1950s U.S. Nuclear Target List Offers Chilling Insight

The New York Times ^ | 12/21/15 | Scott Shane

[mrbinga]

WASHINGTON — Target category No. 275 from the nuclear target list for 1959 may be the most chilling. It is called simply “Population.”

For the first time, the National Archives and Records Administration has released a detailed list of the United States’ potential targets for atomic bombers in the event of war with the Soviet Union, showing the number and the variety of targets on its territory, as well as in Eastern Europe and China.

It lists many targets for “systematic destruction” in major cities, including 179 in Moscow (like “Agricultural Equipment” and “Transformers, Heavy”), 145 in Leningrad and 91 in East Berlin. The targets are referred to as DGZs or “designated ground zeros.” While many are industrial facilities, government buildings and the like, one for each city is simply designated “Population.”

[tumblindice]

“[Strangelove’s plan for post-nuclear war survival involves living underground with a 10:1 female-to-male ratio]

General “Buck” Turgidson: Doctor, you mentioned the ratio of ten women to each man. Now, wouldn’t that necessitate the abandonment of the so-called monogamous sexual relationship, I mean, as far as men were concerned?

Dr. Strangelove: Regrettably, yes. But it is, you know, a sacrifice required for the future of the human race. I hasten to add that since each man will be required to do prodigious... service along these lines, the women will have to be selected for their sexual characteristics which will have to be of a highly stimulating nature.

Ambassador de Sadesky: I must confess, you have an astonishingly good idea there, Doctor.

Now is the time for every good man to come to the aid of their country.

[ExNewsExSpook]

The NYT barely mentions one of the main reasons behind the targeting choices: in 1959, our ICBM force was in its infancy, and it lacked the accuracy to effectively target the Russian missile force, which was also very small in size and capabilities.

In other words, much of our nuclear deterrence in that era rested with USAF strategic bombers (B-52s and B-47s) dropping gravity weapons. As with our ICBMs, accuracy was less-than-optimum, so a lot of our targets were in major population centers. Not surprisingly, the Russian target list looked a lot like our own, and the principle of Mutually Assured Destruction was born.

As the ICBM and SLBM forces matured and their accuracy improved, targeting shifted to missile silos, bases and other military targets. The number of weapons also decreased, along with their yield. One of our early ICBMs, the liquid-fueled Titan II, carried a 10-megaton warhead. The Minuteman III warhead has a yield of roughly 330kt, but it is far more accurate. The latest version of the Trident SLBM has a one-megaton warhead and is just as accurate as land-based weapons. The slightly larger warhead is more effective in targeting rail and road-based ICBMs, like those currently deployed by Russia and China.

As for your question: our options for China ran the spectrum. The riff between Beijing and Moscow had opened, and we didn’t want to do anything to close it. Additionally, China did not have nukes in the late 1950s, just a vast, conventional Army, so they posed no real threat to the U.S., except in places like Korea. Beijing would have probably been content to sit out the conflict, and try to dominate a post-nuclear world.

[dhs12345]

BTW it worked. ;)

[tanknetter]

Sure, but this stuff was taught openly in the elective national-security classes I took in undergrad in the late 1980s.

Which I didn’t mind, and don’t mind, because deeper explanation serves to undermine the Left’s emotional appeal. Nuclear war and the SIOP that governed how we’d wage it were very much statistically based. We knew the stats, as did the Soviets. The Left was great about crying over how many more warheads and launch platforms we had than were needed (in an emotional appeal for unilateral disarmament) but those numbers were easily justified by the statistics.

Letting the other side know how we planned to fight them was a great deterrant.

[mbarker12474]

Can we have a new year’s resolution to stop writing the word “chilling” in every other headline?

Yes. Or "shocking." These tend to come in publications with views sympathetic to conservatives and/or Christians. First of all, I can decide for myself whether something is shocking. Second, if a reader finds something shocking, then it's because they have their head up their ass and aren't paying attention to the ugly world around them. Nothing is shocking anymore. We need to get beyond being shocked and start taking action, and we can't do that if our friends have their heads up their ass.

[dhs12345]

Interesting: the Lefts justification for repealing the 2nd amendment is that we have evolved beyond the need for firearms.

[larryjohnson]

I did love Dr Strangelove movie. ‘64?
60 to 62. I was briefing SAC B 52 crews on the weather for their targets over Soviet and China as they prepared for 24 flights over the pole.
Chrome Dome.

[DoughtyOne]

I suspect the number of warheads we had pointed at them had something to do with it.

It’s not the U. S. S. R., that bothers me that they knew.

It’s the Leftists in the U. S. that berated us for everything we did to stand up to it during those years.

Remember the Pershing protests concerning our deployments to Europe?

That’s what I’m talking about. And today they’re no more able to grasp reality than they were then.

[mbarker12474]

A nuclear exchange would be a good thing. Nuclear Winter would cancel out Global Warming. Somebody should mention this to the climate technicians in Paris. Get the yields right, and we can achieve a constant 75 degrees with a short rain shower every evening.

[Defiant]

It’s simple: we win, they lose.

[zot]

"Counter-Value" versus "Counter-Force" targeting strategy.

Yes, I remember counter-value in the 1950's and counter-force in the 1960's.

[dhs12345]

That would quickly change if we started getting our arses whipped. That is if we aren’t destroyed first.

All of the PC bs would dumped as soon as Americans felt the pain of real suffering at the hands of our enemies.

[dhs12345]

Exactly!

[Hulka]

“The second and third will be over top of Mecca. Then Medina”

We can only hope so, but with The Messiah holding the nuclear football, never would happen. Trump. . .that is another question. . . .

Destruction of mecca and medina would be the end of muslimes, as they are not spiritual.

The physical world and physical pleasures (here and in their version of “heaven”) drive their death cult.

Without the physical they are lost.

Christians, on the other hand, our faith is spiritual not physical, and destruction of physical structures will not destroy the faith.

[Hulka]

Thanks for the ping.

[stboz]

I lived in Tampa when I was a kid (1960-ish)...about five or six miles from MacDill AFB. I remember a map in the Tampa Tribune depicting targets and estimated power of bombs that the Soviets might be expected to hit with.

Tampa and MacDill were worth 25 megatons.

[mbarker12474]

Shameless plug for my surf guitar rock band:

Group Captain and the Mandrakes (FB) and Group Capatain and the Mandrakes (web)

[tanknetter]

It wasn’t just the number of warheads tho. It was they knew it meant they couldn’t really threaten us with their nukes.

For example, nukes are neither 100% accurate nor 100% reliable. There were targets like hardened bunkers that HAD to be destroyed in the event of a nuclear war.

So say a nuke has a 75% chance of destroying it’s intended target. How many nukes are required to get the destruction of the target to 99.998%?

Quite a few. The Soviet leadership saw our warhead numbers and they had pretty good ideas of accuracy (they’d park dedicated tracking ships near our missile tests to capture telemitry, which we did to them too)

They knew that we had the capability to end them. Not just crush their nation but also incinerate them, personally, in their “nuke proof” bunkers. Because we’d drop enough nukes on each bunker to ensure that at least one made a big hole on top of all their bunkers, and at least one other would hit inside those big holes.

[The Antiyuppie]

I believe that somehow we obtained the Rooskies target list at one time, and I noticed that I lived within the fireball of a one megaton targeted airburst in the 50’s and 60’s. It’s a good thing that we didn’t bother building fallout shelters - it would have been a waste of time and money!

[frog in a pot]

The point of preparing to fight it was so that we'd never have to. Leftists, Soviet sympathizers, never understood that simple strategy.

(Said in the Spirit of Christmas:) Arguably, they understood it well enough to not have tested it.

Perhaps further, they understood they would have to gain a stronger foothold within America, which it appears they now have obtained.

It is doubtful our CIC would push the button before it was too late, if at all (and, his family would no doubt be on a hurriedly arranged trip out of the country).