Are you prepared?

I'm wondering how many of you guys were properly instructed what to do when the ruskis send the bombs.

YouTube - Duck And Cover Atom Bomb Film

I am a 31 year old European. I've never consciously lived in a time when Russian attack seemed likely. My generation hasn't had any training in 'what to do when $SUPERPOWER attacks.

I grew up at the very end of that! We had regular drills where we would duck and cover under our school desks!

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Originally Posted by JMS

I grew up at the very end of that! We had regular drills where we would duck and cover under our school desks!

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I've wondered about that. What's the point of ducking underneath a desk if a 10 Megaton bomb is dropped above you. It would vaporize everything in a 50 mile radius (or something similar. not a scientific estimate).

Don't get me wrong I am not poking fun. There is always going to be an outer limit where the blast will be survivable if you are not shredded by window fragments, so underneath a desk would be a good place to be for that eventuality.

But how would you know when to do that?
If it happens far away (which would be a given if you want to have a chance) I can't see the point of ducking underneath the desk.
Either you have enough time to find real shelter (basement would be ideal to avoid the surface blast) or you have no time and you get hit by the blast before you know what happened. The window between those 2 (not warning enough to take shelter, but enough to know the blast is coming) is so fine it's nearly unexisting.

Again, no poking fun. I am trying to make sense of it.
I think the whole thing was more of a way to give the people the idea that they were prepared, and to give the people of psychological boost.

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Originally Posted by Bruno

I am a 31 year old European. I've never consciously lived in a time when Russian attack seemed likely. My generation hasn't had any training in 'what to do when $SUPERPOWER attacks.

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Pretty much the same here....little younger than Bruno though.

Besides....if a nuke falls anywhere near you.....Ducking...or Cover is not going to do much good now is it?

YouTube - Small Nuclear Explosion horrifying!

And that's just a small one.

Not only do I remember it ... when I was a teenager, I sent away to the government for a booklet on how to build a fallout shelter in the basement.

eh, they were still doing this when I was a kid in the 80s, in the Kentucky school system. (who would bomb kentucky???)

when I moved to Texas, they did the EXACT same drill, they just called it a tornado drill :w

You have to trust that the sirens are going to go off quickly enough to let you get to real shelter. My school didn't have a basement, so during tornadoes we would shuffle into the hallways (no windows) and cover like that guy in the video did. We did that during the good ol' disaster drills too.

I don't think making kids hide under desks in fear of nuclear attack gave anyone a psychological boost. I think it just comes from the idea that it's better to do something than to do nothing even in the event that there's nothing you can really do.

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Originally Posted by Bruno

There is always going to be an outer limit where the blast will be survivable if you are not shredded by window fragments, so underneath a desk would be a good place to be for that eventuality.

But how would you know when to do that?
If it happens far away (which would be a given if you want to have a chance) I can't see the point of ducking underneath the desk.

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You know when to do it if the classroom suddenly goes bright and you're alive to realize it. If the structure you're in is weakened by aftershocks, you'll want to be under cover of some sort. I wonder who decided that ducking under desks would be the suggested course of action and why exactly? I can only guess :shrug:

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Originally Posted by jockeys

when I moved to Texas, they did the EXACT same drill, they just called it a tornado drill :w

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I didn't enter 1st grade until '69, and they weren't doing bomb drills anymore. I remember having "tornado drills" where we went into the basement of the school. Living in TX, we actually HAD tornadoes and went into the basement for that very reason on two occasions (I remember watching the funnel cloud touching down from our classroom window once)

One of the storerooms down in the basement was full of those olive-drab barrels that contained emergency rations and water. They're probably still there:hmmm:

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Originally Posted by LX_Emergency

Pretty much the same here....little younger than Bruno though.

Besides....if a nuke falls anywhere near you.....Ducking...or Cover is not going to do much good now is it?

And that's just a small one.

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Like Bruno mentioned - outside of the initial vaporization / fireball / annihilation zone, you might like to increase your chances of living long enough to get the full effects of radiation poisoning. The shocks from a nuclear blast will take out windows over a far greater radius than that of instant carnage

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Originally Posted by joesixpack

I didn't enter 1st grade until '69, and they weren't doing bomb drills anymore. I remember having "tornado drills" where we went into the basement of the school. Living in TX, we actually HAD tornadoes and went into the basement for that very reason on two occasions (I remember watching the funnel cloud touching down from our classroom window once)

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It seems like being able to visibly see the funnel touching down would have warranted getting to the basement earlier! :eek: