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Perimeter : The Soviet Doomsday weapon

Braznor

Braznor

Diamond Member
Pretty interesting read here. Dr. Strangelove anyone?

http://www.wired.com/politics/security/magazine/17-10/mf_deadhand?currentPage=all

...The technical name was Perimeter, but some called it Mertvaya Ruka, or Dead Hand. It was built 25 years ago and remained a closely guarded secret. With the demise of the USSR, word of the system did leak out, but few people seemed to notice. In fact, though Yarynich and a former Minuteman launch officer named Bruce Blair have been writing about Perimeter since 1993 in numerous books and newspaper articles, its existence has not penetrated the public mind or the corridors of power. The Russians still won't discuss it, and Americans at the highest levels—including former top officials at the State Department and White House—say they've never heard of it. When I recently told former CIA director James Woolsey that the USSR had built a doomsday device, his eyes grew cold. "I hope to God the Soviets were more sensible than that." They weren't....
 
scary.... yet cool.
Whats freaky is the little graph with the warhead count. To think we each had FORTY THOUSAND warheads.... wow.
 
That isn't a weapon. That's just a launch mechanism. 404 no doomsday weapon found.

By doomsday weapon I was expecting something like a 400,000,000 megaton bomb or some bullshit like that. This is just a method of launching all of the other existing weapons.
 
I honestly don't get it.
There is really no point to it if it's kept secret.
Did they really invest so much money and technology just for potential revenge?
This would be the ultimate deterrent, and that would only work if it was known.
It would guarantee MAD.
 
To think about how close we came as a species to wiping ourselves out because two countries got agitated with each other.... it's just disturbing and depressing. 🙁

And we're not out of that yet either. We're still retarded, and we still have the awesome capability to nuke ourselves.

We should put all of Earth's nukes under lock and key, to be used only if/when an external enemy presents itself as an aggressor.
 
B.S.

Another nuclear fear story with a typical mass media side plot of blaming the development on Reagan. How is it that people are so gullible?

-KeithP
 
Most people have never heard of PSE.
Stands for Petroleum Scorched Earth.
It's a series of conventional bombs with radioactive material surrounding them that have been hidden around Saudi Arabian oil installations. The idea is that any invading country would not be able to use their oil nor even work their oilfields for many years. It's a deterrent to agression.

http://hnn.us/articles/11802.html
 
KeithP said:
B.S.

Another nuclear fear story with a typical mass media side plot of blaming the development on Reagan. How is it that people are so gullible?

-KeithP
Click to expand...

No, I'm pretty sure I've actually done research on this before, last year or so. Also, there are a few other nuke-related stories out of Russia that are shocking.

In the early 80s, for instance, they had a real Wargames scenario on their hands, and we were the target of a retaliation that almost actually happened.

The regular military officer in charge of the system was actually away, and the guy that saw the computer was showing multiple incoming missiles out of the U.S. was, according to the story, a little less trigger-happy. He argued that it had to be a malfunction in the system, that the current politics would suggest is entirely unlikely the U.S. would suddenly launch a devastating attack against them. One button press could have changed the world, because the system was designed and had live-connections with multiple missile systems.
 
destrekor said:
No, I'm pretty sure I've actually done research on this before, last year or so. Also, there are a few other nuke-related stories out of Russia that are shocking.

In the early 80s, for instance, they had a real Wargames scenario on their hands, and we were the target of a retaliation that almost actually happened.

The regular military officer in charge of the system was actually away, and the guy that saw the computer was showing multiple incoming missiles out of the U.S. was, according to the story, a little less trigger-happy. He argued that it had to be a malfunction in the system, that the current politics would suggest is entirely unlikely the U.S. would suddenly launch a devastating attack against them. One button press could have changed the world, because the system was designed and had live-connections with multiple missile systems.
Click to expand...

I read the same article (it may have been WIRED too?) Really scary.
 
Permissive Action Links

When: 1960s
What: Midway through the Cold War, American leaders began to worry that a rogue US officer might launch a small, unauthorized strike, prompting massive retaliation. So in 1962, Robert McNamara ordered every nuclear weapon locked with numerical codes.
Effect: None. Irritated by the restriction, Strategic Air Command set all the codes to strings of zeros. The Defense Department didn't learn of the subterfuge until 1977.

if true, ROTFL
 
techs said:
Most people have never heard of PSE.
Stands for Petroleum Scorched Earth.
It's a series of conventional bombs with radioactive material surrounding them that have been hidden around Saudi Arabian oil installations. The idea is that any invading country would not be able to use their oil nor even work their oilfields for many years. It's a deterrent to agression.

http://hnn.us/articles/11802.html
Click to expand...

Could we somehow trick them into detonating those? The payoff would be well worth it - no more Wahhabism, no more terrorism and so on...
 
techs said:
Most people have never heard of PSE.
Stands for Petroleum Scorched Earth.
It's a series of conventional bombs with radioactive material surrounding them that have been hidden around Saudi Arabian oil installations. The idea is that any invading country would not be able to use their oil nor even work their oilfields for many years. It's a deterrent to agression.

http://hnn.us/articles/11802.html
Click to expand...

Schwarzkopf said his biggest fear in GW1 was Saddam, et al doing something like this and killing troops, or having a hidden nuke for troops to be over when detonated.
 
techs said:
Most people have never heard of PSE.
Stands for Petroleum Scorched Earth.
It's a series of conventional bombs with radioactive material surrounding them that have been hidden around Saudi Arabian oil installations. The idea is that any invading country would not be able to use their oil nor even work their oilfields for many years. It's a deterrent to agression.

http://hnn.us/articles/11802.html
Click to expand...

too bad if some insurgent blew those up. gas spikes again!
 
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