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Almost Everything in “Dr. Strangelove” Was Based on Fact

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Re: Almost Everything in “Dr. Strangelove” Was Based on Fact

#111

Post by carelesslisper »

cstross wrote: post #8

Young folks today just don't believe how downright surreal (and scary) the cold war was to live through. Look, just read this wikipedia entry about the British Blue Peacock nuclear device, and boggle: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Peacock Yes. It's a chicken-heated atomic landmine. Not a joke: it was a Real Thing. And so was this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Davy_Crockett_%28nuclear_device... The M-29 Davy Crock…

There's an excellent little book with those two and many others equivalently bizarre accounts on nuclear weapons and nuclear energy: http://www.amazon.com/A-Short-History-Nuclear-Folly/dp/16121...

Re: Almost Everything in “Dr. Strangelove” Was Based on Fact

#112

Post by guizzy »

jacquesm wrote: post #100
cstross wrote: post #8

Young folks today just don't believe how downright surreal (and scary) the cold war was to live through. Look, just read this wikipedia entry about the British Blue Peacock nuclear device, and boggle: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Peacock Yes. It's a chicken-heated atomic landmine. Not a joke: it was a Real Thing. And so was this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Davy_Crockett_%28nuclear_device... The M-29 Davy Crock…

The Davy Crockett is one of the most scary devices ever made. You could smuggle that thing into just about anywhere with relatively little chance of detection. I assume they kept good track of where those ended up, that's as close to a suitcase nuke as there ever existed (as far as I know). That's a proliferation nightmare and the only good thing about it is probably that it's very hard to make a small nuke work reli…

Not a suitcase, but a backpack bomb existed.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special_Atomic_Demolition_Muni...

Re: Almost Everything in “Dr. Strangelove” Was Based on Fact

#113

Post by graycat »

jacquesm wrote: post #102
caf wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is my favourite picture of the Davy Crockett: http://blog.nuclearsecrecy.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/Da...

It's the bigger dick foreign policy at work. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CghWWWXSUUU

That's a total riot!

Some parts are true. The rest are too close to being true.

Re: Almost Everything in “Dr. Strangelove” Was Based on Fact

#114

Post by Spooky23 »

cpursley wrote: post #29

I toured Stalin's secret bunker this summer in Moscow where USSR'S top generals held up during the entire Cuban Missile Crisis. This bunker was the control center for the Soviet's nuclear arsenal at the time. According to the guide, the top leaders debated back and forth whether to preemptively strike the United States. The entire thing was surreal - complete with a freighting nuclear attack simulation (America strik…

I worked with a guy who was part of the crew of an Atlas missile control center. I remember talking over drinks at his retirement party, and he recalled now pissed he was at the time that he didn't get to vaporize some Russians.

I found that more disturbing than Dr. Strangelove.

Re: Almost Everything in “Dr. Strangelove” Was Based on Fact

#115

Post by thehistorian »

The author completely missed a major point of the movie (along with the people in this thread), that it was the United States military who was pursuing research on a 'doomsday device' (computerized nuclear armageddon). The S.A.G.E radar defense system, adjusting for inflation, is the most expensive computer system ever assembled. The Q-32 was the crown jewel of the whole operation and it would also later become the first node in the network that today is referred to as the internet. SDC is responsible for the firsts computer implementations of relational database (KWIC), semantic networks, the first WAN & time-sharing device(Sage & Q-32) and the first complete speech recognition system (Synthex). They also trained 22,000 of the first 25,000 programmers in the United States. The term hacker was actually coined by business and military personnel to describe the decline in professional programming standards that occurred with creation of computer science department in the 60's and the unskilled students they produced who didn't properly document their code. Little computer history for all you.

Re: Almost Everything in “Dr. Strangelove” Was Based on Fact

#116

Post by CamperBob2 »

mercer wrote: post #37
bane wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I grew up right at the tail-end of it, the 1984 Red Dawn was a perfectly reasonable scenario. Whenever I think the hysteria was completely insane I think back to my parents and grandparents and some of the truly bizarre notions that happened during their youth: duck and cover, public bomb shelter drills, etc. People actually paid significant parts of their yearly salary to build, stock and maintain nuclear bomb shelt…

> People, large numbers of them, actually believed (and it may have been true) that extinction-level global war was an accidental launch away. Considering the Cuba Missile Crisis, perhaps that wasn't an entirely unreasonable expectation... Reminds me of a fascinating (and rather depressing) alternative history of the missile crisis I read a while ago. I couldn't stop reading: http://www.alternatehistory.com/discussio…

Wow, that guy could step into Tom Clancy's shoes. Why is he doing all that A-level creative writing for free?

Re: Almost Everything in “Dr. Strangelove” Was Based on Fact

#117

Post by Houshalter »

bane wrote: post #18
cstross wrote: post #8

Young folks today just don't believe how downright surreal (and scary) the cold war was to live through. Look, just read this wikipedia entry about the British Blue Peacock nuclear device, and boggle: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Peacock Yes. It's a chicken-heated atomic landmine. Not a joke: it was a Real Thing. And so was this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Davy_Crockett_%28nuclear_device... The M-29 Davy Crock…

I grew up right at the tail-end of it, the 1984 Red Dawn was a perfectly reasonable scenario. Whenever I think the hysteria was completely insane I think back to my parents and grandparents and some of the truly bizarre notions that happened during their youth: duck and cover, public bomb shelter drills, etc. People actually paid significant parts of their yearly salary to build, stock and maintain nuclear bomb shelt…

Ohio is right in the middle-ish of the country and would likely be affected by fallout (as would almost everywhere.) If you don't have a few inches of dirt or concrete between you and the fallout for a few days, your odds are not good.

Re: Almost Everything in “Dr. Strangelove” Was Based on Fact

#118

Post by rattray »

thehistorian wrote: post #115

The author completely missed a major point of the movie (along with the people in this thread), that it was the United States military who was pursuing research on a 'doomsday device' (computerized nuclear armageddon). The S.A.G.E radar defense system, adjusting for inflation, is the most expensive computer system ever assembled. The Q-32 was the crown jewel of the whole operation and it would also later become the f…

... Really?

Can anyone else corroborate any of this? Or cite sources. Certainly interesting stuff if true.

Re: Almost Everything in “Dr. Strangelove” Was Based on Fact

#119

Post by sitkack »

jstatus wrote: post #83
bane wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I grew up right at the tail-end of it, the 1984 Red Dawn was a perfectly reasonable scenario. Whenever I think the hysteria was completely insane I think back to my parents and grandparents and some of the truly bizarre notions that happened during their youth: duck and cover, public bomb shelter drills, etc. People actually paid significant parts of their yearly salary to build, stock and maintain nuclear bomb shelt…

Fun fact -- the shelters in Montana shown on alpinesurvival.com are from a new-age survivalist cult ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church_Universal_and_Triumphant... ). I know this because I grew up in it, and actually lived on the street shown in the photo. Everybody sunk their life savings into them and racked up the credit card debt in the late 80s. Yes, connected to the cold war, but for larger "karmic" reasons o…

Just because it "turned out well" doesn't mean that they were wrong. It also doesn't mean they weren't crazy.

Re: Almost Everything in “Dr. Strangelove” Was Based on Fact

#120

Post by sitkack »

paulhauggis wrote: post #33
simonsarris wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wars would be a lot better if guys would say to themselves sometimes "Jesus, I'm not going to do that to the enemy. That's too much." -Kurt Vonnegut

The problem is that in some wars, if you don't, the enemy will strike you just as hard or harder.

That is why I shoot their women and babies.
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