A single red buzzer squawks loudly, and immediately
there is a flurry of activity from the assembled flight and ground crews. At a civilian airport somewhere in Oklahoma,
men rush to a line of seven waiting B-52 Stratofortresses. Ground crew personnel pull the blocks holding
the big plane's wheels in place and do last minute mechanical checks- the jets have been
ready for short-notice takeoff for two days already as the world hung on the brink of
full-scale nuclear war. Now, somebody's gone and pushed the earth
over the edge. Inside the B-52, flight crews make ready to
fly. The radar navigator and electronic warfare
officer perform last minute checks on their equipment- the electronic warfare suite especially
will be critical in the coming hours, and will be the giant bomber aircraft's sole defense
against enemy surface-to-air missiles. At the cockpit, the pilot and co-pilot fire
up the engines and run over their last minute checklists. The navigator breaks open the classified documents
detailing the different nuclear attack missions the aircraft may be called upon to undertake. The men won't know which mission to fly until
they are past their positive control points- the last chance to recall the big bombers. The giant planes are carrying over 70,000
pounds of nuclear weapons in the form of pylon mounted nuclear-tipped cruise missiles in
the wings as well as cruise missiles in the bomb bays which they share with eight large
gravity bombs. One by one the planes edge up to the runway,
almost nose to tail in the tight space of the small civilian airport. Normally, the B-52s would operate from a military
base, but with the threat of nuclear war the Air Force scattered its most important aircraft
across hundreds of smaller, civilian airfields. Any enemy wishing to knock out the US's airborne
nuclear fleet would have to launch hundreds of simultaneous strikes at once- well beyond
the capability of any of America's enemies. With the assistance of JATO units, small rockets
that help speed the big planes into the air, the B-52s begin their ascent, leaving clouds
of billowing black smoke belching out behind them from their massive and powerful engines. Each plane carries aloft enough nuclear firepower
to decimate a small country, and there's dozens of them taking to the air from airfields all
over the United States and in bases overseas. OPLAN 8010-12 dictates the US's response in
a nuclear confrontation, and each B-52 lumbering into the sky is one small part of an overall
strategy involving thousands of moving parts. Deep under the waters of the Pacific and Atlantic,
emergency war orders are flashed out to the ballistic missile submarines of the United
State's silent service. Theirs will be the first strike in what will
become humanity's third, and possibly last, world war. From fifty meters under the waves, the hatches
on a dozen launch tubes holding nuclear-tipped Trident ballistic missiles are popped open
by hydraulics. The sound is unmistakable, and Chinese submariners
desperately searching for the stealthy American subs scramble to locate and neutralize these
nuclear strike platforms. In seconds though, it'll be too late, and
killing any American sub they do locate will be a meaningless gesture, as a rush of air
forces each Trident missile out of its housing and into the water. Chinese sonar operators clearly hear the tell-tale
firing of Trident rocket motors, and in moments the ballistic missiles are lifting up out
of the water and screaming high into the sky. The first wave of attacks undertaken by subs
closest to the Chinese shores target air defense networks and military airfields. The goal is to knock out as much of the Chinese
anti-air capability as possible, allowing the Air Force's airborne nuclear force to
do its job. Anti-ballistic missile defenses activate across
the Chinese coastline, and hundreds of interceptors are fired to try to knock out the nuclear-tipped
missiles. But there's little warning time, and to make
matters worse, each Trident is equipped with multiple warheads which are released just
before the missile re-enters the atmosphere. Packed with penetration aids like clouds of
chaff and radar reflectors, the vast majority of Chinese interceptors are completely ineffective,
and in moments nuclear fire rains down on Chinese military installations. The next wave of Trident attacks is aimed
at Chinese infrastructure, wiping out major airports, industrial centers, and government
sites. One strike destroys the Three Gorges Dam,
largest hydroelectric dam in the world, and releases trillions of gallons of water all
at once. The resulting inland tsunami devastates communities
downstream and kills almost as many people as a nuclear attack. US Air Force B-2s, the stealthiest aircraft
in the world, are already penetrating Chinese air space. Normally, the B-2s are hard to spot, but with
much of the Chinese air defense network destroyed by American ballistic missile submarines,
stopping them now is nearly impossible. Yet stealth is not a complete guarantee of
safety. The B-2s fly a pre-planned route through various
air defense zones, making course corrections as they navigate so as to always present their
stealthiest side to incoming radar. This makes them very difficult to pinpoint,
but the Chinese are well aware that B-2s are in the air and are scrambling dozens of interceptors. Most of the B-2s make it to their targets,
but with so much air defense radar in the air and on the ground all looking for the
stealth bombers, five of them are discovered and shot down. Those that survive pop open their bomb bay
doors and fire off nuclear-tipped cruise missiles. The B-2's targets are more dangerous, and
only the stealthy planes can reach them- their job is to eliminate Chinese military installations
in central and western China, requiring them to penetrate deep into hostile territory. The nuclear cruise missiles the planes fire
off allow them to safely attack targets from hundreds of miles away, though the planes
each carry gravity bombs as well to be delivered to secondary targets. The B-2 attacks devastate Chinese missile
sites deep in the country, but it's mostly too late- the nation has already launched
a nuclear counter-attack. The initial strikes have eliminated part of
the enemy's nuclear capability, even if over a hundred missiles have still been successfully
fired off towards the American continent. Still, every missile destroyed in its silo
or mobile launcher is thousands, perhaps even millions of lives saved. There is no winning nuclear war, but the US
Air Force Global Strike Command has one job: make the other guy lose harder. Now it's time to ensure that when the nuclear
dust settles, China cannot rebuild or resupply either its nuclear or conventional forces. After a 16 hour flight, American B-52s and
B1 Lancers are at last approaching their targets. The crews have purposefully not been told
of the damage caused at home by the Chinese nuclear attacks, and none of them want to
ask. Ground-based interceptors along the American
Pacific coast attempted to intercept incoming missiles, but with a terrible success rate
against practice targets, they are largely ineffective up against the real deal. Nuclear hellfire rains down across American
cities and military bases. At least the submarine and B-2 strikes have
curtailed the extent of that attack somewhat. Approaching the enemy's coast though, the
pilots of the B-1 Lancers leading the attack descend to barely a thousand feet above the
deck in an attempt to evade surviving Chinese radar. The B-52s will mirror this tactic, but only
once they've come closer to their targets. Aerial refueling aircraft from the Air Force's
tanker service have topped up each plane, but flying low means more drag and exponentially
greater fuel expenditure. The B-1s are fast and somewhat stealthy, but
the B-52s are giant targets in the sky for any surviving anti-air artillery or enemy
fighters. To create a safe path through hostile airspace,
a few modified B-52s fly ahead of the rest of the incoming bombers, creating an electronic
screen of digital noise to jam and degrade enemy radar. Hundreds of anti-air missiles are fired, but
just like in the skies over Hanoi during the Vietnam War, the B-52s do an impressive job
of defeating enemy anti-air systems. A few B-52s are lost, but with dozens of them
penetrating deep into Chinese airspace, the losses are largely insignificant. America's land-based ballistic missile forces
have long ago done their job, marking the second wave of attacks. Both nations have each other's land-based
missile sites targeted by missiles of their own, and both sides know that if they don't
launch immediately, they will never get the chance to as enemy nuclear strikes attempt
to destroy missiles in their silos. Every major Chinese city has been hit by at
least one, many by three to four direct strikes. Every major US city has been likewise targeted. The B-1 and B-52 crews find themselves flying
over a nuclear wasteland, with major cities like Beijing, Shanghai, and Chongping now
mostly rubble. The land-based ballistic missile force has
laid waste to every single major enemy city, and many of its moderately sized cities as
well. Now Global Strike Command's airborne element
is here to ensure that China cannot easily rebuild. The bombers fly to their designated targets
across the nation, leveling major industrial centers that have so far evaded attack as
well as important natural resource depots. Strategically important mines are collapsed
by direct nuclear strikes, as well as ore-refining and raw goods manufacturing hubs. Seaports all across the coast are obliterated,
as are major swathes of China's most important farmlands. Next on the list are food distribution centers,
important universities and research complexes, and large stockpiles of both military and
civilian goods or equipment. National defense armories and reservist bases
for the People's Liberation Army and Air Forces are destroyed with nuclear hellfire, as is
every major hydroelectric dam left standing. The destruction of these dams are as devastating
as the nuclear strikes themselves, flooding thousands of square miles and washing away
entire communities. Lastly, the B-52s move to their final targets-
known government shelters. These sites are buried deep underground, and
despite being secret, many are known to American planners thanks to intelligence gathered by
spies and cyberattacks. The B-52s use deep-penetrating munitions to
target these sites, flying high and letting loose bombs capable of burrowing deep into
the earth before exploding. The resulting shockwave is enough to bury
all but the sturdiest of underground shelters, killing thousands who thought themselves safe
from attack. Their job done, the American bombers turn
and head for airfields in Japan and the Philippines. Most of them won't make it, their fuel largely
spent, or the airfields they are heading for obliterated by conventional ballistic missile
attacks from the People's Liberation Army Rocket Force. The crews of the bombers all knew that the
trip was likely one way anyways, though few of them imagined that doomsday would actually
ever come. Now, two countries lay in utter ruin, though
thanks to the massive penetration power of the US Air Force's Global Strike Command,
China has suffered a far worse fate than the US. The mission of Global Strike Command was never
really to win a nuclear war, but instead to deter one- and failing that, to make sure
that America's nuclear enemies were so thoroughly destroyed that they could not hope to match
the US's own efforts at rebuilding. The men and aircraft of GSC wage the most
complete and total war ever dreamt up by man, eliminating not just the enemy's forces, but
the ability itself to support a society capable of threatening the United States ever again. If that even matters in a post-nuclear world
though, is still anybody's guess. For more nuclear war stories check out Doomsday
plane, or click this other video instead!
