LOL they're complaining their B-52 fleet is outdated in 1979! If only they could know that over 40 years later and we still have no plans to retire the B-52 fleet!
The US has more of an interest of keeping the nuclear subs relevant. Especially since you could retaliate anywhere with them and be virtually undetectable if out to sea.
Any yet us spends allmost a trillon every year on military not counting cia an pentagon spending thats what happens when gov is involved waste thef an massive profits to companys who donate to there reelection gig
Seeing that B-52 crew sitting there playing cards with one them drinking a Tab brought back memories of my childhood in the early 1980s. Tab soda was one of the nastiest concoctions I've ever had the misfortune of tasting. Good grief that stuff was horrible. Anyone else old enough to remember Tab?
I stopped drinking Coca-Cola twenty five years ago, every few years I'll try a couple of sips, let me tell you, stop drinking coke for a year and when you try a couple of sips you'll say to yourself this taste like shit !
I was a Minuteman II ICBM Crew Member during the height of the Cold War. We constantly trained, exercised and were evaluated on being ready to fight a nuclear war with the Soviet Union.
Greetings from French army , you brave Sir! It's a difficult unit for me and i was in army too, a big responsability for a human. Have a possibility to launch with a key a nuclear weapon everywhere in the World ! My godness 😨😨
As far as I am concerned, all these characters on this movie are 'Psycho', they are concerned about US nuclear venerability, rather than creating ideas and pursuing for complete elimination of the nuclear arsenal from the planet Earth.
The general officer boarding the EC-135 Looking Glass was Brigadier General Clarence Autrey.He was 28th Bomb Wing commander at Ellsworth AFB SD while I was stationed there. The 2nd wing commander to arrive as a colonel and to leave as a one star
I served in the USAF as a telephone linesman from 1979 to 1995. I got a good taste of what the cold war was about when I was sent TDY to places like Alaska and then West-Germany. You can see how ready we where in case the Soviet Union would attack. I was TDY at Offutt AFB, SAC HQ , Watching the chaos on TV the events happening in Moscow and the start of the ending of the cold war. I never thought I would see it end. There still a chance WW III can happen with the events going on today. God Help Us. Watching this video brings back the fear I felt as well as others of what could happen at that period. I call my self a Cold War Veteran, No medals, Just gut's. Good video.
Thank you for you services ! It was a depressive years ! Thank you Kennedy, Commander Arkipov in 1962, Thanks you Cnl Petrov and Thank you, you and you and your comrades for protect this World. I'm born in 1994 my generation has been save.
WOW. The biggest thing I noticed in this is the focus on military strategy. Being born slightly after this 1979 film was made, I've never heard a discussion of this level. Things have devolved so much since then.
The calculus of Mutually Assured Destruction, while still relevant, is entirely different and much less unstable and dangerous than during that time. Sure strategic and tactical Nukes do still exist therefore they could be deployed either intentionally or accidentally but the risk is much less than back in the day. For one thing, nuclear weapons are not in as high a state of readiness as they were back then. There were times when hair trigger would not have been an exaggeration.
@@gozorak we actually did this because we discovered it was very important that the Soviet Union be aware of what we were doing. Unlike previous military tactics which focus significantly on secrecy, prevention by mutually assured destruction required that we be crystal clear on what we were ready to do. We started doing it after we noticed that the Soviet Union would be "more ambivalent or willing to listen" after we knew that they had received information from spies that we were aware of but permitted to exist. It's the reason that from the mid-60s on, media and international observers were routinely invited to observe what most other nations would consider top secret things. Because of how many times Russia has been attacked by surprise, their instinct is to distrust everyone. For example the entire arms race was a side effect of them fearing what a nation like Germany would have done as the only owner of such weapons. The US actions at the time of absolute denial of the technology to anyone didn't help, because it made it seem more likely that we would become conquerors or empire-minded with our new toy. Only after they started being able to see, obviously not everything but at least a little, was MAD functional. They needed to know how bad it could be. We no longer do these because honestly we do not consider anyone to be in our weight class anymore. The reason the US government is as addicted to its classification and secrecy now is that we see no reason to let anyone else reach our level. The same can be said for the CCP, who are honestly the only other government playing the game with us anymore. Tactics that worked well against the USSR do not work against them because they have very different mindsets.
this was very informative for the times it was produced and aired... it is crazy these were also the most carefree and fun times of most of our lives who experienced it... you never hear anyone say they despised the 80's and we were all living with thr threat of the end of the world just 8 minutes away at all times.
"You never hear anyone say that they despised the 80s..." except the folks bilked of their savings in mutual funds, the communities repressed by the war on drugs, or the Central Americans disappeared by the U.S. directed death squads. See Noam Chomsky, "The Washington Connection and Third World Fascism."
The 80,s were a very troubling time for me I was born in the 50,s lots of sickness and death in my family and of course we had thatcher who was pretty right wing I went to university as a 30 year old and that was a waste of time too for me overall all my decades have been filled with ups and downs like everyone's life. Now I am near the grave I am trying to find out about God and have been doing so for about 10 years and because of that I think my last 10 years have been the most fruitful . It's never too early in life to seek God
@@stevenwild39 I never gave it a thought even during the Cuban crisis the time we are going through now is the most messed up in my life and I feel sorry for the next generation
I was in and out of Minuteman silos for over three years. It's still hard to believe our guys wouldn't have their birds in the air, even with a first strike. My silo would have most definitely been empty given the same timeframe.
@@nucflashevent It's definitely a cool name, and an appropriate one given its role in national defense. In my experience Missileerss call them "birds." We don't really use affectionate slang for our missiles because they are such a constant pain in the ass lol. It's not due to less than stellar quality because they are excellent. But keeping them ready to travel requires a lot of little things to monitor or tweak. But "Minuteman" is the specific name for the type of land based ICBM we currently have in service. Technically it's the LG-30G Minuteman III because it's the third iteration of the missile platform. Ever since the Titan ICBM was retired and the failure of the Peacekeeper, the name "Minuteman" has become something of a catch all. As of now t's the only game in town. The Russian Federation and China on the other hand deploy multiple types of land based ICBMs. But what they all have in common is that they are comparatively crude and unreliable.
After listening to command and control I took from it the advantage the minuteman had over the titan was being solid fueled vs liquid fueled. Which enabled it to be launched much faster. When you say your silo would have been empty I believe it.
@@Mc.Garnagle Yeah, I always get a kick out of trolls who try and use the fact both the Russians and Chinese have gone through umpteen generations of missiles since the Minutemen were installed. Every month or so when they test a random MIII off the California coast and it flies on-time *every-time* I can understand why the Russians and Chinese feel the need to keep playing catchup 😜 Speaking of the next generation of land-based ICBM, I hope they adopt the "Minuteman IV" name, that would be super cool
I remembered it last February when Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin put his strategic nuke force on alert while giving orders to march into Ukraine! I watched this movie when i was 9 !!! And it left an indelible knowledge of the world we lived in at the time at that early age, making me appreciate the awesome power of nukes, again at the tender age of nine😁 !! As a grown adult I've grimaced and run my mouth at Washington and Brussels everytime they gobbled up a former Warsaw pact or even former Soviet Republic into their ( by now a nefarious outfit) club NATO encroaching ever closer to the still underdeveloped, mostly rural threat to no one Russia, yet perfectly capable dog if rubbed the wrong way with the world's largest stockpile of mega thermonuclear warheads count !!! Wish every nation on the planet acquire an adequate stockpile of nukes .... It would have saved Eye-raq from wanton and murderous Anglo-American onslaught, done with complete impunity, a million lives simply deemed inferior and accordingly extinguished because a cabal of criminals in London and Washington DC, thought might made it right.... God bless Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin ❤️
I spent the late 80's working on Minuteman III and MX ICBM sites out of FE Warren AFB in Cheyenne Wyoming. The 90th FMMS. Spent many an afternoon laying on top of the launcher closure concrete door that covers the top of the missile silo sunning myself while remembering this film. Also spent a few afternoons down at the bottom of the silo on a sump pump check looking up and seeing the missiles rocket exhausts. What I usually thought about however was the Chicken Maryland/corn/mashed potato foil packs I would order later that evening at the LCF's galley along with a couple of dinner rolls and a Coke. Damn that was good eating after a day of working on the instruments of the apocalypse
Thank you! This is more evidence to the idea I have that countries use regular ass people to fight wars because their rich asses have a beef (or potential beef) with some other country. Most of us could hardly give a flying fuck about this beef. I wish these rich ass leaders would just fight each other MMA style instead of involving regular ass people. I mean, what sense does that make anyway?
@@whoever6458 Of course its ridiculous but it is what it is and how it is. A nation can pretend that it is above it all and take no steps to defend itself and its interests but we all know what happens to that nation. The world does not turn to the lyrics of "Imagine"
I worked on the Prometheus cruise missile project back in the 50s , the threat of nuclear annihilation from first strike was so high , US department of energy spent 60 billion dollars developing a program for an always - airborne nuclear ramjet propulsion system that would carry 100 MT device continuously mid air at all times , only land a few times a month for repairs and maintenance. Pluto project 1957.
@@rd264 From an engineering perspective it was a lot of fun, you have to remember we thought everything will be powered by nuclear power in the future. This was also a test program that had potential Space implementations for nuclear powered interplanetary travel. The missile program was riddled with problems mainly from high neutron reflector degradation and heat sync issues with the beryllium oxide nacelles, we needed something you would call nanotechnology today.
60 billion down the toilet. the cold war bosses shown here terrorize the public and foment paranoia, urging for the arms race and they never advocate disarmament, because it makes the MIC a fantastic profit so of course its highly parasitic on the public. See Ellsberg's Doomsday Machine (2017).
This is the Cold War of my childhood. Few of the young people in this country appreciate just how profound the defeat of the Soviet Union in said cold war was in 1989-1990.
In my opinion, they were defeated because they used up all their resources on wars in the Middle East and preparing in case they ended up at war with us. We ought to be careful not to make the same mistake now.
It was great to be free from any sizable military threat, for however short of a timespan that was. Another great time in American history was shortly after the 9/11 attacks. Nothing mattered except that you were an American. Politics, religion or any other difference went out the window. This one thing I believe came from grassroots America. It wasn’t instituted from any central source. I pitied any opposing force in that time.
It was a terrifying time to live through. It was like having the sword of Damocles at our necks all the time and there were several really close calls. More than most people know. Many of these have since been declassified, and makes reflecting on that time with the new knowledge makes it even more ominous. They may be getting their butts kicked in Ukraine, but they still have ~7000 nuclear weapons that are strategic and in hair-trigger alert status. This scares the bejeezus out of me.
@@soulsphere9242 yes the troubles began shortly after that. The unity didn’t last that terribly long. Of course, we humans have short memories and politics and other troubles soon took hold.
I was born in 1968. I lived through the cold war. We didn't have nuclear attack drills in elementary school like the decade before...What we had and what we lived through was FEAR. Fear that one misread radar blip or one single accidental cross into another country's air space would start a total nuclear war. This movie's intro is a perfect example of the fear in the 70's and 80's. What this narrator couldn't know was that our technology would blow through the ceiling in the 90's making a first strike that could destroy America's nuclear arsenal virtually impossible. We now have satellites that will pick up the heat signature of a Chinese or Russian soldier taking a piss next to the missile silo he/she is operating. No chance in hell of a secret first strike. But I still enjoy watching these types of movies...So thank you for putting this up.
@@ciscokid0110 RIGHT ON my friend. Do you remember the old Civil Defense signs with the Big CD over the stairs to just about any public buildings basement? Anyway you were from a decade where nuclear war seemed inevitable...I was in the era (1970s) of "we are all fucked if the button gets pushed" so air raid drills were not practiced. ;)
Well, namesake, I was born in 1952 and at the time of this documentary I was a National Guard sergeant specializing in NBC warfare. It is interesting to me to look back on this program and realize that the real reason we managed to back away (somewhat) from the brink of that abyss was by spending more money on defense than the Soviet Union could. They tried to keep up, but collapsed. One thing Reagan did right.
WATCHED B-52 STRATOFORTRESS TAKE OFF & LAND AT WURTSMITH AFB FOR 20 YEARS AS MY GRANDPARENTS LIVED ABOUT 3 MILES FROM THE END OF THEIR 2.2-MILE RUNWAY IN OSCODA, MI. ABOUT 76 B-52s ARE STILL FLYING AFTER 67 YEARS. I WAS 9 WHEN THEY BUILT THE FIRST ONE. OOH-RAH SEMPER FIDELIS
I was stationed at Offutt AFB, Strategic Air Command HQ, from 1975-1977..it was a pretty scary place. Those boys weren't playin'. Then I got assigned to the first NATO A-10 base, and THAT was a blast!
Being born in 1958, I lived through most of the Cold War. When I was a sophomore in high school, I became interested in nuclear weapons and nuclear war. I remember finding a bound copy of "The Long Term Effects of Multiple Nuclear Detonations." It was the polar opposite of the nuclear winter hypothesis of the mid 1980s. The conclusion of the report was, "no biggie!" And back then, the US and USSR had about 1.5 gigatons of fun for each other.
@@hlnbee omg... You where born in good countries. My grandfather was born in 1915 and he never went to school. He grew up in extreme poverty but he lived 107 years.... I miss him so much. He teached a lot.... He encouraged me to go to college in 2019 when i finished school. I thank him.... So much. He died 2 days ago.
@Helen yes, and the cold War terrors took generations until 1989 to 1991 glasnost began to ease the threat of such horror. Now in the global responses to the covid19 pestilence (ongoing), in the international stress and madness, both the US/EU and Putin-ruled Russia seem on course to return that horror to potential reign. 2 generations we have been given; can we locate the wisdom to let human life go on?
That eight minutes of action at the start was more exciting and compelling than any Hollywood movie that I've seen in the last five years. Is there any video of this that's better than 720p?
But you have a very survivable weapon system with the Trident D-5 missile that is now a counterforce weapon against specific targets instead of countervalue weapons that were city busters.
@@Rawdiswar Counterforce are weapons capable of taking out missile command center, missile silos, C3I centers and Air Force bases. Usually these warheads have CEPs 100-400 yds. Countervalue are the old city busters that have CEP accuracy 1/4 mi to several miles. They can take out soft targets, cities, manufacturing centers, but not “precision” targets.
Well I'm sure the price is inflated right along with the fears they try to stoke in people, which aren't without warrant, but are intentionally provoked for the profit of rich people who will likely never see a war actually threaten them or their progeny. I don't know exactly how it works in other countries but I suspect that, like us in the US and especially in other large countries, the rich never have to personally see a war. They might be honorable enough to volunteer but no one is forcing richie rich to fight by draft or because of poverty in any country, including those with a robust draft.
This was great! I remember the existential fear of the period from 1978 to 1981. We were certain that the Soviets were stronger. Our inflation and prime lending rates were hovering around 18% Then we lost Iran, a bulwark against Soviet intrigue in the Middle East. Love him or not, Reagan brought a new optimism that was Italy needed. More importantly, he pivoted sharply toward reducing nuclear weapons. And of course, the USSR was dying from the cancer that had been eating away at it for many years.
Iran wasn't good news for the soviets either. They were actually a bigger problem for them since they provided inspiration for mujahedin fighters in Afghanistan.
@@MrKKmusic To be fair this wouldn't have yet been obvious circa 1979. Iran was so unlike other states of the era that no one knew what to make of it. For politicians who had had to deal for 30 years with atheist communism suddenly dealing with an explicitly religious leadership was weird. They had no procedure for it. It took more than a decade until a basic idea of how to deal with Iran emerged.
@@florinivan6907 I thought Iran was under the sway of the Shah. He was a staunch US ally who detested the Soviets. He was also brutal to his own people. Since the Iranian people, rightly, saw the US as the Shah’s main benefactor, they had then - and to this day, great antipathy to the US. We were and are ‘The Great Satan’ in their eyes
I remember doing "duck & cover" drills in Kindergarten. My school was about a mile from O'Hare Airport, which sported an Air National Guard unit, back then (1955).
@Interfacer I'm pretty sure that the people who voted for "these issues" are all dead, now. The greatest danger to the entire human race, today ... and surprisingly enough ... is not Putin or Xi, but the Democrat Party headed by the senile old man in the White House. Of course, he's a "tough guy" who has beat up lots of guys in his time. Let's see him beat up Russian and Chinese nukes - only then will I be impressed.
I’ll tell you this video really hits home I was in the Air Force in sac during the end of Vietnam war. This stuff this is exactly what we practice back then today the modern nuclear submarines have eliminated all this.
Have this eery feeling that some kind of AI inspired detection may make the most survivable leg of the Triad vulnerable as well,if satellite tech w/AI can peer through the ocean depths there may come a time subs can be hunted and their positions fixed,what then? I don't know
I member as a child using binoculars to look at a Nike missile on its launcher. They had to open the doors and elevate the missiles to dry them out because of high humidity. This happened about once a month.
Yup , I grew up near a USAF SAC base in upstate NY. I remember seeing that same view . I work with a contractor supporting the development of the ALCM ( Air Launched Cruse Missile) at that same SAC base in the mid 70's . They always had 2 fully loaded B-52's crewed and ready sitting on the end of the runway 24/7 !!
I was a SAC Maintenance Officer in the 1970's and went through many exercises and ORI's. I was a little taken aback about how this movie portrayed the USA as being caught flat-footed in a Soviet attack scenario. I remember we went to DEFCON 3 during the 1973 Arab-Israeli War. We loaded up every bomber we had with nukes and were preparing to exercise our dispersal plan when we were to told to stand down. All of this was the result of ships carrying Soviet SCUDS being detected sailing through the dardenelles on the way to Egypt. Our intel system would have had plenty of warning regarding changes in the disposition of Soviet forces leading up to this attack scenario. KH-11 and Rhyolyte SIGINT satellites had the USSR blanketed by the late 1970's and we would not have been caught unawares as shown in this scenario. There is a lot of literary license being given here. However, we must be mindful that there are adversary nations that still have many thousands of nuclear weapons and I feel we have let our guard down. Our military forces are a shadow of what they were in the 1980's in terms of lethality, redundancy and effective command and control. Also, one side note. I don't believe the 5th Bomb Wing at Minot had B-52D's. They were either B-52G's or B-52H's, which they now have.
For me the biggest failing of this scenario is not the complete failure of every intel asset. Its far simpler. How exactly would the soviets transmit their ultimatum if absolutely no one is listening?Presumably the president is on AF1 by this point and being shown by advisors what is left of the deterrent. I think the last thing that he would do in those moments is ask 'have the soviets explained what's going on and what their demands are if any?'. If anything as a security measure they'd probably stop all contacts with the soviets. And would any general bother to tell him 'they're demanding our surrender' as opposed to a more realistic 'we can still hit these targets and take out this'. In those moments the last thing on anyone's mind would be 'lets see what if anything do the soviets have to say about this'. A surrender ultimatum has no effect if no one is listening. Unless you try and flood every possible frequency. There are other practical issues. The french and the british are nonexistent. It would be close to impossible for the US to prevent those two from launching everything they had. If anything in such a chaotic atmosphere their more limited intel assets would drive them towards far more negative assumptions even if the US was still in touch.'the yanks are asking us to surrender?is it possible the soviets have compromised our secure links and we don't know it?what the hell launch everything and we'll figure it out later.' And I would add one last issue completely ignored a constitutional one. The president is the commander in chief but nowhere in the Constitution is it even implied that he has the power to surrender the US as a nation. Can he?At the very least a constitutional scholar would need to be consulted. Because someone might logically posit that such a power is not his to make. He can lead the military but its debateable if he can actually surrender it. Its never happened. It can be argued that a surrender is unconstitutional. That it goes above the presidential prerogative.
The "Bolt Out Of The Blue" surprise attack/First Strike was a bit far fetched. At Wing Pre-Departure Briefing we would receive an Intel Briefing on the current state of readiness of Soviet Strategic Forces - disposition and location of Key Soviet Leadership and many other Strategic Warning Indicators.
Yeah March AFB had the D-models until 1983. And it's not a matter of letting one's guard down. It was the for-profit model that the Military Industrial Complex operates on, along with extensive and pervasive corruption in DC in terms of economic, domestic and foreign affairs that has caused the gradual (now accelerated under the Biden administration) decline of the United States.
I remember seeing on TV I think it was the PBS channel back when I was in the 8th grade (1981-1982) a series of programs that talked about the superiority of Soviet numbers in aircraft, artillery, men, and tanks over us and NATO. A couple of classmates got into a big argument over it during PE class the following day.
The kid that argued the Soviets were full of shit was right. Fast forward to 2022: that kid is still arguing that the Russians are full of shit, and he's still right.
@@PeterSquitieri good question. It's been reported that Putin is holding the aircraft back. Much like with our Stingers in Afghanistan, Putin doesn't want to risk it.
I’m 41 so I remember the fear as a kid…in the past two months I’ve seen both a Barksdale B-52 and 2 “doomsday” 747s from Offut doing just normal training overhead with my own eyes. A totally different world just 30 years ago…
One Trident sub carries enough hardware to obliterate every major city in wherever. Most of the ICBMs have been stood down for years now, and no one plans to deliver nukes by plane. Things are totally different in 2022 from 1978... Of course everyone has submarines these days, but the poinr is that diplomacy has been very successful so far, and other than the Ukraine,Russia has been amenable to negociations. I would be more concerned with Pakistan or North Korea. China, for all our disagreements needs the US as much as we need them. At this point climate change is far more likely to do us harm than nuclear attack. Now nuclear terrorism is another matter entirely ...
@@SteveWard151 NOW I AM become Death, the destroyer of worlds'. Oppenheimer he's saying,, it's gonna happen someday.. Google The FLOWERS REPORT ( nuclear)
I was born in 1980, the year after this was made. I’m old enough to remember the Cold War and being terrified as a kid of the “evil Russians” annihilating us all. Even after the Cold War ended, well into the 90s as a teenager I would sometimes have very vivid nightmares of WWIII starting without any kind of warning whatsoever. In these dreams I had, I kept saying “but I thought the Cold War was over???” That deeply seated fear of WWIII I had mostly went away for about 20 years, but came back with a sickening vengeance when Russia decided to be stupid and invade Ukraine earlier this year, making nuclear threats and whatnot. The people I currently work with made fun of me for it, but they are too young to have any living memory of the Cold War therefore they cannot comprehend why I have such an intense fear of nuclear Armageddon occurring.
I'm a 1974 kid but what you've written describes my mindset exactly. I spent part of February this year puking with anxiety and while that's subsided I'm still anxious and imagine mushroom clouds in the sky. The media is certainly not helping. Why can't humans just be nice to each other?
I feel exactly the same, even worse now I have children, the thought of us not all being together if this ever happens kills me inside….one of my children has autism and is only 8, I feel anxious that if he survived and we didnt who would look after him, he wouldn’t have a clue what was going on, the thought of him being scared and alone scares the living hell out of me, all these scenarios go through my mind, nuclear war has terrified me for as long as I remember…..
@@stevegray5263 I had the Nuclear bomb dream again last night for the first time since the 70s. It was horrible. I was a distance away from ground zero but my son had lost his warm coat. I spent most of it looking for his coat. We got into an aircraft that was overloaded and ended up with the pilot crashing on a bridge where he had people he needed to save. It was just a frame to frame litany of desperation and despair. I'm still disturbed today awake. Really shaken. I remember this fear. Luv and Peace.
The Bomb dream is so vivid for all of us that grew up in the early 80s. I too had the bomb dream again last night but it was worse because rather than being at school and crying out for my parents I was the parent looking to find my Son and save him from the nightmare. It was all sorts of nightmarish. The bomb dropped far enough away we weren't hurt but he'd lost his warm coat so lots of time in a surreal search for his coat the we joined a bunch of people leaving to a safe place. The flight was over weight but we took off then the pilot landed on a nearby bridge to save some people he knew and could not get airborne again. Just freaky nightmare shit from then on. Other Nukes landing and a general freaking out from all concerned. Horrifying. I remember dreaming about being let out of school at lunchtime and looking south towards a local airbase and seeing the Mushroom cloud go up and be completely panicked by the fact I was about 20 mins walk from my house. We'd talked as a family about nuclear Armageddon and agreed we do it as a family. As a nieve 8 year old kid this seemed like a solution. My nightmare was I would not be able to get back in time. Traumatizing stuff. The image of the mushroom cloud rising over the field beside my school is one I will never forget. Luv and Peace.
I was born in 1979 and never once was afraid of or even gave a thought to the Russians. Where did you grow up that there was such fear? The first conflict of any kind that I remember clearly was the first Gulf War when I was 11.
These are so cool. Could you post World War 3 sometime. It’s on RUclips and was made in 1990 I believe. It really shows that things in Europe could’ve ended much differently.
@@JamesPhieffer The Third World War is the title and it was made in '98 from Germany. Was stationed in Germany at the time the wall came down and this movie is pretty good at the possible outcome that could have taken place.
The ending about the US caving to an ultimatum is nonsense, as we had a launch-on-warning policy. In the event of a confirmed attack, we would not have been left with 46 missiles and 22 bombers; we would have been left with 1,000 empty silos and 300+ empty bomber parking spots before the incoming arrived, and there would have been no one left on the other side to give any ultimatum.
The bombers are no longer on standby. We still have the subs on rotation. The minute man has been dismantled. The radar stations are minimum maned. Satellites do most of the monitoring.
@@richarda996 Thank you, but I'm referring back to the time this was taking place. The bombers haven't been on standby for about 40 years now. And we don't have 1,000 ICBMs any more. And there aren't those golf ball radomes that we used to see on every mountain top. Doesn't that make us feel old?
The Cold war/ Nuclear winters never botherd me one bit, as I live next door to the only SSBN base in Europe, before my component atoms hit the atmosphere, I would like to say 'cheerio'.
25:00 interesting comment about the B52's life expectancy in 1980 when seen now in retrospect, almost 45 years later: they're still well alive and kicking and expected to carry on and probably reach the 90 years of active service milestones. Interesting too to see how low was the reliance on the submarine part of the triad due to the lack of precision of the nuclear heads they carried then.
25:30 It's funny that this gentleman says that the B-52 would not be viable by 1995 and yet they are now projected to be in service in the year 2040 at the minimum if not into the 2050s. See "How Long Can the B-52 Continue in Service?" ruclips.net/video/tRT5g_50Iik/видео.html And... "The B-52 Will Fly For Over 100 Years With Its New Rolls Royce Engines!" ruclips.net/video/_bA_6a7hdVE/видео.html ENJOY!
@@elrond3737 disagree, it is the Russian media and their pundits that are opening Pandora box. Those animals talk about it seriously, as in actually doing it. Our nonchalant response is meant to de escalate. Give me that, any day in comparison.
@@SilverHammer1969 No, Joe Biden who approved the change from a Second Strike to a First Strike policy for US nuclear forces back on March 28, 2022. And now made worse by the absolutely stupid attack on one of Russia's ballistic missile early warning radars in Voronezh by Ukrainian forces this year.
01:40 That security guy with the orange cravat is the same soldier/actor from "The Day After, I'm sure! 03:34 okay, this is the same soldiers/actors/film as in the Day After. The Day after must have used it. 10:15 Fair enough, it says at the end it was used in the film as well.
I was born in 1978. The nuclear threat from the Soviet Union hung in the back of my mind almost continuously during the Cold War. Nowadays the threat is almost certainly as present as it was then, only from multiple sources taking aim.
You were like 13 years old when the Cold War ended. Back then the threat was a hundredfold. We constantly trained to kill “Ivan” and to survive against anything he threw at us. Today’s threats are drama drummed up by mainstream media.
People are asking is "don't look up" about climate change or covid19. Apparently they're only looking *partway* up, not at what may still be the biggest looming threat of all.
I was stationed in Germany in 1980. I remember a NATO alert that scared All of us. They pulled out trunks of bayonets from the arms room and then waited. We were told that was the sign we were going to war, bayonets being issued. After waiting all night they called off the alert. After 40 yrs I still wonder about that night
I was in 2 ACR in 1989, first duty station. That first year we routinely had alerts but no bayos issued out. Wonder what that was in 1980 that had USAREUR scared.
June 3 or 6, 1980. False alarms at NORAD notified all US forces something was up, Zbigniew Brezenski woke up Carter to possibly push The Button...turned out it was a computer error, faulty chip on the global monitoring system. My birth year is 1975, but US history, especially military and pop culture from 1950-1980, has always fascinated me.
you know there's a research on why people like you stubbornly believe why in any such cases such scenario could never happen, researchers say because its so catastrophic and existentially terrifying that your brain wired as if it's impossible for anyone to let it happen, even though the chances are its still high and probable
depends on what your definition of "successful" would be. The results would have been devastating to humanity either way. There could easily have been a scenario(there actually was in 1983) where the Soviets were so fearful of a surprise American/NATO first strike based on miscalculation, misinformation, and paranoia that they may have felt compelled to launch everything first feeling they had no other alternative and hoping that they could miraculously catch us completely by surprise and destroy enough of our retaliatory capacity that we would capitulate. That scenario did not occur thankfully but not impossible to imagine. Look up KGB Operation RYAN and the 1983 joint American/NATO military training exercise Able Archer and what the Soviets mistakenly thought it was a prelude to.
@@AlamoOriginal The reason why it’s hard to believe is easy. The triad of bombers, ICBMS and subs was designed that if even 2 of the 3 were knocked out the other one had the capability of responding massively. Which would almost certainly be the ballistic missile subs. You take out the first two you still have hundreds of SLBMs with thousands of warheads to deal with.
Interestingly, the USAF has plans to keep the remaining B-52s until 2050. The existing inventory is 76 planes. There are 46 B-1B's and 20 B-2's. The B-21 will replace the B-1B's and B-2's in the 30's.
Yet MX was canceled and Minuteman III is still active. Trident 4 is joining the fleet. This film had good intentions but bad data. The SLBM fleet can almost do the entire job by itself with it’s 10 MRVs and being hard to find at sea. Trident 4 is quite accurate. And the B-52 still is on the job but joined by the B-1, B-2, and B-21
I sure felt safe in school getting under my desk with my back to the windows watching a turtle telling me to “duck and cover” over and over… nearly 60 years ago…
The MX wasn't canceled. It simply was stripped of the whole nonsensical multiple launcher part and built as a standalone missile (the Peacekeeper ICBM) which they stuffed in old Minuteman silos. It was deployed for less than 20 years because the Peacekeeper was designed to be MIRV-capable, and multiple warheads per missile was forbidden as part of START II. The final Peacekeepers were taken out of service in 2005.
I remember the Cold War vividly. Grew up in the 80s and remember the occasional nuclear raid drill. Grew up near LaPorte county which didn’t realize was a target of the Soviet ICBMs because of the Allison factory.
Were the Minuteman crews asleep? They're situated a long way from the sea for a reason. A number of B52s (and before that B47s and B36s) were in the air at all times. So those couldn't be caught on the ground. As for the submarines, you can only sink them if you can find them.
It's a shame that SAC is gone and so are the "Ready Aircraft" that were always in the air. I'm not confident that they still have nuclear armed B52's on the ground ready for immediate take off. They did at Carswell the last time that I was there, when it still existed...
This is really terrifying to see. I was born in 1984, the movie is from 1979. Taking Russian aggession in 2022 into account, I guess I never would have been born without the vigilance of the US strategic forces. I want to say a big "thank you" to all the veterans who helped to keep the freedom of the western world alive 😊 Greetings from (West) Germany
If you can get Fair Use, Would you please do 'Threads' It has to be the Best Cold War Movie ever made. Growing up in Cold War Yorkshire, It Terrified me as a Kid.
Thanks for sharing; this was a good look into what some people were thinking about defense more than 40 years ago. I was born just after this film came out (1981) and I have only the haziest memory of the Cold War and the Soviet Union being a scary menace. In 1979, the US spent about 5% of GDP on defense. In 2021, the US spent 3.5% of GDP on defense. At no point during the post-September 11 arms buildup did the US spend a greater portion of GDP on defense than when this film came out. The Bush 43 administration did some good things, especially in setting up the modern Missile Defense Agency and withdrawing from the ABM Treaty, but very few politicians since the end of the Cold War have taken defense nearly as seriously as they should. The threat of nuclear war is still very real, and if it wasn't crystal clear already, it should be obvious since the Russian invasion of Ukraine that the honeymoon has come to an end.
I remember watching this in high school. This is what this new generation needs to watch. That way theyll know what can happen. Instead of thinking the whole world are our friends. Ive always been a believer that our firces should ALWAYS be armed and ready on a seconds notice.
@@stab74 There is zero chance or possibility that Russia would launch a surprise first strike against the United States of the magnitude pondered in First Strike. That possibility did exist throughout the Cold War however.
@@gozorak If Putin uses a tactical nuke on Ukraine, the response may be a significant and even multi-national assault on Russia. How will Putin respond to a major counter-attack of conventional military?
Everyone expects that if Putin resorts to using nuclear weapons,it will be tactical nukes against Ukraine, but what if why we are all thinking that,he instead launched a nuclear attack on the US,with SLBM's and some ICBM's,would the US have time to launch a counterstrike?
Well…this film was 43 ! years ago…our submarine missile accuracy is ions more capable. Additionally, our cruise missiles are deployed across multiple ship and aircraft platforms. - The F-14 Tomcat wasn’t even in its heyday yet.
They do this from time to time to keep us all on edge it's psychological war fare. I'm from the UK and I'm getting bombarded with prepping videos and somthing is going to to happen in November videos. Just ignore them
No MX worked just fine; the problem was the baseing plan. No-one wanted them in their Districts ! The Nuclear Age series had an episode about the debacle ruclips.net/video/R3vDmM7WSHk/видео.html
MX would have been impressive, at least the equal of the Russian Satan missile, but we realized we didn't need it, as Russia was falling apart on it's own by this point. You wouldn't believe how many of their ICBM silos were inoperative, filled with water, and them hoping we wouldn't find out.
When I was stationed at Langley back in the early 80s Me and a buddy in the same unit got an incentive ride on a 135 variant. Damn, I should know the full MDS because I supported the system for TAC that tracked aircraft utilization. Anyway I think it was a KC-135B/EC135C because it was a tanker and it had the seating and communications for airborne command. The clicking sound when the red toolbox was opened is spot-on! On the flight we were supposed to refuel a flight of F-15s over the Blue Ridge but the F-15 mission was cancelled. The CMS did take me and my buddy into the boom cubby. Basically laying down in a cubby at the back of the fuselage and there were some analog dials, some switches and a joystick for the boom. Oh, and thick plexiglass with a view from altitude over the Blue Ridge. While taking the refueling boom for a joyride. LOL!
There are a lot of BIG logic flaws in this. First...this pre-supposes that there would be NO pre-existing tension between the super powers, and thus, no upgrade to our DEFCON.
This is the ultimate expression of the Douhet Strategy. The shortcomings of this strategy are obvious--the nuclear option works only as long as being destroyed bothers anybody, and there are many more microaggressions below the nuclear threshold.
Great video!!! I was in the Army when this was made. One of Carter's Heroes, so to speak... I always felt back then that we weren't going to war with anyone while he was in office! I was just a counter-battery radar operator and hardly close to anything significant! Seeing this now is pretty frightening! Just hearing their language usage and thought processes is startling to me! I wasn't so naive to think that war couldn't be around the corner, and we trained a little, but these guys are talking at the highest strategic level that I never considered. I recall the 'shell game' proposal for the Minuteman missiles, along with the B-1, and so on, but everything in this show is so far removed from just being a grunt that it is truly a different world from what I thought about! I'm not describing what I mean very well, so forgive me. I can say that JC is the single reason that I vote Republican! I voted him in, and then I voted him out! Being in his Army was about the easiest slack time I could've imagined and when Ronnie took over, we all suddenly gained a new pride and fervor to make ourselves first class! It was great! So great in fact, that my wife made me get out because she was convinced he would get me killed!!! ;-)
They have upgraded the B-52 in the recent years I read a lot about it and they replaced about 90% of their engines so they might be outdated but a lot of the parts have been replaced and updated so it's basically an older aircraft but it's basically reconditioned and there's a lot of updated technology added to these aircraft that was not on there and 1979 because the technology didn't exist.
The airframe design of the B-52 is old everything else about them has been replaced with modern upgraded equipment,engines and avionics they're practically new aircraft
@@dominichamilton7839 that's exactly what I was trying to say to people. They might be old but 95% of the stuff on the aircraft has been replaced in a couple doodads that haven't been replaced is stuff that is still in working order but much of the aircraft has been replaced I watched a documentary on this a few years ago and they were still talking about decommissioning the a-10 warthog and there's a lot of people that said I don't think so they want to get rid of at least half the fleet and they've been wanting to do this for sometime so finally Congress said to them fine you can decommission some of them the ones that are the oldest and the ones that have the most miles on them so to speak and I think that they decommissioned twenty or thirty of them and then the rest of them that they're going to keep will be upgraded with new wings in new electronics these aircraft in my opinion are die-hard aircraft they are one of the best aircraft at the u.s. military Air Force Navy actually has these planes can be shot with quite a bit of damage done to the aircraft they can lose an engine get shot in the wing and these things can still fly. And if it still gets shot up a little bit more these aircraft have manual controls to the point where the pilot will have to do everything in a case of an emergency these planes in my opinion are the best planes in the world and they still are in my opinion. They want to get rid of the a-10 warthog to make a way for the new f-35 and I guess Congress said you're not getting rid of the warthog completely you can take some of the older ones away but you're not getting rid of it. That put a smile on my face because this is one of the best aircraft in the world hands down this aircraft would dominate over in Ukraine right now. If they're going to send aircraft I would send a good dozen of those a-10 warthogs and I would send the older models of the aircraft bottles that need to be updated with electronics and possibly new wings within the next year too so if any of these ever get shot down it's going to save the United States money because now they don't have to purchase all this new equipment for it because it doesn't exist anymore because it gets shot down like that's what they need to do but in all reality they are going to send any a-10 warthogs to the Ukrainian Armed Forces they might send f-16s but time will tell. I just cannot wait until this war is over with. I can't wait until Putin is locked up I can't wait until they put him in leg shackles and handcuffs. I hope he get a couple dozen life sentences the man is a psychopath and evil and he deserves to rot in prison for the rest of his days.
@@dominichamilton7839 25:30 It's funny that this gentleman says that the B-52 would not be viable by 1995 and yet they are now projected to be in service in the year 2040 at the minimum if not into the 2050s. See "How Long Can the B-52 Continue in Service?" ruclips.net/video/tRT5g_50Iik/видео.html And... "The B-52 Will Fly For Over 100 Years With Its New Rolls Royce Engines!" ruclips.net/video/_bA_6a7hdVE/видео.html
@@1982nsu it was an amazing design with upgrades and enhancements it doesn't owe anybody anything the Air force sure got their money's worth with the B-52 big ugly fat fellow LoL
I would think it would take a super cool individual in that position. He's about to make some hard grime decisions and order a attack since he just might be one of the few left who can give the order.
I chuckled at that too. But it's a filmed exercise, obviously the General is familiar with this routine. He has to sit in the plane waiting for doomsday regardless, so he's probably half asleep.
Wow, has this not aged well! The CEP of the Trident missiles is now regarded as equal to, if not better, than the Minuteman! Mind, a decapitation strike would almost surely involve all or most of an enemy's land-based missile assets (leaving them in the silos just invites their destruction, so it is better to use than lose). Mobile ICBM's are infinitely more survivable, so they might be held in reserve to threaten a second strike on population centers. Retaliation for a first-strike would inevitably pose a choice between capitulation and an attack on the enemy's population centers. The more certain a potential adversary is that there will be no one left to celebrate the success of their first strike, the more likely it is that no first strike will be attempted. Some ethicists question if an American president, faced with the loss of two legs of his triad, with relatively few casualties (until the fallout begins and the crop lands are contaminated), would respond by vaporizing tens, maybe hundreds, of millions of civilians, not to mention doing so in the face of the near-certainty that American cities would follow. To some, capitulation sounds better than killing a substantial portion of humanity, never mind prompting the killing of virtually all of one's countrymen. But as soon as that noble and well-intentioned sentiment takes hold, a potential first-strike becomes infinitely more likely! It is only the certainty in the enemy's mind that moving first will result in the ultimate Pyrrhic victory that keeps that enemy at bay. Sickening, but entirely consistent wth human history and its illustration of human nature. Peace is not the natural state of humanity. It is a precious deviation that may just call for thinking the unthinkable to preserve it.
Peace, like love, is something that one must work very hard towards regularly, if not everyday. In both cases, the parties need to learn to speak to one another as human beings with more curiosity about how disagreements began in the first place then judgement of the extent to which one party disagrees with the other. Make no mistake, no one wins a war. Our natural animal instinct is to tit for tat ourselves to death but, in reality, less things will get fucked up for both sides if you can come to either a mutually annoying compromise (and that's why it's called a compromise and not a win-win situation) or a mutually agreed non-violent distancing from each other. In the long run, it would be less costly for everyone on all sides to find the humanity in one another, even if we still disagree vehemently, because when you see another human as a human just like yourself, you realize that it's pretty barbaric to kill them. (A note for my veteran brothers and sisters: This is not a dig on you. This is specifically a dig on the countries or other organizations that forced or coerced you into that role of a soldier. In societies, it's more useful sometimes to look at the command structure and social programming than it is to look at the individual, particularly from my own standpoint as one who wants to stop this bullshit from happening over and over again throughout history. You all got trapped into being pawns on the chess board of, not the kings and queens on the board, but of the players of the game, who will probably never see even a bar brawl in their lives, let alone a war; would that this was true of all of us. I want you to know that I think you're brave and that the sadness you feel for having to be a part of war, whether international or otherwise, is valid and I respect the hell out of you. What I want is for less of y'all to have to fight each other and for more of these happy-mouth government folks to sort it out with each other by using words instead of sending regular ass people like the rest of us, with the exception of cowards like me, into fight their rich ass turf wars. That's why I'm anti-war but not anti-soldier.)
The problem with mobile launchers is when they move, they’re detectable by enemy intelligence, and therefore their staging areas are as well. There can only be so many places to put them and their infrastructure before they’re too costly to operate. The enemy will catalog those locations and bomb all of them. Takes some bombs off of other targets but also dooms places that wouldn’t be targeted otherwise. I don’t think it has enough of a benefit to be worth it.
LOL they're complaining their B-52 fleet is outdated in 1979! If only they could know that over 40 years later and we still have no plans to retire the B-52 fleet!
Thank your congress, they have not finished filling their pockets.
Steve Martin with a fake arrow in his head makes as much sense as Schesinger...🇦🇷🦨💩🥶🦦💀
The US has more of an interest of keeping the nuclear subs relevant. Especially since you could retaliate anywhere with them and be virtually undetectable if out to sea.
Any yet us spends allmost a trillon every year on military not counting cia an pentagon spending thats what happens when gov is involved waste thef an massive profits to companys who donate to there reelection gig
Because there is no need to retire the 52. It works as well as it ever has. Better now
Seeing that B-52 crew sitting there playing cards with one them drinking a Tab brought back memories of my childhood in the early 1980s. Tab soda was one of the nastiest concoctions I've ever had the misfortune of tasting. Good grief that stuff was horrible. Anyone else old enough to remember Tab?
I remember Tab, that was one of the nastiest drinks made
I remember Tab and I agree it was bad.
I stopped drinking Coca-Cola twenty five years ago, every few years I'll try a couple of sips, let me tell you, stop drinking coke for a year and when you try a couple of sips you'll say to yourself this taste like shit !
Yes
@@johnfawcett1464 Good for cleaning your car radiator of gunk.👍
Now I think I will watch Threads to cheer myself up...
Bro I just saw threads and that makes this look like the Disney version fr 😅 didn’t cheer me up either
Oh, the lighthearted 'When the Wind Blows' is a lovely second feature to Threads
The Day after, then the war game. Leave the best to last (threads) lol
You can follow up with "On the Beach". Can you believe we read this in high school?
Yeah that will do it.
I was a Minuteman II ICBM Crew Member during the height of the Cold War. We constantly trained, exercised and were evaluated on being ready to fight a nuclear war with the Soviet Union.
Thank You!
Greetings from French army , you brave Sir! It's a difficult unit for me and i was in army too, a big responsability for a human. Have a possibility to launch with a key a nuclear weapon everywhere in the World ! My godness 😨😨
🫡
As far as I am concerned, all these characters on this movie are 'Psycho', they are concerned about US nuclear venerability, rather than creating ideas and pursuing for complete elimination of the nuclear arsenal from the planet Earth.
@@CaptainKipQ Yes - we would do what we were trained to do and fulfill our mission.
A 2023 update of this documentary needs to be composed.
There's already plenty of AI-narrated cartoony-charactered nuke scenarios out there
It's called "Command and Control"
Don't worry, 2024 will have a live action demonstration
No it doesn't....Russia is not the USSR....stop your leftist chicken little fear mongering....😂😂
The strike that takes place will a "Mostly peaceful" attack.
The general officer boarding the EC-135 Looking Glass was Brigadier General Clarence Autrey.He was 28th Bomb Wing commander at Ellsworth AFB SD while I was stationed there.
The 2nd wing commander to arrive as a colonel and to leave as a one star
i´d like to have a boss like that, a strong and calm man.
I served in the USAF as a telephone linesman from 1979 to 1995. I got a good taste of what the cold war was about when I was sent TDY to places like Alaska and then West-Germany. You can see how ready we where in case the Soviet Union would attack. I was TDY at Offutt AFB, SAC HQ , Watching the chaos on TV the events happening in Moscow and the start of the ending of the cold war. I never thought I would see it end. There still a chance WW III can happen with the events going on today. God Help Us. Watching this video brings back the fear I felt as well as others of what could happen at that period. I call my self a Cold War Veteran, No medals, Just gut's. Good video.
Thank you for you services ! It was a depressive years ! Thank you Kennedy, Commander Arkipov in 1962, Thanks you Cnl Petrov and Thank you, you and you and your comrades for protect this World. I'm born in 1994 my generation has been save.
Thank you for your service in war that was worth winning.
I was a lineman for the county.
I was shown this film at Lowry Air Force base in 1985 it scared the s*** out of me.
WOW. The biggest thing I noticed in this is the focus on military strategy. Being born slightly after this 1979 film was made, I've never heard a discussion of this level. Things have devolved so much since then.
Its still there. Its just not shown anymore on TV. Nobody would watch it today.
The calculus of Mutually Assured Destruction, while still relevant, is entirely different and much less unstable and dangerous than during that time. Sure strategic and tactical Nukes do still exist therefore they could be deployed either intentionally or accidentally but the risk is much less than back in the day. For one thing, nuclear weapons are not in as high a state of readiness as they were back then. There were times when hair trigger would not have been an exaggeration.
@@TOFKAS01 Still, informed public deserves at least opportunity.
Watch War: A Commentary by Gwynn Dyer.
@@gozorak we actually did this because we discovered it was very important that the Soviet Union be aware of what we were doing. Unlike previous military tactics which focus significantly on secrecy, prevention by mutually assured destruction required that we be crystal clear on what we were ready to do. We started doing it after we noticed that the Soviet Union would be "more ambivalent or willing to listen" after we knew that they had received information from spies that we were aware of but permitted to exist. It's the reason that from the mid-60s on, media and international observers were routinely invited to observe what most other nations would consider top secret things. Because of how many times Russia has been attacked by surprise, their instinct is to distrust everyone.
For example the entire arms race was a side effect of them fearing what a nation like Germany would have done as the only owner of such weapons. The US actions at the time of absolute denial of the technology to anyone didn't help, because it made it seem more likely that we would become conquerors or empire-minded with our new toy.
Only after they started being able to see, obviously not everything but at least a little, was MAD functional. They needed to know how bad it could be. We no longer do these because honestly we do not consider anyone to be in our weight class anymore. The reason the US government is as addicted to its classification and secrecy now is that we see no reason to let anyone else reach our level. The same can be said for the CCP, who are honestly the only other government playing the game with us anymore. Tactics that worked well against the USSR do not work against them because they have very different mindsets.
this was very informative for the times it was produced and aired... it is crazy these were also the most carefree and fun times of most of our lives who experienced it... you never hear anyone say they despised the 80's and we were all living with thr threat of the end of the world just 8 minutes away at all times.
Nobody despised the 80s because it was a medium improvement on the 70s, which was hot garbage in many ways.
"You never hear anyone say that they despised the 80s..." except the folks bilked of their savings in mutual funds, the communities repressed by the war on drugs, or the Central Americans disappeared by the U.S. directed death squads. See Noam Chomsky, "The Washington Connection and Third World Fascism."
The 80,s were a very troubling time for me I was born in the 50,s lots of sickness and death in my family and of course we had thatcher who was pretty right wing I went to university as a 30 year old and that was a waste of time too for me overall all my decades have been filled with ups and downs like everyone's life. Now I am near the grave I am trying to find out about God and have been doing so for about 10 years and because of that I think my last 10 years have been the most fruitful . It's never too early in life to seek God
Actually, I spent most of the 80s as a teenager expecting the world to be vaporised by nuclear war. I think a lot of my friends felt the same way.
@@stevenwild39 I never gave it a thought even during the Cuban crisis the time we are going through now is the most messed up in my life and I feel sorry for the next generation
The general who boards the SAC airborne command post was a real life Major General in the USAF. His name was Clarence R. Autery.
Did he die during the attack?
I was in and out of Minuteman silos for over three years. It's still hard to believe our guys wouldn't have their birds in the air, even with a first strike. My silo would have most definitely been empty given the same timeframe.
Indeed...I'm to understand "Minuteman" wasn't just a cool name in regard to the missiles? :P
@@nucflashevent It's definitely a cool name, and an appropriate one given its role in national defense. In my experience Missileerss call them "birds." We don't really use affectionate slang for our missiles because they are such a constant pain in the ass lol. It's not due to less than stellar quality because they are excellent. But keeping them ready to travel requires a lot of little things to monitor or tweak. But "Minuteman" is the specific name for the type of land based ICBM we currently have in service. Technically it's the LG-30G Minuteman III because it's the third iteration of the missile platform. Ever since the Titan ICBM was retired and the failure of the Peacekeeper, the name "Minuteman" has become something of a catch all. As of now t's the only game in town. The Russian Federation and China on the other hand deploy multiple types of land based ICBMs. But what they all have in common is that they are comparatively crude and unreliable.
After listening to command and control I took from it the advantage the minuteman had over the titan was being solid fueled vs liquid fueled. Which enabled it to be launched much faster. When you say your silo would have been empty I believe it.
@@Mc.Garnagle Yeah, I always get a kick out of trolls who try and use the fact both the Russians and Chinese have gone through umpteen generations of missiles since the Minutemen were installed.
Every month or so when they test a random MIII off the California coast and it flies on-time *every-time* I can understand why the Russians and Chinese feel the need to keep playing catchup 😜
Speaking of the next generation of land-based ICBM, I hope they adopt the "Minuteman IV" name, that would be super cool
@@nucflashevent Absolutely. Northrup should keep the brand name alive. It's going to be another couple of years before they start the roll out.
Спасибо за работу! Всегда интересно посмотреть такие фильмы и заодно подучить английский
Portions of this video were used in the movie THE DAY AFTER 1983....worth watching.
Timely son of z bitch. Put the volume @ full!
I remembered it last February when Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin put his strategic nuke force on alert while giving orders to march into Ukraine! I watched this movie when i was 9 !!! And it left an indelible knowledge of the world we lived in at the time at that early age, making me appreciate the awesome power of nukes, again at the tender age of nine😁 !!
As a grown adult I've grimaced and run my mouth at Washington and Brussels everytime they gobbled up a former Warsaw pact or even former Soviet Republic into their ( by now a nefarious outfit) club NATO encroaching ever closer to the still underdeveloped, mostly rural threat to no one Russia, yet perfectly capable dog if rubbed the wrong way with the world's largest stockpile of mega thermonuclear warheads count !!!
Wish every nation on the planet acquire an adequate stockpile of nukes .... It would have saved Eye-raq from wanton and murderous Anglo-American onslaught, done with complete impunity, a million lives simply deemed inferior and accordingly extinguished because a cabal of criminals in London and Washington DC, thought might made it right.... God bless Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin ❤️
Threads kicks The Day After's backside - every time!
I thought so!
@@Thrazkar Don't forget Miracle Mile.
I spent the late 80's working on Minuteman III and MX ICBM sites out of FE Warren AFB in Cheyenne Wyoming. The 90th FMMS. Spent many an afternoon laying on top of the launcher closure concrete door that covers the top of the missile silo sunning myself while remembering this film. Also spent a few afternoons down at the bottom of the silo on a sump pump check looking up and seeing the missiles rocket exhausts. What I usually thought about however was the Chicken Maryland/corn/mashed potato foil packs I would order later that evening at the LCF's galley along with a couple of dinner rolls and a Coke. Damn that was good eating after a day of working on the instruments of the apocalypse
Sounds like special times that made fond memories. You deserve it...Thank you for serving so old ducks like me could safely retire. (so far) 🇺🇸 😎👍☕
Thank you! This is more evidence to the idea I have that countries use regular ass people to fight wars because their rich asses have a beef (or potential beef) with some other country. Most of us could hardly give a flying fuck about this beef. I wish these rich ass leaders would just fight each other MMA style instead of involving regular ass people. I mean, what sense does that make anyway?
@@whoever6458 Of course its ridiculous but it is what it is and how it is. A nation can pretend that it is above it all and take no steps to defend itself and its interests but we all know what happens to that nation. The world does not turn to the lyrics of "Imagine"
I worked on the Prometheus cruise missile project back in the 50s , the threat of nuclear annihilation from first strike was so high , US department of energy spent 60 billion dollars developing a program for an always - airborne nuclear ramjet propulsion system that would carry 100 MT device continuously mid air at all times , only land a few times a month for repairs and maintenance. Pluto project 1957.
wasted money time and talent
@@rd264 From an engineering perspective it was a lot of fun, you have to remember we thought everything will be powered by nuclear power in the future. This was also a test program that had potential Space implementations for nuclear powered interplanetary travel. The missile program was riddled with problems mainly from high neutron reflector degradation and heat sync issues with the beryllium oxide nacelles, we needed something you would call nanotechnology today.
I wonder if this has all been declassified or are you just throwing national security secrets out to the web ....lol IV done no research 😂
60 billion down the toilet. the cold war bosses shown here terrorize the public and foment paranoia, urging for the arms race and they never advocate disarmament, because it makes the MIC a fantastic profit so of course its highly parasitic on the public. See Ellsberg's Doomsday Machine (2017).
This is the Cold War of my childhood. Few of the young people in this country appreciate just how profound the defeat of the Soviet Union in said cold war was in 1989-1990.
In my opinion, they were defeated because they used up all their resources on wars in the Middle East and preparing in case they ended up at war with us. We ought to be careful not to make the same mistake now.
It was great to be free from any sizable military threat, for however short of a timespan that was. Another great time in American history was shortly after the 9/11 attacks. Nothing mattered except that you were an American. Politics, religion or any other difference went out the window. This one thing I believe came from grassroots America. It wasn’t instituted from any central source. I pitied any opposing force in that time.
It was a terrifying time to live through. It was like having the sword of Damocles at our necks all the time and there were several really close calls. More than most people know. Many of these have since been declassified, and makes reflecting on that time with the new knowledge makes it even more ominous. They may be getting their butts kicked in Ukraine, but they still have ~7000 nuclear weapons that are strategic and in hair-trigger alert status. This scares the bejeezus out of me.
@@soulsphere9242 yes the troubles began shortly after that. The unity didn’t last that terribly long. Of course, we humans have short memories and politics and other troubles soon took hold.
For sure, kids these days know more about pronouns than 9/11
I was born in 1968. I lived through the cold war. We didn't have nuclear attack drills in elementary school like the decade before...What we had and what we lived through was FEAR. Fear that one misread radar blip or one single accidental cross into another country's air space would start a total nuclear war. This movie's intro is a perfect example of the fear in the 70's and 80's. What this narrator couldn't know was that our technology would blow through the ceiling in the 90's making a first strike that could destroy America's nuclear arsenal virtually impossible. We now have satellites that will pick up the heat signature of a Chinese or Russian soldier taking a piss next to the missile silo he/she is operating. No chance in hell of a secret first strike. But I still enjoy watching these types of movies...So thank you for putting this up.
Born in 1960, we did have nuclear bomb drills and our desks were tiny.😊
@@ciscokid0110 RIGHT ON my friend. Do you remember the old Civil Defense signs with the Big CD over the stairs to just about any public buildings basement? Anyway you were from a decade where nuclear war seemed inevitable...I was in the era (1970s) of "we are all fucked if the button gets pushed" so air raid drills were not practiced. ;)
@@robertstewart1223 I only heard one once in Sarnia circa '75 ( chemical valley at the time)
Well, namesake, I was born in 1952 and at the time of this documentary I was a National Guard sergeant specializing in NBC warfare. It is interesting to me to look back on this program and realize that the real reason we managed to back away (somewhat) from the brink of that abyss was by spending more money on defense than the Soviet Union could. They tried to keep up, but collapsed. One thing Reagan did right.
WATCHED B-52 STRATOFORTRESS TAKE OFF & LAND AT WURTSMITH AFB FOR 20 YEARS AS MY GRANDPARENTS LIVED ABOUT 3 MILES FROM THE END OF THEIR 2.2-MILE RUNWAY IN OSCODA, MI.
ABOUT 76 B-52s ARE STILL FLYING AFTER 67 YEARS. I WAS 9 WHEN THEY BUILT THE FIRST ONE.
OOH-RAH
SEMPER FIDELIS
I was stationed at Offutt AFB, Strategic Air Command HQ, from 1975-1977..it was a pretty scary place. Those boys weren't playin'. Then I got assigned to the first NATO A-10 base, and THAT was a blast!
Being born in 1958, I lived through most of the Cold War. When I was a sophomore in high school, I became interested in nuclear weapons and nuclear war. I remember finding a bound copy of "The Long Term Effects of Multiple Nuclear Detonations." It was the polar opposite of the nuclear winter hypothesis of the mid 1980s. The conclusion of the report was, "no biggie!" And back then, the US and USSR had about 1.5 gigatons of fun for each other.
I was born in 1942. We had air raid drills in elementary school and hid under our desks.
@@hlnbee omg... You where born in good countries.
My grandfather was born in 1915 and he never went to school. He grew up in extreme poverty but he lived 107 years.... I miss him so much. He teached a lot....
He encouraged me to go to college in 2019 when i finished school. I thank him.... So much. He died 2 days ago.
@Helen yes, and the cold War terrors took generations until 1989 to 1991 glasnost began to ease the threat of such horror. Now in the global responses to the covid19 pestilence (ongoing), in the international stress and madness, both the US/EU and Putin-ruled Russia seem on course to return that horror to potential reign. 2 generations we have been given; can we locate the wisdom to let human life go on?
I think you read a publication from the department of defense contractors. Propaganda to sell billions of dollars of excess.
Bizarre
That eight minutes of action at the start was more exciting and compelling than any Hollywood movie that I've seen in the last five years. Is there any video of this that's better than 720p?
This is why ballistic nuclear subs are over a billion dollars a pop..They are the most sophisticated machine mankind has ever made...
Comparable to the Space Shuttle.
But you have a very survivable weapon system with the Trident D-5 missile that is now a counterforce weapon against specific targets instead of countervalue weapons that were city busters.
@@stanleyharrell6009 counterforce vs countervalue?
@@Rawdiswar Counterforce are weapons capable of taking out missile command center, missile silos, C3I centers and Air Force bases. Usually these warheads have CEPs 100-400 yds. Countervalue are the old city busters that have CEP accuracy 1/4 mi to several miles. They can take out soft targets, cities, manufacturing centers, but not “precision” targets.
Well I'm sure the price is inflated right along with the fears they try to stoke in people, which aren't without warrant, but are intentionally provoked for the profit of rich people who will likely never see a war actually threaten them or their progeny. I don't know exactly how it works in other countries but I suspect that, like us in the US and especially in other large countries, the rich never have to personally see a war. They might be honorable enough to volunteer but no one is forcing richie rich to fight by draft or because of poverty in any country, including those with a robust draft.
Love that the B-52 out lived all the people in this movie😂
Death from above 💥
That is good and bad.they are getting old and the technology is old. We haven't done much to replace them either.
Same. She's a good bird.
A B52.. a friend you can depend on 👍✈️
GOD will call the end of Earth not man.
My sister-in-law’s step father was the “senior controller at the command post”….Maj. Dale Smethurst, USAF.
My dad was one of the ICBM computer scientists. Very cool. Good thing we all in the world have had the sense so far not to launch on each other.
This was great! I remember the existential fear of the period from 1978 to 1981. We were certain that the Soviets were stronger. Our inflation and prime lending rates were hovering around 18%
Then we lost Iran, a bulwark against Soviet intrigue in the Middle East. Love him or not, Reagan brought a new optimism that was Italy needed. More importantly, he pivoted sharply toward reducing nuclear weapons. And of course, the USSR was dying from the cancer that had been eating away at it for many years.
Iran wasn't good news for the soviets either. They were actually a bigger problem for them since they provided inspiration for mujahedin fighters in Afghanistan.
@@florinivan6907 good point!
@@MrKKmusic To be fair this wouldn't have yet been obvious circa 1979. Iran was so unlike other states of the era that no one knew what to make of it. For politicians who had had to deal for 30 years with atheist communism suddenly dealing with an explicitly religious leadership was weird. They had no procedure for it. It took more than a decade until a basic idea of how to deal with Iran emerged.
@@florinivan6907 I thought Iran was under the sway of the Shah. He was a staunch US ally who detested the Soviets. He was also brutal to his own people. Since the Iranian people, rightly, saw the US as the Shah’s main benefactor, they had then - and to this day, great antipathy to the US. We were and are ‘The Great Satan’ in their eyes
@@florinivan6907 good point. hadn't really thought of it that way before.
Wow, I remember seeing this when it aired! I think it was on a PBS station when I was in the Navy stationed In San Diego.
that was back in the magical time when PBS showed documentaries...the focus now for PBS is socialist propaganda and LGBTQGC+.
Wow! This was before they decommissioned the Titan II complement. Great piece of film.
I remember doing "duck & cover" drills in Kindergarten. My school was about a mile from O'Hare Airport, which sported an Air National Guard unit, back then (1955).
@Interfacer I'm pretty sure that the people who voted for "these issues" are all dead, now. The greatest danger to the entire human race, today ... and surprisingly enough ... is not Putin or Xi, but the Democrat Party headed by the senile old man in the White House. Of course, he's a "tough guy" who has beat up lots of guys in his time. Let's see him beat up Russian and Chinese nukes - only then will I be impressed.
I’ll tell you this video really hits home I was in the Air Force in sac during the end of Vietnam war. This stuff this is exactly what we practice back then today the modern nuclear submarines have eliminated all this.
Man... I flew B52s into the tunnels at Cu Chi... It was hell down there man... You don't know... YOU DON'T KNOW!!
Have this eery feeling that some kind of AI inspired detection may make the most survivable leg of the Triad vulnerable as well,if satellite tech w/AI can peer through the ocean depths there may come a time subs can be hunted and their positions fixed,what then? I don't know
I member as a child using binoculars to look at a Nike missile on its launcher. They had to open the doors and elevate the missiles to dry them out because of high humidity. This happened about once a month.
Nike?? Hey “just do it”
Yup , I grew up near a USAF SAC base in upstate NY. I remember seeing that same view . I work with a contractor supporting the
development of the ALCM
( Air Launched Cruse Missile) at that same SAC base in the mid 70's . They always had 2 fully loaded B-52's crewed and ready sitting on the end of the runway 24/7 !!
"Nike A Go Go"...Jersey had them. "Human tongue hits aluminum plate, it's a Missile boy, Go Go Go Go Go, Death machine and Man...In Love, Go".
1979 - *The B-52 is outdated!*
2024 - *B-52 outlives mostly everyone from the movie*
The b1 was cancelled at this time,&the b2 wasn't ready yet. We now have those, and the b52 is still going strong. Subs r now pin point accurate.
I was a SAC Maintenance Officer in the 1970's and went through many exercises and ORI's. I was a little taken aback about how this movie portrayed the USA as being caught flat-footed in a Soviet attack scenario. I remember we went to DEFCON 3 during the 1973 Arab-Israeli War. We loaded up every bomber we had with nukes and were preparing to exercise our dispersal plan when we were to told to stand down. All of this was the result of ships carrying Soviet SCUDS being detected sailing through the dardenelles on the way to Egypt. Our intel system would have had plenty of warning regarding changes in the disposition of Soviet forces leading up to this attack scenario. KH-11 and Rhyolyte SIGINT satellites had the USSR blanketed by the late 1970's and we would not have been caught unawares as shown in this scenario. There is a lot of literary license being given here. However, we must be mindful that there are adversary nations that still have many thousands of nuclear weapons and I feel we have let our guard down. Our military forces are a shadow of what they were in the 1980's in terms of lethality, redundancy and effective command and control. Also, one side note. I don't believe the 5th Bomb Wing at Minot had B-52D's. They were either B-52G's or B-52H's, which they now have.
For me the biggest failing of this scenario is not the complete failure of every intel asset. Its far simpler. How exactly would the soviets transmit their ultimatum if absolutely no one is listening?Presumably the president is on AF1 by this point and being shown by advisors what is left of the deterrent. I think the last thing that he would do in those moments is ask 'have the soviets explained what's going on and what their demands are if any?'. If anything as a security measure they'd probably stop all contacts with the soviets. And would any general bother to tell him 'they're demanding our surrender' as opposed to a more realistic 'we can still hit these targets and take out this'. In those moments the last thing on anyone's mind would be 'lets see what if anything do the soviets have to say about this'. A surrender ultimatum has no effect if no one is listening. Unless you try and flood every possible frequency. There are other practical issues. The french and the british are nonexistent. It would be close to impossible for the US to prevent those two from launching everything they had. If anything in such a chaotic atmosphere their more limited intel assets would drive them towards far more negative assumptions even if the US was still in touch.'the yanks are asking us to surrender?is it possible the soviets have compromised our secure links and we don't know it?what the hell launch everything and we'll figure it out later.' And I would add one last issue completely ignored a constitutional one. The president is the commander in chief but nowhere in the Constitution is it even implied that he has the power to surrender the US as a nation. Can he?At the very least a constitutional scholar would need to be consulted. Because someone might logically posit that such a power is not his to make. He can lead the military but its debateable if he can actually surrender it. Its never happened. It can be argued that a surrender is unconstitutional. That it goes above the presidential prerogative.
The "Bolt Out Of The Blue" surprise attack/First Strike was a bit far fetched. At Wing Pre-Departure Briefing we would receive an Intel Briefing on the current state of readiness of Soviet Strategic Forces - disposition and location of Key Soviet Leadership and many other Strategic Warning Indicators.
Yeah March AFB had the D-models until 1983. And it's not a matter of letting one's guard down. It was the for-profit model that the Military Industrial Complex operates on, along with extensive and pervasive corruption in DC in terms of economic, domestic and foreign affairs that has caused the gradual (now accelerated under the Biden administration) decline of the United States.
you are typical of the cold war lunatics that are featured in this promoting the endless arms race. guess who profited?
I remember seeing on TV I think it was the PBS channel back when I was in the 8th grade (1981-1982) a series of programs that talked about the superiority of Soviet numbers in aircraft, artillery, men, and tanks over us and NATO. A couple of classmates got into a big argument over it during PE class the following day.
And in the Modern Day... Russian tanks are junk. The subs are rusting hulks. Yet their fighter craft are no joke.
The kid that argued the Soviets were full of shit was right.
Fast forward to 2022: that kid is still arguing that the Russians are full of shit, and he's still right.
@@williammitchell4417 then where are all those fighter jets in Ukraine?
@@PeterSquitieri good question. It's been reported that Putin is holding the aircraft back. Much like with our Stingers in Afghanistan, Putin doesn't want to risk it.
@@williammitchell4417 Their fighters would not stand a snowball's chance in hell against the USAF.
I’m 41 so I remember the fear as a kid…in the past two months I’ve seen both a Barksdale B-52 and 2 “doomsday” 747s from Offut doing just normal training overhead with my own eyes.
A totally different world just 30 years ago…
B52s been present
at RAF Lyneham
The book Overkill by John Cox is an excellent explanation of the state of affairs when it was written at the same time as this documentary.
It's amazing we survived this era.
history repeating its self
Well let's not be too hasty just yet, we'll wait a bit first
Well, thankfully the politicians and militaries are just as scared of nuclear war as we are.
It's those getting under the desk for protection simulations is why we survived.
There were a few times we nearly didn't. False alerts nearly got the world blown to hell.
This needs to be shown on tv again to remind people of what could happen.
Watch any daily news updates on Russia getting their ass kicked in Ukraine to see what would happen.
Fuck this, air Threads on all channels simultaneously.
One Trident sub carries enough hardware to obliterate every major city in wherever.
Most of the ICBMs have been stood down for years now, and no one plans to deliver nukes by plane. Things are totally different in 2022 from 1978... Of course everyone has submarines these days, but the poinr is that diplomacy has been very successful so far, and other than the Ukraine,Russia has been amenable to negociations. I would be more concerned with Pakistan or North Korea. China, for all our disagreements needs the US as much as we need them. At this point climate change is far more likely to do us harm than nuclear attack. Now nuclear terrorism is another matter entirely ...
I'd say Countdown to Looking Glass is better choice - along with Threads and "On the 8th Day" :)
@@piotrd.4850 Don't forget By Dawns Early Light!
This gets me going…
Like the calm silence right before the gun fires to start a marathon.
Hard to believe this was 40 years ago.And look at us now
only this time !!
we're not talking about a peaceful solution?!
May sense and sensibility lead and prevail
Why? It is gonna happen sooner or later.
@@SteveWard151
NOW I AM become Death, the destroyer of worlds'.
Oppenheimer
he's saying,, it's gonna happen someday..
Google
The FLOWERS REPORT ( nuclear)
The more things change the more they stay the same.
I remember those days, and now we are back Cold War II
AND We Are #2 NOW! Far behind our adversaries in every way. Complacency and useless politicians
The only adversaries we have are the criminals that run our country
@@timmotel5804 What? You think Russia is superior to NATO?
Same one, just took a pause.
I was born in 1980, the year after this was made. I’m old enough to remember the Cold War and being terrified as a kid of the “evil Russians” annihilating us all. Even after the Cold War ended, well into the 90s as a teenager I would sometimes have very vivid nightmares of WWIII starting without any kind of warning whatsoever. In these dreams I had, I kept saying “but I thought the Cold War was over???” That deeply seated fear of WWIII I had mostly went away for about 20 years, but came back with a sickening vengeance when Russia decided to be stupid and invade Ukraine earlier this year, making nuclear threats and whatnot. The people I currently work with made fun of me for it, but they are too young to have any living memory of the Cold War therefore they cannot comprehend why I have such an intense fear of nuclear Armageddon occurring.
I'm a 1974 kid but what you've written describes my mindset exactly. I spent part of February this year puking with anxiety and while that's subsided I'm still anxious and imagine mushroom clouds in the sky. The media is certainly not helping. Why can't humans just be nice to each other?
I feel exactly the same, even worse now I have children, the thought of us not all being together if this ever happens kills me inside….one of my children has autism and is only 8, I feel anxious that if he survived and we didnt who would look after him, he wouldn’t have a clue what was going on, the thought of him being scared and alone scares the living hell out of me, all these scenarios go through my mind, nuclear war has terrified me for as long as I remember…..
@@stevegray5263 I had the Nuclear bomb dream again last night for the first time since the 70s.
It was horrible. I was a distance away from ground zero but my son had lost his warm coat. I spent most of it looking for his coat. We got into an aircraft that was overloaded and ended up with the pilot crashing on a bridge where he had people he needed to save. It was just a frame to frame litany of desperation and despair.
I'm still disturbed today awake.
Really shaken.
I remember this fear.
Luv and Peace.
The Bomb dream is so vivid for all of us that grew up in the early 80s. I too had the bomb dream again last night but it was worse because rather than being at school and crying out for my parents I was the parent looking to find my Son and save him from the nightmare. It was all sorts of nightmarish. The bomb dropped far enough away we weren't hurt but he'd lost his warm coat so lots of time in a surreal search for his coat the we joined a bunch of people leaving to a safe place. The flight was over weight but we took off then the pilot landed on a nearby bridge to save some people he knew and could not get airborne again.
Just freaky nightmare shit from then on.
Other Nukes landing and a general freaking out from all concerned.
Horrifying.
I remember dreaming about being let out of school at lunchtime and looking south towards a local airbase and seeing the Mushroom cloud go up and be completely panicked by the fact I was about 20 mins walk from my house.
We'd talked as a family about nuclear Armageddon and agreed we do it as a family. As a nieve 8 year old kid this seemed like a solution.
My nightmare was I would not be able to get back in time.
Traumatizing stuff.
The image of the mushroom cloud rising over the field beside my school is one I will never forget.
Luv and Peace.
I was born in 1979 and never once was afraid of or even gave a thought to the Russians. Where did you grow up that there was such fear? The first conflict of any kind that I remember clearly was the first Gulf War when I was 11.
These are so cool. Could you post World War 3 sometime. It’s on RUclips and was made in 1990 I believe. It really shows that things in Europe could’ve ended much differently.
Do you have a link or anything? Sounds interesting.
@@JamesPhieffer ruclips.net/video/EpicB7YI3B8/видео.html
it's on RUclips 👍
also...
QED A guild to Armageddon
ON the 8th day
@@JamesPhieffer The Third World War is the title and it was made in '98 from Germany. Was stationed in Germany at the time the wall came down and this movie is pretty good at the possible outcome that could have taken place.
I think this is the one you're talking about.
ruclips.net/video/q1m7opOGSmQ/видео.html
The ending about the US caving to an ultimatum is nonsense, as we had a launch-on-warning policy. In the event of a confirmed attack, we would not have been left with 46 missiles and 22 bombers; we would have been left with 1,000 empty silos and 300+ empty bomber parking spots before the incoming arrived, and there would have been no one left on the other side to give any ultimatum.
The bombers are no longer on standby. We still have the subs on rotation. The minute man has been dismantled. The radar stations are minimum maned. Satellites do most of the monitoring.
@@richarda996
Thank you, but I'm referring back to the time this was taking place. The bombers haven't been on standby for about 40 years now. And we don't have 1,000 ICBMs any more. And there aren't those golf ball radomes that we used to see on every mountain top. Doesn't that make us feel old?
Minuteman 1 & 2 are gone, but there are still hundreds of Minuteman 3 in service.
Since bill Clinton time; unless changed are long range missiles are not target russia; we agreed to 1st actually be hit before retailate
@@mikearmstrong8483 450 minute man missiles to be exact!
The Cold war/ Nuclear winters never botherd me one bit, as I live next door to the only SSBN base in Europe, before my component atoms hit the atmosphere, I would like to say 'cheerio'.
Good night and good luck. Also, we (at least me here in the US) apologize for the inconvenience.
I used to live just up the road from Canada's Diefenbunker. My house would have been blown to matchsticks if this went down for real.
25:00 interesting comment about the B52's life expectancy in 1980 when seen now in retrospect, almost 45 years later: they're still well alive and kicking and expected to carry on and probably reach the 90 years of active service milestones. Interesting too to see how low was the reliance on the submarine part of the triad due to the lack of precision of the nuclear heads they carried then.
25:30 It's funny that this gentleman says that the B-52 would not be viable by 1995 and yet they are now projected to be in service in the year 2040 at the minimum if not into the 2050s. See "How Long Can the B-52 Continue in Service?" ruclips.net/video/tRT5g_50Iik/видео.html And... "The B-52 Will Fly For Over 100 Years With Its New Rolls Royce Engines!" ruclips.net/video/_bA_6a7hdVE/видео.html ENJOY!
this is starting to feel very relevant again. I grew up in the cold war and thought it was over in 91... it is back and with a vengeance
😢😢😢. I know it.
It's not the Cold War pt. 2, it's a nut in Moscow with a death wish.
@@SilverHammer1969 not just Moscow. It is also everyone in the West who talks about it so nonchalantly.
@@elrond3737 disagree, it is the Russian media and their pundits that are opening Pandora box. Those animals talk about it seriously, as in actually doing it. Our nonchalant response is meant to de escalate. Give me that, any day in comparison.
@@SilverHammer1969 No, Joe Biden who approved the change from a Second Strike to a First Strike policy for US nuclear forces back on March 28, 2022. And now made worse by the absolutely stupid attack on one of Russia's ballistic missile early warning radars in Voronezh by Ukrainian forces this year.
7:20 - that's gotta be the quickest jet engine start of all time.
RAF VULCAN BOMBER
QRA.
those pilots got their QRA SCRAMBLE EXERCISES down to
1 minute 40 seconds ..
watch the
rebuilding the Vulcan
video 👍
01:40 That security guy with the orange cravat is the same soldier/actor from "The Day After, I'm sure!
03:34 okay, this is the same soldiers/actors/film as in the Day After. The Day after must have used it.
10:15 Fair enough, it says at the end it was used in the film as well.
Im still here.
The majority of the scenes in this video are in the tv movie "The Day After"
I was born in 1978. The nuclear threat from the Soviet Union hung in the back of my mind almost continuously during the Cold War. Nowadays the threat is almost certainly as present as it was then, only from multiple sources taking aim.
You were like 13 years old when the Cold War ended. Back then the threat was a hundredfold. We constantly trained to kill “Ivan” and to survive against anything he threw at us. Today’s threats are drama drummed up by mainstream media.
A great number of people would survive a full on nuclear war and the earth would recover from a nuclear winter within 7-10 years.
People are asking is "don't look up" about climate change or covid19. Apparently they're only looking *partway* up, not at what may still be the biggest looming threat of all.
The threat comes from our own government, don't believe me get vx and boosted.
🐂💩 You were 13 years old .
Industrial military complex loved this piece of proganda.
As soon as I heard them mention the MX missile project, I said yep, propaganda piece.
Correctly identifies who to blame, but can't even spell it correctly... this is the future of Leftism in America.
The same one that kept the Free world free?
@@bsowers22 and?
@@Hunter_Nebid you mean like how military industrial complex profited from that vietnam war, & illegal invasion of Iraq war.
Love it, can't WAIT!!!
Same here.
I was stationed in Germany in 1980. I remember a NATO alert that scared All of us. They pulled out trunks of bayonets from the arms room and then waited. We were told that was the sign we were going to war, bayonets being issued. After waiting all night they called off the alert. After 40 yrs I still wonder about that night
I was in 2 ACR in 1989, first duty station. That first year we routinely had alerts but no bayos issued out. Wonder what that was in 1980 that had USAREUR scared.
June 3 or 6, 1980. False alarms at NORAD notified all US forces something was up, Zbigniew Brezenski woke up Carter to possibly push The Button...turned out it was a computer error, faulty chip on the global monitoring system.
My birth year is 1975, but US history, especially military and pop culture from 1950-1980, has always fascinated me.
I've never believed for one second that such a surprise first strike would be successful in any capacity even in it's time.
Haven't I seen you make similar comments?? We get it.. you don't buy it.
you know there's a research on why people like you stubbornly believe why in any such cases such scenario could never happen, researchers say because its so catastrophic and existentially terrifying that your brain wired as if it's impossible for anyone to let it happen, even though the chances are its still high and probable
depends on what your definition of "successful" would be. The results would have been devastating to humanity either way. There could easily have been a scenario(there actually was in 1983) where the Soviets were so fearful of a surprise American/NATO first strike based on miscalculation, misinformation, and paranoia that they may have felt compelled to launch everything first feeling they had no other alternative and hoping that they could miraculously catch us completely by surprise and destroy enough of our retaliatory capacity that we would capitulate. That scenario did not occur thankfully but not impossible to imagine. Look up KGB Operation RYAN and the 1983 joint American/NATO military training exercise Able Archer and what the Soviets mistakenly thought it was a prelude to.
@@AlamoOriginal The reason why it’s hard to believe is easy. The triad of bombers, ICBMS and subs was designed that if even 2 of the 3 were knocked out the other one had the capability of responding massively. Which would almost certainly be the ballistic missile subs. You take out the first two you still have hundreds of SLBMs with thousands of warheads to deal with.
Republican NEOCON propaganda machine video
They used a lot of footage from this in The Day After
Other way around.
This documentary was produced in 1979.
The Day After was produced and aired in 1983.
@@scottdoubleyou563 Right that's what I said....They used a lot of footage from this in The Day After.....
@@ohioc4243 My apology. I read it as "They used alot of footage from The Day After in this."
Reading owns me today.
@@scottdoubleyou563 Happens to us all!!
That high-pitched whistle here and there throughout is interesting.
Interestingly, the USAF has plans to keep the remaining B-52s until 2050. The existing inventory is 76 planes. There are 46 B-1B's and 20 B-2's. The B-21 will replace the B-1B's and B-2's in the 30's.
USSR dissolved December 25, 1991. But, now we have the Putin and Ukraine problem.
Yup, Donald Trump will help Putin bring back the USSR and that looming sense of doom. Gotta love the new GOP. Turncoat Americans.
Many things have changed since this was made.
Yet MX was canceled and Minuteman III is still active. Trident 4 is joining the fleet. This film had good intentions but bad data.
The SLBM fleet can almost do the entire job by itself with it’s 10 MRVs and being hard to find at sea. Trident 4 is quite accurate.
And the B-52 still is on the job but joined by the B-1, B-2, and B-21
MX was deemed too expensive due to the design of a massive railway to move them around.
I sure felt safe in school getting under my desk with my back to the windows watching a turtle telling me to “duck and cover” over and over… nearly 60 years ago…
good info ... good to know, thank you
@@hldarte damnnn ✌️😁
The MX wasn't canceled. It simply was stripped of the whole nonsensical multiple launcher part and built as a standalone missile (the Peacekeeper ICBM) which they stuffed in old Minuteman silos. It was deployed for less than 20 years because the Peacekeeper was designed to be MIRV-capable, and multiple warheads per missile was forbidden as part of START II. The final Peacekeepers were taken out of service in 2005.
I remember the Cold War vividly. Grew up in the 80s and remember the occasional nuclear raid drill. Grew up near LaPorte county which didn’t realize was a target of the Soviet ICBMs because of the Allison factory.
Were the Minuteman crews asleep? They're situated a long way from the sea for a reason.
A number of B52s (and before that B47s and B36s) were in the air at all times. So those couldn't be caught on the ground.
As for the submarines, you can only sink them if you can find them.
You're right; as good as this was it was still just a position piece.
It's a shame that SAC is gone and so are the "Ready Aircraft" that were always in the air. I'm not confident that they still have nuclear armed B52's on the ground ready for immediate take off. They did at Carswell the last time that I was there, when it still existed...
This is really terrifying to see. I was born in 1984, the movie is from 1979. Taking Russian aggession in 2022 into account, I guess I never would have been born without the vigilance of the US strategic forces. I want to say a big "thank you" to all the veterans who helped to keep the freedom of the western world alive 😊 Greetings from (West) Germany
The only aggressor on the planet is the USA
Vigilance of US forces? Please, read a fucking book.
@@borninvincible yeah what do you think the USA was doing during the cold war? We were watching the Russians 24/7 with a massive spy network.
You don't know half the story of what's going on except what you hear and see on msm nonsense.
@@bidenwearstrumpscrappypamp1829 is this what Moscow Mitch told you, Trumpy-Boy? 🤡
I was 9 years old it was a scary time.
If you can get Fair Use, Would you please do 'Threads' It has to be the Best Cold War Movie ever made. Growing up in Cold War Yorkshire, It Terrified me as a Kid.
It's on YT already, just search it up
Set in Sheffield to save money - no special effects needed for the scenes after the attack.
@@himoffthequakeroatbox4320 😆
Times have changed! Submarine accuracy is the game changer, for both sides. Bottom line, NO ONE wins so don’t engage in it. True M.A.D.
Still realivant today, after 49yrs im surprised im still here....
Thanks for sharing; this was a good look into what some people were thinking about defense more than 40 years ago. I was born just after this film came out (1981) and I have only the haziest memory of the Cold War and the Soviet Union being a scary menace.
In 1979, the US spent about 5% of GDP on defense. In 2021, the US spent 3.5% of GDP on defense. At no point during the post-September 11 arms buildup did the US spend a greater portion of GDP on defense than when this film came out. The Bush 43 administration did some good things, especially in setting up the modern Missile Defense Agency and withdrawing from the ABM Treaty, but very few politicians since the end of the Cold War have taken defense nearly as seriously as they should. The threat of nuclear war is still very real, and if it wasn't crystal clear already, it should be obvious since the Russian invasion of Ukraine that the honeymoon has come to an end.
@adodgyworld I can't argue with either of those things. To this day I don't see that missile defense is taken nearly as seriously as it should be.
Lt Krause didn't get to go to the hacienda. Poor man.
He and his date did go out and went to the Atomic Cafe.
Tons of this footage was used in 1983s the day after
I remember watching this in high school. This is what this new generation needs to watch. That way theyll know what can happen. Instead of thinking the whole world are our friends. Ive always been a believer that our firces should ALWAYS be armed and ready on a seconds notice.
Put your hand on the KEY SIR! Turn your key SIR!
big chunks of this were used a few years later in the day after film.
We’re so close to this becoming a reality.
actually no
@@gozorak actually yes.
Yes we came close but in Cuban crisis when the Soviet Union and USA went head on. Thank God Cool heads prevail.
@@stab74 There is zero chance or possibility that Russia would launch a surprise first strike against the United States of the magnitude pondered in First Strike. That possibility did exist throughout the Cold War however.
@@gozorak If Putin uses a tactical nuke on Ukraine, the response may be a significant and even multi-national assault on Russia. How will Putin respond to a major counter-attack of conventional military?
80 years overdue ,bout time for another one.
I always get a sense of pride at 3:59 seeing my old duty station.
Pride- LGBT QRSTV - trans sexual Navy Seals
Yo! This is crazy. This movie was made years before I was born. I’ve lived with thought of nuclear war my entire life. It’s crazy to think about
Probably an un-PC opinion but I really miss the Cold War.
Same. You're not alone in that.
On the plus side, finding out how bad the corruption is in the Russian military, that's been a goddamn treat.
On the day Putins flexing his nuclear muscles this films very sobering.
Everyone expects that if Putin resorts to using nuclear weapons,it will be tactical nukes against Ukraine, but what if why we are all thinking that,he instead launched a nuclear attack on the US,with SLBM's and some ICBM's,would the US have time to launch a counterstrike?
Well…this film was 43 ! years ago…our submarine missile accuracy is ions more capable. Additionally, our cruise missiles are deployed across multiple ship and aircraft platforms.
- The F-14 Tomcat wasn’t even in its heyday yet.
Notice now, all the 80’s movies about nuclear war, are showing up on RUclips? Makes you think.
They do this from time to time to keep us all on edge it's psychological war fare. I'm from the UK and I'm getting bombarded with prepping videos and somthing is going to to happen in November videos. Just ignore them
i didn't realise they used filming from first strike in the day after
"You'll have to answer to the Coca Cola company mister..."
This was a push- piece for the MX missile. MX actually turned out to be a failure.
No MX worked just fine; the problem was the baseing plan. No-one wanted them in their Districts !
The Nuclear Age series had an episode about the debacle ruclips.net/video/R3vDmM7WSHk/видео.html
Too expensive
MX would have been impressive, at least the equal of the Russian Satan missile, but we realized we didn't need it, as Russia was falling apart on it's own by this point. You wouldn't believe how many of their ICBM silos were inoperative, filled with water, and them hoping we wouldn't find out.
@@colinstewart1432 too effective and disruptive. Cost is an excuse given how we piss money away until we need an excuse
When I was stationed at Langley back in the early 80s Me and a buddy in the same unit got an incentive ride on a 135 variant. Damn, I should know the full MDS because I supported the system for TAC that tracked aircraft utilization. Anyway I think it was a KC-135B/EC135C because it was a tanker and it had the seating and communications for airborne command.
The clicking sound when the red toolbox was opened is spot-on!
On the flight we were supposed to refuel a flight of F-15s over the Blue Ridge but the F-15 mission was cancelled. The CMS did take me and my buddy into the boom cubby. Basically laying down in a cubby at the back of the fuselage and there were some analog dials, some switches and a joystick for the boom. Oh, and thick plexiglass with a view from altitude over the Blue Ridge. While taking the refueling boom for a joyride. LOL!
Brings back a lot of memories.
USAF SAC MMS 1977-81
There are a lot of BIG logic flaws in this. First...this pre-supposes that there would be NO pre-existing tension between the super powers, and thus, no upgrade to our DEFCON.
This is the ultimate expression of the Douhet Strategy. The shortcomings of this strategy are obvious--the nuclear option works only as long as being destroyed bothers anybody, and there are many more microaggressions below the nuclear threshold.
I wonder what they would say if they knew the B- 52 would still be in use in 2022?
The makers of those planes would have said WOW, we should have sold them for 4 times as much.
Great video!!!
I was in the Army when this was made. One of Carter's Heroes, so to speak...
I always felt back then that we weren't going to war with anyone while he was in office!
I was just a counter-battery radar operator and hardly close to anything significant!
Seeing this now is pretty frightening! Just hearing their language usage and thought processes is startling to me!
I wasn't so naive to think that war couldn't be around the corner, and we trained a little, but these guys are talking at the highest strategic level that I never considered.
I recall the 'shell game' proposal for the Minuteman missiles, along with the B-1, and so on, but everything in this show is so far removed from just being a grunt that it is truly a different world from what I thought about!
I'm not describing what I mean very well, so forgive me.
I can say that JC is the single reason that I vote Republican! I voted him in, and then I voted him out!
Being in his Army was about the easiest slack time I could've imagined and when Ronnie took over, we all suddenly gained a new pride and fervor to make ourselves first class! It was great!
So great in fact, that my wife made me get out because she was convinced he would get me killed!!! ;-)
Hi from the UK, seem to remember seeing some of this footage elsewhere, ?Thanks for posting, scary stuff eh? Be lucky
They have upgraded the B-52 in the recent years I read a lot about it and they replaced about 90% of their engines so they might be outdated but a lot of the parts have been replaced and updated so it's basically an older aircraft but it's basically reconditioned and there's a lot of updated technology added to these aircraft that was not on there and 1979 because the technology didn't exist.
The airframe design of the B-52 is old everything else about them has been replaced with modern upgraded equipment,engines and avionics they're practically new aircraft
@@dominichamilton7839 that's exactly what I was trying to say to people. They might be old but 95% of the stuff on the aircraft has been replaced in a couple doodads that haven't been replaced is stuff that is still in working order but much of the aircraft has been replaced I watched a documentary on this a few years ago and they were still talking about decommissioning the a-10 warthog and there's a lot of people that said I don't think so they want to get rid of at least half the fleet and they've been wanting to do this for sometime so finally Congress said to them fine you can decommission some of them the ones that are the oldest and the ones that have the most miles on them so to speak and I think that they decommissioned twenty or thirty of them and then the rest of them that they're going to keep will be upgraded with new wings in new electronics these aircraft in my opinion are die-hard aircraft they are one of the best aircraft at the u.s. military Air Force Navy actually has these planes can be shot with quite a bit of damage done to the aircraft they can lose an engine get shot in the wing and these things can still fly. And if it still gets shot up a little bit more these aircraft have manual controls to the point where the pilot will have to do everything in a case of an emergency these planes in my opinion are the best planes in the world and they still are in my opinion. They want to get rid of the a-10 warthog to make a way for the new f-35 and I guess Congress said you're not getting rid of the warthog completely you can take some of the older ones away but you're not getting rid of it. That put a smile on my face because this is one of the best aircraft in the world hands down this aircraft would dominate over in Ukraine right now. If they're going to send aircraft I would send a good dozen of those a-10 warthogs and I would send the older models of the aircraft bottles that need to be updated with electronics and possibly new wings within the next year too so if any of these ever get shot down it's going to save the United States money because now they don't have to purchase all this new equipment for it because it doesn't exist anymore because it gets shot down like that's what they need to do but in all reality they are going to send any a-10 warthogs to the Ukrainian Armed Forces they might send f-16s but time will tell. I just cannot wait until this war is over with. I can't wait until Putin is locked up I can't wait until they put him in leg shackles and handcuffs. I hope he get a couple dozen life sentences the man is a psychopath and evil and he deserves to rot in prison for the rest of his days.
@@dominichamilton7839 25:30 It's funny that this gentleman says that the B-52 would not be viable by 1995 and yet they are now projected to be in service in the year 2040 at the minimum if not into the 2050s. See "How Long Can the B-52 Continue in Service?" ruclips.net/video/tRT5g_50Iik/видео.html And... "The B-52 Will Fly For Over 100 Years With Its New Rolls Royce Engines!" ruclips.net/video/_bA_6a7hdVE/видео.html
@@1982nsu it was an amazing design with upgrades and enhancements it doesn't owe anybody anything the Air force sure got their money's worth with the B-52 big ugly fat fellow LoL
That General looks as though he is bored to death, and not at all impressed by what is happening.
I would think it would take a super cool individual in that position. He's about to make some hard grime decisions and order a attack since he just might be one of the few left who can give the order.
I chuckled at that too. But it's a filmed exercise, obviously the General is familiar with this routine. He has to sit in the plane waiting for doomsday regardless, so he's probably half asleep.
@@briankistner4331 No doubt. They don't put just anyone in those positions.
@@jasoncarswell7458 I am also sure he is well aware everything is being captured for posterity. He doesn't want to leave a bad legacy for eternity!
@11:45. that’s awesome…and 42 years later the BUFF is still in service.
The 2nd F don't stand for fellow.😁
They said it may go another 30 years from today.
Hell it will be at the B21's retirement ceremony in 2060
Grandfather never sleeps. 🇺🇸 😎👍☕
It’s not your daddy’s Air Force anymore, but it’s still your great-granddaddy’s airplane
I like it how the day after used this as a source for filming.
I love the wingspan on that aircraft 👍
Wow, has this not aged well!
The CEP of the Trident missiles is now regarded as equal to, if not better, than the Minuteman! Mind, a decapitation strike would almost surely involve all or most of an enemy's land-based missile assets (leaving them in the silos just invites their destruction, so it is better to use than lose). Mobile ICBM's are infinitely more survivable, so they might be held in reserve to threaten a second strike on population centers.
Retaliation for a first-strike would inevitably pose a choice between capitulation and an attack on the enemy's population centers. The more certain a potential adversary is that there will be no one left to celebrate the success of their first strike, the more likely it is that no first strike will be attempted.
Some ethicists question if an American president, faced with the loss of two legs of his triad, with relatively few casualties (until the fallout begins and the crop lands are contaminated), would respond by vaporizing tens, maybe hundreds, of millions of civilians, not to mention doing so in the face of the near-certainty that American cities would follow. To some, capitulation sounds better than killing a substantial portion of humanity, never mind prompting the killing of virtually all of one's countrymen.
But as soon as that noble and well-intentioned sentiment takes hold, a potential first-strike becomes infinitely more likely! It is only the certainty in the enemy's mind that moving first will result in the ultimate Pyrrhic victory that keeps that enemy at bay.
Sickening, but entirely consistent wth human history and its illustration of human nature. Peace is not the natural state of humanity. It is a precious deviation that may just call for thinking the unthinkable to preserve it.
Peace, like love, is something that one must work very hard towards regularly, if not everyday. In both cases, the parties need to learn to speak to one another as human beings with more curiosity about how disagreements began in the first place then judgement of the extent to which one party disagrees with the other. Make no mistake, no one wins a war. Our natural animal instinct is to tit for tat ourselves to death but, in reality, less things will get fucked up for both sides if you can come to either a mutually annoying compromise (and that's why it's called a compromise and not a win-win situation) or a mutually agreed non-violent distancing from each other. In the long run, it would be less costly for everyone on all sides to find the humanity in one another, even if we still disagree vehemently, because when you see another human as a human just like yourself, you realize that it's pretty barbaric to kill them.
(A note for my veteran brothers and sisters: This is not a dig on you. This is specifically a dig on the countries or other organizations that forced or coerced you into that role of a soldier. In societies, it's more useful sometimes to look at the command structure and social programming than it is to look at the individual, particularly from my own standpoint as one who wants to stop this bullshit from happening over and over again throughout history. You all got trapped into being pawns on the chess board of, not the kings and queens on the board, but of the players of the game, who will probably never see even a bar brawl in their lives, let alone a war; would that this was true of all of us. I want you to know that I think you're brave and that the sadness you feel for having to be a part of war, whether international or otherwise, is valid and I respect the hell out of you. What I want is for less of y'all to have to fight each other and for more of these happy-mouth government folks to sort it out with each other by using words instead of sending regular ass people like the rest of us, with the exception of cowards like me, into fight their rich ass turf wars. That's why I'm anti-war but not anti-soldier.)
Unfortunately your version or peace is someone else’s version of oppression.
The problem with mobile launchers is when they move, they’re detectable by enemy intelligence, and therefore their staging areas are as well. There can only be so many places to put them and their infrastructure before they’re too costly to operate. The enemy will catalog those locations and bomb all of them. Takes some bombs off of other targets but also dooms places that wouldn’t be targeted otherwise. I don’t think it has enough of a benefit to be worth it.
@ 24:31 it's so sick that the B-52 can crabwalk like that!
That is friggin awesome.
That action was once classified Top Secret.
You may be cool, but you'll never "crab walking a B-52 with nukes" cool.
Agreed. I was just talking to my military buddy recently about how cool these birds are.
trippin 😳