On "Duck and Cover"

[cmdr_zoom]

It's been fashionable for a while now to dump on this old Civil Defense propaganda educational film, and in some ways it is naive and uninformed by today's standards. (There's a lot that no one, even the military, knew about the Bomb back then.) But it should be remembered that when it was made, back in 1950, the Reds had perhaps a few dozen bombs, total, and they probably would have been delivered by big slow bombers. Those of us growing up thirty-odd years later, when there were enough MIRVs to hit every silo, base and major city (and most of the small ones) and blot out the sun, faced a very different situation.

Comments

[caluche.livejournal.com]

Even now though in an NBC operating environment, "take cover" is still very frequently cited as a good first response to use of battlefield / tactical nuclear device use (presuming that cover doesn't have depleted uranium armor subject to fast fission / neutron radiation thanks to the use of such a weapon nearby).

wrt "each side thought they were the good guys" - I got to experience this with Vika's aunt, uncle and father in Kiev. Interesting hearing it from the Soviet side, and their impression on what the outcome of such a war would have been.

[cmdr-zoom.livejournal.com]

And that was?