So this is part 3 of the post of a while back. The questions were
- What might have combat in Europe at this time (Bay of Pigs/ Berlin Crisis/Cuban Missile Crisis) looked like?
- If the war escalates to nuclear exchanges what are we looking at?
The first is at some level both hard to handle and easy to handle. In the hard part I find little to nothing on US/NATO or Soviet/Warsaw Pact orders of battle in easily accessed (i.e. internet) form. As my access to scholarly libraries is very limited (read none) and my time to pour through such works even more limited I will have to make do with limited resources. The easy part is strategy from that period is clear. For mid 1950's the strategy was that NATO conventional forces as a trip wire to warn about the oncoming Soviet forces and delay them until strategic nuclear forces could be brought into play to affect the situation . This document has a fair outline of the NATO strategies from 1949-1969. There was a shift under way to a more flexible response starting in about 1957 (see pg. 22-24 of that document) but it was not complete as the Kennedy administration took over in January of 1961. Kennedy and his various advisors (Particularly Macnamara) were adamant about having other options both nuclear (but more limited than all out nuclear war) and using only conventional forces. These were only under development when the Berlin crisis unfolded and were still not complete as of the Cuban Missile Crisis. So effectively the US policy was still tripwire/massive retaliation throughout this period. For the Berlin Crisis the Soviets might have considered striking or more likely would have stumbled into a response by some misinterpretation of NATO operations. For Bay of Pigs if the US had started to defeat Cuba the Soviets might have used an attack out of East Germany as a counter. Honestly they seemed to understand the NATO position and given their very limited strategic forces at that point I think they would have written Castro off at that point. The Missile crisis really was more a naval operation due to the blockade. Given period weapons thing might have quickly moved from conventional to tactical nuclear weapons (Nuclear tipped torpedos against US battle groups, nuclear ASROC by US against Soviet subs). Given US policy at that time to treat any nuclear weapon used against US forces as an attack upon US soil this likely would have degraded quickly to a nuclear exchange.
The materials on the nuclear side of the question are more definitive for at least the US side. A precis describing the history of the SIOP-63 (Strategic Integrated Operating Plan 1963) is available. SIOP-63 was literally the outline for the US war plan and was what was in operation in September of 1962 at the time of the Cuban Missile crisis. Unfortunately the plan itself seems still classified some 60+ years later. SIOP-62 is allegedly declassified, but I'm not having luck finding it online. What I did find is this excellent Nuclear Order Of Battle (NOB)by Robert Norris. This is one of the best of this kind of things I've seen for any period. This also provides a nice overview of US strategic nuclear policy throughout the period.
I'm going to use what the USSR could have done in a nuclear response to the Cuban missile crisis as the worst case. As the Berlin Crisis and the Bay of Pigs were earlier the Soviet assets would have been fewer and would have been minus the Cuban assets. First let's look at strategic assets that can reach the US. The NOB document says 6-8 SS-4 missiles with ~1200 mile (statute I believe) range were available in Cuba each with a 1 Megaton weapon. There are a further 36 SS-7 missiles available each with either a 3MT warhead (13000 NM range) or a 5-6MT warhead (11,000) range. Of the SS-7 only 10 are in hardened silos so they are heavily "use it or lose it" Readying time is ~1/2 hour for the siloed weapons 3+ hours for the exposed ones. The Cuban weapons were exposed it is not clear what their readiness state was. All of these are liquid fueled if you fuel them and don't use them before the time expires there is a several day recycle time. If its a preemptive US attack probably 10-12 get launched with maybe a 20-25% dud rate so 8-10 3MT+ explosions. Certainly NYC, Washington DC, LA and Chicago are targeted. Probably also Detroit, Pittsburgh, Vandenberg (one of our main missile sites). After that it starts to be a wild guess with anything strategic and military in nature being high on the list industrial stuff a very close second. If the Soviets shoot first its 42+ warheads again assuming a 20-25% failure rate that's ~32 large detonations.
The bomber force is mostly TU-95 Bears and M-4 Bisons (the latter notoriously short ranged). There were also Il-28 Beagle medium range bombers in Cuba though whether or how many free fall atomic weapons existed on the island at that time is unclear at best. NORAD at that point was heavily equipped with various Century series interceptors armed with Falcon guided missiles as well as the notorious nuclear tipped Genie rocket. In addition there were many batteries of Nike Zeus surface to air missiles protecting large cities and some bases. The NOB author thinks the odds of any of these getting through is slim and I think he is if anything overestimating their odds. This is a suicide run with very little chance of any success at all.
Finally there were Soviet sub launched missile (cruise, and ballistic). These have VERY short ranges (100-400 NM) and must surface to launch and launching takes time. There are about 95 total of these on various platforms. Call it 100, I think maybe 10% of the missiles get off. Using my usual 20-25% failure rate that's another 8 coastal strikes.
I suspect the US gets hit and ~40 nuclear detonations is a very bad day. Deaths will be in the millions likely 10's of millions. In some areas transport will cease as well as major services. The Florida of Pat Frank's Alas Babylon is probably on the right order of magnitude for some regions especially coastal ones with large cities and critical strategic targets. At the low end the US walks away staggering, on the high end it is teetering on a razors edge of collapse. Where the damage is is dependent on what gets launched and what detonates, there will be some serious randomness to it and some targets (NYC, Washington DC) likely have multiple weapons targeted to deal with that even given the paucity of weapons. NATO countries particularly the UK and Turkey are hit hard due to their hosting IRBM and SLBM sub basing (UK) and the Soviets likely using their short and intermediate range hardware against those in a use it or lose it response. Most NATO bases that host US nuclear weapons would be targeted these are all over Europe. I think the UK is in bad shape, Turkey it is hard to tell. Other European countries (e.g. Belgium, France, perhaps West Germany (BDR) ) are likely to be targeted as well as US bases in Japan and probably the Philippines. The latter two being islands seem likely targets for the short ranged Soviet SLBM and cruise missiles. Although the JDF naval forces might just surprise the soviet subs.
The reverse is a very different matter. The US still holds a massive superiority in strategic weapons due to that being our primary response to anything larger than a pack of Pioneer Youth crossing into the BDR. Looking to the NOB referenced earlier we have this 229 ICBM (Atlas and Titan), 144 SLBM (Polaris), 105 MRBM (Primarily Thor) and 1300 Strategic Bombers (B52, B58, some B47 and likely even a few B50). Oh and the UK has some of their V bombers armed with thermonuclear weapons and they have made it clear they will be targeting cities not military targets, Now probably only half of the US bomber force was actually useful and who knows if there were enough free fall weapons to arm them all. I think my 80% rate is good guess for the ICBM. The warheads for the Polaris had an issue (although one had been full up tested in the Frigate Bird shot and that had yielded nominally though the Circular Error Probable (CEP) was huge) so maybe 30% full yield and another 10-20 percent low kiloton fizzles, rest out and out duds. Given the poor CEP (miles) on the Frigate Bird test we can ignore those fizzles at least as militarily insignificant. Finally the Bombers. Period surface to Air missiles as well as the PVO are an issue. But with several hundred attackers some are going to get through, The UK V bombers just add to the confusion, not sure how big that force was in 1962, probably 100 tops. So maybe 10% of each force drop their weapons that's 70 weapons give or take. So recapping using my failure estimates that's 183 strikes from ICBM, 43 full SLBM strikes, plus ~70 free fall weapon strikes. That's 296 strikes most in the Megaton+ range in the Soviet Union.
The precis on the SIOP63 made it clear that one concern of the new plan was to minimize or avoid collateral damage to our allies and to limit damage to targets that were not of a military nature. As noted earlier I have NOT found the declassified SIOP63 so the strategic goals as seen by that period are not available to me. However, I can speculate. You don;t have to be an idiot to figure out that the unstoppable ICBM are likely to be used to attack other ICBM sites in the hope that those weapons are still being readied. It is not clear how effective that would have been. The US was at DEFCON 2, just a step away from a full shooting war. In addition the Commander in Chief for SAC had sent that notification (and his notice effectively a war warning) in the CLEAR (cf NOB) so the Soviets would know as a warning. I would expect the Soviets were at their highest alert. about 2/3 of their missiles were in hardened sites with 15-20 minute normal response times. The soft sites had a run up of ~3hrs, they could hold at that for some period (24-36 Hrs?) but once done would need some refit before being ready again. Not sure you catch many on the ground, but every one you catch is one city or base that makes it to tomorrow. It's a gamble I think the politicians and generals would be willing to make. Another thing the early strike weapons will be used for is to clear the way for the bombers. If that wave can reduce PVO and SAM sites the yield of the bomber wave can be improved to perhaps a 30% success rate. You now get 200+ delivered weapons from it instead of 70. Lastly command and communication will be targeted. In a world where 30-45 minutes is all you've got adding 10-15 minutes of confusion (especially in a system that is rigidly top down) may make a large difference. I believe Warsaw Pact nations would be hit with "tactical" weapons on medium bombers as well as fighters. Also short range SRBM like Corporal and Honest John are likely to be used to attack air bases, again to help the bomber wave.
My opinion is that the Soviet Union would cease to exist as a functional nation. Allegedly it has a population of 209 million people by their own 1959 census. That seems somewhere between unlikely and ludicrous as US Census of 1960 yields a US population of 179 million. The Soviet Union took massive loss of the males of reproduction age population in WWII. Other numbers put the USSR at 120 Million which still seems high. Their densest populations are around cities as they were struggling to industrialize coming into WWII and then throughout the Cold War to compete with the US. Those dense populations are going to take a big hit as is the rail and road infrastructure needed to move things around. The initial strike probably kills 10-50 million. Afterward there will be famine in all but the most rural sections (and likely even there to some degree). If the land mass of the USSR has a population of 25 Million by the end of this I would be deeply surprised.
Generally I think the US fairs somewhat better than many thought it would at the time. That is NOT to say its in any way good. A large portion of Americas industrial might is gone, and it probably can no longer project power past its borders. It has lost 10-30% of its population. Europe is probably a wasteland with large losses due to starvation over time. The Soviet Union is a hellscape near its cities and rather unpleasant anywhere downwind of them or military installations. No one is coming to help, and some (Red China?) may be coming to pick the bones. I would not be writing to you as I was a 18 month old down wind of NYC and near the Groton Sub Base. In this case we really avoided a catastrophe by the skin of our teeth
Tregonsee (L2) signing out for now
