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Declassified Bunker of the USSR

englishrussia.com

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Re: Declassified Bunker of the USSR

#71

Post by arethuza »

smacktoward wrote: post #55
jarek wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's likely that, being 30 years old, it was outdated and replaced by a newer secret structure anyway.

I would actually doubt that, myself. The costs of building those structures were enormous, and by 1970 or so hydrogen bombs had become powerful enough and ICBMs accurate enough that it was pretty much impossible to build something that would survive a direct hit. Once that point is reached the only protection that the site has is its secrecy, and it costs the enemy less to hire spies and launch satellites than it doe…

"impossible to build something that would survive a direct hit."

The Soviets had versions of the their enormous SS-18/R-36 missile with a single 25Mt warhead - these were presumably aimed at hardened sites like NORAD and Raven Rock:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R-36_%28missile%29

The thriller "Arc Light" has scenes describing what would have happened to Cheyenne Mountain if it had been hit by multiple SS-18s:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arc_Light

Re: Declassified Bunker of the USSR

#72

Post by gus_massa »

illicium wrote: post #67
jeroen wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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,…

There is some comment about the shockwave in photo 4:

4. Узкий коридор входа имеет несколько поворотов, задача которых - погасить ударную волну даже при открытых дверях и недопустить попадания внутрь проникающей радиации. В "доме" всего 1 коридор, вот его план

I don’t know Russian, but with Google translation and a little of hand editing:

4. A narrow corridor the entrance has a few turns, whose main task is to extinguish a shock wave even when the doors are open and disallow the propagation of ionizing radiation.

They probably mix the captions of the photos creatively :).

Complete autotranslation: http://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&...

Re: Declassified Bunker of the USSR

#74

Post by DuncanIdaho »

ascuttlefish wrote: post #62
DuncanIdaho wrote: post #14

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.

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?

Absolutely.

Stalin's and Communist Party's goal was to "free the world of capitalist oppression", had US not had built a Nuke, Russians would not have stopped at Berlin.

The Russians were hit hard in WW2 but still in 1945 they were in far better position than any other Eurasian state. They would have swept over Europe in a single campaign if they could. And even Americans would be hard pressed at stopping them, without the nuclear weapons since US would be heavily tied in pacific dealing with Japan. And it wouldn't take a strategic genius to fathom an alliance between Japan and USSR, Soviets take the Europe, Japanese take the Asia.

Don't forget that in 1945 Russians were already all over Germany, they took Vienna, Yugoslavia was under their direct influence. Without US and their display of might in Pacific, there would be nothing preventing them from taking the Europe, and Stalin knew it.

That's probably why Soviets kinda kept a low profile for until the 1949.

Re: Declassified Bunker of the USSR

#75

Post by ascuttlefish »

DuncanIdaho wrote: post #74
ascuttlefish wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Absolutely. Stalin's and Communist Party's goal was to "free the world of capitalist oppression", had US not had built a Nuke, Russians would not have stopped at Berlin. The Russians were hit hard in WW2 but still in 1945 they were in far better position than any other Eurasian state. They would have swept over Europe in a single campaign if they could. And even Americans would be hard pressed at stopping them, witho…

Thanks for the reply. I always thought the Russians had been lost more people, materiel, etc. than anyone else and were pretty much done in by the end of the war. (I'm not sure where I got that idea, now that I examine it.)

Re: Declassified Bunker of the USSR

#76

Post by DuncanIdaho »

ascuttlefish wrote: post #75
DuncanIdaho wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Absolutely. Stalin's and Communist Party's goal was to "free the world of capitalist oppression", had US not had built a Nuke, Russians would not have stopped at Berlin. The Russians were hit hard in WW2 but still in 1945 they were in far better position than any other Eurasian state. They would have swept over Europe in a single campaign if they could. And even Americans would be hard pressed at stopping them, witho…

Thanks for the reply. I always thought the Russians had been lost more people, materiel, etc. than anyone else and were pretty much done in by the end of the war. (I'm not sure where I got that idea, now that I examine it.)

The Russians indeed lost more people and material than anyone else.

The weird fact is that they lost 26 million due to military, but they lost 10 million to their own internal political oppression.

In either case, USSR had 200 million population in June 1941. At the end of 1945 the population was 170 million[1]. So they still had "plenty" of manpower left.

Also material losses were indeed huge, but mostly because complete disregard for safety of personnel and equipment. They could always replenish their losses at faster rate than their enemies (USSR had vast industry and material base), very inefficient but still huge.

For example. Germans built 6500 JU-87 Stuka assault planes[2] during whole war. Soviets have build 43.000 IL-2 Sturmovik assault planes from 1942-1945[3]. Since Germans had air superiority on eastern front, Soviets would just send in Sturmovik's without air cover.

There's an expression here in eastern Europe for overwhelming numbers, in literal translation it would go something as: "There is as many of them as Russians".

[1]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_II_casualties_of_the_... [2]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Junkers_Ju_87#Production [3]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ilyushin_Il-2#Production

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