Who Had The Most Devastating Weapons Of The Cold War? | Combat Machines | War Stories

this channel is part of the history hit Network the 20th century saw the dawn of a new type of warfare machines ruled the battlefield conventional infantry assault across no man's land was bound to fail Flesh and Blood simply could not get through that type of Defense a fierce arms race led to even more deadly weapons those Gunners on the tanks had rounds in their cannons and they were ready to execute if they were told to behind the lines the development of powerful and Innovative Vehicles meant the difference between Victory and defeat this is absolutely one of the unsung heroes of the second world war the Relentless pursuit of military Supremacy would lead to machines capable of destroying Humanity itself there are very few mistakes you could make that wouldn't have some kind of catastrophic consequence this time the most destructive weapons the world has ever seen by counting down to 10 and with the detonation we felt this immense hate at the back of us the tensions of the Cold War spawned an arms race of unparalleled proportions both countries had enough nuclear weapons to annihilate each of the other countries and frankly much of the world with the power to unleash utter destruction at the touch of a button what the states could not be higher 24 hours a day seven days a week there are people in silos ready to turn keys that would launch missiles foreign [Music] December 1944 World War II is still raging in Europe British American and Russian troops are on Germany's doorstep in the Pacific U.S land forces are edging towards Japan but even with defeat a certainty the Japanese refused to surrender World War II was winding up American forces were moving from Island to Island towards Japan getting closer and closer they reached tinian island in the Pacific Ocean here the Americans established an air base from which to Stage a Relentless bombardment of Japan throughout the first half of 1945. foreign [Music] Roosevelt dies suddenly leaving his vice president Harry S Truman as president of the United States Truman is notified of a top secret military operation this was generally known as the Manhattan Project it was a gigantic governmental scientific industrial military two billion dollar effort from 1942 to 1945 to develop an atomic bomb the trigger for this huge undertaking was the discovery of fission the splitting of atoms at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute in Berlin in December 1938 group of scientists led by Otto Han and Lisa meitner showed that by firing a neutron at a uranium atom they could split it in two releasing vast amounts of energy reports of the findings reach America their physicists like Enrico Fermi and Leo sillard sound the alarm both are refugees escaping the fascist powers in Europe they quickly realized the ominous implications of fission a theoretical scientists saw that once physician was discovered that any country could make a bomb if they had enough resources and commitment to doing it and the United States thought that the Germans were were doing it and thus they needed initially to rush against them fearing the consequences of coming second in this race for nuclear arms the U.S invested vast amounts of resources in the Manhattan Project later at the end of 1944 it was found out that the Germans really didn't have a program of any notable size but nevertheless the American effort was by that time gigantic and had so much momentum that it had to finish history hit is a streaming platform that is just for history fans with fantastic documentaries covering fascinating figures and moments in history from all over the world from the Battle of Trafalgar and the revolutionary era right through to the second world war if you are looking for your next military history fix then this is the service for you we're committed to Bringing history fans award-winning documentaries and podcasts that you cannot find anywhere else sign up now for a free trial and War Stories fans get 50 off their first three months just be sure to use the code War Stories at checkout by the time Truman is informed of the Manhattan Project two atom bombs are near completion little boy derived its power from the fission of uranium whereas fat man would be a plutonium bomb their unique size and weight mean only one plane is capable of delivering them the B-29 super Fortress the B-29 was the only aircraft the Americans had that could carry the weapon the B-29 was capable of carrying over 20 000 pounds of bombs or a 17 000 pound nuclear weapon so that was really the only choice the Americans had for dropping the weapon at all the B-29 was capable of flying higher and faster which allowed it to drop the bomb from a very high altitude and then Escape before it went off the B-29 first flew in 1942. it was mainly used in the Pacific Theater many b-29s ended up flying conventional bombing raids against Japan from tinian Island their impressive range allowing them to make the 3 000 mile round trip in fact the B-29 had a range of well over 4 000 miles and a maximum speed of 360 miles per hour compared to its contemporaries the B-17 and B-24 it could travel a lot faster and a lot further Boeing's design for the B-29 super Fortress also boasted impressive Innovations among them the long narrow wings these allowed it to cruise at high speeds and altitudes but it also featured remote controlled gun turrets and pressurized cabins however the unprecedented weight of the atom bomb meant that the Air Force had to order a squadron of specially adapted b-29s codenamed silver plate the main adaptation for the aircraft Was the removal of the gun turrets and the armor from the aircraft the only guns it retained were the tail guns all the rest was removed to reduce the weight of the aircraft so they could carry the heavier bomb [Music] in May 1945 Germany surrenders and the war in Europe is over in July American President Truman Soviet leader Stalin and British prime minister Churchill meet at Potsdam outside Berlin they discuss post-war Arrangements in Europe which are becoming a source of tension between the Western allies and Russia they also issue Japan with terms of surrender laid out in the Potsdam declaration Truman informs the allies of his intentions should Japan fail to accept those terms the prime consideration for President Truman when he took the decision to use the atomic bombs against Japan in August 1945 it was really to save American lives American lives that might be lost in an amphibious invasion in Japan what Also may have been in Truman's mind was a desire to gain diplomatic leverage over the Soviet Union in post-war negotiations it was a tremendous demonstration of American power with Japan's apparent reluctance to accept the Potsdam declaration final preparations to drop the bomb begin on tinian Island 509 farm group which was the unit specifically trained to drop the atomic bombs had their own little Compound on the Airfield where they were isolated from everyone else because what they were doing was so highly classified they dug a big hole in the ground and lowered the bomb into that and then pulled the airplane up over it and then raised it up into the Bombay that way in the early hours of August 6 1945 Colonel Tibbetts group commander of the 509th paints the words in nola gay the name of his mother on the side of his silver plate B-29 hours later he would be flying over the Pacific towards Japan he was to fly this little boy bomb the serenium gun type bomb to the Target of Hiroshima and that took place in a Flawless way at 8 15 in the morning little boy is released from 31 000 feet 43 seconds later it detonates above the city of Hiroshima [Music] the tail Gunner of the Enola Gay George Karen described the scene as a peep into hell I don't think anyone really understood at that point what a nuclear weapon really would do and that was what Hiroshima showed them within a one-mile radius of the blast only ashes and Rubble remained two square miles of the city were raised of hiroshima's 340 000 inhabitants a hundred and thirty thousand were dead by the end of 1945. many of the survivors would suffer from severe burns and the effects of nuclear radiation [Music] three days after Hiroshima another B-29 drops the fat man bomb on Nagasaki [Music] 8th of August 1945 the Japanese accept the Allied terms for surrender and World War II is over the atomic bomb was one airplane one barn and previous to that were hundreds of bombers and hundreds of weapons it was a much more efficient way of destroying things and it left a lot of questions in many people's minds as to what was to happen after the war it was very difficult to bring about any post-war agreement on International control of nuclear weapons after 1945 the United States of course was a monopoly power it held the atomic bomb and it did not necessarily want to give up that Monopoly control of the atomic weapon to any other power not least the Soviet Union [Music] in secret unbeknownst to the Americans the Soviets with the help of their spies inside the Manhattan Project had already begun working on a super weapon of Their Own by the late 1940s thanks to plans stolen from the Manhattan Project by Spies Like Klaus fooks the Russians are well on the way to producing their own atom bomb they had a crash program which healed at a bomb in August of 1949. this was a great shock in Washington they could hardly believe that the Soviet Union had a bomb so soon they thought they would have this Monopoly much longer but they didn't and there was a great debate at the end of 1949 about what to do next the mistrust between the United States and the Soviet Union gives rise to a new conflict the Cold War this war would not be fought on battlefields but in science labs and testing ranges both countries are now embroiled in an arms race for the ultimate combat machine it sees the birth of a weapon that could Unleash the Power of the Sun the hydrogen or thermonuclear bomb [Music] of scientists in the American World War II Manhattan Project had discussed such an idea many thought it could not and should not be done as the destructive power of such a weapon would dwarf atomic bombs however one of them believed it was possible people like Edward Teller saw that if the principle of fusion were the animating force of a bomb it would be much more powerful this weapon would require nuclear fusion an inverse of fission deriving its energy not from splitting an atom in two but by forcing two smaller ones together however initiating Fusion would itself require tremendous energy teller and a man named stanislav ulam figured out how to do this to use the energy from an atomic bomb to trigger a hydrogen bomb and that's the way it's done so it's really a two-stage bomb [Music] the work of teller and ulam would result in the U.S testing their first thermonuclear device in November 1952 over the anywhatak atoll in the Pacific the Americans dropped the bomb codenamed Ivy Mike little boy the bomb dropped on Hiroshima had the destructive power of 15 kilotons or 15 000 tons of TNT powerful enough to destroy most of New York's Central Park Ivy Mike had the destructive power of 10 megatons equivalent to 10 million tons of TNT making it 700 times more powerful than little boy the blast could destroy most of Manhattan era of the hydrogen bomb had begun the British who had just managed to test their first atomic device were desperate not to fall behind in the escalating arms race and set about developing their own hydrogen bomb when I was 21 years old and I joined the Navy in 1957 Douglas Hearn was sent to Christmas island in the Pacific Ocean to participate in a test known as operation grapple it wasn't until we got on the island that we were told exactly what we were there for within three hours of signing the official Secrets act we were then told what we was expected to do and why we were there and that was to witness the test detonations of nuclear weapons would witness his first nuclear detonation on November 8 1957. we were instructed over the tanoi that we would turn and sit down with our backs to the detonation we would close our eyes and bring our hands up to our face over our eyes and then draw our knees up as tightly we could to our chest they marked bomb gone they counted down to 10. detonation and with the detonation we felt this immense Heat at the back of us and you could actually see a pink x-ray through your closed eyes of the bones in your fingers and your hands we were told stand up after I think it was five more seconds turn around and viewed upon and the ball was just black and red and gray and yellow and it was massive and then we stood there for about 10 or 15 minutes we were then told to dismiss and return to duties just like that I went immediately onto my duties of clearing up the East Coast of dead birds and fish that were killed during a detonation grapple X as it was called was hailed as Britain's first hydrogen bomb however most of the power came from the atomic device used to trigger the hydrogen element in April 1958 Britain detonates a full thermonuclear device three megatons grapple y was the biggest bomb Britain would ever test comparing a hydrogen bomb with the bomb in November the heat was greater the blast was greater the sound was greater but the fireball you were gradually going like that and looking up at it it was practically over the top of you foreign Christmas Island Douglas would witness four more detonations I had no idea that there would be a long term or even local effects of the detonations with radiation it wasn't until my youngest daughter died of cancer when she was 11. and she was conceived after the event that I began to realize having met colleagues that I wasn't isolated in the medical problems and health problems I was having in my family to carry a burden to all nuclear test veterans and their families have carried over these years should never have happened thank you just as the British are catching up in the arms race the Soviets achieve a breakthrough which would shock the West in October 1957 the Russians launched the Sputnik 1 satellite it was the first man-made object sent into orbit although hardly a combat machine it could do little more than transmit a radio signal its implications were much more ominous the Sputnik launch really demonstrated that the Soviet Union had begun to master intercontinental ballistic missile technology it was evident to all that the same Russian rocket that delivered Sputnik into space had the power and range to deliver a nuclear warhead to Mainland America an Easter the stark contrast with previous Soviet capabilities to only hit the United States on one-way bomber missions but this was nothing like the kind of power and speed and potential represented by the new era of the ICBM which was now approaching in which the United States still hadn't yet mastered it took several more months and failed rocket launches before the United States themselves had anything like a workable ICBM capability for the first time in the Cold War the United States found themselves lagging behind in the arms race the Sputnik launch was a game changer this public display of technological superiority made the West feel extremely vulnerable although the Americans quickly developed their own intercontinental ballistic missile many in America feared the so-called missile Gap the belief that the Soviets had far more giving them a huge strategic Advantage but the Americans were preparing to launch their own satellite only theirs wouldn't simply transmit a signal but could actually take pictures of the Soviet land mass Corona emerges as a program to understand what the Soviet nuclear missile capabilities in particular intercontinental ballistic missile capabilities look like [Music] the corona satellites brought together a combination of cutting-edge Technologies creating a new dimension to the already deadly cold war a surveillance War because we weren't able to send people into the Soviet Union it was what we characterize as a denied area we had to have a technical means for gaining that intelligence although under development since the 1940s the corona program could not progress until Rockets were developed to lift it into space [Music] original technology of missiles came from the Germans who we first saw used Rockets to deliver weapons and many of the Germans were rounded up after the war and became the core of an American space effort to put various satellites into space and to explore space but the military dimension of this got going with different types of missiles but getting a satellite into space was only the first obstacle second problem was actually how do you get an image back from space we didn't have the level of technology in the 1950s that we do today so that was the second challenge that we had was to develop that camera system make it reliable enough that it could take pictures that were meaningful in an intelligence context and then get them back there was added urgency to get Corona up and working when in May 1960 U2's spy plane pilot Gary Powers was shot down over the Soviet Union and paraded before the world's press reconnaissance missions using aircraft were no longer an option although the US had developed a missile capable of carrying Corona numerous attempts throughout 1959 to launch it failed it was only in August 1960 that a rocket launched to carry Corona into space proved a success that mission alone gave us more imagery that single Mission than all of the U2 missions that had flown previously we were able to as an example identify 64 additional surface-to-air missile sites critical information if we were in the position that we needed to carry out a counter-attack against the Soviet Union following this hard-won success Corona missions launch on a monthly basis once in orbit Corona began taking pictures of the Soviet Union and once the film Ward was completely exposed it would be cut that front capsule where it was held would be sealed off once that capsule came through the Earth's atmosphere there was a parachute system that would cause the capsule to decelerate we would then retrieve that capsule using aircraft positioned over the Pacific Ocean and typically they would capture the the capsule by snagging a parachute and then return the film here to the United States to be developed for intelligence purposes and analyzed the corona program provided the Americans with a huge intelligence advantage after the first few missions Corona analysts made an enormous discovery about the Soviet intercontinental ballistic missiles Force this would drastically change the dynamic of the Cold War Corona within its first couple of successful missions covers enough of the Soviet land mass so we're able to actually obtain clear counts of the Soviet development of ICBM capability and we discover that in fact the United States does not lag it in fact is ahead of the Soviets and developing icdm capability this discovery comes at a time of increased tension between the USA and the Soviet Union hoping to capitalize on his perceived missile superiority Russian Premier Khrushchev begins to pressurize newly elected American President John F Kennedy tensions flare over the state of Berlin and divided Germany worried that khrushchev's bravado could bring both sides closer to war Kennedy decides to make public intelligence obtained by Corona in October 1961 U.S deputy secretary of defense roskill Patrick announces America's missile superiority he reveals the vulnerability of the Soviet intercontinental ballistic missile Force what Kilpatrick was really trying to say to the Soviet leadership was that in the event of a nuclear war the Soviet Union will be devastated by an American nuclear attack and that so the Soviet Union should be treaded very very carefully during the ongoing Berlin crisis by 1961 the United States had about 140 icbms capable of reaching the Soviet Union the corona spy satellite revealed that the Soviets only had about 45. putting the U.S in a commanding position to conduct a devastating first strike [Music] some Scholars have suggested this may have influenced Khrushchev to try to deploy medium and intermediate range ballistic missiles to Cuba as the way as a way to address this imbalance between the Strategic forces of the two sides based in Russia intermediate range ballistic missiles or irbms did not have the range to reach the U.S mainland from Cuba they could reach nearly all of it Soviet missiles only 100 miles from U.S Shores President Kennedy takes a stand this government as promised has maintained the closest surveillance of the Soviet military buildup on the island of Cuba to Halt this offensive buildup a strict quarantine on all offensive military equipment under shipment to Cuba is being initiated tense 13-day standoff ensues as the U.S set their Naval blockade around Cuba Soviet transport ships and submarines approach to challenging the world finds itself on the brink of nuclear war [Applause] [Music] ultimately both Kennedy and crosschev step back from the brink at the end of the cube Missile Crisis both made concessions and compromises to bring about a peaceful resolution to the crisis Kennedy made a no Invasion pledge so the United States pledged not to invade Cuba in the future he also agreed privately with Khrushchev that the United States would withdraw American Jupiter missiles which were deployed on Turkish Seoul Khrushchev agreed to withdraw Soviet missiles from Cuba Kennedy's decision to remove his missiles from Turkey may have been made easier by the knowledge that a new weapon was about to come into operation making the Jupiter missiles obsolete [Music] good morning welcome to Sunny Arizona and my once top secret walk to work [Music] so we'll be 35 feet underground when the lifts stop [Music] at the end of this Corridor we're going to enter the larger portion of the underground facility and then we're going to take another lift that's going to take us about 100 feet further Underground when this facility was operational there were Crews that were stationed here 24 hours at a time 365 days a year foreign we have another few seconds to go level four is coming up and we're going to be heading to level seven so here we are we're standing underneath a Titan II intercontinental ballistic missile the largest land-based missile ever deployed by the United States there were 54 Titan II icbns that were deployed in three groups of 18 at various spots around the United States and the Titan II carried the w53 Warhead which had a yield of nine megatons that's the explosive equivalent of 9 million tons of TNT introduced into service in 1963 the Titan II's Warhead was more powerful than all the bombs used in World War II combined including the two nuclear devices little boy and Fatman it had a range of 6 000 miles so could reach nearly any Target in the Soviet Union within 30 minutes it could decimate an area of 30 square miles the site itself and what specifically went on here and the capability that it had was largely classified top secret but the site itself is out in the open it's not hidden in any manner and that's because we needed for the Soviet Union to know that we existed because that ensures that they understand that this weapon system exists it's a credible threat and it's one more element of what makes the Strategic deterrent work the Titan II would become part of the U.S nuclear Triad consisting of icbms submarine-launched ballistic missiles and strategic bombers these were designed to ensure second strike capabilities during the Cuban Missile Crisis both Kennedy and Robert McNamara's sexual defense felt the use of any nuclear weapon by the Soviet Union or the United States would produce catastrophic consequences and that the casualties that will result from a nuclear exchange would be unacceptable for either side basically a strategy evolved between the two countries it was called Mutual assured destruction and what it meant was that both countries had enough nuclear weapons to annihilate each of the other countries and frankly much of the world for that matter hence Mutual assured destruction acronym for that is mad and I don't think there's a better acronym that could describe it although the nuclear stalemate of the era of mutually assured destruction would stabilize the Cold War the U.S and Soviet Union remained bitter adversaries both sides built their nuclear arsenals into the tens of thousands escalation of tensions was a constant possibility the arms race had progressed to the point where Humanity was capable of annihilating itself at the turn of a key [Music] in 1980 Yvonne Morris became commanding officer of a Titan II missile silo in the U.S state of Arizona she was only 24. a lot of people want to know whether there were times in history where we felt like we might receive a launch order and the answer to that question remains classified in a lot of circumstances but there were a number of times where the tensions between the United States and the former Soviet Union ratcheted it up really during each of her shifts in the control room Yvonne would be responsible for one of the most destructive weapons in the world I feel like as a 24 year old I probably matured on the job a little faster than I might have otherwise it's not just the risk of Armageddon that drives you it's the risk that you can't not be perfect because there are very few mistakes that you could make that wouldn't have some kind of catastrophic consequence foreign if the crew were to receive a launch order it would sound a little bit like this [Music] and what are we hearing really it's a series of alphanumeric characters it's broadcast in the clear whiskey Alpha November w a n [Music] so we're going to write down everything that we hear so the next thing we have to do is authenticate and ensure that the order is actually from the president of the United States or the surviving National command Authority so we'd go over to the safe we'd open it up and inside the safe were things called authenticator cards if they match we know that we now have a valid authenticated launch order and we're actually going to be launching the missile at the time that it tells us to so at that appointed time the deputy crew Commander would take their station right here at their launch key the crew Commander would be here ready to turn their key now these keys are too far apart for one person to be able to touch both keys that was one of the built-in positive controls to make sure that only an authorized launch would take place from this site and in order to launch the missile both officers would have to turn their keys and hold them in the on position for five seconds in order to initiate the launch sequence once the launch sequence is initiated it takes 58 seconds to go from launch enable to lift off The Silo closure door that covers the launch duct is starting to roll open the firing engines of the missile produced so much noise the vibrations could destroy the missile before it left the silo counter this 40 000 liters of water poured into the bottom of the launch duct when the engines fired this water vaporized absorbing large amounts of acoustic energy the steam produced vented out of both sides of the launch duct we have fire in the engine and then we have liftoff and about 30 minutes from now Target Two which was the primary target for this site is going to cease to exist and if we did launch our missile successfully that successful launch would still be failure in the overall terms of what our actual mission was and so it would have been the outcome we were ordered to deliver but not the outcome that we were trying to achieve from the beginning because our primary mission was peace through deterrence [Music] in 1986 the Titan II was retired as an intercontinental ballistic missile only a few years before the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991 which brought about the end of the Cold War tend to think with the fall of the Berlin wall and the collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War that there was a return to normalcy in a lot of way there was the reunification of Germany the opening up of Eastern Europe it did change a lot but the legacy of the Cold War is very much with us and I think in our strategic land-based ICBM Force that's very clear because that hasn't changed all that much with nuclear cyber rattling between the U.S and North Korea as well as Russia's plans to deploy a new generation of nuclear weapons Cold War attitudes could resurface 24 hours a day seven days a week and both in the United States and in what is today Russia there are people in silos sitting in chairs ready to turn keys that would launch missiles I mean that's the way it was in the Cold War and there's been no relaxation of it since silos Across America the Minuteman 3 missiles the last remaining intercontinental ballistic missiles in the U.S nuclear Arsenal stand waiting ever ready the Minuteman 300 service in 1970. during the Cold War they were targeted at sites in the Soviet Union each missile carried what is called a multiple independently targetable re-entry vehicle Merv for short so it carried three nuclear warheads in the re-entry vehicle as a result of treaty negotiations it was reduced to one nuclear warhead and all the Minutemen threes that are still in service in the United States about 400 or so they only have one nuclear warhead and they can be targeted at any time they're not automatically targeted to the Soviet Union the way they were during the Cold War unlike its predecessors the Minuteman series would make use of solid fuel as opposed to liquid fuel the problem with liquid fuel is that it's very difficult to handle it's dangerous it's volatile it requires a lot of Plumbing a lot of infrastructure so with the introduction of solid fuels is it got rid of all those problems because solid fuel is inert it's not volatile difficult to handle it's got the consistency of a pencil eraser the oxidizer and the fuel are mixed together and that's the consistency of the material and then it's put inside the rocket casing you could store it in a silo for an extended period of time didn't require the maintenance didn't require the upkeep it can just sit there until it's ready to be launched on a moment's notice it's still very much a part of our lives but it's one that the public tends not to think about Korea there are today nine countries that allegedly hold nuclear weapons although arms treaties have limited the number there are still nearly 15 000 Warheads in the world with the United States and Russia retaining about 7 000 each [Music] I think the bomb had something to do with the Cold War staying cold and and there were proxy wars and other countries fought each other but there was no large altercation as World War one and World War II foreign the nuclear bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki Remain the only ones to be used in combat it's argued the gruesome potential of nuclear weapons prevents them from being used in Anger again but they spawned an arms race which saw Humanity build Combat Machines that would lead us to the brink of our own Extinction a Brink we have yet to step back from [Music]

Channel: War Stories

Views: 61,927

Keywords: military history, war, war documentary, military tactics, war stories, history of war, battles, Full Documentary

Id: WxupMdlITmc

Length: 44min 23sec (2663 seconds)

Published: Sun Jan 22 2023