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Nuclear Test Films Declassified and Uploaded

paleofuture.gizmodo.com

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Re: Nuclear Test Films Declassified and Uploaded

#51

Post by [deleted] »

wahern wrote: post #16
tyingq wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Population density near the blast sites? Not that they all did the right thing, and real people were absolutely affected. But there is a significant difference.

FWIW, declassified intelligence purporting to show Soviet nuclear targets in Australia suggest that large cities would have been spared direct strikes. http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/secrets-out-soviets-did-not-target-cities-20120805-23ny1.html Various other outlets and blogs at the time also made the point that, generally, both the Soviets and Americans avoided population centers as well as (I…

[deleted]

Re: Nuclear Test Films Declassified and Uploaded

#52

Post by dingaling »

wahern wrote: post #16
tyingq wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Population density near the blast sites? Not that they all did the right thing, and real people were absolutely affected. But there is a significant difference.

FWIW, declassified intelligence purporting to show Soviet nuclear targets in Australia suggest that large cities would have been spared direct strikes. http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/secrets-out-soviets-did-not-target-cities-20120805-23ny1.html Various other outlets and blogs at the time also made the point that, generally, both the Soviets and Americans avoided population centers as well as (I…

> suggest that large cities would have been spared direct strikes

That's an Australian assessment of what they expected the Soviets to do in the 1980s.

The actual behaviour largely depends on the specific war-plan and epoch.

Actual Soviet documents from the 1950s show the Soviets planned to 'troll' the West by nuking a few non-Central-Front cities, such as Darwin or Perth, and assessing the response. Would the USA or NATO reply in kind, or back down?

> generally, both the Soviets and Americans avoided population centers as well as (IIRC) decapitation strikes

Not at all. Have a read at these US targets from one of the 1950s SIOPs:

https://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/23/us/politics/1950s-us-nucl...

While many are industrial facilities, government buildings and the like, one for each city is simply designated “Population.”

In later years the targetting turned more towards counterforce ( military targets ) as the CEP of missiles crept down into the hundreds of metres. But before the mid-1980s that simply wasn't feasible

Re: Nuclear Test Films Declassified and Uploaded

#53

Post by minikites »

sjcsjc wrote: post #32
r-bryan wrote: post #7

I was a child of the 1950's. Only 50 miles south of New York City, we little grade school kids were routinely drilled in cowering under our desks in case of a nuclear attack. Every time I heard an airplane, I was afraid it was going to drop bombs. Popular Science ran features about how to build your own fallout shelter, and how Dad could prepare his family for the coming nuclear apocalypse. The understated, tragic ho…

Born in the late 60s, so teenager in the 80s in the UK. I recall that exact same fear of every passing aeroplane. In our case the cultural equivalents of OTB and DS were Threads and The Day After, and the Protect and Survive announcements that Frankie Goes To Hollywood sampled in Two Tribes. I find it interesting that the terror of the global thermonuclear war seems to have disappeared from the popular psyche, even t…

>The Day After

Ronald Reagan was only convinced nuclear war was bad after watching this TV movie starring Steve Guttenberg.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Day_After#Effects_on_polic...

>President Ronald Reagan watched the film several days before its screening, on November 5, 1983. He wrote in his diary that the film was "very effective and left me greatly depressed," and that it changed his mind on the prevailing policy on a "nuclear war".

Re: Nuclear Test Films Declassified and Uploaded

#55

Post by gambiting »

dingaling wrote: post #52
wahern wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

FWIW, declassified intelligence purporting to show Soviet nuclear targets in Australia suggest that large cities would have been spared direct strikes. http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/secrets-out-soviets-did-not-target-cities-20120805-23ny1.html Various other outlets and blogs at the time also made the point that, generally, both the Soviets and Americans avoided population centers as well as (I…

> suggest that large cities would have been spared direct strikes That's an Australian assessment of what they expected the Soviets to do in the 1980s. The actual behaviour largely depends on the specific war-plan and epoch. Actual Soviet documents from the 1950s show the Soviets planned to 'troll' the West by nuking a few non-Central-Front cities, such as Darwin or Perth, and assessing the response. Would the USA or…

If you read "Command and Control" by Eric Schlosser it provides further proof for that. At the height of cold war, US had over 400 missiles ready to strike Moscow directly, purely because of lack of coordination between different forces(so US Army wouldn't share their attack plan with US Navy or the Airforce, so combined they would have launched over 400 missiles at Moscow, a complete overkill).

Re: Nuclear Test Films Declassified and Uploaded

#56

Post by nerdponx »

reti wrote: post #49
sho wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Check out the documentary "Trinity and Beyond" - it has a lot of quality footage, much of it colour.

There's ten minutes on youtube here - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JvnWXf6UZXY . Captures the essence of the film nicely. There's this weird 'end of the world' kind of undertone to the film. Genuinely scary stuff.

This is some absolutely incredible footage. I had no idea there was color footage of the actual bombings in Japan.

Re: Nuclear Test Films Declassified and Uploaded

#57

Post by mysterypie »

mikeash wrote: post #14
Zelphyr wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's what those are? Wow, thanks for the explanation! I always thought that was some weird quirk of the mushroom cloud.

This is called the rope trick: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rope_trick_effect

Since a couple other people mentioned that this was a really good Wikipedia article (and I thought so too), I looked through the Wikipedia revision history in detail to see how it got written.

It's essentially written by one person (Wikipedia user Deglr6328) over a span of 2 years during 2004-2006 followed by hundreds of edits over the next decade by around a dozen users to improve wording, style, references, links, and photos.

The pattern for the best material on Wikipedia seems to be that of one subject matter expert or enthusiast writing the basic article and a small hardcore group of Wikipedia editors improving it (and who do improve it greatly -- I'm not minimizing their part). But you need the initial expert or super-passionate person to get it started.

Re: Nuclear Test Films Declassified and Uploaded

#58

Post by willyt »

sjcsjc wrote: post #32
r-bryan wrote: post #7

I was a child of the 1950's. Only 50 miles south of New York City, we little grade school kids were routinely drilled in cowering under our desks in case of a nuclear attack. Every time I heard an airplane, I was afraid it was going to drop bombs. Popular Science ran features about how to build your own fallout shelter, and how Dad could prepare his family for the coming nuclear apocalypse. The understated, tragic ho…

Born in the late 60s, so teenager in the 80s in the UK. I recall that exact same fear of every passing aeroplane. In our case the cultural equivalents of OTB and DS were Threads and The Day After, and the Protect and Survive announcements that Frankie Goes To Hollywood sampled in Two Tribes. I find it interesting that the terror of the global thermonuclear war seems to have disappeared from the popular psyche, even t…

As a kid I had nightmares for ages after watching 'when the wind blows'. I can't recommend that film highly enough.

Re: Nuclear Test Films Declassified and Uploaded

#59

Post by Houshalter »

trhway wrote: post #34
telesilla wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel conflicted that these explosions are so beautiful to watch, and I always wanted to see one in the sky where the ground didn't interfere with the cloud. Now I have but I'm not really satisfied because it references a possible destruction of humanity? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8n3uane1UT8

>it references a possible destruction of humanity? imagine a guy who has a gun in a drawer at home and who smokes 2 packs a day. What is going to kill him with pretty high probability? The same way the humanity is with nuclear weapons and climate change.

How is climate change anywhere near as dangerous as a nuclear war?

Re: Nuclear Test Films Declassified and Uploaded

#60

Post by mysterypie »

quicklime wrote: post #48
digi_owl wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Average westerner, maybe...

It's more than just for the average westerner, but also for the average human, isn't it? According to this, the absolute number of war-related deaths around the world has been decreasing for decades now. This is especially amazing since we've been experiencing a massive population increase since WW1. https://ourworldindata.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/Wars-L...

That's a fascinating chart. Yes, it shows that war deaths have been decreasing for decades, but it contradicts that great-grandparent's claim that "life for the average human today is more peaceful than at any point in recorded history". Looking at the red line, it seems that there have been many peaks and valleys in the last 600 years. We're in a local valley (more peaceful period) right now, but it doesn't suggest a long-term trend to me.
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