"Peter Skelton" wrote in message
...
On Wed, 25 Feb 2004 09:00:42 -0500, "Kevin Brooks"
wrote:


"Peter Skelton" wrote in message
.. .
On 24 Feb 2004 21:50:10 -0800, (WaltBJ)
wrote:

2) I should think doctrine on the possible use of nuclear weapons took
a serious hit when a real sober look was taken of the two nuclear
accidents the USSR experienced - Chelyabinsk and Chernobyl. The USSR
never ever achieved the capability to feed all its people from its own
resources and what fallout from numerous nuclear weapons would do to
the arable lands of the Ukraine really doesn't bear thinking about.

The doctrine was gone by 1975. What we saw after that was
think-tank blather about the possibility of nuclear war without
escallation. Examples: on our side the potential use of
battlefield weapons in Europe (we'd had them earlier and
withdrawn all except tactical nukes on figfhter-bombers, IIRC)

Actually, in 1975 we had a rather complete tactical nuclear arsenal in
place
beyond those carried on the aircraft. Included were nuclear rounds for
both
155mm and 8 inch artillery, Lance and Pershing I SSM's, and the atomic
demolitions muntions (SADM and MADM).

I wouldn't have thought of Pershing as battlefield, but it was
defintiely there as were the others.

The Pershing I did not have the range of the later Pershing II. While it was
not going to be used against targets along the FLOT, it was going to be used
in the interdiction role and against C4/logistics/transportation targets
within the theater army area of responsibility.


The drawdown of these Army controlled
nuclear warheads did not take place until beginning in the mid eighties
(SADM and MADM) through the later eighties and into the very early
nineties
(when the arty and missile warheads were returned to the US and removed
from
the active stockpile).

Was this still in Europe? Its imminent absence was part of the
justification for nuclear armament of our F104's. What you're
saying is that the battlefield weapons stayed in Europe past the
fall of the Wall.

Not all. SADM and MADM had been withdrawn a little bit earlier in the
eighties (my last active duty company CO had just returned from a three year
tour with the ADM company in Vincenza, Italy). The writing had been on the
wall since at least 1985, when the Engineer School finally stopped making
its new LT's spend a couple of days in a secure compound at Belvoir learning
the very basics of ADM employment and planning. But the arty rounds did not
return stateside until about the same time, or shortly after, the Wall came
down. The last ones were withdrawn from the stockpile in 1992 according to
the Nuclear Weapons Archive. The Pershing II and GLCM were of course
governed by the theater nuclear forces treaty (1988 IIRC); not sure about
the arty rounds being covered by that treaty (would have been hard to
verify).


Additionaly, in 1975 I believe we also hstill had
some dual control warhead still in Europe (i.e., for older Honest John
SSM's
still in use by allied nations, and possibly a few warheads for the Nike
Hercules batteries that remained in both US and allied service at that
time).

Honest Johns lasted into the nineties.

Yep. But I believe the nuclear warheads for them had been withdrawn prior to
their final retirement by allied nations.

Brooks




on
theirs taking out naval assets (they went for really big ASMs
instead or after).



Peter Skelton



Peter Skelton