be "battlefield obstacles"  that had to be traversed ?

I believe that is one of the reasons the M113 was introduced. IIRC we were told the M113 could carry us buttoned up across the nuclear battlefield for 72 hours.  The armour on it was supposed to be sufficient to protect from rifle caliber ammunition, shrapnel and blast and to slow radiation effects.

It was as much a mobile fallout shelter as it was an armoured fighting vehicle.

I stand to be corrected but that was my understanding.
 
I don't recall the M-113 being advertized as a mobile radiation shelter; in my time it was a "battlefield taxi".

The BMP was introduced for the purposes you describe above, to rapidly ferry troops across contaminated dead zones and allow them to fight (in a limited fashion) even when buttoned up. I don't think *our* side fully understood the thinking of the Sovets when we dubbed the BMP an Infantry Fighting Vehicle.

Of course the idea wasn't very viable and neither was the vehicle itself, but the Soviets had thousands of them so they flailed about with various concepts for the tactical use of the BMP (pictures of Soviet units in training exercises durig the advance show the positions of the BMP, tanks and dismounted troops in various positions over the years, early versions had a line of BMP's between the tanks and dismounted troops following behind, while by the 1980's the troops were dismounted and marching in line ahead of the BMP's..)

The BMP-2 was closer to the idea of an IFV with a two man turret and an automatic cannon, and the BMP-3 is essentially a fire support vehicle for dismounted infantry, with the ability to carry infantry troops in the back
 
I think one of the most interesting questions about the USSR and Stalin is if even if Hitler had not initiated a Second World War would a comparable conflict have taken place between Communism and Fascism in Europe?I think a Cold War was inevitable between the dominating ideologies in the West and East and WWII was a major turning point but just that: a turning point
 
More as a thought experiment, I would offer that the Cold War could have had as its start on 23 August 1939 when von Ribbentrop and Molotov signed the so-called "Non-Agression Pact" that effectively set the conditions that allowed the Germans to feel safe in invading Poland a few days later.
When Germany defaulted on that pact on 22 June 1941 and until 7 May 1945, we were "Allies of Convenience".  As stated in previous posts, there were some blatant and some not so blatant signs of mistrust between the two sides long before Hitler put a pistol up to his temple.
 
FortYorkRifleman said:
Thankfully we don't have to worry too much about that anymore. Even though the Nuclear Age is essentially over the risk is always there and from what I understand there are safeguards to protect people from it. I never understood why WMD's were even thought of as a viable weapon given that the Cold War was no different than most conventional wars in that through a successful campaign a country was added to East or West. Destroying or making a nation unlivable seems counter productive to the idea that one ideology or another can benefit mankind

Oh?

The USSR and even post Soviet Russia carried out extensive work on biological warfare, using an organization known as Biopreparat and creating biological weapons on an industrial scale. Several accidents, including an outbreak on anthrax in the city of Sverdlovsk gave a hint of what was going on, and there were also records of tests of Soviet ICBM warheads which were quite different from normal, nuclear ones. The only explanation which seemed to make sense of the data (Americans and others would use radar and other means to track ICBM tests and try to determine what was going on) was the re entry vehicles were much larger and heavier than normal, consistent with a refrigerated capsule carrying bioweapons like smallpox.

In the 2000's there were occasional articles about Al qeda training bases being evacuated because they had become sources of some sort of infectious disease. While unhygienic conditions may have contributed, in some cases they may have been trying to experiment with bioweaponry.

And of course we now have a world where nations like Pakistan and the DPRK have nuclear weapons, but it is not clear they have proper custody and command and control of the weapons (on story passed on the rumor that Pakistan had dispersed their nukes in delivery vans driving around Islamabad to prevent American SoF from taking them and keeping them from Islamic militants...), while Iran is igniting a nuclear arms race in the Middle East, as Saudi Arabia is openly calling for a nuclear force of its own, and nations like Turkey and Egypt, which also have hegemonic designs on the region, must be thinking about this as well.

Making things even more interesting is the skills and equipment are now widely dispersed to make chemical, nuclear and biological weapons, even in your own basement. A simple fission bomb is actually not that difficult to make, once you have the proper materials (which is really the hard part), and genetic engineering of pathological organisms is getting easier all the time.

And WMD was thought of not as a "viable" battlefield weapon, but rather as a way to destroy a society which was an existential threat to the other, which is how radical Islamists and possibly others see the West, which makes them more, rather than less attractive in some people's eyes.
 
Thucydides said:
Oh?

The USSR and even post Soviet Russia carried out extensive work on biological warfare, using an organization known as Biopreparat and creating biological weapons on an industrial scale. Several accidents, including an outbreak on anthrax in the city of Sverdlovsk gave a hint of what was going on, and there were also records of tests of Soviet ICBM warheads which were quite different from normal, nuclear ones. The only explanation which seemed to make sense of the data (Americans and others would use radar and other means to track ICBM tests and try to determine what was going on) was the re entry vehicles were much larger and heavier than normal, consistent with a refrigerated capsule carrying bioweapons like smallpox.

In the 2000's there were occasional articles about Al qeda training bases being evacuated because they had become sources of some sort of infectious disease. While unhygienic conditions may have contributed, in some cases they may have been trying to experiment with bioweaponry.

And of course we now have a world where nations like Pakistan and the DPRK have nuclear weapons, but it is not clear they have proper custody and command and control of the weapons (on story passed on the rumor that Pakistan had dispersed their nukes in delivery vans driving around Islamabad to prevent American SoF from taking them and keeping them from Islamic militants...), while Iran is igniting a nuclear arms race in the Middle East, as Saudi Arabia is openly calling for a nuclear force of its own, and nations like Turkey and Egypt, which also have hegemonic designs on the region, must be thinking about this as well.

Making things even more interesting is the skills and equipment are now widely dispersed to make chemical, nuclear and biological weapons, even in your own basement. A simple fission bomb is actually not that difficult to make, once you have the proper materials (which is really the hard part), and genetic engineering of pathological organisms is getting easier all the time.

And WMD was thought of not as a "viable" battlefield weapon, but rather as a way to destroy a society which was an existential threat to the other, which is how radical Islamists and possibly others see the West, which makes them more, rather than less attractive in some people's eyes.

I was under the impression Pakistan's nuclear arsenal was under the command of an authority other than the conventional military. I think the threat of CBRN attacks is over exaggerated but always a possibility. No nation wants to be responsible, whether it be allowing one of their scientists' to fall into the hands of a group, allowing materials to fall into the hands of terrorists' groups, for the releasing of WMD's on another nations soil. Honestly, if it hasn't happened already I can't see it ever happening, .
 
Colin P said:
ISIS claims they will be able to buy a nuke from Pakistan within a year.... 8)

Not if Jack Bauer can help it...

But seriously advertising that they can acquire weapon's from the Pakistani smells like BS to me. Like I stated earlier no nation wants to be the one whom allowed a WMD to detonate on another nation's soil via terrorists. WMD's are our boogieman that's unfortunately here to stay
 
FortYorkRifleman said:
Not if Jack Bauer can help it...

But seriously advertising that they can acquire weapon's from the Pakistani smells like BS to me. Like I stated earlier no nation wants to be the one whom allowed a WMD to detonate on another nation's soil via terrorists. WMD's are our boogieman that's unfortunately here to stay

Not to be cynical or a skeptic, but Pakistan has been known to play both sides.  Often Pakistan's military left and right hands do not have a clue what its other hand is doing.
 
George Wallace said:
Not to be cynical or a skeptic, but Pakistan has been known to play both sides.  Often Pakistan's military left and right hands do not have a clue what its other hand is doing.

True but double dealing with the Taliban and facilitating WMD's are two very different things.
 
FortYorkRifleman said:
True but double dealing with the Taliban and facilitating WMD's are two very different things.

I would not trust the ISI.  I would not put it past them to facilitate the passage of WMD's to belligerents. 
 
George Wallace said:
I would not trust the ISI.  I would not put it past them to facilitate the passage of WMD's to belligerents.

True, but I suspect the possibility of having the entire country wiped off the map would be a significant deterrent.

Or at least a significant portion of the ISI infrastructure.
 
cupper said:
True, but I suspect the possibility of having the entire country wiped off the map would be a significant deterrent.

Or at least a significant portion of the ISI infrastructure.

If any country were to allow WMD's to fall into the hands of terrorists' the entire world would want their head on a platter. I'm certain if it were to happen it would have already. I like to think the FSB, CIA, MI6, and all the other intelligence agencies in the world have a uniform interest in making sure no one obtains such weapons.
 
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