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Declassified Bunker of the USSR

englishrussia.com

61–70 of 76 posts

Re: Declassified Bunker of the USSR

#62
post #12

I love this line: "Now a museum of cold war is organized in the bunker where one can try on respirators, protective gear, hold different guns, etc." You know, the usual sort of museum experience. As interesting as this is, it's also tragic if you think about the vast resources humankind has spent on building terrible weapons and defenses against those weapons. Imagine how much farther we would be ahead as a society i…

Arguably the nuclear weapons have prevented continuation of WW2, where USSR and US would duke it out in the 50's and 60's. Just wanted to point out that world of geopolitics and strategy is way more nuanced than an average person believes.

IIRC, the Soviet Union didn't test their first bomb until 1949, well after the war ended. Are you suggesting that the Soviets stopped their advance because of the American bomb?

Edit: Oh, I just noticed the bit in your comment about the 1950s/60s. So your contention is that the war might have reignited had there been no atomic bomb?

Re: Declassified Bunker of the USSR

#63
post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Arguably the nuclear weapons have prevented continuation of WW2, where USSR and US would duke it out in the 50's and 60's. Just wanted to point out that world of geopolitics and strategy is way more nuanced than an average person believes.

> Arguably the nuclear weapons have prevented continuation of WW2 people in Korea, Afghanistan, Vietnan, etc, etc, would disagree.

The next world war would have made all of those minor skirmishes look like, well, minor skirmishes.

Re: Declassified Bunker of the USSR

#64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Arguably the nuclear weapons have prevented continuation of WW2, where USSR and US would duke it out in the 50's and 60's. Just wanted to point out that world of geopolitics and strategy is way more nuanced than an average person believes.

"nuclear weapons have prevented continuation of WW2" I would tend to agree with that. However, the levels of weaponry that were deployed were arguably far higher than was actually required to achieve effective mutual deterrence - by a huge factor. If you actually read the details of what would have happened if the Cuban Missile Crisis or Able Archer 83 had ended as shooting wars then prepare to have your blood run co…

The Soviets had pledged not to be the first side to use nukes. The US did not reciprocate, because the Warsaw Pact could have overwhelmed NATO forces in Europe with their conventional forces (or so everyone thought), so the US wanted to reserve the ability to use nukes in a counterattack.

Re: Declassified Bunker of the USSR

#65
post #2

There is a lot of this stuff under Moscow: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metro-2

Same under Beijing. There is a parking done in an old military zone, the doors are 50cm thick and the height seem to allow tanks go. Its is said there are many such tunnels under. They feared Russians, in fact. I wonder why they don't open them to cars or build the subway there.

Re: Declassified Bunker of the USSR

#66
post #51
post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Still since there is access to the subway they could have moved stuff out through the subway system at night?

That's clever, but Moscow subway is open between 4:45am and 1:00am. That doesn't seem to give much time to move out a lot of dirt, not quickly.

That's clever, but Moscow subway is open between 4:45am and 1:00am

Even back then? Even so, I bet the authorities could simply close the system down early, close off stations as needed.

Still, I suspect the builders were not worried about subway patrons seeing trainloads of excavated dirt.

They were worried about overhead satellites.

Re: Declassified Bunker of the USSR

#67
post #25

Non blogspam original link: http://moscow-walks.livejournal.com/918332.html It's not good when blogspam from englishrussia.com is on the HN frontpage for hours.

englishrussia.com has English text. Better than Russian text for most of us.

Unforunately, EnglishRussia is badly translated and sometimes editorialized. Take the following line, for example: "The narrow corridor is curved so that a shock wave won’t penetrate the inside of the building."

The original Russian is "Только одна из стен - полукруглая. Это неспроста, стена является фрагментом стенки круглой шахты уходящей далеко под землю", which directly translates to "one of the walls is curved, and for a good reason: it's part of the round shaft that descends deep underground". No mention of a shockwave.

Re: Declassified Bunker of the USSR

#68
The [Deifenbunker](http://www.diefenbunker.ca/) near Ottawa, Canada is a similar declassified setup that’s well worth exploring.

Looking around the C&C rooms that had “X millions of casualties” on maps of blast epicentres really makes you think about what living during the Cold War must have felt like.

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