Raise a glass to Colonel Stanislav Yefgrafovich Petrov - He saved your life

[TheBlueRaja]

23 years ago today - this man saved your life, the planet and everything on it.

Makes you think a bit, especially when you take a look at this...



Im wondering how we are still here to be honest.

[bopdude]

Does make you wonder ................................ what if

[foreverwar]

Originally Posted by TheBlueRaja

23 years ago today - this man saved your life, the planet and everything on it.

Makes you think a bit, especially when you take a look at this...



Im wondering how we are still here to be honest.

TBR, agree with you about our Soviet friend - that must have taken a lot of guts.

However, the 20 things listed are fairly tenuous - 11 out of 20 (3-13)are about the Cuban Missile Crisis, and most of the rest are fairly inflated (imho). It actually states "The probability of actual progression to nuclear war on any one of the occasions listed may have been small, due to planned "fail-safe" features had failed."
Don't quite understand "features had failed"?

There are lots of checks and balances before weapons are deployed, and most of the "incidents" were just the first steps in multi-step sequences, with each of the steps having a go-nogo decision attached. The planes getting ready to / taking off always had to happen, because you had to get in the air asap to avoid being flash-fried.

[TheDaddy]

Originally Posted by TheBlueRaja

Im wondering how we are still here to be honest.

It is quite surprising when you consider over 50 nukes have been 'lost'
http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/cold.war...ows/intro.html

[Stuart C]

Originally Posted by foreverwar

TBR, agree with you about our Soviet friend - that must have taken a lot of guts.

However, the 20 things listed are fairly tenuous - 11 out of 20 (3-13)are about the Cuban Missile Crisis, and most of the rest are fairly inflated (imho). It actually states "The probability of actual progression to nuclear war on any one of the occasions listed may have been small, due to planned "fail-safe" features had failed."
Don't quite understand "features had failed"?

There are lots of checks and balances before weapons are deployed, and most of the "incidents" were just the first steps in multi-step sequences, with each of the steps having a go-nogo decision attached. The planes getting ready to / taking off always had to happen, because you had to get in the air asap to avoid being flash-fried.

As I understand it, in this country and the US, no one person can order Nukes to be fired. Even once the order is given, there are many ways to countermand it..

[Jules]

Makes for scarey reading.

[foreverwar]

Originally Posted by Jules

Makes for scarey reading.

Here's my (imho) definition of scary - I was stationed in West Berlin 1978-1980 (see below for a map of East Germany, showing Berlin surrounded by various Russian and East German armies and air forces). In the event of an impending conflict, we were supposed to keep the Russians/East Germans at bay with our trusty SLR's (to be fair, we had the 2nd Royal Anglians and 1st Paras as well, and a couple of helis from the Army Air Corp). You just had to not worry about it, otherwise you would have gone loopy.

http://www.usmlm.org/home/soviets/GSFGOB.htm this page will give you a list of the Russian units - there's a lot of them.

[Tinky]

[quote=TheDaddy;34124728]It is quite surprising when you consider over 50 nukes have been 'lost' /quote]

I'm off to check the garden shed

[me283]

Originally Posted by TheBlueRaja

23 years ago today - this man saved your life, the planet and everything on it.

Makes you think a bit, especially when you take a look at this...



Im wondering how we are still here to be honest.

A hero. I wonder what he would think of the world today... and whether he thinks it was worth saving. I also wonder how safe we are today as well, with so many other "hair triggers" around...

I guess we will never realise for sure, and anyway, if the big bang were to happen then we wouldn't know much about it anyway.

[Tinky]

Nothing in the shed, off to raise a couple of glasses of the amber nectar instead!

Here's to you Stan! Lang may yer lum reek!

[TheBlueRaja]

Originally Posted by Tinky

Here's to you Stan! Lang may yer lum reek!

LOL!!!

Although its Lang may yer lum reek wi other folks coal!

Still perfectly apt though

[SMG]

Originally Posted by foreverwar

Here's my (imho) definition of scary - I was stationed in West Berlin 1978-1980 (see below for a map of East Germany, showing Berlin surrounded by various Russian and East German armies and air forces). In the event of an impending conflict, we were supposed to keep the Russians/East Germans at bay with our trusty SLR's (to be fair, we had the 2nd Royal Anglians and 1st Paras as well, and a couple of helis from the Army Air Corp). You just had to not worry about it, otherwise you would have gone loopy.

I remember those days m8, 1st Corps, Spearhead, Armoured Combat Engineers, we were so close. Had a lecture from a war planner who made it very plain that if the east attacked, we would be wiped out within the first 24 hours, & then it would be up to the TA & Reservists to carry on. We had extensive NBC training. I remember we set up a rebro & a nuclear o/p in one location from the top of the biggest hill around. Wasnt much comfort to know I would melt a millisecond before my mates. But, like you said, you didnt think too much about it.

[foreverwar]

Originally Posted by SMG

I remember those days m8, 1st Corps, Spearhead, Armoured Combat Engineers, we were so close. Had a lecture from a war planner who made it very plain that if the east attacked, we would be wiped out within the first 24 hours, & then it would be up to the TA & Reservists to carry on. We had extensive NBC training. I remember we set up a rebro & a nuclear o/p in one location from the top of the biggest hill around. Wasnt much comfort to know I would melt a millisecond before my mates. But, like you said, you didnt think too much about it.

Those were the days - fear of thermonuclear devastation thru the day, Schultheiss & Berliner Kindl beer at night time; if the Russians had attacked, we would have made sure there was no beer and bratwurst left for them - it was a dirty job, but someone had to do it.

We (my unit 26SU, Berlin) were very fortunate - because of our job (can't say what it was, wink, wink, but if you thought of GCHQ and NSA, you wouldn't go far wrong ), we would usually be forewarned of any "tension", because of the obvious escalation of forces and troop movements. The War Plan for West Berlin was
1) evacuate the 26SU personnel to French/German border, so we could continue our job "monitoring"
2) evacuate the Forces families back to the UK
3) send extra ammo for the squaddies left behind

I thought this was a very good plan, myself, but the Army guys, for some reason, used to get quite upset about it.

And the TA - or as we used to call them, the "tank traps". They would be sent in to slow down the Russian/East German armour until the Regulars got reinforced.

Aaaaah, those were the days - cheap beer and spirits, Overseas Living Allowance (which the poor bloody squaddies in Iraq and Afghanistan don't get, apparently), support and love from the local Germans (us or the Russians, guess who they preferred), with the slight downside that you may be vapourised at any moment. You try telling that to the kids of today, tchhh!

[Ramrod]

I wonder if there is any way we can give a small donation to Stanislav Yefgrafovich Petrov? I'm sure he needs all the financial help he can get.....

---------- Post added at 17:40 ---------- Previous post was at 17:34 ----------

You and I in a little toy shop, buy a bag of baloons with the money we've got.........wallow in the nostalgia!