Atomic bomb shelter pass

Robert Polidori: Cold war era bunkers

All nuclear explosions

Blame It On The Voices: History lesson of the day: a map of nuclear explosions

Ekranoplan

I wanted to post about the Ekranoplan or sea skimmer for a long time, now luckily both English Russia and The Presurfer have brought up the topic, posting up pictures from the only "planeship" that was ever built, in a quite derelict state.

I prefer the original pictures from when this strange vehicle was commissioned in 1987. The Ekranoplan was larger than an airbus and could carry 6 cruise missiles. At top speed it would fly about 3 meters above water or ground, but it was a strictly sea-bound vehicle without landing gear. So i guess it was a weird mix between ship, hovercraft and plane, and after the end of the Cold War there was never a second one built.

Vincelewis.net: Russian Secret Project Exposed

Permissive action links

Funny how sometimes you actually learn something from playing video games: One mission in the Fort Constantine level in Fallout 3 involves the launching of a nuclear ICBM (inter-continental ballistic missile, the launch code for which is "00000000". As it turns out, the so-called "Permissive Action Links" (another word for security locks to prevent unauthorized launches) for the nuclear arsenal of the United States were kept at all zeros until 1977. Another stunning account of Bruce Blair, whose Nuclear Recollections I have posted about recently.

Keeping Presidents in the Nuclear Dark (Episode #1: The Case of the Missing “Permissive Action Links”) - Bruce G. Blair, Ph.D.

Nuclear recollections

Dr Bruce Blair recounts his past as a missile operater for nuclear ICBM (intercontinental ballistic missiles). It's strong, scary stuff.

It's nerve-wracking because it's easy to make a critical mistake. If we decoded a message incorrectly and dialed a single wrong digit into the computer that targeted our missiles, we might attack and destroy cities instead of rural missile silos in Russia. We could have easily killed millions of civilians by mistake.

We were usually still processing checklists when a warble tone signifying an incoming missile attack would be heard on our loudspeaker. We would hurriedly, sometimes frantically, strap into our chairs. In the real world, we would expect a violent shaking of our capsule mounted on giant shock absorbers. But in the mock run we were blasé and continued to race through the checklists.

We knew there was a system to the madness. The drill led us inexorably up the ladder of escalation, from a minor fire or incident to a full-blown order to unleash all 50 missiles. We had been conditioned, like Pavlov's dogs, to expect certain war orders to flow in a certain sequence, culminating in the launch of all 50 missiles. It was classic conditioned reflexes with absolute psychological certainty that it would all end in a hypothetical all-out nuclear war.

Nuclear Recollections - Bruce Blair's Nuclear Column - CDI

Perimetr

Wired magazine run an extremely interesting article about the Russian doomsday device called Perimeter (or Perimetr). It's a system that's designed to launch a nuclear strike back at the enemy even if there's no one left to actually start the missiles. Autonomous ground sensors would record the devastating blow of a nuclear attack and retaliate automatically.

Wired.com: Inside the Apocalyptic Soviet Doomsday Machine

UPDATE: I found another, similar article in Slate from 2007 which goes even more in-depth about the system, called Perimetr here. Even more interesting are the references to Dr Bruce Blair's Nuclear Recollections, more of which I will be posting soon.

Did the Soviets really build a "doomsday machine"? - By Ron Rosenbaum - Slate Magazine