"A rather macabre TMP Poll question" Topic

I just finished watching 'WarGames' on HBO Family, and it's led me to ask an interesting, if not rather morbid, poll question.

We're probably not likely to see the occurrence of a nuclear war in the immediate future like we were when this movie was released (in 1983), but when we did face that prospect, we all had a choice pertaining to what would've been our final act. My question is, given the choice of either staying in or within a primary targeted area, or making an attempt to flee as far as you could, as fast as you could, which would you have chosen?

A) Stay
B) Flee

No "boobies", no Zardoz….no foolin' around.

Stay. But then I'm a little off the target grid…

Stay and go up with the Crown of Creation. The living will envy the dead!

I think I would grab a bottle of Hornitios and sit on the front porch and not worry about a thing. I think I would rather go quickly in the flash, then die slowly from radiation poisoning.

I guess that would be an A.

Stay. And I'm in the center of a bullseye (west coast USN superport). Given what a post major exchange world would look like (even by the most optimistic projections), might as well get it over with in the first exchange.

Stay

We are not exactly in a target-rich environment, but even if we were, the chaos that would be present on the road would be way worse than staying home

Plus, we do have survivor stuff stashed in the cold storage in the basement

I figure, when the fallout settles down, the boys and I make a deal with the local Mennonite farmers – who as good God-fearing Anabaptists are opposed to violence – they feed us, we protect 'em – all that tactical training No. 1 son and his wife have would be mighty useful (not to mention their small arsenal)

B. Because there is no rational reason to stand and die. While the result is very likely to be the same, there is a chance at survival.

During this time period, I lived probably within 10 miles of Bethlehem Steel. Although it was on shaky grounds even this early, it was still a working and functional steel plant, and would have still had a lot of capacity, so at least one nuke was targeted for the area…

Damon.

When I was stationed at Andrews AFB (right outside Washington and home to Airforce One and both Nightwatch aircraft, our choices were stay behind and do the crispy critter thing or take the second Nightwatch (SP's, we had the guns) and to heck with the Assistant Secretary of HUD. Fortunately for both us and the Assistant Secretary, that never came up.

Currently the probability is one suitcase nuke in one city with no warning, so it's a just random luck if you spend serious urban time in a tasty target such as NYC or DC.

"We're probably not likely to see the occurrence of a nuclear war in the immediate future like we were when this movie was released (in 1983)…"

Probably not an all-out MAD exchange with an opponent like our former Soviet adversaries, no. But I think the odds of someone popping a few tacnukes or terrorists blowing up a city are much greater than they were back in the '80s. I think it's pretty much inevitable.

In the event that my town gets nuked and we have warning…I have a lot of family here, some more dependent than others. My chances of getting out of the blast zone are poor. I think I'd try to shelter in place. If I lived for a while after, I'd go looking for my next-of-kin, see how many I could collect or check off the list.

Excuse me?

Saginaw wrote:
I just finished watching 'WarGames' on HBO Family, and it's led me to ask an interesting, if not rather morbid, poll question.

We're probably not likely to see the occurrence of a nuclear war in the immediate future like we were when this movie was released (in 1983), but when we did face that prospect, we all had a choice pertaining to what would've been our final act. My question is, given the choice of either staying in or within a primary targeted area, or making an attempt to flee as far as you could, as fast as you could, which would you have chosen?

For many here this wasn't hypothetical. They did make a decision. I don't think many people really believed your proposition or they would have fled.

Also you believe that we faced the prospect of a nuclear death then, but not now?

I don't want to stray into Blue Fez terrain but the Soviets thought they were winning. Why launch a nuclear war when victory was inevitable? Fanatics, on the other hand, may indeed do so. A merchant ship with a nuke in a container, hard to spot.

Kyotebluer than blue asked

Question how reliable where the Soviet rockets??

Significantly less reliable than western ICBMs but they had a lot of them. So even if you weren't near a target, if the balloon had gone up, you might have been a random target from a misguided warhead.

If I had some foreknowledge that a nuclear attack was imminent, I'd try to get as far away as possible. I'm with Garand on this.

I would have parked outside Mather AFB where the 320th Bombardment Wing flew B-52s out of.

I would have made a break for it. I had a slew of nutty survivalist friends back then who were visibly disappointed when the wall came down… but I think they're getting excited again here lately.

Go to Ally Pally hill with a camping chair and my favourite beer

B. If you can save your family, you are a schmuck not to try.

A merchant ship with a nuke in a container, hard to spot.

And even harder to get the nuke to put inside the ship in the first place, except you are a government with nuclear capabilities… and that would be a very stupid way to declare a war on the United States, tantamount of mass suicide!

What Old Bear said.

Having never lived more than six or seven miles from a strategic nuclear target and remembering very well the Vulcans flying over with loaded bomb bays, I fully expected to die (or worse, be horribly maimed and then die). Britain is a small island packed with targets and people, so not much hope for any of us really. The will to live is very strong however, so it is just trying to choose the best way – hunker down in the basement with our bottles of water and hope to survive or make a feeble attempt to flee down the closed and choked motorways to some illusion of a place of safety.

As for a modern day, random terrorist attack? Been there, done that, just a feature of modern life. You are just as dead from a suitcase nuke, bio attack, random shooting or a nail bomb. More likely to be killed crossing the road than from a terrorist attack, just get on with living your life or they've won anyway.

I live quite close to a major target; my hope was that I would be close enough to be vaporized instantly.

You can run, but you would just die tired.

After watching threads, and being in one of the areas mentioned in the film as being destroyed if even one missile landed on Sheffield, it was kind of a no brainer.

At the time my mother had governmental clearance for a nuclear bunker space, but she could not bring husband or child, she said no.

Our four minute warning in the UK would not give us long enough time to consider going anywhere, and the system probably would not have worked so the first notice we would have got would have probably been the flash and blast wave… and you are not outrunning that.

I agree that the moment we change our lives against the unseen terrorist threat, they have won. All of the restrictions placed on aircraft and airports and body scanners at buildings is just a sign that the terrorists are winning. Again as Martin says – you have more chance of being killed by a car crash or crossing the road, or indeed by an ELE (Extinction Level Event) comet or asteriod impact than by being killed by terrorists.

Drink, Smile, Love, be Happy – for tomorrow you may be dead

Stay. Too many physical problems that would exacerbate any form of 'survival'.

Here in Our Nation's Capital we used to have a T-shirt that featured a mushroom cloud and the slogan: "Washington DC, We're Number One!"

I would just stay and fry (with a cold in hand) rather that try to flee on a road network that can't handle the normal daily traffic load.

Stay

A) I'd rather my family not endure living through Cormac McCarthy's "The Road" in the aftermath.

I would at least try to survive any way I could. But if radiation burns became too bad for me, perhaps I could somehow assist those more fortunate in escapeing.

I really find it interesting that everyone focuses on thier own personal circumstances, rather than being interested in the survival of the human race.

You can always put a gun to your head, or sit on a rocking chair and be blown to smithereens. But I personnally would rather spend my last few days at least trying to help people who at least have a chance of surviving. Or provideing comfort to those who won't.

Stay.

Not enough time on warning to get anywhere far enough from Groton, Electric Boat, Boston/New York, etc. Too target-rich an environment around here.
-Kle.

I've always had the good fortune to live right next to priority targets, saving me the trouble of that decision.

Zippy's comment about inevitability struck me as interesting. Talking to younger folks today, they are certainly aware of the threat posed by terrorists but they view the likelihood of a massive strike on US soil a being practically nil.

Those of us in our prime , whose childhood and teen years spanned the 70's and 80's, often felt like nuclear war really was inevitable.

B.

Do not go gently, etc.

Flee – and wait for Zardoz to find us….

The UK is a small island, the USSR had enough megatonnage pointing this way as to render 'flee' a non-starter.

If you doubt that statement, start here link

A) I would dither, think about it, debate with myself, and then when I decided to flee the roads would be jammed.
In other words, I would be like 90% of everybody else.

I will stay and hide in the toilet. Nobody hits that.

B. I'd try to give it a go.

Or…
Get painting on my unfinished minis…

At the time were were living in Omaha which probably had a dozen nukes designated for the SAC headquarters. We decided that if the sirens went off we'd get out the lawn chairs, put on our sunglasses, hold hands and wait.

Stay. As i still live within three (3) miles of Ellsworth AFB i do not see the point in fleeing. If i survive, i do, if not…

Theres also the option of riding it out in a lead-lined refrigerator…

Thanks to a few TMPers, they have made an observation that I've obviously overlooked.

While the prospects of an all-out nuclear exchange have pretty much fallen by the wayside, there is the remote possibility that some whackjob with an agenda and a suitcase nuke could walk into a major metropolitan area, small town, or anywhere, and pull the trigger. That scenario would be catastrophic, of course, but for those of us "oldies" who have lived through the Cold War, there's not that asphyxiating "sword of Damocles" feeling one sensed whenever relations between East and West became strained.

Anyway, in 1983, I would've picked B. But now, in the age of mini-nukes and dirty bombs, I don't think there is a choice if one doesn't know where and when the disaster could possibly happen without forewarning.

No Blue Fez intended.

Even in the 1950s the tea situation after a nuclear war was precticted to be 'very serious' news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/7382750.stm . By the 80s, what with the enormously larger Soviet arsenal, the post-war lack of tea would have been catastrophic.

Here in OKC, we were all pretty much of the "Hear the sirens; go for a nice walk" School.

Even in the days of "Surgical Strike" talk, OKC was (according to old friends in the Services) always on even the "short list" as we have Tinker AFB here (hose of you in the Services know what that means), the intersection of I-35 and I-40, and Will Rogers Airport (in case anything that might have tried landing at TAFB would have gone to the next large enough alternative.) Each was targeted for a ground bursting 5 Meg submarine launched warhead (from the Gulf of Mexico). That would have been, on this mostly dead flat prairie city, pretty much a total annihilation, no matter what you might do.

Of course, that was then, and this is now. While we seem to be spared a Soviet style first strike these days (well, or a while again, anyway), the risk of a terrorist act is far more likely, and, yes, probably inevitable, sooner or later.

Yeah, a really jolly topic….

TVAG

Having experienced such a dillemma in real life (The 1973 Arab-Israeli War) we (17th BW at Wright-Pat, Dayton (Fairborn, actually), Ohio, we had all flyable aircraft "elephant walked", cocked and ready to launch. We would be allowed to collect our families and meet at a "location" as soon as the last bird sucessfully launched.

During this time of crisis, I was amazed at the prevailing attitude of the unit was more interested in making sure we could do the most damage possible by getting as many acft launched before we were "gone". While all of us were going to try and get away, not many of us really felt we had much of a chance, but were game to try, anyway.

The talk of having just a few of us at that "location" to combat turn any surviving acft gave us hope! Hope, in such situations, can create miracles!

We eventually sttod down at the last minute, but the experience was not lost on any of us. We became more determined to find ways in which most of us could make it to the "location". It really solidified the determination of the entire Wing.

So, my choice would be "B". Live to fight another day and avenge those that didn't make it. As they say in show business, "The Show must go on!" Staying has a 100% chance for only one outcome, but leaving offers some chance at survival.

v/r
Tom

By the 80s, what with the enormously larger Soviet arsenal, the post-war lack of tea would have been catastrophic.

No tea? The threat of nuclear annihilation was worse than I thought.

Go out near the runway with my baseball glove. When the funny shadow starts getting bigger and bigger, yell, "I got it!"

No tea? The threat of nuclear annihilation was worse than I thought.

That's probably what saved us all. The Politburo's shocked realization that there wouldn't be enough lapsang souchong to go around undoubtedly led to cooler heads prevailing.

Another Brit so as mentioned by others running away on an island this small and packed as it was with so many targets would tend to be pointless.

So i figured A) unless I happened to be on holiday around the Med when i'd try B) !

Well the Russians are a tea-drinking nation with their Samovars, but maybe they would have been more worried about conflagration of vodka stocks?

B.

Kind of B.

I didn't move to the Denver metro (another purported high priority target) area until 1980. Before that living in a town of about 1000 a couple of hundred miles from a strategic target actually meant just hunkering down and waiting for the flood of refugees. Although I suppose that if the USSR had enough KTs to spare they might have thrown one at the uranium mill that used to be 11 miles away???

I would be turning the key to launch my flight's 10 Minuteman III ICBMs.

Once they'd flown Grand Duke would you

a) sit tight and hope
b) run for the hills
c) if you told us you'd have to shoot us

In 1983 when I was 10 we often used to talk about what we would do when the 4 minute warning went off (or didn't go of more likely). But since we were half a mile from one of the Vulcan bomber disbursal sites we would have been vaporised even if we could run a 4 minute mile

In high school they showed us this film in 'preparation for life', or preparation for death as we called it that week.

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