The US nukes itself ...

TTony

(well, very very nearly)

I don't often do the BBC link thing, but just imagine ... one small switch failure away from a very different world.

England probably wouldn't have won the World Cup.

axisus

There are some amazing facts from around then. My boss was telling me about a book on spying in the Cold War, and there are some shocking/worrying things that went on that almost caused nuclear war!

PolarityMan

The mind literally boggles at the chain of incompetence involved. Why the hell would you be flying around live nuclear weapons anyway?

VimFuego

PolarityMan said:

The mind literally boggles at the chain of incompetence involved. Why the hell would you be flying around live nuclear weapons anyway?

ermm they did it all the time, back in the cold war. There was a certain percentage (can't recall what it was for the moment) of their nuclear bombers always in the air at any given time, so they couldn't be caught on the ground.

ICBM

VimFuego said:

PolarityMan said:

The mind literally boggles at the chain of incompetence involved. Why the hell would you be flying around live nuclear weapons anyway?

ermm they did it all the time, back in the cold war. There was a certain percentage (can't recall what it was for the moment) of their nuclear bombers always in the air at any given time, so they couldn't be caught on the ground.

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

A retired USAF colonel my father knows flew on these missions. It's very, very scary stuff. Dr. Strangelove is uncomfortably close to the truth.

holnrew

And they had flight patterns so that one of the B-52s in the air at any given time could get to Russia and drop its load fairly quickly.

mike_l

and lost a b-52 of the spanish coast with live nukes, and one a b-36 in colorado (iirc) and somewhere off the west coast theres a bomb with warhead. Fucking scary when you think about it.

PolarityMan

ICBM said:

VimFuego said:

PolarityMan said:

The mind literally boggles at the chain of incompetence involved. Why the hell would you be flying around live nuclear weapons anyway?

ermm they did it all the time, back in the cold war. There was a certain percentage (can't recall what it was for the moment) of their nuclear bombers always in the air at any given time, so they couldn't be caught on the ground.

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

A retired USAF colonel my father knows flew on these missions. It's very, very scary stuff. Dr. Strangelove is uncomfortably close to the truth.

From that article: 

The program was involved in the following nuclear-weapons accidents:

• 1961 Goldsboro B-52 crash^[5]
• 1961 Yuba City B-52 crash
• 1964 Savage Mountain B-52 crash^{[Notes 1]}
• 1966 Palomares B-52 crash
• 1968 Thule Air Base B-52 crash

The Thule accident signaled the end of the program on January 22, 1968.

I still say it was fucking incompetent to even consider these missions. Realistically if you distribute your planes / weapons geographically the chance of the being caught on the ground simultaneously must be tiny. 

randomhandclaps

PolarityMan said:

I still say it was fucking incompetent to even consider these missions. Realistically if you distribute your planes / weapons geographically the chance of the being caught on the ground simultaneously must be tiny. 

Even though tiny, the fact there is any possibility would be enough to convince defences of it's necessity.  A nuclear stand-off becomes a bit like a Western duel and could ultimately be decided by the slightest of reaction time.  It's obviously also a large amount of strutting and bravado as well.

ICBM

Exactly.

The logic was that if the planes were in the air, the chance of a pre-emptive strike by the other side being successful was eliminated altogether. The danger was that there weren't enough safety systems either to make the bombs safe in the event of a crash or to stop an accidental (let alone rogue) order to go - the most serious risk was something accidental triggering it.

For what it's worth I also support the trust which keeps the last Vulcan bomber flying - which was our equivalent. They weren't airborne usually, but they were kept at full readiness with live bombs on board, and they did do regular training with them. I think it's important that we remember what it was like back then and try not to get into that sort of Mexican stand-off again.

johnnyurq

TTony;2715" said:

England probably wouldn't have won the World Cup.

England won the World Cup, never ever heard of that. You would think that English folks would declare the win more often and remind everyone of the date.

Seriously though I am beginning to think Dr Strangelove was a documentary with all the so called "broken arrow" incidents over the years.

Add Russia's nonsense during those times and since the USSR broke up, it really is a miracle we never had a nuclear engagement for real.

ICBM

What's really terrifying is that this photograph

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/39/Goldsboro_nuclear_bomb.jpg

shows a live 3.8 megaton nuclear bomb with one tiny electrical switch not closed which is all that's stopping it going off.

That would make you think, if you took the picture...