This post has a brief look at the United Kingdoms recent historical Civil Defence arrangements.
With the papers of the so-called War Book finally coming to public eye, it really makes a sense of how serious the threat was taken.
Below are the official steps to war that the British government would have used in the case of a global emergency or a war footing.
UK Transition to War circa 1950/80
1
Closure of schools, colleges and universities.
2
Hospitals being cleared for casualties. (probably would have causalities from theatre of engagement).
3
Motorways closed to civilian traffic.
4
Normal television and radio broadcasts suspended.
5
Non-essential telephone lines disconnected. (e.g 7/7 attacks on London the Mobile Phone network was shut down in Central London).
6
Civil rights could be suspended as the result of Parliament passing an Emergency Powers Act.
7
Restrictions on electricity for advertising and display. Government may order sports stadiums, theatres, cinemas, art galleries and certain premises to close.
8
Government controls private aircraft, ferries and other shipping. Normal railway services are suspended and trains commandeered, buses and coaches requisitioned.
9
Absenteeism in many companies and workplaces.
10
Gas, electricity and water supplies disconnected. Petrol and diesel supplies rationed for Military and Civil governmental use.
11
Police leave cancelled.
12
Press reporting restrictions are imposed, along with Postal censorship.
13
Fire engines and ambulances are deployed outside of towns & cities.
14
Borders, ports and airports are closed to the public.
15
Noted artworks taken into storage
” 2012 update – following a freedom of information request it appears that NAWS is no longer a key player on the Civil Defence front. “the nature of the risks we face and technological developments mean that it is no longer an indispensable part of our civil protection infrastructure and robust warnings can be delivered in other ways”. In reality this is because the TV and Radio are limited in warning ability and it is an analogue system not digital (where analogue TV is now defunct and analogue radio may be in the next 5-10 years). But … it is still part of our “civil protection infrastructure”. ( credit goes to Civil Defence today for this information)”
A few chilling videos!
Protect and Survive
TV excerpt using BBC official statements in case of an attack.
There was the Yank so terrified of the prospects of a nuclear exchange he moved his family to ….West Falkland. In 1981.
On Ex Lionheart 1984 the deployment plan got us to our war location! But in the fog of war?
My feeling was that if the Warsaw Pact planned a surprise attack, Wednesday afternoon would have been a good time.
Those Polish lorries with a spetznatz co-driver scouting his patrol’s area of operations. The one million plus Gastarbeiter expected to clog the motorways as they filled the second hand Mercedes with family and possessions and headed home.
If the Soviets had a deliberate attack planned I fully expected an abortive mobilisation, that is the Soviets do enough to get NATO to mobilise and then return to barracks, NATO demobilises, it costs a fortune, QM departments have a horrendous time squaring the accounts. Then when intelligence indicates the WP is on the move UK governments are reluctant to implement the War Book measures again. It is what the Egyptians did in ’73 and was effective.
We drew our pre-stocked unit equipment for Lionheart. Anything remotely specific to our war role was represented by a deficiency chit, common user items dating from WWII were however there in abundance.
And finally the training film that stated that the price the Germans had to pay for starting the Second World War was to have the third fought in Germany. I always liked that.
Lindermyer September 30, 2013
I recall reading somewhere that the Soviets believed the west would go Nuclear early, Based on the point made earlier that nobody in the west had vast war stocks of munitions, this lead the Soviets to conclude NATO wasn’t serious about conventional defence. Obviously the short sightedness and behaviour of a typical western Government didn’t occur to them.
The other report I recall was that any Idea of a Soviet offensive died a death in 1984 after Chernobyl when it was realised how ineffective a lot of NBC kit was.
This was part of a document regarding Soviet war plans an awful lot which considered kicking off with a Nuke along the IGB and accepting something like 20% friendly casualties in the process. Chernobyl revised the figures upwards to an unacceptable level.
I apologise its a document I read in the early 90s so I cant source or cite nor really be sure of its accuracy.
Observer September 30, 2013
If it’s a musical, would the wolves be the soprano section?
wf September 30, 2013
Ah, the Mutant Wolves of Chernobyl. I’ll split the film rights with everyone, right?
Chris September 30, 2013
I suppose if this sort of accident had happened in a western country like UK with all our eco-sensitivities, we would have fenced the area off to protect the nice fluffy animals – a fence several hundred miles long costs lots to install and maintain, obviously more than the Ukrainians wanted to afford. But wildlife being what it is – opportunistic – an area of wilderness in an otherwise human dominated environment must look pretty good. I suspect these bigger mammals are roundly persecuted if they stray into contact with us humans. Indeed, I heard of one perfectly affable gent who lives on the edge of the Forest of Dean who has been so wound up by the re-introduced wild boar repeatedly ploughing his manicured oft-relaid lawn up looking for roots to eat that he is ready to defend his turf with a shotgun.
Animals aren’t dumb. They learn what they can get away with and what they can’t. In many cases we the humans bring their unwelcome impacts upon ourselves by giving the animals the wrong impression. A case in point as an example: Once a year I return to a farm up where I used to live, both to pay a bit of rent and to catch up on the year’s news on the farming front. One year the conversation turned to the foxhunting ban. Bear in mind this farmer is no toff with stable and kennel, he has a modest farm on which pigs are raised. But he sees rural life with a farmer’s eye. Foxes to him are not the enemy; they can be a pest and are best tolerated at a distance but he has no issue with them trotting over his fields in the hunt for rabbit or pigeon, that’s what they’ve done for centuries. But since the ban on hunting, he has noticed they are not as wary of people as they were before – because they are no longer chased by men using baying packs of hounds and snorting horses, the fox has changed its perception of risk in coming close to humans (in rural areas). The fox then is becoming more of a pest, to the point that now some rural folk take a shot at then with 12 bore or air-rifle, often wounding the animal but not killing it. The farmer told of one regular fox that used his field as a run suddenly came through with a pronounced limp and over three or four weeks became dishevelled and gaunt and mangy as both infection and hunger because it could no longer hunt effectively. As the farmer saw it using a pack of dogs to hunt the fox – another form of dog – would a) have been entirely understandable to the fox, b) would only have caught up with the elderly or infirm fox, and c) having caught up with the fox the end would be swift and final. Winging a fox so it couldn’t look after itself gave it a long and unpleasant death. The movement to banning the hunts had at least as much to do with kicking the toff as it did with protecting fluffy animals. Since the ban, I haven’t seen anyone worrying about the wellbeing of foxes. No-one upset that they are being shot at to try and keep them away from lambs or foul. Indeed, for the most part the only news on the fox front is that people are complaining they are becoming a nuisance; a danger to children; a scourge on the streets after dark. “Something must be done!” we will hear them say. Well, oh best beloved, you brought this scourge upon yourselves. The pack has learned it has little to fear from people so why should it avoid us?
So the same happened in Prip’yat. The nasty humans went away so its a paradise for the four-legged. All that land for themselves. Except of course that we humans are killing them still, just very slowly and quietly.
Observer September 30, 2013
Gloomy, all it means is that in the future, wild boars and wolves there are going to be in the market for Viagra. :) Not that it helps genetic based sterility. Or cancer rates. Radiation can be a long term invisible killer.
Gloomy Northern Boy September 29, 2013
@Chris – Not entirely sure, but I believe the Chernobyl No-Go Zone is being rapidly re-occupied by large mammals – including really big dangerous things like wild boar and even wolves – I have no idea what the significance of that is in respect of the received scientific wisdom on nuclear contamination – answers on a postcard please?
Clearly what it does mean is that the animals in question can’t read big warning signs in Russian with skulls and crossbones all over them, or that they prefer radiation to human company..!
A thoughtful Gloomy
Chris September 29, 2013
as – ref shorter half-life – glad to hear it, although everything is relative. Post Chernobyl going pop, the ‘Alienation Zone’ around the reactor site and the village of Prip’yat has been declared out of bounds for the foreseeable future: “Ukrainian officials estimate the area will not be safe for human life again for another 20,000 years.” So the use of a shorter half-life isotope is good – land might be habitable within a millennia, if we’re fortunate.
as September 29, 2013
I guess It puts a whole new meaning to the phrase scorched earth.
But the dangerous radiation has a short half life so it will be safe to live in fast enough.
Then you can rebuild like they have in japan. it is a very different after effect with a nuclear blast to a reactor melt down. far less on the long acting radio active particles.
IXION September 29, 2013
What is never dealt with in all the scenarios is starvation which would inevitably follow an all out attack on the UK.
Irradiated water/ food would soon kill off all the ones dysentery typhus and cholera did not.
Imagine ANY UK major city without water and sewage functioning.
Imagine no fuel for modern agriculture – even for those bits that you could farm.
Cannibalism would have broken out in those places ‘lucky enough’ to survive.
Remember Jasper carrot reading to his audience from a 1960’s civil defence leaflet and rightly ripping into it.
The classic line from the leaflet was
‘In a forest fire the need is to protect the big trees and not the brushwood….
He then looked at the audience and said “Guess who the brushwood is…… I’m Looking at it!”
A fully resourced Medieval England could support maybe 6 million people who knew what they were doing with subsistence agriculture and rough living, in settled communities.
As one poster has already said – take a map of the UK and imaging half megaton devices dropped on all the strategic targets. I don’t give much for the Highlands chances with Holey Loch, Doonreay, Edinburgh Glasgow Stirling. That missile testing range in the Orkneys. both ends of the Caledonian canal etc get half a meg each at least.
Followed by a bit of rainfall to make sure all the sheep glow in the dark.
martin September 29, 2013
@ Challenger
“Scottish highlands may have escaped some of it? ”
I always thought the only places you might have been able to survive in the UK where the Isle’s of Scilly and the Western Isles in Scotland but only if you got lucky with the wind direction staying from the SW for at least a few weeks after the attack.
Threads still scare’s the s**t out of me. When I was younger it almost seemed like someone hand nuked Jonny Briggs. Just had to hope that Ed the duck and the BBC broom cupboard survived. (as long as it was Philippa Foster and not Andy Peters) :-)
Chris Werb September 29, 2013
One effect of nuclear war that’s seldom discussed is the way normal every day survivors invariably get themselves mohican haircuts and walk around in punk rocker/biker/bondage outfits for years after nuclear exchange.
PS: On a more serious note, the cancelled british off-route mine was the LAWMINE. We actually had a French off route mine in service prior to that that was basically a huge shaped charge on a directional stand. The Americans had one that fired the old 3.5″ anti tank rocket as used in the M20 rocket launcher that preceded the Carl Gustav M2 (L14A1) in British service. I think they called it the M28.
x September 28, 2013
@ david haine re jump record
I often wondered what went on during ATC parades now I know……
dave haine September 28, 2013
As an aside, I still hold my ATC squadron record for ‘dildo’ jumps. 68 in one evening…
dave haine September 28, 2013
Ha! Hours BA (Breathing Apparatus) drill…dad was a fireman, see…(he had the old stuff, based on the davis escape gear) I had to crawl about the house in this stuff until i was thirteen, then it was up and down ladders in this gear. Double extension if i was normal bad, triple if really bad. He said it served me right for being an air cadet, rather than ACF…
HurstLlama September 28, 2013
@Mr. Trousers
Re Pinbull, the things the Army invented for defaulters to do could fill a book. At one barracks I was at there were some pipes that ran exposed through the cell corridor of the guard room. In winter, when the Regimental Gestapo didn’t like to be outside more than necessary, a prisoner would be allocated a pipe or a stretch of pipe (depending how full the cells were) and required to paint it to a smooth, high-gloss finish. Then when that was done to the Provo Sgt’s satisfaction the prisoner then had to scrape off the paint and polish said pipe to an immaculate shine. On a 28 day sentence one could go through the whole process two or three times – soul destroying but it did discouraged repeat offenders.
Mind you defaulters in my day had it easy compared to what went on in the old glasshouses. My step-father made a pillock of himself in 1941 and did three months in the military prison at Heliopolis, site of the infamous Hill Drill, and was very, very law abiding for the rest of his life.
Red Trousers September 28, 2013
@ Dave Haine,
that’s quite alright, although if it occurs again it’ll be either winter or summer punishment. Winter punishment involves 12 coloured felt markers and a squared school exercise book. Put a dot of each colour in each square, carry on until the page is filled up. Summer is simpler: cut a square metre of the lawn with a pair of nail scissors. Never did me any harm as a boy, but lessons were rapidly learned. My little darlings have between them accumulated 2 summer and one winter punishments@@@, and show no signs at all of wanting to perform the error again.
On the other hand, the Argyll and Bolton Wanderers used to get their defaulters to perform pinbull*** (the old man was an Argyll – did pinbull as a national serviceman and then dished it out a few years later as Adjutant). That really does reinforce a message. ;)
*** Take one scrotty old tin helmet, spray paint any colour you like, then you have 24 hours to scrape off the paint with a standard pin while kicking your heels in the Regimental Jail. Utterly pointless, and quite a challenge in 24 hours.
@@@ Total bloody lightweights. I think I did that each year from 8 to about 15. Challenged the old man to a boxing match as well when I was full of teenage hormones, and he fair kicked my arse.
as September 28, 2013
Does any one think that the Warsaw Pact may have disintegrated into infighting when they started to be put under pressure ?
They hated each other it was a miracle the cold war lasted so long.
It is surprising that the break up only resulted in one civil war.
dave haine September 28, 2013
@ Phil- I most humbly beg your most diffident pardon for placing RT’s miserly words at your mighty and august door. Please forgive me and I most earnestly undertake to never, ever do it again…unless i’m taking the p**s in some way.
@ RT- I most humbly beg your most diffident pardon for attributing your august and illuminating words to a miserly pedant like Phil. Please forgive me and I most earnestly undertake to never, ever do it again…unless I’m taking the p**s in some way.
Hee hee!
Phil September 28, 2013
The thing that annoys me about Threads is that everyone is so miserable after the nuclear war. Believe it or not I think it’s unrealistic. People adapt and a few years after a holocaust after things had settled down a bit I’d imagine whoever was left would do their best to cheer themselves up with some music and some stories.
mike September 28, 2013
I think Threads over-played the nuclear-winter and EMP, but still harrowing.
A rather interesting take on an alternative timeline, if anyone has time to kill and wants to read some fiction re WW3;
When I was at university in the 80’s I attended a pre RCB and during the evening was chatting to a West German army officer in the mess. I asked him what would happen if the Soviets attacked, he said the BAOR would be destroyed in a glorious battle, the French would retreat to protect France and the US wouldn’t be mobilised in time. I asked him what about the West German army and he said ‘zey would slowly move forward to reunify ze fatherland’…
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Some random thoughts on the Earlier comments.
There was the Yank so terrified of the prospects of a nuclear exchange he moved his family to ….West Falkland. In 1981.
On Ex Lionheart 1984 the deployment plan got us to our war location! But in the fog of war?
My feeling was that if the Warsaw Pact planned a surprise attack, Wednesday afternoon would have been a good time.
Those Polish lorries with a spetznatz co-driver scouting his patrol’s area of operations. The one million plus Gastarbeiter expected to clog the motorways as they filled the second hand Mercedes with family and possessions and headed home.
If the Soviets had a deliberate attack planned I fully expected an abortive mobilisation, that is the Soviets do enough to get NATO to mobilise and then return to barracks, NATO demobilises, it costs a fortune, QM departments have a horrendous time squaring the accounts. Then when intelligence indicates the WP is on the move UK governments are reluctant to implement the War Book measures again. It is what the Egyptians did in ’73 and was effective.
We drew our pre-stocked unit equipment for Lionheart. Anything remotely specific to our war role was represented by a deficiency chit, common user items dating from WWII were however there in abundance.
And finally the training film that stated that the price the Germans had to pay for starting the Second World War was to have the third fought in Germany. I always liked that.
I recall reading somewhere that the Soviets believed the west would go Nuclear early, Based on the point made earlier that nobody in the west had vast war stocks of munitions, this lead the Soviets to conclude NATO wasn’t serious about conventional defence. Obviously the short sightedness and behaviour of a typical western Government didn’t occur to them.
The other report I recall was that any Idea of a Soviet offensive died a death in 1984 after Chernobyl when it was realised how ineffective a lot of NBC kit was.
This was part of a document regarding Soviet war plans an awful lot which considered kicking off with a Nuke along the IGB and accepting something like 20% friendly casualties in the process. Chernobyl revised the figures upwards to an unacceptable level.
I apologise its a document I read in the early 90s so I cant source or cite nor really be sure of its accuracy.
If it’s a musical, would the wolves be the soprano section?
Ah, the Mutant Wolves of Chernobyl. I’ll split the film rights with everyone, right?
I suppose if this sort of accident had happened in a western country like UK with all our eco-sensitivities, we would have fenced the area off to protect the nice fluffy animals – a fence several hundred miles long costs lots to install and maintain, obviously more than the Ukrainians wanted to afford. But wildlife being what it is – opportunistic – an area of wilderness in an otherwise human dominated environment must look pretty good. I suspect these bigger mammals are roundly persecuted if they stray into contact with us humans. Indeed, I heard of one perfectly affable gent who lives on the edge of the Forest of Dean who has been so wound up by the re-introduced wild boar repeatedly ploughing his manicured oft-relaid lawn up looking for roots to eat that he is ready to defend his turf with a shotgun.
Animals aren’t dumb. They learn what they can get away with and what they can’t. In many cases we the humans bring their unwelcome impacts upon ourselves by giving the animals the wrong impression. A case in point as an example: Once a year I return to a farm up where I used to live, both to pay a bit of rent and to catch up on the year’s news on the farming front. One year the conversation turned to the foxhunting ban. Bear in mind this farmer is no toff with stable and kennel, he has a modest farm on which pigs are raised. But he sees rural life with a farmer’s eye. Foxes to him are not the enemy; they can be a pest and are best tolerated at a distance but he has no issue with them trotting over his fields in the hunt for rabbit or pigeon, that’s what they’ve done for centuries. But since the ban on hunting, he has noticed they are not as wary of people as they were before – because they are no longer chased by men using baying packs of hounds and snorting horses, the fox has changed its perception of risk in coming close to humans (in rural areas). The fox then is becoming more of a pest, to the point that now some rural folk take a shot at then with 12 bore or air-rifle, often wounding the animal but not killing it. The farmer told of one regular fox that used his field as a run suddenly came through with a pronounced limp and over three or four weeks became dishevelled and gaunt and mangy as both infection and hunger because it could no longer hunt effectively. As the farmer saw it using a pack of dogs to hunt the fox – another form of dog – would a) have been entirely understandable to the fox, b) would only have caught up with the elderly or infirm fox, and c) having caught up with the fox the end would be swift and final. Winging a fox so it couldn’t look after itself gave it a long and unpleasant death. The movement to banning the hunts had at least as much to do with kicking the toff as it did with protecting fluffy animals. Since the ban, I haven’t seen anyone worrying about the wellbeing of foxes. No-one upset that they are being shot at to try and keep them away from lambs or foul. Indeed, for the most part the only news on the fox front is that people are complaining they are becoming a nuisance; a danger to children; a scourge on the streets after dark. “Something must be done!” we will hear them say. Well, oh best beloved, you brought this scourge upon yourselves. The pack has learned it has little to fear from people so why should it avoid us?
So the same happened in Prip’yat. The nasty humans went away so its a paradise for the four-legged. All that land for themselves. Except of course that we humans are killing them still, just very slowly and quietly.
Gloomy, all it means is that in the future, wild boars and wolves there are going to be in the market for Viagra. :) Not that it helps genetic based sterility. Or cancer rates. Radiation can be a long term invisible killer.
@Chris – Not entirely sure, but I believe the Chernobyl No-Go Zone is being rapidly re-occupied by large mammals – including really big dangerous things like wild boar and even wolves – I have no idea what the significance of that is in respect of the received scientific wisdom on nuclear contamination – answers on a postcard please?
Clearly what it does mean is that the animals in question can’t read big warning signs in Russian with skulls and crossbones all over them, or that they prefer radiation to human company..!
A thoughtful Gloomy
as – ref shorter half-life – glad to hear it, although everything is relative. Post Chernobyl going pop, the ‘Alienation Zone’ around the reactor site and the village of Prip’yat has been declared out of bounds for the foreseeable future: “Ukrainian officials estimate the area will not be safe for human life again for another 20,000 years.” So the use of a shorter half-life isotope is good – land might be habitable within a millennia, if we’re fortunate.
I guess It puts a whole new meaning to the phrase scorched earth.
But the dangerous radiation has a short half life so it will be safe to live in fast enough.
Then you can rebuild like they have in japan. it is a very different after effect with a nuclear blast to a reactor melt down. far less on the long acting radio active particles.
What is never dealt with in all the scenarios is starvation which would inevitably follow an all out attack on the UK.
Irradiated water/ food would soon kill off all the ones dysentery typhus and cholera did not.
Imagine ANY UK major city without water and sewage functioning.
Imagine no fuel for modern agriculture – even for those bits that you could farm.
Cannibalism would have broken out in those places ‘lucky enough’ to survive.
Remember Jasper carrot reading to his audience from a 1960’s civil defence leaflet and rightly ripping into it.
The classic line from the leaflet was
‘In a forest fire the need is to protect the big trees and not the brushwood….
He then looked at the audience and said “Guess who the brushwood is…… I’m Looking at it!”
A fully resourced Medieval England could support maybe 6 million people who knew what they were doing with subsistence agriculture and rough living, in settled communities.
As one poster has already said – take a map of the UK and imaging half megaton devices dropped on all the strategic targets. I don’t give much for the Highlands chances with Holey Loch, Doonreay, Edinburgh Glasgow Stirling. That missile testing range in the Orkneys. both ends of the Caledonian canal etc get half a meg each at least.
Followed by a bit of rainfall to make sure all the sheep glow in the dark.
@ Challenger
“Scottish highlands may have escaped some of it? ”
I always thought the only places you might have been able to survive in the UK where the Isle’s of Scilly and the Western Isles in Scotland but only if you got lucky with the wind direction staying from the SW for at least a few weeks after the attack.
Threads still scare’s the s**t out of me. When I was younger it almost seemed like someone hand nuked Jonny Briggs. Just had to hope that Ed the duck and the BBC broom cupboard survived. (as long as it was Philippa Foster and not Andy Peters) :-)
One effect of nuclear war that’s seldom discussed is the way normal every day survivors invariably get themselves mohican haircuts and walk around in punk rocker/biker/bondage outfits for years after nuclear exchange.
PS: On a more serious note, the cancelled british off-route mine was the LAWMINE. We actually had a French off route mine in service prior to that that was basically a huge shaped charge on a directional stand. The Americans had one that fired the old 3.5″ anti tank rocket as used in the M20 rocket launcher that preceded the Carl Gustav M2 (L14A1) in British service. I think they called it the M28.
@ david haine re jump record
I often wondered what went on during ATC parades now I know……
As an aside, I still hold my ATC squadron record for ‘dildo’ jumps. 68 in one evening…
Ha! Hours BA (Breathing Apparatus) drill…dad was a fireman, see…(he had the old stuff, based on the davis escape gear) I had to crawl about the house in this stuff until i was thirteen, then it was up and down ladders in this gear. Double extension if i was normal bad, triple if really bad. He said it served me right for being an air cadet, rather than ACF…
@Mr. Trousers
Re Pinbull, the things the Army invented for defaulters to do could fill a book. At one barracks I was at there were some pipes that ran exposed through the cell corridor of the guard room. In winter, when the Regimental Gestapo didn’t like to be outside more than necessary, a prisoner would be allocated a pipe or a stretch of pipe (depending how full the cells were) and required to paint it to a smooth, high-gloss finish. Then when that was done to the Provo Sgt’s satisfaction the prisoner then had to scrape off the paint and polish said pipe to an immaculate shine. On a 28 day sentence one could go through the whole process two or three times – soul destroying but it did discouraged repeat offenders.
Mind you defaulters in my day had it easy compared to what went on in the old glasshouses. My step-father made a pillock of himself in 1941 and did three months in the military prison at Heliopolis, site of the infamous Hill Drill, and was very, very law abiding for the rest of his life.
@ Dave Haine,
that’s quite alright, although if it occurs again it’ll be either winter or summer punishment. Winter punishment involves 12 coloured felt markers and a squared school exercise book. Put a dot of each colour in each square, carry on until the page is filled up. Summer is simpler: cut a square metre of the lawn with a pair of nail scissors. Never did me any harm as a boy, but lessons were rapidly learned. My little darlings have between them accumulated 2 summer and one winter punishments@@@, and show no signs at all of wanting to perform the error again.
On the other hand, the Argyll and Bolton Wanderers used to get their defaulters to perform pinbull*** (the old man was an Argyll – did pinbull as a national serviceman and then dished it out a few years later as Adjutant). That really does reinforce a message. ;)
*** Take one scrotty old tin helmet, spray paint any colour you like, then you have 24 hours to scrape off the paint with a standard pin while kicking your heels in the Regimental Jail. Utterly pointless, and quite a challenge in 24 hours.
@@@ Total bloody lightweights. I think I did that each year from 8 to about 15. Challenged the old man to a boxing match as well when I was full of teenage hormones, and he fair kicked my arse.
Does any one think that the Warsaw Pact may have disintegrated into infighting when they started to be put under pressure ?
They hated each other it was a miracle the cold war lasted so long.
It is surprising that the break up only resulted in one civil war.
@ Phil- I most humbly beg your most diffident pardon for placing RT’s miserly words at your mighty and august door. Please forgive me and I most earnestly undertake to never, ever do it again…unless i’m taking the p**s in some way.
@ RT- I most humbly beg your most diffident pardon for attributing your august and illuminating words to a miserly pedant like Phil. Please forgive me and I most earnestly undertake to never, ever do it again…unless I’m taking the p**s in some way.
Hee hee!
The thing that annoys me about Threads is that everyone is so miserable after the nuclear war. Believe it or not I think it’s unrealistic. People adapt and a few years after a holocaust after things had settled down a bit I’d imagine whoever was left would do their best to cheer themselves up with some music and some stories.
I think Threads over-played the nuclear-winter and EMP, but still harrowing.
A rather interesting take on an alternative timeline, if anyone has time to kill and wants to read some fiction re WW3;
http://www.alternatehistory.com/discussion/showthread.php?s=e6f319ced342b58fa74a848c33f4728a&t=164027
When I was at university in the 80’s I attended a pre RCB and during the evening was chatting to a West German army officer in the mess. I asked him what would happen if the Soviets attacked, he said the BAOR would be destroyed in a glorious battle, the French would retreat to protect France and the US wouldn’t be mobilised in time. I asked him what about the West German army and he said ‘zey would slowly move forward to reunify ze fatherland’…