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Comment by mNovak | Hacker News Reader

Fun fact, Ohio was supposedly high on the Soviet nuke target list, because of Wright Patterson AFB, which houses the Air Force Research Lab (and aliens).

I have an old Soviet invasion map of central Ohio, marking all potential airfields etc.

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There's a lot more to it than urban legends. A FEMA publication[1] from 1990 has a map on page 86 with assumed Ohio targets.

Tiny Waverly would have definitely been wiped off the map because of its fuel refining facility. There's a non-zero chance I keep my EMP-proof diesel truck running due to growing up in those times.

[1] https://www.jumpjet.info/Emergency-Preparedness/Hazard-Maps/...

A couple people asked so I snapped some photos: https://imgur.com/a/wlN5aAe

Looks to be a 1:500,000 topo map of the Ohio/Kentucky/WV border. You can see Columbus and I think Dayton at the top. Google translate via camera is a real charm here.

Apologies in advance for Imgur, but two other services I tried simply didn't work /sigh.

Why do you think this is an invasion map? It's just a map.

The small town I grew up in also had a specific Soviet doomsday theory. Which in hindsight, doesn’t feel very plausible.

In the wake of the George Floyd protests family talked about their concern that out of state “Antifa looters” were spotted driving down the interstate headed right for them.

I don’t mean to call you a liar, Im sure there indeed are some obscure targets, and your home might be one.

I do think it’s a fascinating phenomenon- this idea of small town obsession with their own destruction.

A quote from Terrence Malick’s BadLands goes something like:

> and if the reds ever do drop the bomb, well I hope they drop it right here in Rapid City (South Dakota).

In fairness to the parent poster, in the event of nuclear war an Air Force base with two runways longer than two miles each isn't an obscure target, it's just a target.

It's not just two runways it's the headquarters of the USAF Matrials Command since 1961 I think. Which is the biggest airforce command (by budget). They are responsible for running most R&D labs of the Airforce and for procuring new weapon systems and airplanes. It certainly would have been a major target. Dayton in many ways is still the birth place of new trends in aviation.

Guess which is a more important target to the enemy in the event of an all-out war: the runways, hangars, and fuel facilities or the research and development offices. (I mean, it's sort of an academic question if a well-placed enemy warhead makes it through...)

In the imagined scenario of a 1980s MAD first-strike, it's wherever the nuclear missile silos are. There's a lot of farmland around Dayton. I would not rule out the possibility that there is at least one nuclear launch site near Wright Patterson AFB.

The location of nuclear launch silos in the US is not a secret.

An Air Force base hosting one of the nine major commands doesn’t seem like an obscure target…

Lol, growing up in Ohio I've heard this same thing but for various different reasons over the years. Would be interesting to see an authoritative source if one exists

> I have an old Soviet invasion map

Can you please post this? That sounds so interesting.

https://www.sovietmaps.com/

Also I submitted that link as a fresh thread [1], because this admittedly fun rabbit hole has little to do with Intel and Columbus' sprawl.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30030346

I don't believe there's a town of any note in the United States that wasn't the target of at least one of the 30,000 Soviet nuclear weapons.

I don't think there's a city in the United States that isn't an active target of at least one of the 6,000 current Russian nuclear weapons.

I have a book that is all those old soviet maps - amazing how detailed they were. All hand drawn and they had detail down to individual houses and streets. Many time those maps were more detailed than the ones the US was making about itself!

Yep - one of my classrooms in Ohio was in the old fallout shelter. I saw the signs with radioactive label every morning going into the building. The location is now demolished.

Same. My high school was very near a GE plant in northern Cincinnati and I frequently heard how we were a target because of that. Seems plausible but based on other comments in this post, it may have just been cold war propaganda.

We also have a particle accelerator in Southern Ohio, I’ve heard it would be on a lower priority tier of things to nuke/otherwise destroy. Not sure how accurate the statement was, but I think it was from somewhere credible enough…

Wright Patt definitely has some high level stuff stored, I have a few friends who work engineering there.

"old Soviet invasion map"

Soviets had a concrete plan to invade Ohio? Wow. How were the troops supposed to cross the ocean?

>How were the troops supposed to cross the ocean?

The invaders would cross the ocean from an orbital path streaking in as multiple units launched from submersed platforms or silos in the Motherland raining down from heaven. Those invaders would not need to put a single boot on the ground.

They had more detailed maps of most of the US than the US had at the time.

https://www.wired.com/2015/07/secret-cold-war-maps/

When I was growing up the rumor was that both sides had enough nukes to destroy the entire earth 10x over. I have no idea whether that is even close to true but at that point every city is a target because, why not?

Do you have a link to this map?

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