How to Survive a Nuclear War: The York Experiment | Hacker News Reader

How to Survive a Nuclear War: The York Experiment

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66 pointslermontov55 comments

It is easy to forget nowadays how much fear of nuclear war there used to be always lurking in the background. One anecdote to illustrate: My secondary school was built on top of the region's nuclear bunker. They were short of classrooms so we sometimes had lessons inside the bunker. At the start of these we were grimly advised that if nuclear war broke out during the lesson we would have to evacuate the safety of the bunker to make way for the local dignitaries who had been assigned spaces there, i.e. doctors, the local MP etc. (Not exactly helpful for building a sense of self-worth in the impressionable young.)

Feelings of self worth are transient and alterable. That lesson about self worth vs reality will last a lifetime.

Indeed. As easy as it was to grow up hating "the system", with the benefit of perspective it has to be said that a good selection of well-trained doctors, well-connected councillors etc. are likely to be more useful in a post-nuclear-holocaust recovery scenario than a bunch of school kids whose survival story would probably end up reading more like Lord of the Flies.

> It is easy to forget nowadays how much fear of nuclear war there used to be always lurking in the background.

Not as good as your story, but I was walking home from school when the air-raid siren went off, sounding exactly as it does at the start of "Two Tribes". I was briefly very, very scared indeed, and very relieved to survive the next four minutes without being blown to atoms or fatally irradiated.

If you want a good, full book on nuclear survival, it's worth checking out Cresson H Kearny's book on it from research at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. I'm not planning on using any of the information, but it's fairly enjoyable to learn about some of the particulars. It's like thinking of how you would survive a zombie apocalypse. It is fairly optimistic about survival if you aren't in the blast radius and is chock full of useful information, including what sort of attacks would be most likely and what to do in each phase. He makes a real point of saying that it wouldn't be the end of the world and is very survivable; people get a much more depressing and fatalistic view sometimes. Cheer up. [ https://www.amazon.co.uk/Nuclear-War-Survival-Skills-Instruc... ]

Perhaps fine for a large less densely populated country and small scale attacks.

Somewhere like the UK in the early 1980s facing a realistic Soviet attack (e.g. the one that almost happened in Autumn '83) then almost all of the people in this country would have been in serious trouble with little prospect for long term survival.

NB The UK government was always rather more "realistic" about the actual impact of a war than the US.

Don't mistake this booklet for "protect and survive" which was handed out in the 1970s and 1980s. this was the precursor work.

I was the lucky recipient of "protect and survive" in my terrace house in York in the 1980s. We blithly understood the staircase was our best bet, both for initial blast protection and ultimate entombment. The Raymond Briggs cartoon book "when the wind blows" felt more realistic to most of us.

I did not enjoy watching Peter Watkins "the war game" which was with-held from general broadcast and mostly only seen in film societies. It wasn't exactly hyper realistic, but it was chillingly unpleasant. It was dated by the time I saw it (shot in B&W I believe, and in the sixties so over 15 years old by the time I first saw it)

I still have occasional nightmares about Threads (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Threads). Mostly about the milk bottle melting. Possibly the scariest TV show I've ever watched - largely because it was set just down the road in Sheffield.

Another one that literally gave me nightmares at the time was "QED: A Guide to Armageddon":

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9GJttnC8PoA

You almost got the idea that the BBC didn't approve of nuclear warfare.

NB A thing worth noting about Threads is that is based on a nuclear attack scenario that is regarded as rather optimistic - a real Soviet attack would probably have been much worse:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Square_Leg

Threads is outstanding. I rarely if ever had a nightmare after watching something but that movie is so frightening and depressing that the first time I watched it I could barely force myself out of bed the next day. Incredible work by the BBC.

Same with me. I was seventeen in 1984 when it was first shown but didn't see it at the time. I finally watched it a few years ago and had a night of unusually disturbed sleep followed by two days that were mentally tinged with vague feelings of doom and contamination. Not something I'd want to experience again.

In the same vein: The War Game.

Recorded in 1965, but not shown until 1985 as

"the effect of the film has been judged by the BBC to be too horrifying for the medium of broadcasting. It will, however, be shown to invited audiences..."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_War_Game

The quite I remember from The War Game is:

"the sound of the blast from a thermonuclear bomb has been likened to that of an enormous door slamming in the depths of hell."

I was born after the Berlin wall came down, so I got to miss all the fun of living under constant threat of looming nuclear annihilation, but Threads still had a profound effect on me when I watched it. It may be dated now, sure, but it still hits with a hell of a force.

> Don't mistake this booklet for "protect and survive" which was handed out in the 1970s and 1980s. this was the precursor work.

They mention that further down the article.

> The Raymond Briggs cartoon book "when the wind blows" felt more realistic to most of us.

When The Wind Blows is a must read/watch in my opinion. Having first seen it just after it came out (I read the book much later), the emotional impact of it has never left me.

Is there a connection between:

    "When The Wind Blows"

and

    "When Shit Hit The Fan" (SHTF)
?

When the Wind Blows is a allusion to the children's nursery thyme "Rock-a-bye Baby" [1]:

    Rock-a-bye baby
    On the tree tops,
    When the wind blows,
    The cradle will rock
    When the bough breaks,
    The cradle will fall,
    and down will come Baby,
    Cradle and all.

In the context of Brigg's book/film, its seems clear that the bough (tree branch) that breaks is the disaster of nuclear war and the cradle/baby is us/civilisation falling down. I guess that a child-like reference emphasises the horror of the subject by way of contrast.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rock-a-bye_Baby

Perhaps it's a British thing, but fear of nuclear war was always intertwined in the culture with a deep cynicism about the clear inadequacy of the advice given to the population in the event of an attack; the 'core' in the article, viz a lean-to made out of a door with stuff piled on top, brings to mind the protagonists in 'when the wind blows' obsessively trying to remember to remain in this alleged sanctuary even as radiation poisoning destroys them.

Also an American thing. People assumed it would all just be over if there was a big nuclear exchange and all the talk about "duck and cover" was just to make people feel like they had a chance when they didn't.

Trailer for when the wind blows here: https://youtu.be/4h1lRqUBuSI

This was devastating at the time as it was about right.

Incidentally if you’re UK based or in the UK, a good day out is Kelvedon Hatch “secret nuclear bunker”. Protect and Survive is everywhere. Lots of scary information video feeds throughout it as well.

Peter Watkins has made some amazing films. Although also often rather long and hard going (one of them, Wikipedia tells me, is the longest non-experimental film ever made!). Punishment Park is worth seeing. I liked Evening Land, although i wouldn't recommend it unless you really, really like union politics.

I saw some of The War Game at a nuclear bunker near Cheshire. I think it ended with the protagonist screaming as she saw her (presumably deformed) newborn. Hard to believe the BBC made this.

I haven't seen The War Game, but that's the ending from Threads (and Wikipedia lists a different ending for The War Game).

Threads is an interesting film from the 1980s, with a very bleak tone about the prognosis after a full scale nuclear conflict. I have read modern analyses of it that suggest it was perhaps too pessimistic in the long term effects.

As I note elsewhere in this thread (!) while Threads might have been pessimistic about long term impact (e.g. nuclear winter) it is actually fairly optimistic about the scale of a Soviet nuclear attack on the UK.

That raises an interesting point that was not covered in the plot of Threads - the strategy behind the nuclear exchange and how it played out globally.

You're certainly right, that at one stage the plans the Soviet Union had for the UK resembled what the UK did to Heligoland.

In the film, if the West had initiated the exchange with a surprise counter-force first strike, they could have potentially disabled a significant proportion of the Soviet Union's strike ability. If this were the case, one of the morals of the film would have been that even if the majority of enemy warheads are destroyed, they'll still have enough to destroy you.

Another scenario is that the Soviet Union went first with a limited strike, and the West retaliated destroying any further offensive capability.

There are also scenarios where counter measures worked, devices were a lot less reliable than expected and so on.

Thankfully none of this was ever played out, but there is a whole spectrum between nothing and everything (and the politics - MAD, et al) to go with it.

I always find it grimly amusing that it's generally portrayed that the Soviets would attack first. Of course they thought that the West was planning an attack on them and given Soviet history they were just a bit paranoid about being attacked.

The Soviet defector "Viktor Suvorov" (real name Vladimir Bogdanovich Rezun: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viktor_Suvorov) suggested in his published-in-the-'80s book Inside the Soviet Army that contemporary Soviet doctrine called for a massive nuclear first strike immediately upon the opening of hostilities.

From the chapter titled "The Axe Theory" (http://militera.lib.ru/research/suvorov12/05.html):

[A]s I studied American theories of war, I came to an appalling realisation. It became clear to me that a modern American cowboy who is working up to a decisive fight will always expect to begin by spitting at and insulting his opponent and to continue by throwing whisky in his face and chucking custard pies at him before resorting to more serious weapons. He expects to hurl chairs and bottles at his enemy and to try to stick a fork or a tableknife into his behind and then to fight with his fists and only after all this to fight it out with his gun.

This is a very dangerous philosophy. You are going to end up by using pistols. Why not start with them? Why should the bandit you are fighting wait for you to remember your gun? He may shoot you before you do, just as you are going to slap his face. By using his most deadly weapon at the beginning of the fight, your enemy saves his strength. Why should he waste it throwing chairs at you? Moreover, this will enable him to save his own despicable life. After all, he does not know, either, when you, the noble hero, will decide to use your gun. Why should he wait for this moment? You might make a sudden decision to shoot him immediately after throwing custard pies at him, without waiting for the exchange of chairs. Of course he won't wait for you when it comes to staying alive. He will shoot first. At the very start of the fight.

Yes, it's amazing how badly each side could be at reading the other's intention. A classic example is the Missile Gap where the fear that the US was falling behind, when they weren't, lead to massive escalation. Although others do say Kennedy did know exactly what was going on.

I've watched a number of interviews with war planners from that era. Every one has said they knew they had more missiles. Its questionable whether Kennedy would have known during his campaign (they do receive intelligence briefings as candidates), but he certainly knew after being elected.

How about Threads? (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0090163/) I watched it just a couple years ago and ffs it got me into a sombre mood for a month at least...

Reminds me of that episode of "Benson" where they game out a nuclear attack scenario in the basement (bonus: first mention of ARPANET on TV): https://www.paleycenter.org/collection/item/?q=benson&p=3&it...

It's like surviving any kind of disaster: You need the mindset that you will survive, instead of staying unprepared because you are too fearful to plan for disaster.

The whole country of Switzerland is protected by law. Everybody has shelter that will withstand a 12 megaton strike at a distance of only 700 meters. Very few warheads are that large.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fallout_shelter#Switzerland

A few other countries, mainly in northern Europe, have lower-quality shelter. Impoverished countries have an excuse, plus they tend to not be targets. The rest of us are being irresponsible.

If nukes start to really hit Switzerland then it will look pretty grim everywhere else as well. Might as well just get it over with and enjoy the light show.

This.

I live less than 30 km from a large military base (although not in Switzerland). If we actually reach the point where someone decides to nuke that base, then I'm toast reagardless of whether I survice the blast or not.

A quick ending is preferable to slowly dying from radiation poisoning I guess...

Not clear why you think that. 30km is quite far. [1] is a pretty good site to play around and get an idea how far the nuclear blast reaches. For example the Russian Topol SS-25 (800 kT TNT) has an air blast radius (5psi) of 6.5 km. This is quite a large bomb. For comparison, most US warheads are W76, with a 100kT yield and a blast radius of 1km. The largest currently deployed warhead is the Chinese Dong-Feng-5, which at 5MT has a blast radius of 12 km.

[1] https://nuclearsecrecy.com/nukemap/

That's a cool site -- will have a look! :)

NATO alone had 3000 nuclear weapons stored in Europe ready for a Soviet invasion. If things really went to hell nobody was going to survive.

In the eighth grade (1966), our teacher gave a talk about what we were to do if the air raid sirens went off. He said we would all be taken to the basement of the building and the doors to the outside would be locked. "Even if your mother and father are outside trying to get in, we won't let them in", he said.

I remember that to this day.

For those interested in this article, there's a book worth reading about this general subject:

Raven Rock: The Story of the U.S. Government's Secret Plan to Save Itself--While the Rest of Us Die by Garrett Graff https://www.amazon.com/dp/B010MHAG72/ .

I wonder if silicon valley has any bunkers?

Surviving a nuclear attack is doable, provided you are:

Outside the flash zone Outside the shockwave / concussion area Sheltered from fallout radiation Have access to a constant source of uncontaminated water Can survive the following saturation nuclear attacks (from SS18s etc) Able to survive the civil unrest Disease Dwindling food source

Have I missed anything?

Minor quibble, the most likely "nuclear attack" is something like 9/11 by an enormously high factor. Very difficult to survive if you worked early shift in the towers in NYC, pretty easy to survive if you live in Silicon Valley, and most of the long term social problems were pretty indirect (dead and PTSD military personnel, political destruction of unrelated countries in the middle east, economic damage from the wars, security theater in airports, etc).

As the OP points out, there might be one or two issues with morale too.

> Sheltered from fallout radiation

It might be included in this, but you'd also want to have an air supply isolated from fallout.

Filtering air intake thru a HEPA filter is plenty good enough, fallout is dust.

> silicon valley has any bunkers?

Maybe.

During the cold war most people in the valley assumed they would die immediately if there was a nuclear war.

Those factories supplying America's war machines are now all in China, I wonder if SV is off the target list now.

Certainly hitting Oshkosh Wisconsin or Lima Ohio would damage the countries military capabilities vastly worse than hitting SV today.

Bunkers are the first things to be hit I would imagine.

Military bunkers, perhaps. Your bunker in your back yard? Not so much.

Formatting.

I agree. Surviving a nuclear attack isn't the problem. That's just simply a matter of luck of where you are at the time of the attacks.

Surviving the aftermath would require blood, sweat and tears.

When civilization ends and humans are thrust back into subsistence living, we are essentially back to tribalistic animals having to endure rampant starvation and disease. Life is going to be hard for everyone, but especially those without tight groups/tribes and without arms.

And here we are in 2018 on the cusp of what is looking to be a new nuclear arms race. It’s two minutes to midnight:

https://thebulletin.org/2018-doomsday-clock-statement/

Just like in 1953. https://thebulletin.org/doomsday-clock/past-announcements/

Fear mongering at its best.

Well it seems like people go crazy just 2 days in a bunker

We've had a few decades of evolutionary pressure for cubicles and open offices... modern results might surprise.

This. I hate travel, I get 26 days of vacation a year. I'll take a week off at a time and sometimes not leave the apartment at all over the course of 8-9 days, or even look out a window for that matter. I imagine I'm far from alone.

And when I went aboard U-505 recently, my first thought was "I could totally live in here", a fried that went aboard her with me agrees that we could both happily live on a sub/spaceship/bunker for extended periods.

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