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| America's Cold War nuclear target list revealed | |
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| Tweet Topic Started: Dec 24 2015, 03:46 PM (168 Views) | |
| CJ | Dec 24 2015, 03:46 PM Post #1 |
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A very minor case of serious brain damage
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http://nationalinterest.org/feature/americas-cold-war-master-plan-nuke-russia-14714 If the Cold War had turned thermonuclear, we know that the United States and Soviet Union would have been devastated. But now for the first time, we know which Russian cities would have been destroyed, and why. The U.S. government has finally declassified the 1950s Strategic Air Command target list, which would have dispatched American bombers and missiles on nuclear strikes across the Communist world. "SAC listed over 1200 cities in the Soviet bloc, from East Germany to China, also with priorities established," according to the National Security Archive, the non-governmental organization which requested the declassified information. "Moscow and Leningrad were priority one and two respectively. Moscow included 179 Designated Ground Zeros (DGZs) while Leningrad had 145, including 'population' targets." But at least in theory, this would not have been wanton destruction or terror bombing. There was supposed to be method behind the nuclear madness. SAC's priority was to destroy Soviet airpower before Soviet bombers—this was before ICBMs were developed in the 1960s—could strike American and Western European targets. Some 1,100 airfields were targeted and prioritized, with the Soviet Tu-16 Badger bomber bases in Bykhov and Orsha in Byelorussia at the top of the list. Once Soviet airwar capability had been destroyed, and assuming both sides were in any state to continue the war, then Soviet industry would have been bombed next. And so would a lot of innocents. The SAC target list, compiled in 1956 and published as part of a 1959 nuclear weapons planning study, deliberately included civilian populations. Pretty shocking that this list included direct attacks on civilians (as opposed to attacks on military sites which happened to be civilian population centres). Then again, it's hard to imagine that such attacks could ever have taken place, because the Soviet air force would have been obliterated before any other sites were targeted - and at that point, they would almost certainly have had no way of continuing the fight. Still, I'm glad we're finding out the easy way many years later! Also, it does make me wonder what might have been on the Soviets' target lists, and whether civilian population centres featured in it. |
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| GrieferLord | Dec 24 2015, 05:46 PM Post #2 |
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Tank Sniper
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i can guarantee both would have targeted civilian population centers for one reason, demoralization. Why do you think we did the same thing to japan? Sap their will to fight before they can fight back, also with the power of some of the weapons that we had at the time the blasts would still hit civilians regardless. |
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