Back in the 1970s and 1980s, U.S. Army Special Forces had SADM (Special Atomic Demolition Munition) Teams that parachuted with, SCUBA/submarine locked out with, skied with, cross country rucksack marched with, and trained to deploy these devices in all types of terrain and weather. The only thing that these SADM Teams were forbidden to discuss with outsiders were the device’s size, shape, weight, yield, and special tactics.
The U.S. Army wanted the Soviets to know we had these weapons and intended to use them in a Nuclear War as a follow up to our B-52 Bomber and ICBM attacks. These SADM Teams were to follow the B-52s in separate aircraft and parachute into remote areas where they were to survive the nuclear winter to come out and eliminate any of the Soviet population that had survived our main nuclear attack.
These SADM Teams provided the “Assured” part of our Mutual Assured Destruction” of the Soviet Union, and unsurprisingly U.S. Army SADM Teams were one of the first things the Soviets wanted to discuss during the opening stages of the SALT negotiations.
“where they were to survive the nuclear winter to come out and eliminate any of the Soviet population that had survived our main nuclear attack.”
Pure James Bond silliness. No such thing was the goal. Try high value point targets like equipment depots, rail depots, airfields, transit routes into Germany, communications nodes, etc. And it wasn’t waiting out a “nuclear winter” which was pure fiction from Sagan anyway, and then striking back months later.
It was to be used very early, in the very beginning of a conventional European land war.
It was most assuredly NOT a silly plan for hunting down and nuking isolated bands of civilians who survived an all out nuclear war.