The Cuban Missile War Timeline
- Thread starter Amerigo Vespucci
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So what would the worse actual period for a nuclear war? Clearly this war would be survivable by mankind but in the 80s huges swathes of europe and north america would be uninhabitable. But then again I've heard comments in the Bad Year thread that a nuclear war in the 70s would not leave very many survivors. Would the 70s be the worst era for a nuclear war to break out?
Consumerist, IMHO, it really depends on the scenario you come up with. After the late 1970s, there's enough delivery vehicles around to pretty much wreck the world if you imagine anything but the most limited wars imaginable.
One scenario that I haven't seen done is a NATO-Warsaw Pact conflict in which there is a prolonged non-nuclear phase that features attacks on each side's nuclear arsenal. Forex, B-52s dropping conventional bombs on Kapustin Yar while Tu-95s raid Minot.
In terms of nuclear wars, the Soviet Union gets the short end of the stick until the late 1960s, when they really start producing ICBMs in large numbers and have the ability to detect an American launch soon enough to retaliate. In the Cuban Missile War, I'm forced to imagine a Soviet first strike, because an American first strike would result in almost complete annihilation of the Soviet Union with no chance of a response. In 1962, the Soviet Union has no missile launch-detecting satellites or even a ballistic missile warning radar.
Had a first strike been launched, the United States could have annihilated the Soviet Union with almost no risk of anything other than fallout contamination. If you're interested in that kind of scenario, find and read Robert O'Connell's "The Cuban Missile Crisis: Second Holocaust," in What Ifs? of American History, edited by Robert Cowley.
One scenario that I haven't seen done is a NATO-Warsaw Pact conflict in which there is a prolonged non-nuclear phase that features attacks on each side's nuclear arsenal. Forex, B-52s dropping conventional bombs on Kapustin Yar while Tu-95s raid Minot.
In terms of nuclear wars, the Soviet Union gets the short end of the stick until the late 1960s, when they really start producing ICBMs in large numbers and have the ability to detect an American launch soon enough to retaliate. In the Cuban Missile War, I'm forced to imagine a Soviet first strike, because an American first strike would result in almost complete annihilation of the Soviet Union with no chance of a response. In 1962, the Soviet Union has no missile launch-detecting satellites or even a ballistic missile warning radar.
Had a first strike been launched, the United States could have annihilated the Soviet Union with almost no risk of anything other than fallout contamination. If you're interested in that kind of scenario, find and read Robert O'Connell's "The Cuban Missile Crisis: Second Holocaust," in What Ifs? of American History, edited by Robert Cowley.
Consumerist, there also the BBC doku drama "Threads" from 1984
it show a realistic 1980s horrid Nuclear war senario
the TV Movie show wat happent the city of Sheffield in northern England.
during full 3,000 megatons NATO-Warsaw Pact exchange
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Threads
http://www.btinternet.com/~pdbean/threads.html
Threads complett on youtube
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eT96sgTwmvo&p=A94D246DC900014A&index=1&feature=BF
WARNING
Thread show the full brutality of Nuclear War
against that "the Day After" look like a Walt Disney play
Amerigo Vespucci,
i have to repeat again its a "marbellousness Work"
it show a realistic 1980s horrid Nuclear war senario
the TV Movie show wat happent the city of Sheffield in northern England.
during full 3,000 megatons NATO-Warsaw Pact exchange
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Threads
http://www.btinternet.com/~pdbean/threads.html
Threads complett on youtube
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eT96sgTwmvo&p=A94D246DC900014A&index=1&feature=BF
WARNING
Thread show the full brutality of Nuclear War
against that "the Day After" look like a Walt Disney play
Amerigo Vespucci,
i have to repeat again its a "marbellousness Work"
I imagine that with things escalating in TTL, there would be a much lower turnout for the referendum, especially in more urban areas or places near the German border, since they would risk a potential Soviet invasion, at least in the popular imagination.
I only had the chance to skim through version 1.8 but it looks good.
Seconded kudos on the PDF. Makes it very readable. Not really seeing a whole lot of differences to the Cuban invasion, other than the name "Operation Scabbards."
It says Konrad Adenauer is killed by Red Army Faction... should that just be Red Army or was "Red Army Faction" some sort of East German group?
It says Konrad Adenauer is killed by Red Army Faction... should that just be Red Army or was "Red Army Faction" some sort of East German group?
no that was "Rote Arme Fraktion" RAF
a a communist and anti-imperialist "urban guerrilla" group
who existed from 1970 to 1988
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Army_Faction
this is one of few error in this TL
Thanks, Michael Van. I'll fix that for v1.9.
Incidentally, today is the 48th anniversary of the war.
Incidentally, today is the 48th anniversary of the war.
Amerigo Vespucci:
IIRC, the leader of the coup (forget his name) knew America had enormous advantage in nukes (although the other conspirators did not). Is this a correct reading? If so, what was he thinking when he overthrew Krushchev? Did he not realize this would imperil the Soviet Union?
IIRC, the leader of the coup (forget his name) knew America had enormous advantage in nukes (although the other conspirators did not). Is this a correct reading? If so, what was he thinking when he overthrew Krushchev? Did he not realize this would imperil the Soviet Union?
argentina,
In March 1962, one of many coups occured in Argentina, by which José Maria Guido was put in the Pink House. In 1963 he called elections, which were won by Arturo Illia. In the 1955-1983 period, the Argentinian Armed Forces controlled, put and took out, and put pressure on civil governments, and often formed military juntas that ruled the country with each time more neo liberal policies.
Peronism was prohibited during this period, except during 1973. The Peronists were by far the most popular party in the country, with their affiliates voting 'blank' in most elections as a form of protest against the prohibition. If the USA and the SU dissapeared, like in this timeline, maybe Peronism (with it's very known premise that it was the 'third position', between socialism and capitalism) would have an advantage over its competitors in the country and establish itself indefinitely...but wait! I forgot that between 1955 and 1973...Peron himself lived in exile...in Spain! (It's awesome how the world is connected) Although he always believed or at least said that "World war III is going to happen", so maybe as tensions arose, he escaped Spain?
Whatever, maybe after the U.K is ruined, the Argentine Navy positions some ships around Malvinas/Falkland and issues an ultimatum to the U.K? Then takes the islands.
Also, the putsches in Argentina after 1960 (and the rest of L. America) were at least related in some way to the U.S and the S.U, with the U.S promoting, helping or protecting these putsches in order to stop communism from advancing in Latin America.
Maverick help!
In March 1962, one of many coups occured in Argentina, by which José Maria Guido was put in the Pink House. In 1963 he called elections, which were won by Arturo Illia. In the 1955-1983 period, the Argentinian Armed Forces controlled, put and took out, and put pressure on civil governments, and often formed military juntas that ruled the country with each time more neo liberal policies.
Peronism was prohibited during this period, except during 1973. The Peronists were by far the most popular party in the country, with their affiliates voting 'blank' in most elections as a form of protest against the prohibition. If the USA and the SU dissapeared, like in this timeline, maybe Peronism (with it's very known premise that it was the 'third position', between socialism and capitalism) would have an advantage over its competitors in the country and establish itself indefinitely...but wait! I forgot that between 1955 and 1973...Peron himself lived in exile...in Spain! (It's awesome how the world is connected) Although he always believed or at least said that "World war III is going to happen", so maybe as tensions arose, he escaped Spain?
Whatever, maybe after the U.K is ruined, the Argentine Navy positions some ships around Malvinas/Falkland and issues an ultimatum to the U.K? Then takes the islands.
Also, the putsches in Argentina after 1960 (and the rest of L. America) were at least related in some way to the U.S and the S.U, with the U.S promoting, helping or protecting these putsches in order to stop communism from advancing in Latin America.
Maverick help!
B-52's wouldn't have been risked on missions over Cuba... they were too valuable as strategic delivery platforms and were needed for that, not short range missions like nuclear bombardment of tactical or strategic targets in Cuba...
The most likely scenario for performing nuclear strikes in Cuba would have been the use of F-105 Thunderchiefs armed with nuclear weapons. These were MORE than sufficient to the task and far more 'expendable' than valuable long-range intercontinental bombers like the B-52's...
Even a B-47 would have been more likely than a B-52, and I doubt they would have been used for such a relatively close target...
Great timeline! OL JR
The most likely scenario for performing nuclear strikes in Cuba would have been the use of F-105 Thunderchiefs armed with nuclear weapons. These were MORE than sufficient to the task and far more 'expendable' than valuable long-range intercontinental bombers like the B-52's...
Even a B-47 would have been more likely than a B-52, and I doubt they would have been used for such a relatively close target...
Great timeline! OL JR
Yes, but remember that the "modern" Soviet Russian industrial state only really came about AFTER WWI... There were probably Russians alive in 1962 whose grandparents were children under the czar and told stories of the 'old days' when Russia was a far more peasant-like pre-industrial country, and certainly remembered the days before the Great Patriotic War turned the Soviet Union into an industrialized powerhouse (despite the hobbling effect of it's command economy).
In other words, it would be FAR easier for the Russians to go back to a more 'survivalist' mindset and skillset than for the typical 1962 long established consumer economy American or European...
Later! OL JR
Interesting and a special area of interest of mine. At the time, the last manned spaceflight before the war (by the US) would have been Wally Schirra's MA-8 flight of "Sigma 7". (the final Mercury/Atlas orbital flight, Gordo Cooper's "Faith 7" occurred on May 15, 1963 in our timeline... sadly the Mercury program would have ended seven month's earlier with the outbreak of the war-- the federal government and the country in general would have had MUCH more important things to worry about than space flight, and would continue to for a LONG time to come...
The final spaceflights of the old Soviet Union occurred over a five-day period from August 11 to 15, 1962... the dual flights of Vostoks 3 and 4. Cosmonaut Andrian Nikolaev completes 64 orbits and Pavel Popovich, launched a day later, completes 48. The two craft come within 5 kilometers of each other despite no orbital manuevering capability, which Soviet propaganda used to tout they had "rendezvoused" in the first dual-spacecraft manned flight, which was actually accomplished (orbital rendezvous) by the Americans on the flights of Gemini 6 and 7 on December 15/16, 1965. With the destruction of the industrial infrastructure, research, academia, and general society of the Soviet state in the war, it would likely be a century or more before any Russian would again travel into space, on a Russian vehicle anyway...
While work WAS already being done that would lay the foundations of the Gemini follow-on program that would follow the Mercury program, and lay the path technologically to achieving the Apollo lunar missions, and in fact some early work was already underway on defining and designing the Apollo spacecraft and missions, and many development projects (like Saturn I and the F-1 engines) were well underway, the simple fact is that all that would have been halted in short order by a general nuclear war in October of 1962. Without a Soviet enemy to demonstrate technological mastery over to the world, the moon goal so eloquently set out by President Kennedy in May 25, 1961 would have fallen to the wayside in light of more pressing concerns like Reconstruction and re-emerging from the war-induced Super Depression...
However, in considering TTL, I can see how a damaged yet recovering America, humbled and yet re-emerging from the difficulties, austerity, malaise, unrest, and national humiliation following the War, and sentimental and pining for the "good old days" pre-War when America could "do anything", and looking for a way to assert itself on the world stage in a non-military way, would embrace the idea of a "bold new adventure" in returning AMERICANS to space... Perhaps pick up the mantle of technologies and materials developed for Gemini and Apollo before the war, reuse and adapt what still existed, and move forward with the goal to put an AMERICAN back into space by 1977 aboard a US capsule. I don't think it's tenable to consider this program being contemplated much before 1977, 15 years after the war-- any sooner and the problems facing the country would have made such an endeavor seem particularly wasteful and expensive to a still suffering American population still mired in the lingering effects of the Super Depression and war recovery and facing the challenges of civil and governmental unrest, which would make such a program look like a fool's errand considering the more pressing problems "here on Earth".
However, some 15 years after the War, with the US economy austere and stuck in malaise but revived (much like the late 30's I'd imagine, functional but weak, before the industrial revival induced by war trade and war work shattered the lingering effects of the Depression once and for all), I could see such a program being proposed by a forward-thinking and visionary President as part of some sort of "New Deal" type program of government projects designed to stimulate science, industry, and the economy all at the same time... sort of like a latter-day WPA (which surely would have been re-instituted in the aftermath of the War to salvage the economy and get people back to work through some sort of Reconstruction Act...) By now the economy has revived, but this will invigorate it, give the nation a goal and something to have pride in, re-assert American political power and technical acumen to the world which it has been largely sidelined from for a decade or more, and yet be non-threatening and foster goodwill at the same time, being a scientific program.
Simply re-establishing the American capability to orbit a spacecraft would have of course only been a preliminary step. A goal would be needed, and landing a man on the moon could be seen as a realistic and challenging objective, if it could be divorced from the stigma of it's origins in the pre-War Soviet/American Space Race... (which would depend on the political acumen and skills of the President proposing such a program after the War, and his popularity and charisma with the electorate). Perhaps a smaller step, establishing a permanent US Space Station, something more realistic and easier to achieve technologically and fiscally, and not linked to the Pre-War Space Race, might be a more 'palatable' objective politically-- so much would depend on the cultural attitudes and predilections and fears of the general population after the War, which is impossible to predict or accurately speculate with any certainty... If the population saw the Space Race as a "fools errand" that ENHANCED that competition (and indirectly led to the attitudes that caused the War) then I'd say proposing a Moon Program would be politically very risky. If, however, the population instead nursed a spirit of melancholy and a strong desire to "relive the glory-days of America before the War", to "return America to "it's rightful place", then I could see the announcement of a "renewed Lunar Plan" as generating a lot of excitement and pride...
It would almost surely be a capsule-based approach though-- the work on military spaceplanes like Dyna-Soar weren't especially far along in 1962, when the War would have cut into such work quite visciously and curtailed it for the immediate indeterminate future... Capsules like Mercury (and Vostock for that matter) were proven to work, and would be less technologically risky. As a follow-on program for the US after a "new Gemini" to return the US to manned spaceflight capability and achieve the goals and skills needed for further spaceflight (remember that in TTL no man had EVER walked in space (Leonov's spacewalk on Voskhod 2 didn't occur until March 18/19, 1965, and White's spacewalk on Gemini 4 on June 3, 1965 both occurred well after the War had wreaked havoc on the world). After the US returns to space in the early 80's and gets it's "Space legs" back, what vehicle follows on after that largely depends on the Goal... A space plane like Dyna-Soar for manned transport to a space station would probably be quite feasible, but if the goal is lunar exploration, then a follow-on capsule would be a MUCH better choice and is basically required to go beyond Earth orbit, so something much more like Apollo than Dyna-Soar or the space shuttle would be required...
As to whether China, India, or Japan would be motivated to engage in some sort of "space race" in TTL really is open to debate... I'd imagine ALL of these nations would have pursued some kind of launch vehicle/satellite programs... spy satellites would prove VITAL for national defense and intelligence gathering, and the communications capabilities for both the military and civilian uses would prove very hard to ignore. Also, burgeoning communications capabilities offered by satellites would have proven quite lucrative, especially for countries looking to replace damaged or destroyed surface-based communications infrastructures (cable telephone systems) or create new infrastructure that hasn't existed before. Such would have been a powerful motivator to pursue launch vehicle and orbital satellite capabilities in MANY countries capable of it, including the US, China, India, Japan, Australia, and equally motivating in less space-capable countries like Israel, Brazil, Argentina, and South Africa. England would be too emaciated financially and technologically to attempt it, though they might well have their needs served by Australia or India, and of course ESA would never exist as we know it. France might pursue satellite launch capability, depending on how badly they were hurt. Without doubt, the US would have maintained SOME capability in unmanned space launches for national security concerns, both for spy satellites like "Corona" of that era (which were launched on Thor/Agena rockets) and other military/intelligence assets (like Samos) and military communications satellites, electronic intelligence satellites, and other such assets which were all being developed or early models were already in use at the time, and have proved both disproportionately highly effective and valuable and also relatively invulnerable. In the immediate aftermath of the war, though, MANNED spaceflight would SURELY have been seen as a luxury and distraction that simply could NOT be afforded.
I've thought about writing something just along these lines...
Later! OL JR
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I think the United States might learn a very harsh lesson from the War. Just as WWII proved the lesson that "appeasement doesn't work", I think that after a CMW like this, the US military strategists and thinkers would be saying, "Looks like the best way to prevent a war is to fight one early enough that you can't get hit as badly." There were those, like Patton and MacArthur, who felt that the BEST way to deal with the threats the US would be facing from the USSR and the communist regimes of East Asia was preemptive war-- destroy their ability to wage war while they were still weak. There was talk (and the idea was fairly widely held by the Germans before the end of WWII) that the Germans would join the US (and Allies) and continue on into Russia. MacArthur advocated the use of nuclear weapons in Korea and against China once China joined the fray, so much so that he was removed from command.
I think the hardliners will take the lesson and drive it home to everyone else, "See, had we attacked Russia in 1945, or certainly by 1949 when they got the bomb, we could have prevented ALL the damage inflicted on the US and Western Europe, and minimized the damage inflicted on the USSR and Eastern Europe. Just like how the atomic raids on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, while inflicting grievous casualties, brought the war to a quicker end without the need for a massive Japanese homeland invasion that would have killed countless US military personnel and millions of Japanese civilians..."
With this far more 'hardline' hawkish attitude, there would probably be considerable pressure to destroy the PRC's nuclear capabilities and ambitions EARLY, rather than wait until they had a substantial number of nuclear warheads and more importantly, DELIVERY SYSTEMS. Using a part of the US nuclear reserve in 1964 to decapitate China's nuclear capabilities would have been an attractive option to a fearful government and population who could see the possibility of ANOTHER larger nuclear conflict somewhere in the future with China... despite the appalling losses it would cause in the short term. With the war so recently ended and so fresh in everyone's minds, it is far easier to contemplate such actions sooner rather than later... as time passes, it becomes a less and less acceptable option, and once they have a number of atomic weapons and the means to deliver them, the option loses any advantages it had early on, and is less politically acceptable.
The CMW surviving US wouldn't have the benefit of hindsight that we have... That is, had the CMW actually occurred, it would have been FAR less destructive having occurred in 1962 due to the forces available at the time, than had it occurred in say 1983, by which time the US and USSR had SUCH overwhelming nuclear capabilities that a nuclear war in the 80's would have probably pushed humanity to the Stone Age and emptied entire continents, if not pushed mankind to the brink of extinction. I'm sure that planners and strategists would eventually consider the fact, that as bad as the CMW was in 1962, it would have been FAR LESS DESTRUCTIVE had the US taken unilateral action to eliminate the nuclear threat the USSR posed in say, 1953, by widening the Korean War into a preemptive WWIII and destroying the Soviet nuclear capabilities THEN rather than wait until they had the delivery systems capable of hitting the US that they used in 1962.
Later! OL JR
Geon
Donor
Political Realities of CMW timeline
Luke
Your points are very well taken. However given the political realities of Amerigo's timeline I do not think that politically the U.S. would have the will as of the post war years in CWM to take the step of unilateral destruction of the Chinese nuclear force. First note the presidents in the post-CWM world, one of them is Martin Luther King, Jr. President King would have opposed any federal spending for the military other then what was absolutely necessary. Short of an invasion by the Red Chinese President King would have opposed any military action unless the nation's security was in severe danger.
This goes for most of the presidents after King, including Reagan. The U.S. was rebuilding well into the beginning of the 21st century in this timeline. While the lesson of "never again" would have been well learned and I could see a build up of the military under Reagan I don't see any sane President launching such an action without facing the same fate Johnson did in TTL.
Further I don't see any way short of totally destroying Chinese industrial infrastructure and the government, a practical impossibility given the size of both the population of China and it's physical landmass, that you can stop them from reacquiring nuclear capability any time in the future. I think Amerigo's analyses here in the TL is a fundamentally correct one.
Incidentally I find your analyses of the space program in the CWM very interesting and plausible.
Geon
I think the United States might learn a very harsh lesson from the War. Just as WWII proved the lesson that "appeasement doesn't work", I think that after a CMW like this, the US military strategists and thinkers would be saying, "Looks like the best way to prevent a war is to fight one early enough that you can't get hit as badly." There were those, like Patton and MacArthur, who felt that the BEST way to deal with the threats the US would be facing from the USSR and the communist regimes of East Asia was preemptive war-- destroy their ability to wage war while they were still weak. There was talk (and the idea was fairly widely held by the Germans before the end of WWII) that the Germans would join the US (and Allies) and continue on into Russia. MacArthur advocated the use of nuclear weapons in Korea and against China once China joined the fray, so much so that he was removed from command.
I think the hardliners will take the lesson and drive it home to everyone else, "See, had we attacked Russia in 1945, or certainly by 1949 when they got the bomb, we could have prevented ALL the damage inflicted on the US and Western Europe, and minimized the damage inflicted on the USSR and Eastern Europe. Just like how the atomic raids on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, while inflicting grievous casualties, brought the war to a quicker end without the need for a massive Japanese homeland invasion that would have killed countless US military personnel and millions of Japanese civilians..."
With this far more 'hardline' hawkish attitude, there would probably be considerable pressure to destroy the PRC's nuclear capabilities and ambitions EARLY, rather than wait until they had a substantial number of nuclear warheads and more importantly, DELIVERY SYSTEMS. Using a part of the US nuclear reserve in 1964 to decapitate China's nuclear capabilities would have been an attractive option to a fearful government and population who could see the possibility of ANOTHER larger nuclear conflict somewhere in the future with China... despite the appalling losses it would cause in the short term. With the war so recently ended and so fresh in everyone's minds, it is far easier to contemplate such actions sooner rather than later... as time passes, it becomes a less and less acceptable option, and once they have a number of atomic weapons and the means to deliver them, the option loses any advantages it had early on, and is less politically acceptable.
The CMW surviving US wouldn't have the benefit of hindsight that we have... That is, had the CMW actually occurred, it would have been FAR less destructive having occurred in 1962 due to the forces available at the time, than had it occurred in say 1983, by which time the US and USSR had SUCH overwhelming nuclear capabilities that a nuclear war in the 80's would have probably pushed humanity to the Stone Age and emptied entire continents, if not pushed mankind to the brink of extinction. I'm sure that planners and strategists would eventually consider the fact, that as bad as the CMW was in 1962, it would have been FAR LESS DESTRUCTIVE had the US taken unilateral action to eliminate the nuclear threat the USSR posed in say, 1953, by widening the Korean War into a preemptive WWIII and destroying the Soviet nuclear capabilities THEN rather than wait until they had the delivery systems capable of hitting the US that they used in 1962.
Later! OL JR
Luke
Your points are very well taken. However given the political realities of Amerigo's timeline I do not think that politically the U.S. would have the will as of the post war years in CWM to take the step of unilateral destruction of the Chinese nuclear force. First note the presidents in the post-CWM world, one of them is Martin Luther King, Jr. President King would have opposed any federal spending for the military other then what was absolutely necessary. Short of an invasion by the Red Chinese President King would have opposed any military action unless the nation's security was in severe danger.
This goes for most of the presidents after King, including Reagan. The U.S. was rebuilding well into the beginning of the 21st century in this timeline. While the lesson of "never again" would have been well learned and I could see a build up of the military under Reagan I don't see any sane President launching such an action without facing the same fate Johnson did in TTL.
Further I don't see any way short of totally destroying Chinese industrial infrastructure and the government, a practical impossibility given the size of both the population of China and it's physical landmass, that you can stop them from reacquiring nuclear capability any time in the future. I think Amerigo's analyses here in the TL is a fundamentally correct one.
Incidentally I find your analyses of the space program in the CWM very interesting and plausible.
Geon
Ok, I found something that calls some of the underlying assumptions about the effectiveness and reliability of US nuclear weapons of the time into question...
The W47 nuclear warheads on the (then) fairly recently introduced Polaris A-1 missiles were found to have reliability problems that would have rendered many of them duds... they did a one-point safety detonation test before the nuclear testing moratorium and found that the warhead would still produce a 100 ton explosion even with primary partially disabled (the W47 used the "Robin" primary to ignite it's thermonuclear physics package, and that primary used two detonators with an air-plate gap to reform the shockwave onto the pusher, tamper, and pit to crush it and initiate the fission reaction. These primary designs, while smaller and lighter than the larger multilayer explosive lens primaries in weapons such as "Fat Man" and the Mark IV, were also less safe, because while a single detonator malfunction on the older primaries would not result in a nuclear detonation-- it would simply tear the pit apart and scatter it, the twin-detonator design COULD cause a partial crushing of the pit sufficient to create a "fizzle" explosion of about 100 tons TNT equivalent.
The stopgap solution to make these primary designs safer and prevent an accidental nuclear detonation was to install a boron-cadmium wire into the pit when it was constructed. This wire would act just like a 'control rod' and absorb neutrons in the event of an accidental explosion of one side or the other of the primary, preventing any chain reaction from occurring and inhibiting any nuclear yield from being produced in the explosion of the high explosives of the primary. This solution was unsatisfactory because 1) the boron-cadmium wire was installed into the pit when it was constructed, and removed when the weapon was armed by a small electric motor that pulled the wire from the pit, which then would allow the pit to become "hot" for detonation when the implosion triggers fired. Once the wire was withdrawn, it could not be reinserted, so the primary would REMAIN "hot" (unsafed) and at risk of releasing a small nuclear yield in the event of an accident until the pit was removed from the primary and repaired, 2) this boron-cadmium wire tended to get stiff and brittle with age, so that it would more often than not break as it was being pulled from the primary's pit, which would then inhibit the nuclear reaction when the bomb detonated, resulting in a reduced nuclear yield or make the bomb a complete dud! 3) the oil used to lubricate the wire caused corrosion in the pit, which could also cause problems with the reliability of the pit to function properly and create a nuclear detonation.
Here's the wiki link... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W47
This also affected the W52 warhead on the Sargeant missile... it used the same primary, and in a warhead test in 1963 showed that the Mod 1 and 2 warheads were essentially duds. The Mod 3 warhead corrected it, but this would have been well after the CMW POD...
Here's the wiki link-- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W52
This means that, depending on the actual timeline on when these faults were discovered and how effective repair operations were, that Polaris missiles and Sargeant missiles fired in Europe might have had a MUCH MUCH lower reliability rate than what was stated in the CMW timeline... perhaps only HALF the Polaris missiles would have actually detonated over their targets... the rest would have exploded harmlessly with the force of a few hundred pounds of TNT a couple miles above the ground over their targets and merely showered it with a few kilograms of uranium or plutonium dust from the incinerated pit and tamper... Same thing with the Sargeants, which may actually have ALL failed, since the problem wasn't discovered in OTL until 1963 (according to wiki anyway...)
Something to think about! OL JR
The W47 nuclear warheads on the (then) fairly recently introduced Polaris A-1 missiles were found to have reliability problems that would have rendered many of them duds... they did a one-point safety detonation test before the nuclear testing moratorium and found that the warhead would still produce a 100 ton explosion even with primary partially disabled (the W47 used the "Robin" primary to ignite it's thermonuclear physics package, and that primary used two detonators with an air-plate gap to reform the shockwave onto the pusher, tamper, and pit to crush it and initiate the fission reaction. These primary designs, while smaller and lighter than the larger multilayer explosive lens primaries in weapons such as "Fat Man" and the Mark IV, were also less safe, because while a single detonator malfunction on the older primaries would not result in a nuclear detonation-- it would simply tear the pit apart and scatter it, the twin-detonator design COULD cause a partial crushing of the pit sufficient to create a "fizzle" explosion of about 100 tons TNT equivalent.
The stopgap solution to make these primary designs safer and prevent an accidental nuclear detonation was to install a boron-cadmium wire into the pit when it was constructed. This wire would act just like a 'control rod' and absorb neutrons in the event of an accidental explosion of one side or the other of the primary, preventing any chain reaction from occurring and inhibiting any nuclear yield from being produced in the explosion of the high explosives of the primary. This solution was unsatisfactory because 1) the boron-cadmium wire was installed into the pit when it was constructed, and removed when the weapon was armed by a small electric motor that pulled the wire from the pit, which then would allow the pit to become "hot" for detonation when the implosion triggers fired. Once the wire was withdrawn, it could not be reinserted, so the primary would REMAIN "hot" (unsafed) and at risk of releasing a small nuclear yield in the event of an accident until the pit was removed from the primary and repaired, 2) this boron-cadmium wire tended to get stiff and brittle with age, so that it would more often than not break as it was being pulled from the primary's pit, which would then inhibit the nuclear reaction when the bomb detonated, resulting in a reduced nuclear yield or make the bomb a complete dud! 3) the oil used to lubricate the wire caused corrosion in the pit, which could also cause problems with the reliability of the pit to function properly and create a nuclear detonation.
Here's the wiki link... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W47
This also affected the W52 warhead on the Sargeant missile... it used the same primary, and in a warhead test in 1963 showed that the Mod 1 and 2 warheads were essentially duds. The Mod 3 warhead corrected it, but this would have been well after the CMW POD...
Here's the wiki link-- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W52
This means that, depending on the actual timeline on when these faults were discovered and how effective repair operations were, that Polaris missiles and Sargeant missiles fired in Europe might have had a MUCH MUCH lower reliability rate than what was stated in the CMW timeline... perhaps only HALF the Polaris missiles would have actually detonated over their targets... the rest would have exploded harmlessly with the force of a few hundred pounds of TNT a couple miles above the ground over their targets and merely showered it with a few kilograms of uranium or plutonium dust from the incinerated pit and tamper... Same thing with the Sargeants, which may actually have ALL failed, since the problem wasn't discovered in OTL until 1963 (according to wiki anyway...
) Something to think about! OL JR
Thanks. I appreciate it.
I don't think the "final solution" of using nuclear weapons to eliminate other potential enemies ability to develop nuclear arms is likely, but it certainly is a possibility. Consider what the response of the US military leadership (and remember the US would have been under martial law at the time, so the political leaders would have had far less concern for "popular opinion" at the time) would have been to the news of China detonating it's first nuclear weapon, right on the heels of a major nuclear war that devastated and basically depopulated Europe, crippled portions of the US and killed millions of it's citizens, and resulted in the near-total destruction of the USSR and it's population... The memories were fresh, the emotions were raw, and there would have been more of an instinct for survival regardless of the costs to others rather than introspection on the ramifications of killing hundreds of thousands or millions of Chinese to castrate their capability to develop nuclear weapons...
I remember hearing (and saying myself) many times in the days after 911 that "we should just turn them into glass" (completely nuke anyplace remotely associated with terrorists or their ideology... The emotions were raw and the memories fresh; we'd been attacked and many people (myself included) felt that we should respond in kind-- or at least teach "them" a lesson that they (and the world) would NEVER forget...
I think that a preemptive attack on PRC to neuter their nuclear ambitions, taken in late 64, would have been considered a regrettable but necessary step to insure the safety of the US (and the world) for the future and to prevent the possibility of another major nuclear war at some point in the future. With time and hindsight, such an action would have been surely condemned and reviled by future historians and academics as "unnecessary" (much like the revisionist historians and their condemnation of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki raids, and for that matter the conventional bombing raids on Dresden, Hamburg, and Tokyo....) BUT at the time I think that there would have been VERY little opposition WHERE IT COUNTED (amongst the generals and politicians in charge under martial law).
OF course, as you said, it is VERY DIFFICULT to prevent countries from surreptitiously developing nuclear weapons... and as more than a few generals have pointed out, "It doesn't matter HOW many nuclear weapons they have, if they don't have the DELIVERY SYSTEMS". (I think Schwarzkopf made this comment about Iraq's chemical weapons capabilities in Gulf War I... he wasn't worried about their chemical weapons because they basically didn't have the means to DELIVER THEM ON TARGET, at least not in any strategically meaningful amounts...) SO, the US might have taken the tactic of simply denying other countries the capability to DELIVER nuclear weapons on the United States... selectively attacking bomber bases or missile emplacements or submarine facilities in the PRC as they were built, to preclude them developing the capability of launching nuclear weapons in combat against the US. Such selective attacks need not necessarily be nuclear; in many cases conventional weapons could eliminate the threat. Waiting until they had functional missiles or missile subs or bombers, however, would be suicide-- it would require an ongoing commitment to preemption...
I doubt the world would have been in any way as pacifist and tolerant as it has become in OTL... quite the opposite... the cruelties imposed on the world by a CMW would likely have taught the world "better to do unto others BEFORE they can do unto you!"... Especially if you consider the mindset at the time, which was more "better dead than Red" and other such colloquialisms that defined the general consensus that "well, we don't WANT to do it, but if we have to, we will"...
The world may well have ended up FAR more martial and militant after the CMW than we might imagine... probably more likely than turning into a "never again, no matter what" type pacifist society... certainly those factions of society would be present, but I think they'd be marginalized as "hopeless Utopians" versus the cold reality of an austere, grim, postnuclear world on the mend...
And the idea of Martin Luther King ending up as President, in that time period, is patently rediculous... The racial strife of the 60's was bad enough as it is... and that was in a prosperous and generally happy US in the midst of the post world war II peace (though interrupted by Korea and Vietnam). There would have been CONSIDERABLE resistance in the South to such orders coming from "some gubmint bunker somewhere" to end discrimination and all that (mirroring the Civil Rights Act of 1964) and the *mostly* untouched South of the time would have been "screw the gubmint" and refused to cooperate. Yes, the military would have enforced the order under martial law, but it would have just inflamed that much more resistance and hatred to the federal government and the proposition of electing a black president in the 70's would have caused a backlash that might well have led to problems that would have made the clashes over Civil Rights in the South during the 60's in OTL look like a church picnic... I wouldn't go so far as to say it'd cause a second Civil War, but it certainly would have engendered a HUGE backlash, considering the opinions and predilections of most of the South at the time... (and even now, most "Southerners" STILL have little use for the 'federal gubmint' and don't care for it much... I know as an original Texan I see that attitude fairly commonly, especially in more rural areas... and I share it BTW).
Later! OL JR
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