Hypersonic Bomber in Lieu of XB-70

[wuzak]

http://www.generalpatton.org/d-day/images/InflatableTank.jpg

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_pPsuc9rvU4Y/TDz8lgaPOrI/AAAAAAAAByY/fDxoantNRMw/s1600/Dummy-tank%2BM47%2Bpatton.gif

http://www.pattencompany.com/images/d-day-b26.jpg

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/3c/Dummy_aircraft_-_Oct._1943.jpg

[NARSES2]

Misinformation played an important part in the D-day landings, as well as other facets of WW2.

There was the man who died of pneumonia, was dressed up as an RN officer and put into the sea with false documents regarding the invasion, so that he would wash up in Spain, and the information would be passed to the Germans.

Patton was babysitting a fake army in the lead up to the invasion.

Back to the V-1s, German spies fed back landing co-ordinates for the V-1s so that their aim could be adjusted. The spies had all been captured and turned, so the information they sent back was false, telling the Germans that the V-1s were over-shootng London.

There's a good film about the fake RM officer. Trick was used prior to Operation Huskie I believe.

The VI misinformation story unfortunately meant S London was "sacrificed" to save central London and seat of government. Croydon took an awful lot of hits, might even have taken the most in the UK ? Antwerp wins the prize for most V1 hits overall

[jcf]

I recently read Target London: Under Attack From the V-Weapons, Christy Campbell, Little-Brown 2012,
and recommend it to anyone interested in the build up, and responses, to the attacks. The book primarily
covers it from the intelligence, scientific, political (lots of that), logistical and propaganda angles. I found
the book very interesting but don't expect detailed technical descriptions or an 'I was there' first person
account social history, it is very much a book about the top-level players not the man-in-the-street/trenches.

Back to the original subject, a hypersonic bomber contemporary to the XB-70 built with what technology?
Even being able to do Mach 3, for short periods of time was a stretch for the period materials, airframe
and engine, available to build a large aircraft. The few materials that could possibly do the job would lead to
a mind-numbing price tag.

[PR19_Kit]

There's a good film about the fake RM officer. Trick was used prior to Operation Huskie I believe.

The VI misinformation story unfortunately meant S London was "sacrificed" to save central London and seat of government. Croydon took an awful lot of hits, might even have taken the most in the UK ? Antwerp wins the prize for most V1 hits overall

The film was 'The Man Who Never Was' from the book of the same name by the guy who was the main mover and shaker of 'Operation Mincemeat', Ewen Montagu. He even appeared in the film, but not as himself!

As for the V1s on Croydon, they managed to miss me thank goodness, but not by much. One came down two streets away from my Nanna's house and the blast blew in all the windows of the house, but we were in the basement! One landed right on the ward of the nursing home where my brother had been born 2 days before, but he and Mum had been moved elsewhere by then.

[zenrat]

My dad likes to tell of how a V2 landed a couple of hundred yards down the road from my grandparents house in Sidcup.  He was found still sound asleep in his cot covered with broken glass.
They resurfaced the whole street in the 80's but up until then you could still see where it had hit by the patch in the road.  That and the newer houses.

[KJ_Lesnick]

rickshaw

The already aforementioned James Jesus Angleton is perhaps the best example I know of.

Okay...

Ultra was the British codename for the Bletchley Park code breaking operation.

Gotcha

The danger is that if they perceive their codes have been broken because of overt and obvious counter moves, they will then change their codes and you will then lose all access to their command system.  Therefore, it has to be a very careful cat and mouse game, with there always being a plausible and obvious alternative explanation as to why you have done what you have done, so as to not arouse their suspicions and change their codes.

That I'm aware of... however was't that city highly industrialized?

Churchill was always ruthless in his pursuit of victory.

Yeah, I remember he had plans in May 1940 to effectively draw the Germans up onto England to spare France (it didn't work evidently)

He saw that sacrificing a city was a minor defeat in the context of the whole war.

This is a question I'm reluctant to ask, but it's still a legit question: Did Churchill deliberately hit Berlin a couple times to get Hitler to take the pressure off the airfields and put the pressure on the cities so he could rebuild the airfields?  For a person ruthless in the pursuit of victory that actually is sort of a smart idea (in a way that is sort of sociopathic)

There is an apocryphal story which none-the-less rings true of Churchill after Coventry being cornered in the corridors of Westminster by several backbenchers who demanded that he immediate take revenge for Coventry by having the RAF bomb a German city.  Knowing the weakness of Bomber Command at that time, he remarked, "Why bomb one city now, when we are weak?  If we wait until we are strong, we can make Germany pay by bombing city after city, after city!"

Probably untrue as Abigail Rachel was launched about a month after Coventry and was drawn up as early as July, 1940.

The counter-argument is that by killing Yamamoto you would introduce uncertainty into your understanding of the Japanese command structure.  You have little idea about his subordinate who would replace him, because you've never seen him overall command.  There is also the danger that the Japanese would realise that their codes were broken (the likelihood of an intercept by patrolling fighters at such extreme range was highly unlikely) and they would then change them and you would lose your window on their HQ's decision making.

However, Yamamoto was highly knowledgeable about how the US thought if I recall right.  His subordinates probably didn't have the knowledge he did, and getting rid of him probably worked in this case.

Until you field it and then the Politburo would be running around like headless chooks shouting about their vulnerability.

Yeah, it would take some time to run the plane through it's test-paces, then train crews to operate it.  I'm wondering if the plane could be misclassified as a reconnaissance aircraft, as while this is dangerous to the enemy; it would not be perceived to be quite as dangerous as a bomber.  Furthermore, several bombers have been used as recon planes (RB-29, RB-47, RB-50, RB-57, there was an RB-58 proposal).

As for the bomb-nav equipment, I figure you could develop the various technology in such a way as to tuck it into several separate programs which are legit and established, or create some new program to justify it.  To some degree this has sometimes been done in real life

• Silverplate was officially a plan to develop the B-29 into an airliner; in actuality, it was a means to develop a nuclear-bomber out of the B-29
  
• The YF-12 was used potentially to cover up the purpose of the A-12; it was definitely to cloud the RS/SR-71: Admittedly it's development was useful
  
• The X-30 was a white-world program used to develop technology allegedly for a black-world aircraft of some sort
  

.

Exactly as they did when the Pershing II with its terminal guidance system was made operational.

Why did that concern them or than a nuclear bomber?

Nothing frightened the Politburo more than the perceived personal danger of a decapitation strike.

I'm surprised they took until the 1980's before they created a fail-deadly system (Perimeter/Dead Hand).  I think the system they created was insane because of it's either total or excessive automation.  Our systems had lots of people in the loop and made it less likely for a computer glitch to trigger a nuclear war.

Exactly and as shown in the move Fail Safe, you see laid out the arguments towards first use, the surprise attack.  Here you are proposing a system which increases the likelihood of those arguments winning.

True

As my tutor in Nuclear Strategic thought always asked our class, whenever some smart alec proposed a first strike, "How many millions are you prepared to lose?"  That is what it comes down to, in the end.

We had a population of just under 195 million in 1965.  How many deaths would impair our ability to survive as a country?

Because your surprised, first strike is never going to destroy 100% of your enemy's strategic forces and the ones that remain that come back at you will definitely kill a large proportion of your population (and other nations' as well).   Are you willing to be Churchillian with your ruthlessness.

I suppose some ways equal, other ways less.

I. Equal
- He was willing to go all the way to genocide (anthrax attacks on cities)

II. Less
- I think using biological agents is certifiably insane as they can reproduce, something which radioactive isotopes do not; it's almost impossible to reasonably vaccinate enough people on your side to avoid crippling fatalities
- I'm not a big fan of using bombing attacks to terrorize civilian populations: Genocide from a nuclear bombardment standpoint sounds worse, but at least it's equal opportunity killing (simply a disregard for civilian deaths -- terror bombing is a deliberate targeting of them, even to the exclusion of military objectives: I'm not being hyperbolic, Bomber Harris stated that with few exceptions, they rarely focused on industrial objectives, but focused on the city centers)

Which cities are you prepared to see destroyed?  New York?  Chicago?  San Francisco?  Moscow?  Leningrad?  etc.?

Well Moscow and Leningrad I don't really care about (though it is kind of sad that there'd be no Billy Joel song to the name -- it was a beautiful song which I love -- it's very theatrical and dramatic); as for Chicago, I could live with or without it; San Francisco would be a damned shame as it's such a colorful city; New York would be sad because part of my family hails from there, but my mom wasn't there from 1962 to 1968 (and most likely an exchange would be 1964-1965) so I suppose, tragic as it would be, it might not affect my birth -- admittedly I wouldn't want to be born missing a head but I suppose I wouldn't care as you can't think or feel without a head...

The first rule of modern politics - Nothing is "off the record", all mikes are live, your phone is always tapped and even your wife will sell you out if the price is right.

I'm aware of this[/list]

[rickshaw]

The danger is that if they perceive their codes have been broken because of overt and obvious counter moves, they will then change their codes and you will then lose all access to their command system.  Therefore, it has to be a very careful cat and mouse game, with there always being a plausible and obvious alternative explanation as to why you have done what you have done, so as to not arouse their suspicions and change their codes.

That I'm aware of... however was't that city highly industrialized?

Immaterial, it could have been an agricultural arcadia, it would have been valued the same.  The code breaking was considered as it's codename implied, the most important secret, even higher than Atomic plans.

Churchill was always ruthless in his pursuit of victory.

Yeah, I remember he had plans in May 1940 to effectively draw the Germans up onto England to spare France (it didn't work evidently)

He saw that sacrificing a city was a minor defeat in the context of the whole war.

This is a question I'm reluctant to ask, but it's still a legit question: Did Churchill deliberately hit Berlin a couple times to get Hitler to take the pressure off the airfields and put the pressure on the cities so he could rebuild the airfields?  For a person ruthless in the pursuit of victory that actually is sort of a smart idea (in a way that is sort of sociopathic)

There is no evidence of deliberate bombing of German cities having been ordered by Churchill.  You have to remember how inaccurate navigation was at the time.  Even when they were aiming for cities, they rarely found their targets.

There is an apocryphal story which none-the-less rings true of Churchill after Coventry being cornered in the corridors of Westminster by several backbenchers who demanded that he immediate take revenge for Coventry by having the RAF bomb a German city.  Knowing the weakness of Bomber Command at that time, he remarked, "Why bomb one city now, when we are weak?  If we wait until we are strong, we can make Germany pay by bombing city after city, after city!"

Probably untrue as Abigail Rachel was launched about a month after Coventry and was drawn up as early as July, 1940.

Yes, but it demonstrates his character.

The counter-argument is that by killing Yamamoto you would introduce uncertainty into your understanding of the Japanese command structure.  You have little idea about his subordinate who would replace him, because you've never seen him overall command.  There is also the danger that the Japanese would realise that their codes were broken (the likelihood of an intercept by patrolling fighters at such extreme range was highly unlikely) and they would then change them and you would lose your window on their HQ's decision making.

However, Yamamoto was highly knowledgeable about how the US thought if I recall right.  His subordinates probably didn't have the knowledge he did, and getting rid of him probably worked in this case.

And nearly exposed the MAGIC intercepts and codebreaking operation...

Which do you consider more important?  Satisfying an atavistic desire for revenge on one man or defeating your enemy?

Until you field it and then the Politburo would be running around like headless chooks shouting about their vulnerability.

Yeah, it would take some time to run the plane through it's test-paces, then train crews to operate it.  I'm wondering if the plane could be misclassified as a reconnaissance aircraft, as while this is dangerous to the enemy; it would not be perceived to be quite as dangerous as a bomber.  Furthermore, several bombers have been used as recon planes (RB-29, RB-47, RB-50, RB-57, there was an RB-58 proposal).

Do you really believe misdirection would work?

As for the bomb-nav equipment, I figure you could develop the various technology in such a way as to tuck it into several separate programs which are legit and established, or create some new program to justify it.  To some degree this has sometimes been done in real life

• Silverplate was officially a plan to develop the B-29 into an airliner; in actuality, it was a means to develop a nuclear-bomber out of the B-29
  
• The YF-12 was used potentially to cover up the purpose of the A-12; it was definitely to cloud the RS/SR-71: Admittedly it's development was useful
  
• The X-30 was a white-world program used to develop technology allegedly for a black-world aircraft of some sort
  

.

Exactly as they did when the Pershing II with its terminal guidance system was made operational.

Why did that concern them or than a nuclear bomber?

It didn't, as it came after any such nuclear bomber.  It concerned them because it was extremely accurate and because it was launched from Western Europe, reaction time was substantially decreased - destabilising in itself.  Their fear was that the combination would be used to attack deep, hardened targets - primarily command and control centres in Western fUSSR.   With a bit of fiddling, it was feared it could hit as far East as Moscow.   So, suddenly you have a system, which is perceived to be utilised primarily for decapitation strikes.  Therefore it becomes doubly destabilising.

Nothing frightened the Politburo more than the perceived personal danger of a decapitation strike.

I'm surprised they took until the 1980's before they created a fail-deadly system (Perimeter/Dead Hand).  I think the system they created was insane because of it's either total or excessive automation.  Our systems had lots of people in the loop and made it less likely for a computer glitch to trigger a nuclear war.

Both command concepts have problems.   Humans tend to be slower reacting and more discriminating than computers and in the case of retaliation system, which is designed to overcome the dangers of decapitation of the command and control structure and ensure that your systems are launched, no matter what, it makes good sense.   The US by fielding more and more accurate delivery systems, which were perceived would be used to destroy the humans at the top of the chain of command, the fUSSR leadership felt that the only way to deter the US was to create Perimeter.  Just as in Dr.Strangelove such a "doomsday" system is useless unless publicised.  Just as in the movie, events go ahead of the fUSSR and when it was ready, the Soviet Union was collapsing.  The Perimeter system still exists and is now publicised, therefore a decapitation strike against Russia is pointless.

Exactly and as shown in the move Fail Safe, you see laid out the arguments towards first use, the surprise attack.  Here you are proposing a system which increases the likelihood of those arguments winning.

True

As my tutor in Nuclear Strategic thought always asked our class, whenever some smart alec proposed a first strike, "How many millions are you prepared to lose?"  That is what it comes down to, in the end.

We had a population of just under 195 million in 1965.  How many deaths would impair our ability to survive as a country?

That is the question.  I've always suggested the psychological effects would be far greater than the material ones.  One only has to see the reaction to 11 September to see how true that was.  One or two deaths are always a tragedy but 3,000 is really on the scale of things, in a war, minor.  More Americans are lost each year on the roads or to guns.  Most studies suggest it is just not total losses but where they are.  Lose the American industrial heartland and America will basically stop being a nation of any economic power.  Rebuilding would take decades.

Because your surprised, first strike is never going to destroy 100% of your enemy's strategic forces and the ones that remain that come back at you will definitely kill a large proportion of your population (and other nations' as well).   Are you willing to be Churchillian with your ruthlessness.

I suppose some ways equal, other ways less.

I. Equal
- He was willing to go all the way to genocide (anthrax attacks on cities)

He didn't understand the full consequences of the employment of Anthrax, seeing it merely as another weapon which could be used.

II. Less
- I think using biological agents is certifiably insane as they can reproduce, something which radioactive isotopes do not; it's almost impossible to reasonably vaccinate enough people on your side to avoid crippling fatalities

Depends on the agents utilised and how they promulgate.  Anthrax is one that doesn't spread very quickly or very easily, therefore it's effects are quite localised.   However, it's effects are also quite slow, so it is of little strategic or tactic value if you want a quick decision.   There are others which are far worse but I agree generally with your point.   Then there is the problem, the death rates from even the most virulent diseases tend to be surprisingly low.  The Black Death only killed about 30% of the population.  Even so, that was nearly enough to tip Western Europe over the edge.  As it was, it materially effected European society in surprising ways socially.  Agricultural workers' wages rose considerably, leading eventually to the first labour laws in an effort to control them.  Warfare decreased in frequency for several decades as manpower couldn't be spared.

- I'm not a big fan of using bombing attacks to terrorize civilian populations: Genocide from a nuclear bombardment standpoint sounds worse, but at least it's equal opportunity killing (simply a disregard for civilian deaths -- terror bombing is a deliberate targeting of them, even to the exclusion of military objectives: I'm not being hyperbolic, Bomber Harris stated that with few exceptions, they rarely focused on industrial objectives, but focused on the city centers)

A.A.Milne who wrote the "Winnie the Poo" stories was a noted pacifist in WWII.  He suggested that each bomb that was dropped represented a moral choice for the droppers.   Harris, like Churchill was ruthless in pursuit of an objective and as our previous discussions about him and other followers of Douhet and Trenchard, terror was what they sought to promote, in order to influence the decision making of the enemy nation's leadership.   Air warfare is always, at it's most basic is always going to be about killing people and destroying stuff.  Unless you are fighting a campaign in a completely sanitised environment such as the desert where there is few people living, civilian casualties will always occur.   Describing it as "collateral damage" and other such euphemisms might salve the conscious of those doing it, it doesn't really hide what it is though, now does it? 

Which cities are you prepared to see destroyed?  New York?  Chicago?  San Francisco?  Moscow?  Leningrad?  etc.?

Well Moscow and Leningrad I don't really care about (though it is kind of sad that there'd be no Billy Joel song to the name -- it was a beautiful song which I love -- it's very theatrical and dramatic); as for Chicago, I could live with or without it; San Francisco would be a damned shame as it's such a colorful city; New York would be sad because part of my family hails from there, but my mom wasn't there from 1962 to 1968 (and most likely an exchange would be 1964-1965) so I suppose, tragic as it would be, it might not affect my birth -- admittedly I wouldn't want to be born missing a head but I suppose I wouldn't care as you can't think or feel without a head...

You're seeing this from only one side, Kendra/Robynn.  I included Moscow and Leningrad because who are they important to and who would be making the same decisions that the US leadership would be, but from the otherside? 

The loss of any city to a nuclear warhead is an unimaginable tragedy with massive consequences physically, morally and psychologically.   That those cities would be radioactive for decades if not centuries complicates them even further.    As The Day After demonstrated with the loss of a comparatively small city in the mid-West.  Humans can't really cope with destruction on that scale.  As was shown in Europe and Russia, even if it's done with conventional weapons, the effect is the same.   I mentioned a theory that the lack of destruction which the US suffered in WWII made it much more willing to undertake nuclear war.

The first rule of modern politics - Nothing is "off the record", all mikes are live, your phone is always tapped and even your wife will sell you out if the price is right.

I'm aware of this[/list]

And Reagan was really so naive that he didn't?    Wasn't he nicknamed the "great communicator"?

[Weaver]

4. Regarding SLAM: I assume it was kept under high secrecy because of both its destructive nature and it's nuclear power... correct?

There were considerable moral objections to creating what was, essentially a doomsday machine, which would be as deadly to your own side as to the enemy.   Spewing radioactivity all over the world does not endear you to your own population, nor the populations of your allies (over which it will travel) or that of neutrals (over which it may travel).  Nor does it tell your enemy how peaceful your intentions supposedly are.

Furthermore, precisely because it's a "doomsday machine", the fact that you've launched or are percieved to have launched or be about to launch it, sends a clear signal to the enemy that you've given up on all hope of limiting the size of the exchange and are going for broke. At that point, they have little to lose by hitting you with everything they've got before you can launch more of the damned things.

[Weaver]

The loss of any city to a nuclear warhead is an unimaginable tragedy with massive consequences physically, morally and psychologically.   That those cities would be radioactive for decades if not centuries complicates them even further.    As The Day After demonstrated with the loss of a comparatively small city in the mid-West.  Humans can't really cope with destruction on that scale.  As was shown in Europe and Russia, even if it's done with conventional weapons, the effect is the same.   I mentioned a theory that the lack of destruction which the US suffered in WWII made it much more willing to undertake nuclear war.

There also seems to be a conscious/sub-conscious belief amongst Americans that if the whole of Amercian society collapsed and all the cities were destroyed, the survivors would just go back to being "frontiersmen" for a few years and that would be that. I think this stems partly from the size of the country, which makes it seem credible that you can get far enough away from civilisation to be safe from it's demise, and partly from the fact that Americans are still only a few generations apart from a real (and much glamorised) "frontier" society so it's still very vivid in their popular culture. Judging by the popularity of survivalism and survivalist literature over there, some positively relish the prospect, at least in theory.

There were always fewer illusions in Europe, and particularly on a small, target-rich island like Britain. I vividly remember an impromptue discussion at school in which it became clear that an entire class of 14 year old boys had quietly and independently decided that they had no interest in post-WWIII planning because they would rather die in the nuclear exchange than survive it and have to deal with what came afterwards. The teacher, who'd put her back out digging a fallout shelter the weekend before, was rather shaken....

Last year, I visited the Imperial War Museum North in Manchester. In the Cold War section, they have a British nuclear bomb and a chart showing the consequences of it detonating at that position. IIRC, the first four or five radii all amount to "everybody dies", the only difference being how long it takes. Thousands of people would be dying in Hull, on the opposite coast. That's just one bomb, and the shocking thing is, it isn't even a big one: a WE.177 tac nuke with a 600kt yield. Drop multi-megaton weapons on the dozen biggest cities and 0.5 megaton ones on the top two dozen military targets, and the "everybody dies" radii would overlap to the point where there'd be nowhere to run to.

I had a girlfreind who'd worked for Manchester City Council on civil defence. She couldn't talk about the details, but whenever someone started spouting off about what they'd do after surviving WWIII, she'd just say "no, you won't" and change the subject.... 

[zenrat]

I grew up in Sussex in the 70's & 80's and my plan for a nuclear WW3 (was/is there any other kind if it's gone global?) was to climb to the top of nearest hill, watch the light show and If I was lucky, die a quick death.

That or commandeer a cement truck and run round concreting up the entrances to all the bunkers I could find...

[rickshaw]

Civil Defence in the UK was largely a pointless exercise and a hang over from WWII.  Indeed, it was predicated on the idea that if a nuclear war was to break out, it was going to be largely a repeat of WWII, with some dead, lots of fires which could be fought and rubble which could be cleared by the survivors who'd have a good, strong cuppa tea and carry on.  Civil Defence efforts were largely to reassure the public that everything would alright and that the government was doing something about these nasty atomic bombs.

The reality was that just 12 100 Kiloton warheads, dropped along the west coast of the UK would render the entire UK uninhabitable through fall out (primarily radioactive water).  The UK Government knew it too, whats more as it was their scientists who advised them of that.

Even in the fUSSR Civil Defence really was a bit of a joke.  They planned to evacuate their cities to the countryside.  Problem was, they made little preparation for moving these massive numbers of people quickly enough or making provision for sheltering them or feeding them, once they were out in the countryside and if war occurred in Winter you can imagine what the fate of the populace would have been.

Many American hawks used to point to the fUSSR's Civil Defence efforts as evidence that they were preparing to fight a nuclear war and to try and force their own government to counter with similar Civil Defence efforts.   They, like everybody else were living in a fantasy world that WWIII would be just like WWII.

In countries like Switzerland and Sweden where some serious effort went into trying to protect the civilian population in case of war, the sheer scale of the problem was overwhelming.  The Swedes AIUI stopped being serious about in the late 1950s.  The Swiss kept up the sham even today with their building regulations and so on. 

[KJ_Lesnick]

Rickshaw

Immaterial, it could have been an agricultural arcadia, it would have been valued the same.

One member said it had to do with something regarding a nkickbein frequency or something

The code breaking was considered as it's codename implied, the most important secret, even higher than Atomic plans.

Especially to the British...

There is no evidence of deliberate bombing of German cities having been ordered by Churchill.

Even Berlin?

You have to remember how inaccurate navigation was at the time.  Even when they were aiming for cities, they rarely found their targets.

Did he realize bombing was this inaccurate in 1940?

Yes, but it demonstrates his character.

True

And nearly exposed the MAGIC intercepts and codebreaking operation...

Why didn't they figure it out?

Which do you consider more important?  Satisfying an atavistic desire for revenge on one man or defeating your enemy?

Defeating the enemy, but getting rid of Yamamoto in this case probably helped defeat them

Do you really believe misdirection would work?

Who knows?

It didn't, as it came after any such nuclear bomber.  It concerned them because it was extremely accurate and because it was launched from Western Europe, reaction time was substantially decreased - destabilising in itself.  Their fear was that the combination would be used to attack deep, hardened targets - primarily command and control centres in Western fUSSR.

So they thought it would do additional damage to the bombers and facilitate deeper strikes?

With a bit of fiddling, it was feared it could hit as far East as Moscow.

Was that correct provided it is not still classified?

Both command concepts have problems.   Humans tend to be slower reacting and more discriminating than computers and in the case of retaliation system, which is designed to overcome the dangers of decapitation of the command and control structure and ensure that your systems are launched, no matter what

However, in the event that a computer malfunction occurred, we wouldn't necessarily be able to stop things fast enough...

The US by fielding more and more accurate delivery systems, which were perceived would be used to destroy the humans at the top of the chain of command, the fUSSR leadership felt that the only way to deter the US was to create Perimeter.

It wasn't to deter us... it was to ensure we'd be destroyed in retaliation...

The Perimeter system still exists and is now publicised, therefore a decapitation strike against Russia is pointless.

Correct

That is the question.  I've always suggested the psychological effects would be far greater than the material ones.  One only has to see the reaction to 11 September to see how true that was.

Actually, on September 11th, my concern was actually more so that the Pentagon got hit: Honestly I thought they had missile batteries tucked into the place.

When the towers collapsed, my concern was because I thought that roughly 50,000 to 70,000 would die instead of 3,000.

In hindsight, however -- the worst tragedy to come out of 9/11 was the fact that it became a justification to wage a war on our civil liberties.

More Americans are lost each year on the roads or to guns.

43,000 to accidents, 11,000 to guns approximately

He didn't understand the full consequences of the employment of Anthrax, seeing it merely as another weapon which could be used.

Far as I understood, he might have overestimated the effects -- the amount of anthrax they could drop wasn't adequate enough.  His idea was to deploy it over fields so cattle would eat it; they would be slaughtered and would be fed unwittingly to the population where they would waste people by the millions; those who survived would starve to death as the remaining cattle would die.

A.A.Milne who wrote the "Winnie the Poo" stories was a noted pacifist in WWII.  He suggested that each bomb that was dropped represented a moral choice for the droppers.   Harris, like Churchill was ruthless in pursuit of an objective and as our previous discussions about him and other followers of Douhet and Trenchard, terror was what they sought to promote, in order to influence the decision making of the enemy nation's leadership.

I understand what they wanted to do... I think it was repulsive and hard to defend.

Air warfare is always, at it's most basic is always going to be about killing people and destroying stuff.

All warfare revolves around killing people and destroying stuff.  However, it's one thing when you're actually setting out to kill those that need killing and leave those that don't alone; then to actually target people who are knowingly defenseless.

Describing it as "collateral damage" and other such euphemisms might salve the conscious of those doing it, it doesn't really hide what it is though, now does it?

Collateral damage is a disengenuous term during the firebombing attacks in WW2 -- simply because it was the actual goal.  Collateral damage is incidental to the objective.

You're seeing this from only one side, Kendra/Robynn.  I included Moscow and Leningrad because who are they important to and who would be making the same decisions that the US leadership would be, but from the otherside?

Yeah, but I'm thinking from the US perspective and who cares about the other side?

The loss of any city to a nuclear warhead is an unimaginable tragedy with massive consequences physically, morally and psychologically.

The destruction would be as horrifying as all the firebombing attacks in WW2 were... the only exception would be that they occur greatly faster in the immediate term.

That those cities would be radioactive for decades if not centuries complicates them even further.

That's the worst part...

And Reagan was really so naive that he didn't?    Wasn't he nicknamed the "great communicator"?

Seems out of character still...

[pyro-manic]

It wasn't to deter us... it was to ensure we'd be destroyed in retaliation...

Yeah, but I'm thinking from the US perspective and who cares about the other side?

KJ: Do you actually understand the concept of deterrence? Your postings really make it seem to me like you are missing something fundamental.

[tahsin]

2014 is apt to bring out the best in the US. Failing in a couple moves, it is ever-more boiling down to a stare contest which America thinks it can win. Perhaps by looking like a butcher or serial killer with no concern for anything. Nixon's Mad Man, Reagan's 30 minutes to bombing which incidentally relayed to the other side through known to be watched channels.

[chiglet]

OOI, the Germans accused the British of using Chemical Warfare. It happened after the first big bombing raid in which "window" [chaff] was used. It seems that during the manufacturing process of the aluminium foil, slight traces of [I believe] arsenic  was used. Some cows on the ground ate some of the foil and became ill.