eric76 said:

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LMCane said:

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For some reason this popped up on Youtube. For the young cats, this was a very popular miniseries in 1983 dealing with a Soviet nuclear attack upon the United States during the height of the Cold War

I was 12 years old living in Austin and it was scary as h@ll...

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Was that the one where the people were at a college football game when the missiles were being launched around them?

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Yes, must have been a Kansas football game as John Lithgow was a professor at KU monitoring the radiation levels.

my question for any old Strategic Air Command flyboys-

it takes an ICBM 30 minutes to reach it's target- but a B-52 would be probably 9 hours at least.

so what happens in the meantime?

where would the B-52s land if they were even able to make it to Russia?!

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where would the B-52s land if they were even able to make it to Russia?!

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That's classified.
Have you ever seen the movie "Dr. Strangelove or how I learned to stop hating and love the bomb"?
They cover that in a humorous way.

In the early 1980s, there was a fairly large magazine article on nuclear targeting strategies.

According to the article, the USSR (then) would individually target major airfields, major medial facilities, ports, and industrial facilities. You could have one large city with easily 30 or 40 major individual targets, each with at least one warhead.

TxTarpon said:

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where would the B-52s land if they were even able to make it to Russia?!

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That's classified.
Have you ever seen the movie "Dr. Strangelove or how I learned to stop hating and love the bomb"?
They cover that in a humorous way.

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I snicker like a 6th grader when I hear La Poutre

This show was a propaganda piece meant to hurt Reagan. Libs were claiming that Reagan was a cowboy who wanted to nuke everybody. This was meant to scare everybody about that.

At the time there was a huge nuclear freeze movement being pushed by idiots like Carl Segan. Of course, Reagan ignored them and proved that strength was the best way to counter the Soviet nuclear threat.

I was 10 years old living in Amarillo when this show aired. Gave me nightmares for weeks afterwards because Amarillo was one of the top targets due to Pantex (plant that assembled nuclear weapons) and being the American source of helium.

That be my hometown.

My family always knew the threat too, but we just went on with life as normal.

I guess I wasn't allowed to watch the show, as I don't even remember it, not surprising, but I guess I was a lucky kid. My family never worried about nuke war. My private school never did duck and cover drills.

I think I was a senior in high school when it aired. Seems like it was a two-part Sunday night/Monday night mini series. I remember it being pretty moving for a high school kid. Seems like we may have watched in one of our classes too a few weeks later.

It was scary, but at the same time it was like any natural disasters movie where people find a way to survive. So I didn't lose a lot of sleep over it. Apparently, the rest of America didn't either based on the results of the 1984 election

To be honest, when I say "Austin", I mean Round Rock. Back in 1983 I was a freshman at RRHS. Westwood had opened just the previous year or two, and those were the only 2 high schools back then.

Now? I think there's like 7 or 8. Don't even recognize the place anymore.

ChemEng94 said:

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Looked it up. It was called WW3 and starred Brian Keith and Rock Hudson. It was a mini-series.

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I remember this one more than The Day After. I distinctly remember the Alaska invasion and our troops in those metal pipes as well.

We are finishing up The Americans right now on Prime. They did an entire episode based around The Day After and its cultural impact.

Highly recommend The Americans especially right now considering its relevance.

Sandie here. Agree about Amarillo being a big target. The Soviets probably had multiple warheads planned for the area. We were toast if it came to a nuclear exchange.

There was another Reagan hit piece that came out about poverty. It was broadcast as a way to blame him. The Soviets broadcast it in their country too, but it backfired. People in Russia realized that the poor in America had it better than they had it in Russia.

ChemEng94 said:

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Sandie here. Agree about Amarillo being a big target. The Soviets probably had multiple warheads planned for the area. We were toast if it came to a nuclear exchange.

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I grew up 15 miles south of Bergstrom AFB in Austin. We figured between that base and San Antonio (Randolph, Brooks, Ft. Sam, Kelly, and Lackland) we would probably die due to fallout from one or more of them getting hit.

ChemEng94 said:

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Sandie here. Agree about Amarillo being a big target. The Soviets probably had multiple warheads planned for the area. We were toast if it came to a nuclear exchange.

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Well, if they set off a nuke in the summer, would we really know known the difference in the heat and wind versus a normal day?

beanbean said:

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Freaking traumatized me. I was 9 when we watched that. I remember all the kids on the school bus the next morning being traumatized too because back then, we had like 3 channels and everyone watched that.

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A bit off topic, but I made this point to my kids just the other day that when we all watched the same channels that was much more unifying for the country because of the shared cultural experiences. Just random musing.

Well, technically four if you counted PBS.

When Fox hit the airwaves, it was a miracle, but you had to adjust those antenna ears just right to get it sometimes, and other times, your dad/uncle/older brother made you stand there and hold them in place so they could watch it.

An L of an Ag said:

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To be honest, when I say "Austin", I mean Round Rock. Back in 1983 I was a freshman at RRHS. Westwood had opened just the previous year or two, and those were the only 2 high schools back then.

Now? I think there's like 7 or 8. Don't even recognize the place anymore.

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I was a kid and lived in Round Rock before moving to Northwest Hills in Austin in the late 1970s

don't have many memories of childhood but do remember watching Red Dawn in the theaters with my friends from the neighborhood

small world!

DTP02 said:

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beanbean said:

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Freaking traumatized me. I was 9 when we watched that. I remember all the kids on the school bus the next morning being traumatized too because back then, we had like 3 channels and everyone watched that.

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A bit off topic, but I made this point to my kids just the other day that when we all watched the same channels that was much more unifying for the country because of the shared cultural experiences. Just random musing.

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true- on the other hand considering the mainstream media channels were leftists, it also helped to propagandize the citizenry.

some claim that we lost Vietnam after Brinkley broadcast the war was unwinnable in 1968

Burdizzo said:

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ChemEng94 said:

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Sandie here. Agree about Amarillo being a big target. The Soviets probably had multiple warheads planned for the area. We were toast if it came to a nuclear exchange.

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I grew up 15 miles south of Bergstrom AFB in Austin. We figured between that base and San Antonio (Randolph, Brooks, Ft. Sam, Kelly, and Lackland) we would probably die due to fallout from one or more of them getting hit.

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I remember there was a Camp Mabry in Austin- is it still there?

I was just talking to an engineer this morning about the nuclear weapons that were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

He said that about 70% of the deaths that occurred in the Japanese population of those areas (a few after the bombs exploded) was primarily due to stress from induced fear of the war and the radiation.

I am wondering if fear of Covid is also causing a lot of early deaths in those people who have been terrified of catching the disease.

LMCane said:

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DTP02 said:

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beanbean said:

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Freaking traumatized me. I was 9 when we watched that. I remember all the kids on the school bus the next morning being traumatized too because back then, we had like 3 channels and everyone watched that.

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A bit off topic, but I made this point to my kids just the other day that when we all watched the same channels that was much more unifying for the country because of the shared cultural experiences. Just random musing.

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true- on the other hand considering the mainstream media channels were leftists, it also helped to propagandize the citizenry.

some claim that we lost Vietnam after Brinkley broadcast the war was unwinnable in 1968

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Wasn't Brinkley. It was Cronkite.

Jay Reimenschneider said:

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Threads

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This...just awful.

Here's a locally produced film that aired on CBS in the 50s. Kelly Butte is one of the main lava cones here in Portland that used to house a bunker.

https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/kelly-butte-civil-defense-center

LMCane said:

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For some reason this popped up on Youtube. For the young cats, this was a very popular miniseries in 1983 dealing with a Soviet nuclear attack upon the United States during the height of the Cold War

I was 12 years old living in Austin and it was scary as h@ll...

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It was anti-Reagan propaganda. At 10 years old, I knew it was trash and my family did not watch. Most of my school of military kids did not watch.

The left was convinced Reagan and Thatcher were hell-bent to start WWIII.

Yes, yes they were.

NONE of the progressive fear mongering has come true over the last 50 years, yet people continue to salivate and cower in fear at every new existential thread they leeringly spew on a daily basis.

LMCane said:

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Burdizzo said:

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ChemEng94 said:

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Sandie here. Agree about Amarillo being a big target. The Soviets probably had multiple warheads planned for the area. We were toast if it came to a nuclear exchange.

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I grew up 15 miles south of Bergstrom AFB in Austin. We figured between that base and San Antonio (Randolph, Brooks, Ft. Sam, Kelly, and Lackland) we would probably die due to fallout from one or more of them getting hit.

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I remember there was a Camp Mabry in Austin- is it still there?

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Camp Mary is HQ for the Texas National Guard. I believe it is state, not federal.

it was all we talked about the next day im school, be it English class or chemistry.

It was even worked into an episode of "The Americans".

The producers requested DoD support in making it. The military would only agree if the Russians were shown as the aggressors and launching a first strike. Instead, that was left vague. It wasn't the point of the movie.

I also remember a TV movie from the same time about terrorists exploding a nuclear bomb in Charleston.

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I snicker like a 6th grader when I hear La Poutre

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There was so much in that movie that made everyone snicker.

This is an out take color photo.

Most of us were not paying attention to George C Scott in this scene.

There were even pulp sci fi books about it.


There were others but this was the only one I could find.

beanbean said:

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Jay Reimenschneider said:

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Threads

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Yeah that's a traumatizing movie too. It's the British version of The Day After.

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Was Threads the one that after the bombing, it continued to like 10 years after and I think at one point, they ate raw lamb or something that just died?

TxTarpon said:

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I snicker like a 6th grader when I hear La Poutre

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There was so much in that movie that made everyone snicker.

This is an out take color photo.

Most of us were not paying attention to George C Scott in this scene.

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When one of the men in the B-52 is looking at a Playboy centerfold, its the same actress.

TxTarpon said:

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Ray Milland's 1962 "Panic in Year Zero" was chilling.

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AWESOME MOVIE! Must see.

The dads knowledge of survival skills is excellent and very applicable today. If you like post-apocalyptic books/movies - then this is a classic 1960's move. Two thumbs up.

LMCane said:

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beanbean said:

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Jay Reimenschneider said:

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Threads

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Yeah that's a traumatizing movie too. It's the British version of The Day After.

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what year was it made?

wonder if it is ab le to be found today.

would be cool to see.

why does the film color from movies in the 70s and early 80s look so old now?

Red Dawn didn't look that old watching it in the last few years

that movie holds up amazingly as if it was made during the Trump Administration

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Threads was made in 1984. YouTube has the full movie for free.

nm