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Here's a page with some more info on the toilet bomb: http://midwaysailor.com/midwayva25bomb/Ace Oliveira posted:Basically, how they performed in combat, their armament, maybe even their combat history. I didn't know that the Phantom didn't have a gun on board, for example. That seems like really lovely design decision. Looks like I've got Armyman25 posted:Heh, I love the quotes about how the B-52 can't be expected to be used after the mid 90's. Also great is the argument that the Soviet submarine missile system is good enough to wipe out the bombers and ICBM's, but the US subs, being able to only destroy all the Soviet cities, aren't a credible deterrent to the Soviets. The comment about the BUFFs was particularly retarded because all it is expected to do (as far as nuclear war/the SIOP is concerned) is be a cruise missile carrier...it can carry an advanced cruise missile just as easily as it can carry a legacy one. In fact, if the Cold War had continued another 10-15 years, chances are that we would've phased out most of the ALCMs and went ahead and solved the problems with the ACM, instead of doing the opposite in the name of cost savings (oh, and we'd have a shitton of F-22s...). And yeah, the whole SLBM thing was more than a bit of a stretch, to say the least. The degree to which Team B engaged in threat inflation is staggering.
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# ? Dec 17, 2010 22:51 |
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# ? May 13, 2024 08:58 |
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drzrma posted:There is a book about it, but according to him it isn't particularly accurate which shouldn't be a real surprise considering the nature of the project. Blind Mans Bluff. Another good one tapping Soviet Sub Command communications under water. Twice.
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# ? Dec 18, 2010 00:51 |
iyaayas01 posted:The comment about the BUFFs was particularly retarded because all it is expected to do (as far as nuclear war/the SIOP is concerned) is be a cruise missile carrier...it can carry an advanced cruise missile just as easily as it can carry a legacy one. In fact, if the Cold War had continued another 10-15 years, chances are that we would've phased out most of the ALCMs and went ahead and solved the problems with the ACM, instead of doing the opposite in the name of cost savings (oh, and we'd have a shitton of F-22s...). And yeah, the whole SLBM thing was more than a bit of a stretch, to say the least. The best was the guy at the end of part 4 who advocated a return to conscription to build up the military's strength. And drat the 70's had some of the worst suits and hair styles imaginable.
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# ? Dec 18, 2010 00:55 |
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Armyman25 posted:The best was the guy at the end of part 4 who advocated a return to conscription to build up the military's strength. And drat the 70's had some of the worst suits and hair styles imaginable. To be clear, I only wanted people to watch the "docudrama" first part, with the SAC crews responding to the attack...the other three parts are, like I said, just a bunch of old white guys pontificating on how far behind the Soviets we are and how we need to build more of everything RIGHT NOW!!!! But yeah, some of those hairstyles...especially on the female military members. drat.
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# ? Dec 18, 2010 04:21 |
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I kept holding off on it, but no discussion about cold war flying death machines is complete without a mention of Project Pluto. A giant mach 3 treetop level unmanned bomber that was powered by an unshielded nuclear reactor that pumped out lethal amounts of radiation as it flew. http://www.merkle.com/pluto/pluto.html I was personally pretty fond of the Midgetman concept. Latest strategic arms treaty says "no MIRV's", so the idea was to take one of the 10 RV's that was in the Peacekeeper and build a booster big enough to send just one RV over to the EVIL EMPIRE. It was a teeny missile by ICBM standards and it was road-mobile. The EVIL EMPIRE had more than one ICBM and IRBM that you could drive around in the woods prior to launch while the US had none. It could be put in silos, rails, trucks, all sorts of basing options. Got cancelled. Now our ICBM force is based on the as old as some of you dad's Minuteman missile. It would have been neat to have a fleet of teeny single warhead ICBM's.
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# ? Dec 18, 2010 14:15 |
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NosmoKing posted:I kept holding off on it, but no discussion about cold war flying death machines is complete without a mention of Project Pluto. Jesus Christ, who the gently caress thought this was a good idea? It's more insane than the Davy Crockett recoiless rifle!
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# ? Dec 18, 2010 17:38 |
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That's like something out of a loving Pantera song
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# ? Dec 18, 2010 17:40 |
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I like turtles posted:That's like something out of a loving Pantera song Its a single from one of their old albums 'Nuclear Death Plane.'
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# ? Dec 18, 2010 17:40 |
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McNally posted:I have a book called "101 Things You Should Never Ask a Marine To Do" and all this talk of nuclear tipped missiles and things reminds me of one of them. I would want one for the sheer bad-assedness of it. But I'll take a Davey Crockett. \/ Absolutely. I'm a sucker for anything flying wing related. Horten Bros forever! \/ slidebite fucked around with this message at 19:14 on Dec 18, 2010 |
# ? Dec 18, 2010 17:49 |
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Is anyone interested on a writeup of the flying-wing dead end in cold war aviation? The YB-49 and weird poo poo like that which partially fed into the eventual B2 program?
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# ? Dec 18, 2010 18:23 |
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Cyrano4747 posted:Is anyone interested on a writeup of the flying-wing dead end in cold war aviation? The YB-49 and weird poo poo like that which partially fed into the eventual B2 program? I would be! When did the Soviets/Russians become so gung ho about mobile ICBM launch systems, and what was their rationale for it?
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# ? Dec 18, 2010 19:02 |
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Senor Science posted:I would be! Late 70's early 80's IIRC. The rationale was that the US weapons were getting accurate enough to dig the silos out of the ground. Solution: Don't be where they think you'll be by being mobile.
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# ? Dec 18, 2010 19:25 |
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Mobile ICBMs are pretty cool. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QIzXI-mlJjs
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# ? Dec 18, 2010 19:50 |
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I like turtles posted:That's like something out of a loving Dethklok song Fixed that for you.
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# ? Dec 18, 2010 20:33 |
So, listening to Sen. Mccain's argument, would the START treaty limit the US's ability to pursue building a missile defense system? And is missile defense anything more than a pipe dream? I mean, he talked about Reagan and SDI in his speech. He seems to think that the Russians will pull out of the treaty if the US works towards strategic missile defense.
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# ? Dec 18, 2010 20:54 |
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Anyone interested in reading a book on the politics of the latter period of the Cold War is highly encouraged to pick up a copy of the Pulitzer Prize-winning book The Dead Hand. The first half of the book discusses how Reagan and Gorbachev almost agreed to do away with all nuclear weapons, but Reagan refused to give up SDI and that moment in time slipped away. The second half discusses the USSR's secret bioweapons program. This book relates to airpower because, when I ordered it from Amazon, I'm sure it was flown out to me.
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# ? Dec 18, 2010 22:31 |
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Inspired by this thread, I am watching Firefox.
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# ? Dec 18, 2010 23:36 |
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Armyman25 posted:So, listening to Sen. Mccain's argument, would the START treaty limit the US's ability to pursue building a missile defense system? Sorta. The treaty would make it so we couldn't use old silos and ICBM equipment (except for a few sites grandfathered in at Vandenberg) for missile defense. However, nobody involved in missile defense even wants to use them - they'd much rather build specialized interceptor vehicles and launch sites. In a theoretical sense, it does limit our options, but in reality it's nothing more than a bullshit talking point. There's also a unilateral statement by Russia that basically boils down to "missile defense sucks and we hate it," but because it's a unilateral statement outside the text of the treaty, it carries exactly as much weight as Russia saying, "missile defense sucks and we hate it" at any other time (which, if you follow the news, they do quite frequently). edit for content about an airplane I love a bit too much: Propagandalf posted:This is funny. "Intelligence windfall" is a serious understatement. We drat near copied the MiG-25 to finish the F-15. The MiG-25 was also the F-22 of its time. It was advertised as a major leap ahead in fighter technology (the first of the Third generation, the F-22 is 5th for comparison) and had most of SAC and TAC making GBS threads their collective pants. Till we picked that one up. We then realized the engines had to be scrapped and changed every time the plane went supersonic, and the airframe was motherfucking STEEL. It could barely fly, and was nothing but propaganda. The old boys got a good laugh, invented the F-15, and never looked back. The MiG-25 was a paper tiger compared to the laughably overstated intelligence estimates, but it wasn't as bad as you make it out to be, either. Basically, the Soviets poo poo themselves over the XB-70, and the MiG-25 was rushed through development to provide an interceptor capable of taking it down. Viewed as an interceptor rather than a general-purpose fighter, it was actually pretty decent at its job: sure, it couldn't maneuver very well (the max load was something like 4g under good conditions), but it was more than good enough to tangle with a bomber, and it could get to altitude like anything. The whole "the engines had to be scrapped and changed every time the plane went supersonic" is a bit of an exaggeration, as well. The plane could hit Mach 2.5 without trouble; the engines didn't start to chew themselves apart until they got past Mach 3. Of course, they would occasionally blow up a MiG-25's engines on "routine training" missions where they knew NATO radar was watching them, but every military in the world loves to show off what it can do as a "don't gently caress with me" threat display. The whole idea of an engine that can deliver extra power at the cost of replacement immediately after the mission wasn't a Soviet development, either - quite a few WWII aircraft were equipped with "war emergency power" systems that could deliver massive power increases at the cost of an immediate engine teardown once the plane landed. Space Gopher fucked around with this message at 00:29 on Dec 19, 2010 |
# ? Dec 18, 2010 23:45 |
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Factory Ten posted:Anyone interested in reading a book on the politics of the latter period of the Cold War is highly encouraged to pick up a copy of the Pulitzer Prize-winning book The Dead Hand. The first half of the book discusses how Reagan and Gorbachev almost agreed to do away with all nuclear weapons, but Reagan refused to give up SDI and that moment in time slipped away. Since I have a hard-on for all things end of the world, I have several books on Soviet bioweapons programs. The scale of the bioreactors they built apparently was loving staggering. They could turn out TONS of weaponized anthrax and smallpox every DAY if need be. They also tested a variant of the SS-18 that had interesting RV's that decellerated quickly then deployed parachutes. They were ICBM plague delivery systems. Sleep tight kids...
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# ? Dec 18, 2010 23:52 |
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Factory Ten posted:Anyone interested in reading a book on the politics of the latter period of the Cold War is highly encouraged to pick up a copy of the Pulitzer Prize-winning book The Dead Hand. The first half of the book discusses how Reagan and Gorbachev almost agreed to do away with all nuclear weapons, but Reagan refused to give up SDI and that moment in time slipped away. seconding this, it was a really interesting read
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# ? Dec 19, 2010 00:29 |
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Have another book recommendation thread viewers: The Wizards of Armageddon. I was given this by my dad, one of the books he had to read during his schooling as he completed his masters at the Naval Post-Grad school in CA. Great thread, if I wasn't travelling I would contribute more, maybe I shall if there are any topics left uncovered when I get back.
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# ? Dec 19, 2010 02:14 |
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This thread is awesome and everyone posting all the great info here is awesome. Voted 5 and bookmarked. Thank you very much, iyaayas01!iyaayas01 posted:[...] this could turn into a whole post in and of itself (Launch on Warning, first strike policy, no first use policy, depressed trajectory SLBM launches, C4ISTAR, x ray pin down, decapitating strikes, Dead Hand, Emergency Rocket Communication System, Airborne Launch Control System...I could go on). Anyway, if there is interest, I could do a post on the various type of nuclear war strategies and tactics. Please do that, it would be awesome! Any and all of the topics you mentioned are very, very interesting to me. Cyrano4747 posted:Is anyone interested on a writeup of the flying-wing dead end in cold war aviation? The YB-49 and weird poo poo like that which partially fed into the eventual B2 program? Me! Me! Me! Seriously, this thread. Oh, and to contribute at least something: The Aircraft Nuclear Propulsion program was aimed at developing methods for nuclear-propelled aircraft. The Pluto (doomsday machine to the max!) has been mentioned here already, but an actual flying (experimental) design was the NB-36H, a modified Convair B-36. It contained a 1MW reactor and a four-ton (!) lead shield between that reactor and the crew compartment. The following photo shows some of the modifications to the B-36 airframe, large intake/exhaust openings at the back of the fuselage (the reactor was in the aft bomb bay). Click here for the full 1875x1500 image. (And yes, that teeny tiny plane next to flying ray-machine is a B-29, which delivered the first nuclear bombs. Also note big grim radioactivity sign on the vertical stabilizer.) Here is a photo of the front section, which was modified from the regular B-36 to house the 30cm (1 foot) thick windshield made of leaded-glass. Click here for the full 1800x1185 image. During the 47 test flights the NB-36H conducted between 1955 and 1957, the reactor never powered any aircraft systems (for example, the engines) but was mainly used to test shielding systems and see how (or, more basically, IF) such a thing would work. However, the program that started (including forerunners, etc.) in 1946 as NEPA (Nuclear Energy for the Propulsion of Aircraft) was finally abandoned in 1961, before the proposed Convair X-6, that was to use nuclear propulsion, was built. Why do this, you ask? Well, the idea behind a flying nuclear reactor emitting death at a rate of many Becquerel was that of a flying submarine (which were not as highly-developed when the idea was first more or less seriously considered). A nuclear-powered aircraft would have been able to stay aloft for many weeks and not be constrained by range/airbase availability, etc. The SAC could have had their own fleet of (very) low-orbit megaton-delivery boys, who could have loitered far away from their targets, thus not be bothered by pesky interceptors, though still capable of hitting anything, everywhere. So even if Washington, D.C. had been reduced to cinder many hours ago, they would have been able to conduct a nuclear response. Nuclear-powered airfract: Is there anything they cannot do? Ridgewell fucked around with this message at 03:08 on Dec 19, 2010 |
# ? Dec 19, 2010 02:55 |
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So did they ever say how they intended to power the engines with the nuclear reactor?
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# ? Dec 19, 2010 05:03 |
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I've found this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aircraft_Nuclear_Propulsion
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# ? Dec 19, 2010 05:14 |
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One issue with nuclear aircraft propulsion was, in addition to all the weight of your reactor and the power-transfer mechanism to whatever engines you're using, there was a minor concern about what was termed "roll-up". Y'see, the B-36 was loving huge, and restricted to specially-constructed runways. Nuclear power wasn't likely to result in a lot of weight savings, so it was still going to be possible to have... [i]issues[/s]... on landing. Pranging the bird on landing is always problematic - there's always been fears that a nuke could somehow go off in that event, and even finding a nuclear weapon sitting in a burning pool of avgas after a crash (in England, I'll have to try and dig up the info) didn't reassure anyone. So, they imagined a Bad Thing. A big nukey bird is coming in hot.. *too* hot. WHAM. Followed by more ugly noises as the landing gear collapse, the plane starts sliding on it's belly, it starts to go sideways, OH HOLY poo poo it's rolling and shedding parts and fireballing and... "Hey Dave, what's the weight of that reactor? How many tons? Slamming and rolling and total loss of cooling systems and controls and uranium is kinda mass-y, is there any chance it could get slapped into a critical mass?" "Well... lemme see here... <runs calculations> uhm. Go on to lunch without me, Frank, I'm not hungry anymore." I guess there was also an issue in how much shielding was available, and whether non-crew parts of the aircraft might not be fully protected, and if they really wanted to have horribly-radioactive "no-go" zones out the backs of the aircraft on US soil and such. It's been quite a while since I was reading about this, though, so that may have been (at least in theory) dealt with. I also recall something about one idea for Project Pluto was to run an open-core, air-cooled reactor, which would be robo-piloted over Soviet territory, dropping bombs and with highly-radioactive flakes of fuel rods dusting out all over the place. (On quick reading through the Wikipedia article, that's the nuclear scramjet - except they don't talk about radioactive-salting the earth.)
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# ? Dec 19, 2010 07:03 |
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SyHopeful posted:So did they ever say how they intended to power the engines with the nuclear reactor? The fun part about turbine engines. It doesn't matter where the heat comes from, just that you add heat in the middle. (over simplification, but it's really not that complicated.) Instead of burning fuel to add energy to the incoming air, you dump heat from a nuclear powered heat exchanger into where fuel would normally be injected and ignited. The rest of the process works the same. Suck-squeeze-bang-blow or suck-squeeze-heat-blow, the physics are the same to the engine. There are some nuclear turbine ideas still floating around that would be pretty safe, but NIMBY's get all crazy when you even mention the word reactor and aircraft in the same sentence. http://books.google.com/books?id=S9...chanics&f=false wkarma fucked around with this message at 11:14 on Dec 19, 2010 |
# ? Dec 19, 2010 11:09 |
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Ygolonac posted:One issue with nuclear aircraft propulsion was, in addition to all the weight of your reactor and the power-transfer mechanism to whatever engines you're using, there was a minor concern about what was termed "roll-up". The incident you are referring to took place in 1956 at RAF Lakenheath...a USAF B-47 crashed into a storage igloo, causing a fire that overtook the three Mark 6 nuclear bombs that were in the structure. It was a miracle that the high explosives within the bombs did not explode, which would've flung highly radioactive materials all over the place. There were, however, many other incidents of the bombs exploding and doing exactly that. The fears weren't really that the bomb would actually go critical and function as designed (too many safeties for that to occur) but that the high explosives would detonate haphazardly, strewing radioactive materials about. Two incidents in particular, the 1966 Palomares incident and the 1968 Thule incident, both of which involved U.S. nuclear bombs contaminating large amounts of foreign soil, resulting the development of insensitive high explosives to reduce the possibility of this occurring. And I can vouch for that little tidbit about Project Pluto running an air cooled open core radioactive death machine reactor. Glad everyone has been enjoying the thread and contributing...sorry I haven't been around as much the past few days, been having some other stuff I need to work on. Rest assured, I'll have time over the holidays to do a few write ups...right now I'm leaning towards the first being the nuclear war strategies and tactics write up, and the second being an A-1 Skyraider/A-X/A-10 write up.
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# ? Dec 19, 2010 11:21 |
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iyaayas01 posted:Glad everyone has been enjoying the thread and contributing...sorry I haven't been around as much the past few days, been having some other stuff I need to work on. Rest assured, I'll have time over the holidays to do a few write ups...right now I'm leaning towards the first being the nuclear war strategies and tactics write up, and the second being an A-1 Skyraider/A-X/A-10 write up. Don't be the hot chick at the party who dances close to us and flashes us her tits, then never puts out. GET TYPING or I'll be forced to keep up my own wankfest here in your thread.
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# ? Dec 19, 2010 14:36 |
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Propagandalf posted:This is funny. "Intelligence windfall" is a serious understatement. We drat near copied the MiG-25 to finish the F-15. The MiG-25 was also the F-22 of its time. It was advertised as a major leap ahead in fighter technology (the first of the Third generation, the F-22 is 5th for comparison) and had most of SAC and TAC making GBS threads their collective pants. Till we picked that one up. We then realized the engines had to be scrapped and changed every time the plane went supersonic, and the airframe was motherfucking STEEL. It could barely fly, and was nothing but propaganda. The old boys got a good laugh, invented the F-15, and never looked back. The MiG-25 was extremely capable at its job as an interceptor, it did not have to have its engines replaced everytime it went supersonic, I have no idea where you got that from, and it was made of steel for a good reason.
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# ? Dec 19, 2010 15:08 |
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Pretty Little Rainbow posted:The MiG-25 was extremely capable at its job as an interceptor, it did not have to have its engines replaced everytime it went supersonic, I have no idea where you got that from, and it was made of steel for a good reason. The Mig25R, the recon platform, if the pilot redlined the engines to hit mach 3.2, they'd cook and most of the plane needed to be replaced. It was only done a couple of times to scare the US and impress Guiness or something. They weren't zipping about at Mach 3 all the time. A Mig25 is believed to be the only Iraqi aircraft to score an air to air kill in '91.
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# ? Dec 19, 2010 17:48 |
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If anyone actually did finish The Dead Hand, can you tell me how it ends? With 50 pages left, my two-year old son got ahold of it and put it...somewhere. So...did America win?
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# ? Dec 20, 2010 05:45 |
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Factory Ten posted:If anyone actually did finish The Dead Hand, can you tell me how it ends? With 50 pages left, my two-year old son got ahold of it and put it...somewhere. Spoiler alert: World War III takes place and we're all dead. This is just a dream.
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# ? Dec 20, 2010 05:58 |
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Propagandalf posted:The real mindfuck is seeing former CIS hardware with deactivated weaponry, in civilian colors. http://www.controller.com/list/list.aspx?ETID=1&catid=10072&Manu=MIKOYAN&setype=1
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# ? Dec 20, 2010 08:32 |
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Factory Ten posted:If anyone actually did finish The Dead Hand, can you tell me how it ends? With 50 pages left, my two-year old son got ahold of it and put it...somewhere. It looks that way, but the ending sets you up for what seems like a crappy sequel. The original bad guy is probably going to come back, or we get some cliche "terrorist" plot line. Nothing as cool as the first time, for sure.
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# ? Dec 20, 2010 11:43 |
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NosmoKing posted:It looks that way, but the ending sets you up for what seems like a crappy sequel. The original bad guy is probably going to come back, or we get some cliche "terrorist" plot line. Before I really get cracking on the nuclear war strategies/tactics post, does anyone have any specific requests for stuff under that umbrella that they'd like to see covered?
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# ? Dec 20, 2010 15:31 |
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iyaayas01 posted:
no but i wanted to brag that i have spent hours making my own map in google maps with the locations of all the DEW line sites on it
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# ? Dec 20, 2010 16:47 |
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iyaayas01 posted:
Tactical level use against the Soviets in east Germany. As in who had launch authority, who coordinated between the army and air force on the selection/priority of targets. And of course ignore me if that is still OPSEC
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# ? Dec 20, 2010 17:50 |
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iyaayas01 posted:
I'd like your interpretation of the shift from MAD to the Regan "sure there's still MAD, but let's talk about how to WIN a nuclear war" during the 80's.
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# ? Dec 20, 2010 18:26 |
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SyHopeful posted:no but i wanted to brag that i have spent hours making my own map in google maps with the locations of all the DEW line sites on it You wanna do up a DEW line post, by all means...I'm going to be busy with this stuff for at least a couple of days. Flikken posted:Tactical level use against the Soviets in east Germany. Hell, that could be a post in and of itself, what with all the different types of weapons (true tactical level mortars all the way up to theater level MRBMs), but I will definitely include it. I'm sure some of it is still OPSEC, seeing as how there still maybe are tactical nukes deployed in Europe under the NATO Nuclear Sharing thing, but my job has thus far dealt almost wholly with the conventional side of things, so any info I'm able to dig up will be open source. NosmoKing posted:I'd like your interpretation of the shift from MAD to the Regan "sure there's still MAD, but let's talk about how to WIN a nuclear war" during the 80's. That will also certainly be included as well.
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# ? Dec 21, 2010 04:33 |
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# ? May 13, 2024 08:58 |
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DEW was a question on Jeopardy tonight and I knew what it was thanks to this thread.
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# ? Dec 21, 2010 05:10 |