80s Cold War fear - it's back

Don't worry Dudess, most of the plan is still under wraps. I didn't mention anything about the network of hydrogen bombs we planted under Dub-

<snip>CENSORED BY ORDER OF THE PROC REVOLUTIONARY COMMITTEE</snip>

oops

Prepare for a nuclear winter!

Wait, didnt those tablets the government give us already go out of date? OH NOEZ!

I remember seeing bits of 'Threads' when I was younger and how it scared the shít out of me at the time and gave me an almost unhealthy obsession with all things of a nuclear nature afterwards. Recently RTE showed 'The Day After' early one Saturday morning (of all times to show something like that! :rolleyes: ) and so I got to see it for the first time and, Dudess is right, compared to 'Threads' it's shíte, it's like an American soap opera of a thing!

Afterwards, I decided to do a quick search on YouTube to see if maybe there was anything of 'Threads' on there and, sure enough, somebody had posted the entire film up there in about 10 or 12 parts so I finally got to see it in full over 20 years after it first scared the crap out of me. The result? It still scares me to this day.

In my opinion, it's the sort of film everybody, every single generation, should be made sit down to watch so that nobody ever forgets just how destructive nuclear weapons are and the effects they can have, not just in the initial attacks, but for years and decades afterwards. The Cold War may have ended 15 or so years ago but there's still thousands of nuclear weapons out there and it seems to me that, as the years have gone by, people have forgotten just how destructive these things are and have almost become blasé about them. Therefore, every generation, and the people in power in particular (Mr. Bush, I'm looking at you! ), should never be allowed forget what these things can do and how dangerous they are, lest they forget Hiroshima and Nagasaki, for example. As someone once said, "fear is good. It prevents you from making mistakes." We should never become blasé about nuclear weapons, we all should fear them, for it's that fear of them and what they can do is surely what prevented them from ever being used again since 1945.

Watching the news today, it clearly brought back to me how 20-odd years ago relations between East and West crumbled when some American ex-actor decided he wanted to create a missile defense shield called S.D.I. (aka 'Star Wars'). Anyone remember that? Now, over 20 years later, it seems as if we've got another American nutjob who suddenly thinks it's 1984 again and wants to revive the idea, once again causing East/West relations to start breaking down! :rolleyes: Funny how things have a habit of repeating themselves, isn't it?

robinph wrote:

Well there are not any military bases worth hitting in Ireland, other than Shannon and only then if there are a few US transporter planes are parked there at the time, and Dublin and Belfast would be quite a way down the list of major population centers that would be targeted in Europe as they are only small citys really. Although if they have a few spare bombs that they are not sure what to do with after hitting all the main targets they might send a couple our way, but every little military base in the rest of Europe would surely be hit first.

I read an article a few years ago which said that, in the event of a major conflict between NATO and Warsaw Pact forces during the Cold War, that Ireland would have been one of the first places both sides would have wanted to have gained control over. Why? Because, being one of the most westerly countries in Europe, it would have been vital for the Soviet Union to try and get control of this country, and our airports especially, as a staging post for their aircraft to launch attacks out into the North Atlantic against US naval forces and convoy shipping that would have been using the North Atlantic to ferry troops and equipment across to Europe. Iceland would have also been another target for the same reason. The NATO forces would have tried to prevent the Warsaw Pact forces from taking control of Ireland and Iceland for the same reason so, therefore, there would have potentially been quite the bunfight over this little rock, it seems!

That's all assuming that the conflict would have been more of a conventional one or a conflict where there was "limited" (is there such a thing? :rolleyes: ) use of small, tactical nukes. Tom Clancy's book 'Red Storm Rising' gives a good outline of this sort of scenario, with the focus being on the Iceland aspect, but for Iceland you could probably read a similar thing happeneing here. In the case of a full scale nuclear strike, though, who knows what the hell would have happened! :eek:

I could see Ireland being the major target in a conventional war, but if both sides are using nukes the only reason for obliterating Ireland is if they wanted to just make sure that nobody on the planet survived at all. There are not any targets in Ireland that you would need to take out in the first round of nukes, and both sides would be wanting to leave the palce as a safe landing strip for themselves right up until it looked like the other guys were winning.

peasant wrote:

Yepp ...every first Tuesday of the month at around 10 am they used to test the air raid sirens.

They used to regularly test run the air raid sirens where I used to live as well, they used them round thouse parts though for warning of flooding seeing as the whole area was several feet below sea level.

just as little historical footnote ...

My father was doing his national service in the German army while the Cuba crisis was going on. Spent weeks on full alert, in constant fear and without knowing what was going on.

I was in the German army when the wall fell ..those were a few interesting weeks just previous (and on the day (or rather night)) when all the demonstrations in Estern Germany were escalating and we were put on hightened alert just in case the Russians decided to put an end to it by rolling out the tanks.

thelastangryman wrote:

Think about it we could play both sides and get weapons and food.

Or more importantly episodes of Lost from the Yanks and Smirnoff from the Russians

thrill wrote:

This could turn out to be a very shrewd investment

And with the rental income during the Cheltenham festival you'd be mad not to buy it