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https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/nukevault/ebb538-Cold-War-Nuclear-Target-List-Declassified-First-Ever/

The SAC [Strategic Air Command] Atomic Weapons Requirements Study for 1959, produced in June 1956 and published today for the first time by the National Security Archive www.nsarchive.org, provides the most comprehensive and detailed list of nuclear targets and target systems that has ever been declassified. As far as can be told, no comparable document has ever been declassified for any period of Cold War history.

The SAC study includes chilling details. According to its authors,  their target priorities and nuclear bombing tactics would expose nearby civilians and “friendly forces and people” to high levels of deadly radioactive fallout.  Moreover, the authors developed a plan for the “systematic destruction” of Soviet bloc urban-industrial targets that specifically and explicitly targeted “population” in all cities, including Beijing, Moscow, Leningrad, East Berlin, and Warsaw.  Purposefully targeting civilian populations as such directly conflicted with the international norms of the day, which prohibited attacks on people per se (as opposed to military installations with civilians nearby).

The National Security Archive, based at The George Washington University, obtained the study, totaling more than 800 pages, through the Mandatory Declassification Review (MDR) process (see sidebar).

The SAC document includes lists of more than 1100 airfields in the Soviet bloc, with a priority number assigned to each base.  With the Soviet bomber force as the highest priority for nuclear targeting (this was before the age of ICBMs), SAC assigned priority one and two to Bykhov and Orsha airfields, both located in Belorussia. At both bases, the Soviet Air Force deployed medium-range Badger (TU-16) bombers, which would have posed a threat to NATO allies and U.S. forces in Western Europe.  

A second list was of urban-industrial areas identified for “systematic destruction.”  SAC listed over 1200 cities in the Soviet bloc, from East Germany to China, also with priorities established.  Moscow and Leningrad were priority one and two respectively.  Moscow included 179 Designated Ground Zeros (DGZs) while Leningrad had 145, including “population” targets.  In both cities, SAC identified air power installations, such as Soviet Air Force command centers, which it would have devastated with thermonuclear weapons early in the war.

According to the study, SAC would have targeted Air Power targets with bombs ranging from 1.7 to 9 megatons.  Exploding them at ground level, as planned, would have produced significant fallout hazards to nearby civilians.  SAC also wanted a 60 megaton weapon which it believed necessary for deterrence, but also because it would produce “significant results” in the event of a Soviet surprise attack. One megaton would be 70 times the explosive yield of the bomb that destroyed Hiroshima.
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SAC laid out the numbers and types of nuclear weapons  required to destroy each DGZ.  The nuclear weapons information is completely excised from the report making it impossible to know how many weapons SAC believed were necessary to destroy the various targets.   In any event, SAC could anticipate a very large stockpile of nuclear weapons by 1959 to target priority objectives.  This was a period when the nuclear weapons stockpile was reaching large numbers, from over 2400 in calendar 1955 to over 12,000 in calendar 1959 and reaching 22,229 in 1961.

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Moscow, the number one urban target, had around 180 installations slated for destruction; some were in the air power category, but many involved a variety of industrial activities, including factories producing machine tools, cutting tools, oil extraction equipment, and a most vital medicine: penicillin.  Other targets involved significant infrastructural functions: locks and dams, electric power grids, railroad yards, and repair plants for railroad equipment. SAC might not have targeted each installation with a bomb but may have used the concept of “target islands” whereby adjacent installations were targeted at a central aiming point.  SAC may have assigned more than one weapon to large industrial complexes, however, because they were regarded as several installations.

What is particularly striking in the SAC study is the role of population targeting.  Moscow and its suburbs, like the Leningrad area, included distinct “population” targets (category 275), not further specified.  So did all the other cities recorded in the two sets of target lists. In other words, people as such, not specific industrial activities, were to be destroyed.   What the specific locations of these population targets were cannot now be determined. The SAC study includes the Bombing Encyclopedia numbers for those targets, but the BE itself remains classified (although under appeal).

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Eastern European Targets

The SAC Atomic Weapons Requirements Study for 1959 stipulated that with exceptions SAC would use lower-yield atomic bombs against targets in Eastern Europe.  Apparently this was for “political” and “psychological” reasons, to differentiate those countries from the Soviet Union through somewhat less destructive bombing. The exception was air power targets: because of the primacy of that category, such targets in Eastern Europe were scheduled to be destroyed by high-yield thermonuclear weapons.  For example, according to the SAC target list, Brieg and Modlin airfields, located near Warsaw, were 31st and 80th in priority respectively.  Tokol airport near Budapest was 125th in priority, therefore a likely target.  Thus, urban populations in Eastern Europe would be exposed to the fallout and other effects of thermonuclear weapons, eroding much of the distinction between targets in that region and targets in the Soviet Union itself.

East Germany was the site of major Soviet airbases and East Berlin itself was a target for “systematic destruction.”  A sampling of the SAC airfields list finds more than a few Soviet-operated installations among the top 200, with some not very far from Berlin. Among them were Briesen (number 140), Gross Dolln (Templin) (number 70), Oranienberg (number 95), Welzow (number 96), Werneuchen (Verneuchen) (number 82).  For example, Oranienberg, which was then a base for Il-28 (Beagle) bombers, is only 22 miles (34 kilometers) north of Berlin. Gross Dolln (Templin), originally a base for Il-28 bombers and later for Soviet fighter aircraft, is 55 miles (66 kilometers) north of Berlin. Werneuchen (number 82), a base for interceptors and fighter/bombers, is about 22 miles (33 kilometers) northeast.  Presumably those bases would have been targeted with thermonuclear weapons which could have subjected the Berlin area to tremendous danger, including radiation hazards.

East Berlin had a priority ranking of 61 in the list of urban-industrial slated for “systematic destruction.”  The SAC study identified 91 DGZs in East Berlin and its suburbs: a wide range of industries and infrastructural activities including electric power, railroad yards, liquid fuel storage, machine tools, and radio and television stations.  In addition, East Berlin and its suburbs included “population” targets, as did Warsaw (target priority 62.) The atomic bombing of East Berlin and its suburbs would very likely have produced fire storms, among other effects, with disastrous implications for West Berlin.   Whether SAC conducted studies on the vulnerability of West Berlin to the effects of nuclear attacks on East Berlin or in other East German targets is unknown.

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a zanimljivije je poređenje kima i hruščova/kube

KinderLad wrote:

a zanimljivije je poređenje kima i hruščova/kube

Da, ok, to mislim da nije bas isto. Misli, jedno je SSSR, drugo Sev.Koreja. Sev. Koreja bi mozda eventualno, slucajno, dobacila 1-2 do US i onda bi bili gotovi. Rat sa SSSR je pak nesto drugo.

Gargantua wrote:^^

deveselu, baza u rumuniji u kojoj su stacionirani elementi američkog "raketnog štita", bi u bilo kojoj varijanti nuklearnog rata dobio bar nekoliko bojevih glava kao "nagradu". to mesto je 100 i nešto kilometara udaljeno od negotina.

fwiw

KinderLad wrote:
Ma da. Mislim, ok, bolje je biti ne gadjan, cisto nasledja radi. Kad ljudi, onih 2-3 miliona ili vec koliko (mozda i mnogo vise, al ne vise od 100m cenim) krenuli da ponovo osvajaju svet prosto je lepo znati da ono sto si gradio bi postalo u donekle neostecenom stanju deo nasledja novog sveta, to je, ono, nekakva minimalna uteha.

Ointagru Unartan wrote:

KinderLad wrote:
Ma da. Mislim, ok, bolje je biti ne gadjan, cisto nasledja radi. Kad ljudi, onih 2-3 miliona ili vec koliko (mozda i mnogo vise, al ne vise od 100m cenim) krenuli da ponovo osvajaju svet prosto je lepo znati da ono sto si gradio bi postalo u donekle neostecenom stanju deo nasledja novog sveta, to je, ono, nekakva minimalna uteha.

Mislim da oko trecine covecanstva zivi na bezbednoj udaljenosti od najblizih potencijalnih meta nuklearki, mislim na Podsaharsku Afriku (skoro milijardu stanovnika), Juznu Ameriku (pola milijarde) i veci deo Jugoistocne Azije (preko pola milijarde).

Jugoslovenski nuklearni program prekinut je 1966. godine, političkim padom Aleksandra Rankovića, koji je bio predsednik Savezne komisije za nuklearna pitanja.