The Silent War (Thursday BBC2 at 9pm)

Set your box!

Recollections of Cold War submariners (US, UK and USSR)

David

When?

Ignore than...just seen it in the title. Doh!!

An excellent documentary, I really enjoyed watching it. Well done, BBC2.

dam it, missed it

BBC I-player?

It was good. I'm surpised that our subs haven't actually hit more fast moving "icebergs!"

(The "Resurgam" piece on the One Show must have been bumped off by live weather reports from the East Coast.)

David

That would have been very embarrassing if it had been public...I wonder if heads rolled over it?

Well, the "iceberg" was the public cover story. I see the event is mentioned in Sandy Woodward's account of the Falklands also. (Described as an iceberg.)

Clearly, everyone was getting too close and aggressive. Maybe a "Crazy Ivan" manoevre also!


David

p.s The "Resurgam" piece has been bumped into mid-january. I will believe it when I see it!

Just a reminder that the second episode (of 3 ) is on tonight. (Thursday)

David

Another excellent programme, worth the tv licence fee alone. You just don't realise what went on back then, and you certainly don't realise just how close we came to total nuclear decimation.

The amount of money the Russians threw into their sub building programme was staggering, no wonder they went bankrupt.


Richard

I think they said that nearly 50% of the USSR economy went into defence expenditure! 6% for the US. The Poker game worked!

They certainly had some nice submarines as a result - good for us modellers! (Maybe we should arrange a "whip round"!)

The programme helped pigeon hole all the different USSR submrine types, for me. I don't know my Charlie from my Foxtrot!

And yes, I think we are lucky to have have survived this far. 20minutes for one submarine to destroy all the major US cities. (The UK would have taken about 20 seconds!)

David

ps This was the last episode - not 3 as I said earlier.

That is a frightening thought...20 seconds for the UK to go from normal to nothing. Did you ever see the cartoon film entitled ''When the Wind Blows''...that film really summed up how fruitless the whole war thing was. Taking shelter under the dining room table and wrapped in an old mattress?

Yes, the Russians really did produce some awesome submarines during that period..the Golf, the Akula, the Victor series, and then the Typhoon. Frightening war machines, all of them..only to end their operational lives tied up in some remote port and rusting away slowly...a sad end.

And to think that it would have only taken one word from one man to unleash all that destruction...as you rightly say, David...we are lucky to lasted this long. Pray God it never happens again...


Richard.

Here's a link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/When_the_Wind_Blows_(comics)

I was guessing about the 20 seconds - maybe 2 minutes.

And I remember my brother considering building a shelter but then working out (even in our part of rural Lancashire without too many targets) that his shelter would be on the lip of several craters!

And yes "When the Wind Blows" was curiously effective as a cartoon. I think it was partly having a voiceover by John Mills. The cheeky, optimistic chappy from several submarine films being used to give voice to the dawning reality of the new type of war.

But yes, maybe the best type of weapons are impressive to begin with and then rusting i.e they have done their job by never being used!

David