Actually... a lot less The original "four" minute warning was for land-launched missiles (later shrank in the 1980s to three minutes...) Depending on how close to your shores Soviet SSBNs were lurking, there could in reality be no real warning at all...!
Are the public warning systems now dismantled? I remember reading that John Major had them dismantled due to homes having double glazing and not hearing it . So Joe public gets no warning other than a TV or radio interruption.
There are certain elements of it still in place - on police station roofs, firestations, hospital grounds etc.- but don't think they're "networked" any more as such.
A terrorist gang isn't going to have the capability to do this. Whole countries take years and years and millions of pounds to develop nuclear bombs, so the chance of some terrorists have the capability to make and launch one is literally zero.
Why do they have to launch it? The REAL threat is some jihadist with an afterlife virgin fetish and a transit van....
The basic rules of creating an atomic bomb from fissionables isn't a black art, there's just enough available publically to create a clumsy, low-conversion bomb, where only a small percentage of the fissionables cook off...enough for a couple of kilotons' yield from a "large" bomb...
What nations have been doing is creating smaller and smaller sized devices that convert more and more of their fissionables into yield - so that they can cram more and more actual devices into MIRV'd warheads And of course improve accuracy phenomenally....so theycan deliver bombs right on the front door of bunkers etc., and not have to make them big enough to destroy said bunker from a miss 3-5 miles away!
A sub-megaton ground penetrating warhead that goes off right on top of a target means a SMALLER bomb is needed to destroy it than a multi-megaton one dropped in the general area and relying on overpressure to crack a hardened target open; and a smaller bomb means less blast radius, less directly-propagated radiation...and less fallout...
And HUGELY improved targeting means that many targets that previously needed a nuclear bomb to destroy would only need a conventional warhead! Look how Gaddafi's nuclear-hardened air defence bunkers were taken out a few years ago by extremely accurate conventional ordnance...
MIRV... When you positively have to kill every Mother..F in the Country.
Oh yeah.. about 8 mins from launch to goodbye from a sub launched missile. Just about enough time for the operator on the Emergency broadcast system to start it up on Windows 95.....
Again and again, I just wish (and hope) that before anything spirals out of control in an international confrontation, those with the authority to kick it off have enough capacity to realise exactly what they are unleashing and draw the line (as happened with the Cuban Missile Crisis). There is no way back from it, once it starts. If it's about seizing power, land, resources and so on, just what merit is there to decimating all that you seek? It's not a video game or computer simulation. Not a disaster movie or a scenario where all the lead players walk away with Oscars. It never fails to amaze me in the bloodlust for war, how nobody seems to think about the real consequences. All the sentimental weeping and wailing over the victims of current wars, yet until it touches us in some way, we carry on regardless. I've said it before- who wants to 'rule' over a contaminated world and the remaining dregs of humanity from a bunker? Who wants to survive in such a world? Not me.
Again and again, I just wish (and hope) that before anything spirals out of control in an international confrontation, those with the authority to kick it off have enough capacity to realise exactly what they are unleashing and draw the line (as happened with the Cuban Missile Crisis). There is no way back from it, once it starts. If it's about seizing power, land, resources and so on, just what merit is there to decimating all that you seek? It's not a video game or computer simulation. Not a disaster movie or a scenario where all the lead players walk away with Oscars. It never fails to amaze me in the bloodlust for war, how nobody seems to think about the real consequences. All the sentimental weeping and wailing over the victims of current wars, yet until it touches us in some way, we carry on regardless. I've said it before- who wants to 'rule' over a contaminated world and the remaining dregs of humanity from a bunker? Who wants to survive in such a world? Not me.
Just read your "Protect and Survive" handbook. Keep it by your bedside so you can read through the instructions as the mushroom cloud looms overhead. :cool:
Just read your "Protect and Survive" handbook. Keep it by your bedside so you can read through the instructions as the mushroom cloud looms overhead. :cool:
Bugger that. I'd be doing something fun and go out with a bang!
With so many countries now having the means to destroy other countries, do you ever worry about such an attack, especially with all this Russia/Ukraine business?
No
Certainly nowhere near as worried as I was in the 1980s (if you didn't live through the period, it's difficult to explain how near we came to nuclear war)
Worrying about it ruined my teenage years. What should have been a happy and carefree time was spent in a state of perpetual terror wondering if each day would be the last, with Protect and Survive as bedtime reading. I thought every thunderstorm was nuclear war.
Now I try not to worry about it, I worried about it enough thirty years ago!
You were not alone. You'll have been a teenager of the 1980's like me by the sound of it. It may sound farfetched to say that you were almost constantly afraid, but it is true. When I was in school many of us doubted we would ever reach 20! I used to be in school and dread the thought that the 4 minute nuclear warning siren would go off and I'd have no time to re-unite with family. The thought of hearing that sound literally terrified me. A normal day and yet at any time you might have just 4 minutes left to live, an innocent ended by superpower madness. The films added to the fear and hysteria, and were shown at prime time on the main channels for huge effect. Even the big hits of the time, Two Tribes played on the fears.
Worried now? No, I used up my lifetime of worry over this issue by the time I was 15.
But what I do often think is that I find it impossible to imagine having all these nuclear weapons in the world and at some point they will not end up being used, by accident or design, even if that is a long time ahead.
I think I read that the 4 minute warning sirens had been discontinued. So what happens if at 5pm tomorrow night Moscow accidentally launches a nuclear tipped warhead at the UK on central London or a US airbase here? We'd still have only 4 minutes or so, but how would we be warned if a nuclear strike literally came out of a clear blue sky without any warning?
I think we should fear an accident far more than a deliberate act, between the big nuclear armed powers. That accident nearly happened for real on 7th November 1983. The Soviets thought a NATO exercise called Operation Able Archer was a cover for a nuclear strike by us on the USSR, and even saw incoming missiles on a screen, which a Soviet commander thankfully chose to ignore as incorrect, instead of initiating the retaliatory Soviet response, which would have been full scale nuclear attack on the west, and the end of us all. It's a horribly sobering thought.
Na not worried, like above used all my worry up in my youth. What did we watch in English lessons? The day after http://m.imdb.com/title/tt0085404/
and threads http://m.imdb.com/title/tt0*****3/
Best thing about it I lived in Sheffield Yay great, Good morning children we are going to watch a little film about a nuclear war, oh and it's in Sheffield
I also remember the leaflets about what to do in the event of the 3 minute warning.
10 year old and watching films about nuclear
holocaust nice.
UK is sending a battle group to Poland for NATO excercise's.
The US is claiming Russia is breaking a cruise missile treaty agreed in 1987 (source-CNN web site).
UK is sending a battle group to Poland for NATO excercise's.
The US is claiming Russia is breaking a cruise missile treaty agreed in 1987 (source-CNN web site).
The UK is sending a "battle group" lol probably three row boats
It's been ridiculously busy on Salisbury plain with ammunition sounding every day which is not the usual. Today's it's been jets screeching all morning.
It's been ridiculously busy on Salisbury plain with ammunition sounding every day which is not the usual. Today's it's been jets screeching all morning.
Well, we brought the boys back home...now we have to do something with them!
A terrorist gang isn't going to have the capability to do this. Whole countries take years and years and millions of pounds to develop nuclear bombs, so the chance of some terrorists have the capability to make and launch one is literally zero.
A strawman argument. Terrorists just need to acquire one not make one. Even then the real threat is dirty bombs - bombs packed with radioactive material.
Watched 'The Road' last night, what a great film, pretty brutal in places. It's set during the aftermath of a major event which has led to a post apocalyptic environment.
Comments
Are the public warning systems now dismantled? I remember reading that John Major had them dismantled due to homes having double glazing and not hearing it
Why do they have to launch it? The REAL threat is some jihadist with an afterlife virgin fetish and a transit van....
The basic rules of creating an atomic bomb from fissionables isn't a black art, there's just enough available publically to create a clumsy, low-conversion bomb, where only a small percentage of the fissionables cook off...enough for a couple of kilotons' yield from a "large" bomb...
What nations have been doing is creating smaller and smaller sized devices that convert more and more of their fissionables into yield - so that they can cram more and more actual devices into MIRV'd warheads
A sub-megaton ground penetrating warhead that goes off right on top of a target means a SMALLER bomb is needed to destroy it than a multi-megaton one dropped in the general area and relying on overpressure to crack a hardened target open; and a smaller bomb means less blast radius, less directly-propagated radiation...and less fallout...
And HUGELY improved targeting means that many targets that previously needed a nuclear bomb to destroy would only need a conventional warhead!
Bugger that. I'd be doing something fun and go out with a bang!
No
Certainly nowhere near as worried as I was in the 1980s (if you didn't live through the period, it's difficult to explain how near we came to nuclear war)
You were not alone. You'll have been a teenager of the 1980's like me by the sound of it. It may sound farfetched to say that you were almost constantly afraid, but it is true. When I was in school many of us doubted we would ever reach 20! I used to be in school and dread the thought that the 4 minute nuclear warning siren would go off and I'd have no time to re-unite with family. The thought of hearing that sound literally terrified me. A normal day and yet at any time you might have just 4 minutes left to live, an innocent ended by superpower madness. The films added to the fear and hysteria, and were shown at prime time on the main channels for huge effect. Even the big hits of the time, Two Tribes played on the fears.
Worried now? No, I used up my lifetime of worry over this issue by the time I was 15.
But what I do often think is that I find it impossible to imagine having all these nuclear weapons in the world and at some point they will not end up being used, by accident or design, even if that is a long time ahead.
I think I read that the 4 minute warning sirens had been discontinued. So what happens if at 5pm tomorrow night Moscow accidentally launches a nuclear tipped warhead at the UK on central London or a US airbase here? We'd still have only 4 minutes or so, but how would we be warned if a nuclear strike literally came out of a clear blue sky without any warning?
I think we should fear an accident far more than a deliberate act, between the big nuclear armed powers. That accident nearly happened for real on 7th November 1983. The Soviets thought a NATO exercise called Operation Able Archer was a cover for a nuclear strike by us on the USSR, and even saw incoming missiles on a screen, which a Soviet commander thankfully chose to ignore as incorrect, instead of initiating the retaliatory Soviet response, which would have been full scale nuclear attack on the west, and the end of us all. It's a horribly sobering thought.
http://m.imdb.com/title/tt0085404/
and threads
http://m.imdb.com/title/tt0*****3/
Best thing about it I lived in Sheffield Yay great, Good morning children we are going to watch a little film about a nuclear war, oh and it's in Sheffield
I also remember the leaflets about what to do in the event of the 3 minute warning.
10 year old and watching films about nuclear
holocaust nice.
If it's going to happen it will happen and worrying yourself over it won't stop it, live each day as it comes I say.
UK is sending a battle group to Poland for NATO excercise's.
The US is claiming Russia is breaking a cruise missile treaty agreed in 1987 (source-CNN web site).
The UK is sending a "battle group" lol probably three row boats
Hmmm, not bad. On reflection, I might prefer a flash and a zap! :cool:
Well, we brought the boys back home...now we have to do something with them!
I wish they'd play quietly
A strawman argument. Terrorists just need to acquire one not make one. Even then the real threat is dirty bombs - bombs packed with radioactive material.
Haha, made you jump...
What was that meant to be? A party popper?