Originally Posted by perseus

consider this extract from his new book, ‘One Minute to Midnight’, by Michael Dobb, which illustrates the stresses inflicted on a isolated Russian crew being simultaneously, depth charged, cooked to death, and suffocated in a submarine running out of air.

This is a fictitious book correct? Submariners know the difference between sounding charges and depth charges. Yes, the USSR sent four (or five) submarines to Cuba. One new system that made its debut during this crisis for the USN was SOSUS! All but one submarine was detected and forced to the surface!

Originally Posted by perseus

The Americans hit us with something stronger than a grenade, apparently some kind of practice depth charge, we thought, "that’s it that’s the end".

The threat level was far to high to tempt the situation by using sounding explosives. The USN anticipated that the Soviet subs had nuclear warheads on their torpedoes.

Originally Posted by perseus

In addition to everything else, he had been unable to establish communications with the General staff.

Two of the captains of those subs have been interviewed. They stated, whether the Soviet subs started from bases in the Barents Sea or Black Sea the captains of the subs had been given authority to use nuclear torpedoes if attacked. With SOSUS support, the subs never got close to any aircraft carriers. The only ships the subs saw when they surfaced were the destroyers of the 'hunter-killer' groups.

Originally Posted by gman992

It wouldn't have happened if Kennedy didn't abandon all of those soldiers on the beach at the Bay of Pigs.

Even if President Kennedy had allowed the air support, the CIA totally miscalculated the sentiments of the Cuban people. The Cuban people were firmly behind their government. Cuban intelligence also knew something was brewing. When the invasion first started, Cuban forces were placed between the beaches and the mountainous jungles many miles inland. The invasion force if things went wrong were supposed to escape into the mountains and start a gorilla war with Cuban military forces.

Originally Posted by gman992

secondly, I don't think that I would've felt safer if there were missiles that could reach the US 90 miles off the shore or on some Russian boomer off of Long Island or for that matter Mother Russia herself.

The effort to place missiles in Cuba was to offset the IRBMs in Turkey and Italy. An IRBM in Cuba would have a flight time of five to ten minutes for all targets east of the Mississippi. A Bear bomber making an attack would have provided NORAD far more time to defend against the threat. The Bears also did not carry cruise missiles back then.
Remember back then the USN had the Polaris Missile and the USSR had no equivalent. So the possibility of a decapitation strike against "DC" and other leadership elements of the USA would have been far greater.
If the USA could not get the missiles out of Cuba, what would prevent Cuba years later from threatening one of their southern neighbors with these missiles?

Originally Posted by perseus

Is there any way the RISK of nuclear war could have been avoided altogether? That this situation arose at all is unacceptable in my book.

The missiles were deterants. What was to stop the USA from launching missiles onto Leningrad, Moscow, Vladivostok or Murmansk? ONLY the simple knowledge that missiles will drop on New York, Washington, Los Angeles and THEM DAYUM TEXAN'S!

Originally Posted by perseus

1) Should the Russians have made sure they could camouflage the missiles more effectively before deciding to install them? (they could then have been announced at a time that suited the Russians, which is what they intended).

What's the point, if they are sitting in the middle of a missile silo the American spy planes wont notice them.

Originally Posted by perseus

2) Should Khrushchev have been more aware how the US would react?

Everybody in the USA shat themselves, who wouldnt? If China was angry at Australia and they put some missiles in New Zealand id crap myself.

Originally Posted by perseus

3) Should Kennedy have simply accepted the missiles in Cuba, since NATO had similar missiles actually on the Soviet Union's border in Turkey. In fact Kennedy was worried that the UN would think the US were hypocritical and playing bully boy.

Nope. Think of it this way:

Should Johnny accept the fact that Jacob is bashing Johny's little brother, even though he is bashing Jacob's little brother?

Answer to that is no. Why would America risk a few million people, when they could kill all the Russians without a single casualty [Tehnically]?

[QUOTE=perseus;521543]This must have been very frightening for the children, especially for those who could conceive what atomic weapons can do. Many politicians and generals sent their families away from the cities and military establishments during this period. A military base was about the last place you wanted to be. Perhaps the purpose was to isolate families so they wouldn't spread information to the civvies.[/QUOTE]

Wrong, every one and their brother new what was going on. The photos from the U2's were on the front page. The threat was real so they sent their families away. Common sense, although there may have been no where to go.

From a Soviet perspective wasn't the point to get the missiles operational BEFORE they were discovered? Supposedly they would then be relatively safe, since they were more protected and became themselves an effective deterrent. Non operational missiles don't provide a deterrent.

Originally Posted by AVON

This is a fictitious book correct? Submariners know the difference between sounding charges and depth charges. Yes, the USSR sent four (or five) submarines to Cuba. One new system that made its debut during this crisis for the USN was SOSUS! All but one submarine was detected and forced to the surface!

The threat level was far to high to tempt the situation by using sounding explosives. The USN anticipated that the Soviet subs had nuclear warheads on their torpedoes.

It is supposed to be a factual account, based on new evidence

"One Minute to Midnight is nothing less than a tour de force, a dramatic, nail-biting page-turner that is also an important work of scholarship. Michael Dobbs combines the skills of an experienced investigative journalist, a talented writer and an intelligent historical analyst. His research is stunning. No other history of the Cuban missile crisis matches this achievement."
-Martin Sherwin, coauthor of "American Prometheus"

http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/009179666...l_4f39cl8nyp_e

In the middle of this sequence of escalating tensions, according to new documents released today, the US Navy was dropping a series of "signaling depth charges" (equivalent to hand grenades) on a Soviet submarine at the quarantine line. Navy deck logs show the depth charges at 1659 and 1729 military time. At the conference table in Havana were the US Navy watch officer, Captain John Peterson, who ordered the depth charges as part of standard operating procedure for signaling submarines, and the Soviet signals intelligence officer, Vadim Orlov, on the receiving end inside submarine B-59, where the depth charges felt like "sledgehammers on a metal barrel." Unbeknownst to the Navy, the submarine carried a nuclear-tipped torpedo with orders that allowed its use if the submarine was "hulled" (hole in the hull from depth charges or surface fire).

http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/nsa/cub...cri/press3.htm

Well it was all a very close thing, and fortunately both parties bent a bit and common sense prevailed. I think that President Kennedy did not get the credit he should have done for the way he handled this crisis

Originally Posted by LeEnfield

Well it was all a very close thing, and fortunately both parties bent a bit and common sense prevailed.

It was one of those situations in which everyone was happy there was a "UN"! The open as well as closed agreements, it was nice to fall on being peaceful under the association of the UN.

Originally Posted by LeEnfield

I think that President Kennedy did not get the credit he should have done for the way he handled this crisis

That is an interesting perspective! In America, the whole thing was viewed as the gunfight at the O.K. Corral and, the other guy blinked first!
I do agree in that President Kennedy stood up to immense pressure from the US Military to invade Cuba. General LeMay viewed the perfect situation to attack the USSR and PRC first. The USA/USAF saw this as a way to eliminate the Communist threat. The USAF had evaluations from the Soviet of their military capabilities and knew that the Soviet AF and missile arm of the Soviet Army were not prepared at any instant to go war. The Soviet Union believed that if there was a nuclear war, the policy by President Eisenhower that America would 'never' strike first would be followed. The USA feeling the USSR would strike was prepared to fight with the forces that escaped the Soviet first strike.
When the Cuban Missile Crisis started the USAF had 2,000 B-47s, 600 B-52s, and around 100 B-58s that were ready for combat. Plus the Navy assets of the Polaris Missile subs of which the Soviet Navy had no counter-part.
It came out after the crisis that while most people figured the USAF would use their forces to approach the USSR from over the north pole, in reality they were going to make the PRC one massive freeway into the southern and central parts of the USSR!
Since Nikita Khrushchev's son wrote a book on how his father saw what was going on and in a interview made the first mention that two missile brigades were operational with battlefield ballistic missiles with nuclear warheads before the crisis started. If America had invaded Cuba, these generals already had permission to fire their missiles at the amphibious forces! Two of the submarine captains who were forced to the surface during the crisis have also been interview by the western media. They already had permission to fire their nuclear armed torpedoes at US ships, if they were fired upon.

It was a very scary time to live through.