Military exercise staged 35 years ago this week almost triggered World War III - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: Homer J Simpson
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 21, 2018, 11:49:37 pm
content: Interesting reading.http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20181108-the-wargame-that-could-have-ended-the-world

author: SiliconWizard
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 22, 2018, 06:54:34 pm
content: Have those exercises really ended?https://www.euronews.com/2018/10/30/nato-war-exercises-in-norway

author: Homer J Simpson
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 22, 2018, 07:23:29 pm
content: More for those interested.To me this stood out in the original article."Unlike previous exercises, Able Archer 83 included encrypted communications..........."Field Station Berlin or Teufelsberghttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TeufelsbergAble Archer 83https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Able_Archer_83Pretty amazing time. The height of the cold war, East and West Germany.A lot of the younger people now have no clue about all of the history.

author: tggzzz
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 22, 2018, 09:23:16 pm
content: Quote from: Homer J Simpson on November 22, 2018, 07:23:29 pmIn the 60s I knew someone that had crawled under the fence, from Czechoslovakia to Austria.In the 70s I went through the Iron Curtain border 6 times, on a school trip. I looked across the death strips, and was amazed at how little there was to buy in E Berlin's premier departrment store.In the 80s the general public realised the US wasn't at Greenham Common (etc) to protect the UK - it was so a non-nuke war would be fought in Europe, not in the US.In 1989 I was in Berlin, on business, less than a week after the wall came down. The whole city was in a daze, and British squaddies were handing out tea to people as they stood astride the wall's foundations, looking along its length.Different times indeed; the nature of warfare has completely changed.

author: IanMacdonald
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: November 22, 2018, 09:33:59 pm
content: In one broken arrow incident, a multi-megaton nuke that was jettisoned prior to an emergency landing went through all of its arming sequence except for a single 3-position switch with safe-arm-safe positions.That switch quite possibly saved the human race.As a consequence there was a rethink about having aircraft stooging around aimlessly with live nukes on board.When you look at it, were were not just lucky but VERY lucky.

author: ebastler
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 22, 2018, 09:43:08 pm
content: Priceless architecture on that main antenna building at Teufelsberg.

author: coppercone2
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 22, 2018, 09:47:08 pm
content: fascinating history about the cold war : the movie buffalo soldierstalks about able archer too

author: Gromitt
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: November 23, 2018, 12:31:27 pm
content: There is a German TV-series called "Der gleiche Himmel" ("The same sky" in Englishhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Same_Sky_(TV_series))set around 1975 that includes Teufelsberg, East German spies and general cold war stuff.It's on Swedish television at the moment ("Under samma himmel" på SVTPlay).

author: The March Hare
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: November 23, 2018, 01:14:27 pm
content: As I personally recall it, it was the destruction of KAL-007 that previous week that had most of us wondering if Ronnie was going to back off or double down.Lets not forget the "We're bombing Russia in 5 minutes" claims he didn't know the mic was on whoopsie. Man I miss the 80's.