UK atomic war attack predictions and civil defence plans

Basic assumptions
In the early 1980s it was thought the UK could be wiped out with use of ~15% of the total Soviet nuclear arsenal. It was also assumed there would be a nuclear, chemical and conventional war across Europe and Turkey.

The theoretical OSL attack
Operation Square Leg was a 1980 British government home defence Command Post, MoD command and in field exercise which tested the Transition to War and Home Defence roles of the MoD and Government and a mock nuclear attack on the British Isles which assumed that 131 500Kt to 3Mt nuclear weapons would fall on Britain with a total yield of ~205 megatons with 69 ground bursts and 62 air burst occurring. Whist this was thought to be the most likely outcome some thought it could be worse, so the report also stated that a total strike in excess of 1,000Mt may also occur. This infact was nothing like the Soviet's Seven days to the River Rhine (1979) war plan.

The human toll was estimated at-
 * Dead- 29 million (53%)
 * Serious injuries 7 million (12%)
 * Short-term survivors 19 million (35%).
 * Long terms survivors 5 million (9%)

Later official criticism
The exercise was later critiqued because of-
 * 1) The exclusive use of megaton yield weapons an average of 1.5 megatons, when in reality the Soviets warheads would be mixed and mostly in the low hundred kiloton range.
 * 2) Some thought an attack totalling 200Mt in yield was too low and it had to be assumed be much higher.
 * 3) No targets in Inner London are attacked, such as the government offices at Whitehall and Heathrow airport.
 * 4) Eastbourne, a stretch of empty County Armagh farmland and a small village in County Derry/Londonderry were hit for no obvious reason.
 * 5) According to some civil servants, the whole theory was apparently written up by panic-mongers, alarmists, warmongers, sceptics and cynics.

The theoretical OHR attack
A combined communications and civil defence exercise planned for September and October 1982.

Operation Exercise Hard Rock assumed a conventional war in Europe lasting 2–3 days was occering, during which the UK was to be attacked with conventional weapons followed up with a limited nuclear exchange with 54 warheads being used against various military targets at the end. After many public protests and CND's criticism of the scenario the exercise was postponed indefinitely.

It was predicted there would be 7.9 million dead and 5 million injured.

Later official criticism
The exercise was later critiqued because of-
 * 1) The scenario was ridiculed by the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament
 * 2) The New Statesman later claimed the targets were picked by political motivated MPs and not professionals working for the Ministry of Defence.
 * 3) nuclear submarine base HMNB Clyde was not hit.

The media
Operation Square Leg was one of many military exercises used to estimate the results of the Soviet nuclear attack in the 1984 BBC anti-nuclear propaganda drama Threads.

The New Statesman later claimed the targets in Operation Exercise Hard Rock were picked by political motivated MPs and not professionals working for the Ministry of Defence.

Public opinion


Naturally, the people of places like Newbury, which was near the Greenham Air Base were terrified and knew under any scenario, they were to end up piles of radioactive ash. This only helped prove CND's case for banning the bomb.

In September 1981 after a Welsh group, Women for Life on Earth, arrived at Greenham to protest against the decision of the British government to allow cruise missiles to be based there. The camp stayed in suite until 2000. It became ugly and violent as left winger agitators, members of the British Labour Party and local yobs tried to hijack it so as to cause trouble for the British establishment during the mid 1980s. The British government then played on the apparent breakdown in public order and portrayed them all as an anti-establishment rabble and 'leftist' traitors.

250,000 worried people protested against Operation Exercise Hard Rock fearing it would provoke the Soviets and/or was a ruse to hide a cover attack on the USSR. 24 mostly Labour run councils refused to participate largly as part of a Labour party attempt to politicly undermine the government.

The United States and the Soviet Union signed the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty in 1987, which led to the removal of all nuclear missiles from the base which was completed by in March 1991, and the 501st TMW inactivated on 4 June 1991. The base closed soon afterwards, became a park in 1997 and a memorial was then erected in 2000. The base was never used to deploy nukes in anger, so was in the end a rather costly waste of time.

RAF Upper Heyford peace camp, was inspired by the Greenham Common Women's Peace Camp, peace camp was established on Easter Sunday 1982 and remained for over two years with activities designed to highlight the fact that the base had F-111 aircraft armed with nuclear weapons on fast response. It had earlier had nuclear armed British V-bombers. More than 4,000 people took part over four day protest-come-riot in 1983, with a total of 752 people were arrested.

RAF Upper Heyford closed in 1994 and was partly turned in to a housing instate and retail park in the 1990's. It was used at least for non nuclear wartime reposes.

Author's note
I was 10 back then and id not like America occuping our nation under false pretences in the 1950s, but neither did I like the 1980s rabble who dod not understand that we needed to see off the Soviets now relations had broken down.

Also see

 * 1) Germany's Fulda Gap
 * 2) Swedish pseudo-neutrality
 * 3) Seven days to the River Rhine (1979)
 * 4) French nuclear plans and the Force de Dissuasion
 * 5) The Swiss National Redoubt (1880-2010)
 * 6) North German Plain
 * 7) Operation Northern Norway
 * 8) The southern Danube route
 * 9) Soviet/NATO invasion of Finland

Links

 * 1) https://falloutwarning.wordpress.com/category/uk/
 * 2) http://www.theyworkforyou.com/debates/?id=1981-02-05a.396.8
 * 3) http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1981/nov/26/civil-defence-1
 * 4) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Square_Leg
 * 5) http://thisisnotengland.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?t=340
 * 6) http://tridentploughshares.org/using-as-an-example-the-effect-on-britain-of-a-trident-sized-force/
 * 7) https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/operation_square_leg_targets
 * 8) https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/operation_square_leg_targets_3
 * 9) http://addiator.blogspot.co.uk/2005/07/london-bombs-calm-down.html
 * 10) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RAF_Greenham_Common
 * 11) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_weapons_and_the_United_Kingdom#Attack_scenarios