Talk:Square Leg

Eastbourne

As for towns like Eastbourne being hit for no reason - once an all out nuclear war has reached that stage, I presume the authors of 'Square Leg' were assuming that the Soviets would target any and all population centres; after all, they had enough capacity to hit Britain with one gigatonne worth of strikes so in the end game virtually every town would become a target.

Except population wasn't really the target. From what I remember, the Doomsday book points out that there were far more military targets in the UK than warheads, so wasting them on minor towns was crazy from a military standpoint: reliably knocking out a hardened military target might take four or five warheads. That said, 'Square Leg' wasn't intended for public consumption, so it was one of the more realistic British government exercises. Mark Grant 10:12, 4 September 2006 (UTC)

In densely populated Britain, "population" targets can't be separated from military ones because they're in such close proximity to each other, so there's no need to set aside warheads for civilians when they're going to get hit anyway. Also, groundburst nukes (used against hardened targets) make fallout, and this would blanket most of Britain--a "bonus" to quote Doomsday (think of the Buncefield smoke plume then times it by a million).

Yes and no. You're right that they didn't need to worry about targetting population centers because almost every one was in the blast zone or fallout zone from military targets, but that's a side issue as to whether some Soviet military planner would decide that dropping a multi-megaton bomb on Eastbourne was a good use of their resources; still, if I remember correctly one of the later exercises dropped a nuke on a mountain in Wales, so at least it's more realistic than that. BTW, you should sign posts so we know who's posting these comments. Mark Grant 12:41, 4 September 2006 (UTC)

Yes, I recall from library reading in the early 90s that one of the Square Leg targets was the town of Builth Wells - the comment was made that "casualties would be up into the millions and that is just counting the sheep". Vashti 21:12, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

Thing is, just from skimming the Builth Wells article behind your link, it appears that it's not so much the town that's a target, but the geographical location. It's a potentially very strategically important pinch point in the east welsh / west english transport network (both road and rail), the disruption or destruction of which would cause some headaches for any army commanders trying to move men and materiel around the region. In fact the only major north-south roads west of it are the A470 and the coastal route up from Fishguard to Aberystywth, and the only rail line west of there that has even a suggestion of running straight through rather than terminating at the head of a valley is, again, the coastal line (which has to come inland to Dovey Junction, with any trains headed north of there either having to back out and run through some points to take the northern exit, or continue further inland to find a way of actually reaching the north coast, if use of the narrow-gauge connection between the west and north coastal lines isn't viable). Any movement of heavy equipment or quick transport of large numbers of troops other than by air, which couldn't use those western routes for some reason, would have to come quite a bit further east into the English heartlands .... which would have been quite comprehensively glassed into unrecognisability, so that's not actually an option.

One groundburst at Builth, another at Aber or Dovey, and one at Betwys-y-Coed for good measure, and you've quite effectively limited the ability of any remaining forces hiding out in Wales to get around with any ease, as there may still be a variety of B roads and unclassified back routes left, but they're not good for heavy, bulky army trucks (especially the 8x8 articulated types) which might actually get stuck in some places, or fast movement of long convoys (unlike motorways where you could just get up to cruising speed and stay there for a couple hours, making progress on those roads is difficult even when they're empty, and the congestion waves introduced by long lines of traffic slow things still further), and the feasibility of using rail lines is pretty much erased.

So it's not as daft as it might first sound. 51.7.49.61 (talk) 13:35, 17 August 2017 (UTC)

The 1982 "Hard Rock" exercise, a home defence effort abandoned because of mass non-cooperation by local authorities, was even less realistic. "Hard Luck" included several near misses, maybe one was on a Welsh mountain - there's certainly a circle over Wales on page 104. - Some AOL user or another

"towns like Eastbourne being hit for no reason" -- Works like Warday and The Trudeau Papers (by Ian Adams) point out that it's reasonable to expect that some missiles will erroneously strike locations other than their intended targets, due to generic technical screwups, semi-effective anti-missile defenses, and the fact that the missiles are trying to navigate through a frikkin nuclear war. -- 201.50.251.197 13:53, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

Interesting discussion. Looking at the map and where Eastbourne is, it may not be hit for no reason. If you think back, wasn't that general area on the south coast of England the staging area and jumping off point for the D-day invasion of continental Europe? That area is the closest to the French coast, and in a World War 3 scenario where the Soviets invaded Europe, that area could once again become a staging post for a counter-invasion of occupied Europe by NATO. So perhaps the British planners suspected that the Soviets would pre-emptively strike that area in order to deny it to the allies and to wreck any facilities that might be there (ports etc.). Alternatively it could simply be a presumed error, or perhaps they were just trying to assume that the soviets would hit every populated area. --Hibernian 18:33, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

Or, more believably, there's something there (and in the middle of Wales?) that's not known about by the general public, but might be expected to have been discovered by Soviet espionage? Bunkers / C3 centres / communication link points, silos, etc? As well as the fact that Eastbourne is a perfectly decent port, and it would be prudent to make sure it wasn't usable. That or it was a mercy-kill, getting rid of all the retirees... (For that matter, why is Aberystwyth targeted? But St. Ives not? Etc...) 51.7.49.61 (talk) 01:17, 17 August 2017 (UTC)

>>additional ... In fact, going to the Eastbourne article as well, it was a particular target for the Luftwaffe in WW2 - earning the dubious honour of being named "the most heavily air-raided town in Britain" - and was one of the planned landing spots for operation Sealion. It had a fair amount of fortifications, operated a forward radar station, barracked a lot of troops, etc. It's the location of Beachy Head, which is a naturally quite easily defensible spot, and at the east end of a line of high cliffs. The main seafront is pretty much perfect for landing or launching amphibious or shallow hulled troop transports, and there's also the harbour (large and sheltered enough to be of use for many smaller military vessels, and a more useful facility than anything offered by other nearby south coast towns all the way out to Folkestone and Newhaven) and pier (which would have been in rather better condition and a more realistic option for embarking/disembarking larger vessels at the time), and in fact a still surviving Napoleonic-era defensive fortress on the main parade, along with several WW2 era pillboxes in strategic locations along the front. Oh, and it's got decent, if not exactly amazing, and fairly direct road and rail links up to London, along the coast, and from there to other more obviously strategic locations.

Really, you'd be daft NOT to take it out... just in case. Just because it's known as a massive geriatric rest home doesn't mean it can't also have military worth.

Now, if they were nuking Hastings instead, that'd be a bit silly. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 51.7.49.61 (talk) 13:49, 17 August 2017 (UTC)

Threads

What does "Operation Square Leg was one of the exercises used to estimate the destructiveness of a Soviet nuclear attack in the 1984 BBC production Threads" mean?122.59.167.152 (talk) — Preceding undated comment added 09:44, 29 June 2015 (UTC)