You're welcome.

I searched rio Grande valley nuclear attack and ran across this. I am still curious as to why Brownsville would be such a high priority target or draw 4 warheads.

Also, the physics of hydrogen bombs fascinates me. There is a pretty detailed explanation of multistage warheads in this write-up

http://www.johnstonsarchive.net/nuclear/nukergv.html

That is VERY detailed. And Hell is unleashed in less than 2 seconds.

JR69 said:

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Quote:

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I'm sure Alaska would be hit, the AF badges and the pipeline for sure. I'm sure all radar stations in northern Canada would have been hit

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It would have been a waste of nukes. During the time of the Cold War, all of those DEW Line radar sites were 1955 vintage, manual with no data link to the ROCCs at North Bay, Ontario, manned by apatheric overpaid civilian contractors, had ridiculously limited range, and the entire line was full of holes. The 5 "Main" sites acted as a sort of a control center but all commnication, as i recall, was by voice using old tropospheric scatter systems. The target would have been the ROCC at North Bay, Ontario and the ROCC at Elmendorf AFB, AK.

I was team chief for the NORAD performance evaluation of the DEW Line in the mid '70s that led to the North Warning system that replaced the ancient system. At the end of my AF career, I was the Program Element Manager for the North Warning System at the Pentagon. Installation of new radars didn't even start until 1988.

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Fascinating.

Thanks for sharing and thanks for your service.

coupland boy said:

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You're welcome.

I searched rio Grande valley nuclear attack and ran across this. I am still curious as to why Brownsville would be such a high priority target or draw 4 warheads.

Also, the physics of hydrogen bombs fascinates me. There is a pretty detailed explanation of multistage warheads in this write-up

http://www.johnstonsarchive.net/nuclear/nukergv.html

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Thanks for posting that, it was interesting. I meant to reply to your comments on here a few weeks back, but just got sidetracked.

I want to say somewhere in the mid 80's this discussion came up with some friends when I was in HS or early college, can't remember exactly, but it was after only living in the RGV a few years. An acquaintances father was way up high with Customs at the time and she went on to say she knew from her father talking about emergency responsibilities that there were some vital "targets" in the RGV proximity. One of them was the now moved/gone "Rightaway Foods", this company was located in McAllen and at one time was the largest supplier of MRE's to the military and they also have other defense and government business.

There were several food suppliers that had big defense contracts in the RGV for many years as well. In the late 60's and throughout the 90's the RGV had a lot of garment/apparel manufacturing as well (I ended up going into this industry as it began the exit from the area to other countries) and there were two large apparel producers that made military uniforms in the RGV as well, and they also had assembly and sub-assembly plants across the border in Mexico.The RGV was one of if not the last place in the US to have large scale, big facility corporate owned, garment plants up through about 2002-03, when the last of them went away. The deep south had some big facilities, and many more by total number, but much smaller in size, than the RGV, but the RGV had the very large Levi's, Williamson-Dickies, Haggar, Fruit of the Loom, and a few other contract facilities.

The latter more restrictive Berry Amendment provisions on Textiles were years away still. There were also some manufacturing plants on the Mexican side that did work with Calidad Electronics or whatever it was called out of Edinburg that also had DOD and government work.

Martin-Marrieta had a manufacturing facility in Harlingen for many years, I think they still do, that did DOD work as well. In this discussion that we were having, what this friend relayed is that the Federal Agencies in the RGV had an emergency plan, which I don't think was specific as to what the emergency was, where they had to help safeguard or protect certain interests. Also,one of the LORAN-C stations was in Raymondville which was also a secure deal for years and years. There was always the Port of Brownsville, which is not too busy but that can supposedly be quickly adapted for large volume and shipping. In that discussion I was pretty shocked to even think that the RGV would be noticed for anything related to a nuclear target.

If you count the Mexican side combined with the U.S. side the total MSA is actually bigger than San Antonio, and there were some important activities there.

Great post. Thanks for weighing in on that.

And i meant not to slight the valley in the least. Obviously you didn't take it that way but in hindsight it could have been.

Some things that seem strange to me about that map:

Hawthorne, NV isn't targeted at all. That is an absolutely massive ammunition depot.

Twentynine Palms isn't targeted at all. Big USMC base.

Places like Kings Bay (nuclear missile submarine base) seem like they'd be in the highest priority, over some dubious targets like Palm Springs on the 500 weapon scenario.

Maybe the greatest deterrence of mutually assured destruction is based on civilian targets.

What's an Ohio class sub going to do at a King's Bay that hadn't been directly targeted? Come back and relaod?

I had a similar question about the missile silos being in the 2000 warhead scenario instead of the 500 but at least they are included. Perhaps the difference is one supports a mobile strike capability and the others are fixed.

If there's even one sub still in port, you just prevented a follow on strike of 100+ warheads.

By that I mean that I'd expect all strategic bomber bases and missile sub bases to be among the highest priority targets. It could take a lot longer to get all the bombers and subs out of the bases than it takes a missile to get there.

Dr. Watson said:

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GasAg90 said:

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Looks like the rooskis don't like bastions of liberalism.

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They're targeting population centers. Nice to know everywhere I've lived has been a priority target. Makes me feel needed by the Russians.

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There was a study in the 1960s on this very subject.

Since targets worth hitting are often found in population centers, the population centers would be collateral damage, not the primary target as such.

There was an article on this subject in an Atlantic Monthly or Harper's magazine (if Harper's, it was before the big format change) sometime around 1979 or 1980 or so.

GAC06 said:

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If there's even one sub still in port, you just prevented a follow on strike of 100+ warheads.

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How long would it take that sub to get close enough to fire the warheads?

I wonder if the thinking is that the war would be over in days, if not hours. So no need to think long-term, like ball bearing factories or refineries.

Seems like the aim of blowing up power plants is to cause the American people such distress that they will be of no consequence, or that they will call for peace at any price.

CanyonAg77 said:

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GAC06 said:

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If there's even one sub still in port, you just prevented a follow on strike of 100+ warheads.

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How long would it take that sub to get close enough to fire the warheads?

I wonder if the thinking is that the war would be over in days, if not hours. So no need to think long-term, like ball bearing factories or refineries.

Seems like the aim of blowing up power plants is to cause the American people such distress that they will be of no consequence, or that they will call for peace at any price.

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The real question how long it would take to get it out to blue water.

the map must be relatively new as it doesn't target the now closed ICBM bases in Rapid City, SD, Grand Forks, ND, and Whiteman AFB, MO. so it has to be post 1992. SAC had 6 missile bases when we had 1050 ICBMs.

ICBM Launch Officer
1986-1989

And even if it's a recent map, it should include Whiteman. Catching even one B-2 on the ground would be worth a warhead.

GAC06 said:

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Some things that seem strange to me about that map:

Hawthorne, NV isn't targeted at all. That is an absolutely massive ammunition depot.

Twentynine Palms isn't targeted at all. Big USMC base.

Places like Kings Bay (nuclear missile submarine base) seem like they'd be in the highest priority, over some dubious targets like Palm Springs on the 500 weapon scenario.

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Camp Lejeune isn't targeted either

As I said earlier in this post this is a bad target list, missing way too many things.

What are the 500 warhead targets near Hood County? Comanche power plant I'm guessing?

gomerschlep said:

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What are the 500 warhead targets near Hood County? Comanche power plant I'm guessing?

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Probably. There are some targets marked in the Panhandle-South Plains where there are power plants in the middle of nowhere