Air Raids and Nukes? Have you been in them and where?

SSgt Private RallyPoint Member — Fri, 26 Dec 2014 08:32:03 -0500

In the 60s in Texas we had frequent Air Raid Warnings and hid under our desks until the all-clear. I often wondered what a desk would do against the power of nukes and I was a kid. This was during the Cold War and right in the middle of the Vietnam War.
What are your experiences? Did you experience that?

Response by MAJ Private RallyPoint Member made Dec 26 at 2014 8:49 AM

MAJ Private RallyPoint Member — Fri, 26 Dec 2014 08:49:29 -0500

My highschool, elementary, and middle schools were a few miles from the Naval Weapons Station in Concord, CA. We did both earthquake and air raid drills all the time.

Response by SGT Michael Glenn made Dec 26 at 2014 11:09 AM

SGT Michael Glenn — Fri, 26 Dec 2014 11:09:38 -0500

Air raids and nukes...hmmmm let me think about this one for a moment..... Unless you consider being in a snowball fight with a platoon of lean mean soldiers sending volley upon volley of stone hard snowballs at you after being drug out into the snow in your skivvies or being in a closed tank or any other vehicle after beans were slurped down for the main course..... nope never been !!!! I did have air raid sirens to contend with in Korea and Ill be damned if Germany doesnt use the same siren to let its citizens know its noon !!!! I arrived on a Friday to my Unit in Bahmholder Germany, was laying on my bunk the next day reading up on the unit when the siren went off, was up and into my newly issued combat garb in zero flat, out the door and just dropped my other gear down the spiraling staircase and literally lept down the flights of stairs to a very disgruntled and annoyed CQ as I scarred the crap out of him ! After explaining to me that it was not an alarm I apologized and mozzied back to my room and continued to read more on unit history/mission. Hehehehehehehehe

Response by TSgt Noah Kleugh made Dec 26 at 2014 11:30 AM

TSgt Noah Kleugh — Fri, 26 Dec 2014 11:30:02 -0500

Nukes, I used to work out in the Nevada Test Range and could see the ground wave and shock from the last few nuke tests.

Response by CPT Jack Durish made Dec 26 at 2014 12:00 PM

CPT Jack Durish — Fri, 26 Dec 2014 12:00:23 -0500

I once rode out a hurricane on the Chesapeake Bay in a 42' war surplus Army crash boat. Does that count. Yeah, and I had a close encounter with a waterspout (same Bay, same boat, different storm). Sea Scouting was an adventure (I have a collection of stories about it on my blog.)

Air raids? No. However, I have been on the receiving end of 144mm rockets fired by the NVA. Does that qualify? I think I know how Londoners felt when the Nazi's visited them with Buzz Bombs. You knew they were coming. You didn't have any adequate defense other than luck.

Nukes? I don't know of anyone who has had to survive those. However, I trained on an early weapon system the Army had for delivering tactical nukes: The M-28 or M-29 Davy Crockett. It was a genned up recoiless rifle that launched a projectile that looked something like a miniature blimp. A .50 cal spotting gun was mounted on the tube calibrated so that you could estimate ground zero by watching for the puff of smoke indicating where the spotting gun projectile landed. We snickered at the idea of the reaction of enemy soldiers who saw one of these puffs of smoke erupting somewhere near them. Dig or run.

Then we began looking at the capabilities of this weapon, especially its range, between 1.5 and 2 km depending on the model. How would you feel about employing a nuke at such a limited range? Fortunately, it was fired by a detonator much like dynamite using an electrical cap at the end of a length of wire. Personally, I would have wanted at least another 1.5 or 2 km of wire stretched in the opposite direction...