Technically, the bombers and subs. The Soviets had some 42 ballistic missile submarines. We don’t know how many were given what targets, so it’s a total speculation game as to how many of them would make a run at the CONUS vs try to hit targets closer to home or get caught in port, not to mention how many might manage to make it through ASW to a launch point, which would be quite close: the R-13 had a range of 700 km and the R-11 one of only 170 kilometers.
The Cuban Missile Crisis: How many hits does North America take?
- Thread starter Mynock
- Start date
Technically, the bombers and subs. The Soviets had some 42 ballistic missile submarines. We don’t know how many were given what targets, so it’s a total speculation game as to how many of them would make a run at the CONUS vs try to hit targets closer to home or get caught in port, not to mention how many might manage to make it through ASW to a launch point, which would be quite close: the R-13 had a range of 700 km and the R-11 one of only 170 kilometers.
The version I heard was that the Soviets built the missile bases using the same standardised plans as from Europe which helped with identifying them, but the General in charge of the warheads didn't follow normal operating procedure of posting guards on the storage areas so the Americans assumed there weren't any there yet. Would anyone happen to know if there's any truth to the story?
That's what was concluded at the famous post-Cold War meetings in the early-90s, which McNamara attended and other then-surviving participants of the crisis attended. That the Soviets didn't try to camouflage the missile sites at all is one of the more bizarre aspects of the story, even from their side. After the crisis, Khrushchev repeatedly asked General Pliev (the commander of the Cuban expeditionary forces on the island) why no camouflage work was done and never received a satisfactory answer, something which undoubtedly contributed to Pliev's career stalling out. Castro was also confused as to why no camo for the missile sites was set-up, observing that they could have dressed them up to look like agricultural projects from the air if only someone had asked them to do so.
My understanding (I think from a seminar I attended in the 1980’s ? although I have read more or less similar accounts in recent years) was that a photo of a Sam site (in what was described as a very distinctive “star of David” configuration) alerted the US to the presence of Soviet missiles in Cuba. After detecting the Sam site additional photo reconnaissance detected the ballistic missile sites.
I seem to recall reading that at least some of the US air strike plans envisioned targeting Sam sites (probably as an initial step ?)
Last edited:
All out nuclear war is not the same as any other form of warfair in the history of the world.
If the US and the USSR get into a no holds bared knock down drag out WW3 with every nuke they have then Western Europe is gone as a milirary power. So is the USSR and for all intents the US as well.
So lets look at it from the point of view if a surviving US leader. Your country is massivly damaged with millions dead and HUGE holes in you communications, in your production base, in you resource production, in you food chain, in your power grid, in you transportation network and everything you have basicly. It will take 100%+ of you time, manpower, economy and everything else you have to just survive.
Any military you may have left (which wont be much) will be needed to try and keep your contry together and safe as many citizens as you can.
Your Nuclear for is completely gone for all intents and purposes. What you didn't use is mostly lost to your enemies nukes. And your network of command and control and inelegance. So you have zero chance to defend yourself against anyone that survived WW3s nuclear exchange relativly unscathed.
So in this world China is the one and only remaining super powers on the Block.
The USSR is going to blow all the US allies with the possible exception of Australia off the map because A) they view it as a survival tactic not wanting to leave enemies at close range after the USSR is nuked) and B) The USSR has a lot of shorter ranged nuclear delivery systems that cant reach the US, So the US will not have any sympathetic counties in good shape that can help protect it, But if the US dies not nuke Vhina then China is virtually intact. And China is NOT friend of the USA.
So if the US gets into a full WW3 nuclear war with the USSR and leaves China out then the US is 100% going to come out on the losing end as they have just given the world (whatever is left) to Communist China. A country that is many things but is NOT a “friend” to the US and or the Western powers.
Yes more folks will die and that is Horrible. But lets be honest the level of death and destruction in a full out US/USSR nuclear war is so mind blowing in scale that the additional deaths are frankly just a bigger number in a war of un comprehensible death and destruction.
I am sure this is not going to sit well with many, but war is hell and nuclear war is even worse.
And while the whole thought was and is horrendous if you think about it from a logical perspective the US pretty much as to take out China if it wants any chance to come out of WW3 as anything like a power or even self governing.
This is much like the threeway stand off at the end of the Good the Bad and the Ugly. Eastwoods character has to eliminated BOTH the other guys or he loses. Yes the “Ugly” is not someone that he kills but he does take him out by eliminating his weapon. If he had left him a gun and just to out ”the bad” then the ugly would be in control. And Eastwoods characters fate would be out of his control,
This isnt perfect example as Eastwoods character has more bullets after he shoots the Bad guy. But that is the problem with a Nuclear WW3. odds are the US gets 1 shot after that the US will be in no position to fight a war with anyone much less an unharmed China.
It is very much a use it or lose it situation.
Once again this is horrible. But it is the sad reality of a nuclear war. Anyone that is not a friend has to be taken out at the start as you can only really get one attack off before your military is basicly incapacitated.
Nuclear war is so horrible that is almost incomprehensible.
If the US and the USSR get into a no holds bared knock down drag out WW3 with every nuke they have then Western Europe is gone as a milirary power. So is the USSR and for all intents the US as well.
So lets look at it from the point of view if a surviving US leader. Your country is massivly damaged with millions dead and HUGE holes in you communications, in your production base, in you resource production, in you food chain, in your power grid, in you transportation network and everything you have basicly. It will take 100%+ of you time, manpower, economy and everything else you have to just survive.
Any military you may have left (which wont be much) will be needed to try and keep your contry together and safe as many citizens as you can.
Your Nuclear for is completely gone for all intents and purposes. What you didn't use is mostly lost to your enemies nukes. And your network of command and control and inelegance. So you have zero chance to defend yourself against anyone that survived WW3s nuclear exchange relativly unscathed.
So in this world China is the one and only remaining super powers on the Block.
The USSR is going to blow all the US allies with the possible exception of Australia off the map because A) they view it as a survival tactic not wanting to leave enemies at close range after the USSR is nuked) and B) The USSR has a lot of shorter ranged nuclear delivery systems that cant reach the US, So the US will not have any sympathetic counties in good shape that can help protect it, But if the US dies not nuke Vhina then China is virtually intact. And China is NOT friend of the USA.
So if the US gets into a full WW3 nuclear war with the USSR and leaves China out then the US is 100% going to come out on the losing end as they have just given the world (whatever is left) to Communist China. A country that is many things but is NOT a “friend” to the US and or the Western powers.
Yes more folks will die and that is Horrible. But lets be honest the level of death and destruction in a full out US/USSR nuclear war is so mind blowing in scale that the additional deaths are frankly just a bigger number in a war of un comprehensible death and destruction.
I am sure this is not going to sit well with many, but war is hell and nuclear war is even worse.
And while the whole thought was and is horrendous if you think about it from a logical perspective the US pretty much as to take out China if it wants any chance to come out of WW3 as anything like a power or even self governing.
This is much like the threeway stand off at the end of the Good the Bad and the Ugly. Eastwoods character has to eliminated BOTH the other guys or he loses. Yes the “Ugly” is not someone that he kills but he does take him out by eliminating his weapon. If he had left him a gun and just to out ”the bad” then the ugly would be in control. And Eastwoods characters fate would be out of his control,
This isnt perfect example as Eastwoods character has more bullets after he shoots the Bad guy. But that is the problem with a Nuclear WW3. odds are the US gets 1 shot after that the US will be in no position to fight a war with anyone much less an unharmed China.
It is very much a use it or lose it situation.
Once again this is horrible. But it is the sad reality of a nuclear war. Anyone that is not a friend has to be taken out at the start as you can only really get one attack off before your military is basicly incapacitated.
Nuclear war is so horrible that is almost incomprehensible.
Seriously? Did you even read the previous 3+ pages of discussion? The US wouldn't be nearly as badly hit as you make it out to be. Plus, China didn't get the ability to hit the US with nukes until 1981 with the DF-5, and I doubt that they're going to nuke a US just to gain "superpower status."
In 1962 China does not have nuclear weapons at all, in fact (their first test was about two years after the crisis), so the only thing they can do militarily is try to shoot down American aircraft. I suppose they could also theoretically try to carry out terrorist attacks against the United States afterwards (you know, for probably nuking the crap out of them), but that would just be the work of vengeance groups in the post-war world (and I don't think it's terribly likely either).
Oh, sure, the SAMs (which themselves were not camo'd until after the crisis started, another mistake) clued them in that something was in the general area, but the lack of camo around the ballistic missiles made it all too easy for the US to determine what that was once they went looking. Had the Soviets taken Castro's suggestion and gussied the whole thing up to look like an agricultural project instead of a rote-copy of a Baltic missile site, who knows how long the analysts might have been scratching their heads and squinting at the pictures trying to determine whether those were ballistic missiles or, say, just a particularly long barn.
They were, and they were ludicrously optimistic about their ability to do so. Vietnam would later reveal that the USAF's decade of ignoring tactical concerns in its monomaniacal pursuit of strategic nuclear capability left it with very little conventional SEAD capability.
Last edited:
In the aftermath of being thoroughly nuked, I reckon they would be much more preoccupied with survival and lack the morale or the willpower (not to mention the resources) to mount any sort of retaliatory action.
Even now a ICBM MAD proof anti missile system is elusive. (I have heard the challenge described as trying to stop a baseball ⚾️ by throwing another, electronic navigation helps but there are always some that are going to miss) if a ICBM MAD proof system was ever developed the next step passed it would probably be orbital kinetic rounds if orbital weapons are ever allowed again, if it does not then a MAD proof world may radically change how we approach the idea of large scale war when the end of nations is no longer on the table the way it was in the mid cold war or humanity in the late cold war.
Note that I specified terrorist action, and carefully did not say anything about state involvement; I was rather thinking about groups like Al-Qaeda or ISIS, which have not evinced much problem with morale or willpower despite heavy military defeats (and often quite severe economic issues in their homelands), and who certainly do not require much in the way of resources. I admit that obviously a nuclear war would be a much worse situation and clearly the situation of the Chinese would be rather different than people in the Middle East in various important ways, but I am not sure it would be impossible or even particularly difficult to find some young Chinese (or even non-Chinese) men or women willing to try hijacking airliners or planting car bombs or the like to get back at the United States in some general way, nor that there would be any difficulties at all in equipping them.
Ah, so subs and bombers then. I've heard that contemporary Soviet subs were fairly loud and the US had a pretty good handle on where they were at any one time. How many of those missiles do we think could make it through? We are already sat at some 30ish missiles, which is already on the higher end of what I thought would hit the US when I made this thread.
Yes I did read the previous post.
Did you?
Do you really think even if somehow the US gets off as lightly as some here think that the US military is going to plan for a full Nuckear war happening and it only takes 5 hits?
Just because some folks on this web site seam to think that WW3 would be 3 or 4 cities nuked or whichever estimate you wish to go with does NOT mean that, that is what would happen. And I promise you the military sure things it won’t get off that easy (if three cities multiply bases and millions of US citizens can be called “easy”).
And even if it was minimal damage we are still talking a dozen plus hits that will make Nagasaki look small. Picture wiping 12 cities or even 6 off the map and the amount of damage done to the country, This is going to be an every man available kind of emergency. And don’t forget you will lose a number of bases, Most likely the main bases for your nuclear weapons.
So between the lost cities taking manpower to try and mitigate the after affects of the damage. The lose of most of your weapons you didn’t fire and or course the fact that you just fired off a ton of your weapons in an effort to A) take out the USSR and B) use them before the USSR blows them up. So your military stock pile of nuclear weapons and bombers has taken a huge hit at best or is basically gone more likely. yourC&C assets are at least damaged and you have to try and figure out how to rescue as many of your citizens as you can all while you economy is flatlined. And the rest of your Allie’s and most of your trading partners are in even worse shape as they were within short range of the USSR.
NONE of this instills confidence in the military that they will be in any condition to fight WW4 the next day vs China.
Nor does it instill confidence in the Government that the US will be in a position to help its friends and Allie’s and thus there is a very good chance that China will be able to use aid and the fact that it is untouched and has its economy/industries it supplies and resources and its military all to get influence or out right take over large chunks or at least get pro China governments installed.
So the US military and Government Is looking at what happens AFTER WW3 and this is why they nuke China. Because even in the best case scenario the US is screwed. They have lost a few cities and even more army bases and those cities are going to be the larger cities and or those with the most effect on production and or the economy and the bases are going to be primarily those with the most bombers and nukes or troops so even if we only lose a few cities and bases we are going to be disproportionately impacted as they will be the most important/biggest cities and bases.
And no matter how you look at it losing even 3 of your largest cities Is going to kill millions and put you immediately into a depression/recession that will make anything short of the Great Depression look like a mild slowdown. Add in the damage yo the rest of the world and you will outdo the Great Depression. You have millions dead, even more millions in need of good water and shelter. Untold injured. You don’t have time to fight China. And this is the so called “Best case”
And then we get to the most important points. Only fools plan a war based on “best case”. I promise you that in the 50-90s time frame WW3 going nuclear was something the military and the government planed for and they sure didn’t plan for “best case” they planed for “worst case” and the tactics were derived from that. So while the US may have taken ONLY 10 or 15 nukes the military is working on a LOT more then that.
The US in that timeframe assumed that the USSR had as many ICBM/Bombers/Nukes as the US had and that they would work more or less like the US‘s did. In that scenario the US is just as flattered as the USSR is.
THIS is what the US planed for not 3 cities and it nuclear stock pile intact. The military assumed that if you didn’t use it you would mot get another chance and they are not going to conceal the world to China
Thus why the US is not going to let any of it’s enemies come out the other end untouched.
Have any of you ever played a strategy game that had nukes? They all have the same issue. They end in everyone getting Nuked. Because if A nukes B then C wins.
And as horrible as it sounds that is really what it comes down to. Odds are if the US and the USSR get into a nuclear war in the 60s/70s assuming no one Nukes China “because they didn’t do anything” then bith the US and the USSR and all there nuked Allie’s lose and China “wins”.
itbvis realky as simple as that,
Is it nasty? Sure. But we are talking all out nuclear war. There is no “clean” way to fight that kind of war.
Did you?
Do you really think even if somehow the US gets off as lightly as some here think that the US military is going to plan for a full Nuckear war happening and it only takes 5 hits?
Just because some folks on this web site seam to think that WW3 would be 3 or 4 cities nuked or whichever estimate you wish to go with does NOT mean that, that is what would happen. And I promise you the military sure things it won’t get off that easy (if three cities multiply bases and millions of US citizens can be called “easy”).
And even if it was minimal damage we are still talking a dozen plus hits that will make Nagasaki look small. Picture wiping 12 cities or even 6 off the map and the amount of damage done to the country, This is going to be an every man available kind of emergency. And don’t forget you will lose a number of bases, Most likely the main bases for your nuclear weapons.
So between the lost cities taking manpower to try and mitigate the after affects of the damage. The lose of most of your weapons you didn’t fire and or course the fact that you just fired off a ton of your weapons in an effort to A) take out the USSR and B) use them before the USSR blows them up. So your military stock pile of nuclear weapons and bombers has taken a huge hit at best or is basically gone more likely. yourC&C assets are at least damaged and you have to try and figure out how to rescue as many of your citizens as you can all while you economy is flatlined. And the rest of your Allie’s and most of your trading partners are in even worse shape as they were within short range of the USSR.
NONE of this instills confidence in the military that they will be in any condition to fight WW4 the next day vs China.
Nor does it instill confidence in the Government that the US will be in a position to help its friends and Allie’s and thus there is a very good chance that China will be able to use aid and the fact that it is untouched and has its economy/industries it supplies and resources and its military all to get influence or out right take over large chunks or at least get pro China governments installed.
So the US military and Government Is looking at what happens AFTER WW3 and this is why they nuke China. Because even in the best case scenario the US is screwed. They have lost a few cities and even more army bases and those cities are going to be the larger cities and or those with the most effect on production and or the economy and the bases are going to be primarily those with the most bombers and nukes or troops so even if we only lose a few cities and bases we are going to be disproportionately impacted as they will be the most important/biggest cities and bases.
And no matter how you look at it losing even 3 of your largest cities Is going to kill millions and put you immediately into a depression/recession that will make anything short of the Great Depression look like a mild slowdown. Add in the damage yo the rest of the world and you will outdo the Great Depression. You have millions dead, even more millions in need of good water and shelter. Untold injured. You don’t have time to fight China. And this is the so called “Best case”
And then we get to the most important points. Only fools plan a war based on “best case”. I promise you that in the 50-90s time frame WW3 going nuclear was something the military and the government planed for and they sure didn’t plan for “best case” they planed for “worst case” and the tactics were derived from that. So while the US may have taken ONLY 10 or 15 nukes the military is working on a LOT more then that.
The US in that timeframe assumed that the USSR had as many ICBM/Bombers/Nukes as the US had and that they would work more or less like the US‘s did. In that scenario the US is just as flattered as the USSR is.
THIS is what the US planed for not 3 cities and it nuclear stock pile intact. The military assumed that if you didn’t use it you would mot get another chance and they are not going to conceal the world to China
Thus why the US is not going to let any of it’s enemies come out the other end untouched.
Have any of you ever played a strategy game that had nukes? They all have the same issue. They end in everyone getting Nuked. Because if A nukes B then C wins.
And as horrible as it sounds that is really what it comes down to. Odds are if the US and the USSR get into a nuclear war in the 60s/70s assuming no one Nukes China “because they didn’t do anything” then bith the US and the USSR and all there nuked Allie’s lose and China “wins”.
itbvis realky as simple as that,
Is it nasty? Sure. But we are talking all out nuclear war. There is no “clean” way to fight that kind of war.
IMHO it is hard to say what might have happened if the Soviets (and or the Cubans) had put more effort into camouflage and deception as my understanding is the US had a certain amount of human intelligence available and they were also prepared to fly very low level reconnaissance sorties over sites of interest. I suppose one could speculate endlessly.
In my view it is hard to say how conventional strikes against the Sam sites might have played out in that context. If the point of the strikes against the sam sites was simply to destroy the sam sites in retaliation for something the other side did or perhaps in order to send a message, vs suppress them so other targets could be hit the US might have put a lot of effort into destroying the sam sites and might have continued to strike them until they were certain they were in fact destroyed.
Hard to say. My guess would be no more than a few sub launched missiles are fired at targets in the CONUS or Canada if the Cuban missile crisis went hot. The actual number of detonations might be lower (due to reliability issues or possibly interception by Sam’s (either naval Sam’s in the boost phase or perhaps land based Sam’s in the terminal phase ?))
Zero launches doesn’t seem entirely out of the question either.
I also wouldn’t rule out a few nuclear torpedos being fired at ships anchored in ports ? But again zero such attacks doesn’t seem out of the question either ?
Last edited:
Yes.
I don't understand what you're trying to say here?
The whole point of this thread is to work out how many times the US is hit. Why you have taken personal offense to that is your business.
I agree that a nuclear war would have been bad. I think what you are trying to say is that the US would also have nuked their other enemies around the world on the assumption that the US itself was going to be flattened by the Soviets and it would be better to take the Chinese ect. down with them. I don't disagree. What does this have to do with the question at hand?
Its a bit annoying, with the bombers and missiles it feels easier to make a judgement but to start thinking about how many sub-launched weapons get through you have to think about where those subs were and whether the US were on top of them or not.
Yeah plus at least some of the other NATO navies and airforces would have likely been looking for them as well.
Numbers of detonations over or near CONUS / Southern Canada from sub delivered weapons of zero to perhaps a single digit number ? seem plausible to me ?
Maybe a 50 percent chance the number is zero, 25 percent chance the number is one ? 24.9 percent chance the number is from 2 thru 9 ?
.1 percent it is more than 9 ?
All of this is just speculation on my part.
Last edited:
i made some statistical data for TL about 1961 World War III senario and alternative Cuba Crisis
here the 1962 data
the reliability rate based on launch statistics
USA
ICBM - numbers - Warhead - reliability rate
Atlas D - 24 units Mk.2 + W-49 - 1,45 MT - 75,56%
Atlas E - 27 units Mk.4 + W-38 - 3,75 MT - 67,24%
Atlas F - 70 units Mk.4 + W-38 - 3,75 MT - 78,22%
Titan 1 - 54 units Mk.4 + W-38 - 3,75 MT - 75,71%
Minuteman 1A - 2 units Mk.5 - 1 MT - 92,89%
Jupiter - 45 units WH W-49 - 1,45 MT - 83.33%
Thor - 60 units WH W-49 - 1,45 MT - 62,50%
Redstone - 43 units WH W39 - 1 MT - 50,0%
Polaris A1 - 96 units - 72,95%
Note;
Titan 2 - was still tested went in service from 1963.
USSR
R-7 - 6 units - 3 MT - if used first strike - 85,71% - if not ZERO %
R-16 - 36 units - 3-6 Mt - if used first strike - 86,79% - if not ZERO %
Notes:
the Soviets ICBM were not stored in Silos 1960-1964
two R-7 were in Baikonur were intended for space exploration, but made ready for War effort
Last edited:
Low-level sorties might work, yes. What's your understanding of the amount of HUMINT the US had?
The US threw a lot into smashing SAM sites during Rolling Thunder as well, to little success. When the US lost it's first aircraft to a SAM in Vietnam on July 24th, it responded three days later by throwing over 100 aircraft in an attack on two SAM sites believed to be responsible. It was a disaster: coming in low to stay under the SA-2s 2,000 foot ceiling the attackers ran into a wall of flak. Six F-105s were lost for nothing, the SA-2s remained operational and undamaged. Another strike on 9 August by a much smaller force of 12 F-105s on a different site went a bit better: Coming from multiple directions to confuse the gunners, none of the Thunderchiefs were lost and the squadron leader, Major Hosmer was awarded the Silver Star. But once again no lasting damage was inflicted.
The Navy was the first to respond with an all-out campaign, declaring the "Iron Hand" SAM hunting program, which was made public in an attempt to intimidate the Communists. Hanoi laughed in their faces, shooting down an A-4 with an SA-2 on 12 August. The Navy launched a massive hunt for the offending SAMs with its new Iron Hand squadrons. Again, the attempt was a failure, with five more Navy aircraft shot down over the next two days, and no SAM sites destroyed. It wasn't until October - almost three months after the first SAM efforts - that American BDA declared a SEAD strike that month had managed to "kill" it's first SAM site (so far, the North Vietnamese remain silent on whether the call was accurate). By that point, the American air forces had been so heavily focused on SAM hunting that it deliriously affected their efforts against other targets.
It's worth remembering that the SA-2 was not a new system when it showed up in Vietnam, yet the US Air Force STILL had not properly prepared to face it outside of a nuclear scenario. In fact, the USAF had actually been better at neutralizing enemy air defenses in WWII, with several dedicated squadrons, but these had been disbanded by Vietnam on the perception that they wouldn't matter during a nuclear war. Historian Craig Hannah called the USAFs failure to plan for, and respond effectively to, the North Vietnamese SAM threat "an inexcusable act of negligence."
The political interference from Washington in the execution of Rolling Thunder is well known, and sometimes blamed wholesale for the campaign's failure, but it was really only a smaller part of the problem. The bigger part was because - at a fundamental level - the USAF of the 50's and 60's had forgotten how to wage a conventional tactical air war, and had developed neither the mindset, nor the men, nor the machines to do so effectively. It's conception of an independent offensive air campaign was no longer to lay down a blanket that attrits away the enemy forces and smothers his defenses, but to deliver a series of sharp penetration raids. Probably sensible enough when you're delivering nukes, but not conducive to taking them out with HE dumb bombs.
Last edited: