JFK: What happens next?

[unmerged(71436)]

Not hours. An ICBM has a speed of about 7km/s. So it's a question of minutes in any case. Also, I'm not sure Americans could have detected a lauch immediately in 1962 (they later spent enormous ressources to build NORAD right for this purpose). So the reaction time begins only when rockets are detected by radars, when they are already approaching their targets. That means the reaction time is the same whether the rockets come from Siberia or Cuba.

Not quite, though almost. A rocket flying from Siberia needs something between 20 and 30 minutes to hit parts of the continental US (other than Alaska). A missile flying from Cuba could hit within five minutes or less. 20-30 minutes, in those days of permanent readiness for everything, still left enough time to evacuate the senior government, scramble a lot of aircraft and move some troops out of the way. Missiles flying from Cuba (or indeed, submarines) negated that possibility. So the missiles from Cuba were a threat, even if it is not a major strategic difference.

 

[Amallric]

Was there a way to detect the missiles right after they were launched in 1962?

 

[krieger11b]

Not quite, though almost. A rocket flying from Siberia needs something between 20 and 30 minutes to hit parts of the continental US (other than Alaska). A missile flying from Cuba could hit within five minutes or less. 20-30 minutes, in those days of permanent readiness for everything, still left enough time to evacuate the senior government, scramble a lot of aircraft and move some troops out of the way. Missiles flying from Cuba (or indeed, submarines) negated that possibility. So the missiles from Cuba were a threat, even if it is not a major strategic difference.

It still takes more than that amount of time for US ICBMs to fuel up though.

 

[Jos de trol]

were the short range land based missiles not more accurate than the other ones? I read that e.g. missiles launched from subs were less accurate and therefore reserved for targets where accuracy was less of an issue, such as major cities.

also, the ICBM's came in from over the north pole, so there was a strategic advantage from having another entry point? Also, subs are nice, but why not expand your launch platforms with an unsinkable aircraft carrier?

 

[Amallric]

were the short range land based missiles not more accurate than the other ones? I read that e.g. missiles launched from subs were less accurate and therefore reserved for targets where accuracy was less of an issue, such as major cities.

Why would you need accuracy when you carry a 6-megaton hydrogenic bomb

also, the ICBM's came in from over the north pole, so there was a strategic advantage from having another entry point?

A strategic advantage? What kind? There was no way to intercept ICBM's anyway.

Also, subs are nice, but why not expand your launch platforms with an unsinkable aircraft carrier?

Competing with the USA in air power would be impossible and the Soviets never attempted it.

 

[Yakman]

What if Kennedy survives you mean?

Well I heard he was about to bust Lyndon Johnson for corruption and mob involvement, can't find the source.

Vietnam would have died off, if one thing Kennedy was good at, it was not being sucked in by the military in anti communist wars.

Civil Rights bill would have lingered on a lot longer. Kennedy's death was used very effectively by Johnson to promote it, however even more effective was Johnsons far more effective um... leaning.. on the US Congress. Kennedy was much weaker on this, and who really listens to a Vice President about anything? I bet the cold war would have gotten even colder. Though with more Conterim victories, however I doubt very much more.

I think another attempt may have been made though. I believe the military industrial complex was involved, though the list of enemies Kennedy had was not a short one. Though I find it interesting that both him and Martin Luther King Jr were both killed shortly after comming out against the war in Vietnam. MLK JRs job was pretty much done before his assasination, all he had left to do was the healing and comming together afterwards, something that was badly needed. He sucessors like Jesse Jackson were race baiter that used race to make money off it, so that no real interest in healing.

are you kidding?

JFK was the one who got us fighting in Viet Nam. He sent tens of thousands of additional "advisors" to SE Asia. The man was a hard core Cold Warrior.

He was not going to "bust" LBJ for anything, either. And Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone.

I think we'd probably not have had a Civil Rights bill as quickly, as LBJ was able to use Kennedy's martyrdom as a way to sell a very complicated piece of legislation. We would still have been involved in Vietnam, most likely. Kennedy was not a big government guy, so the "Great Society" programs would likely not have been propagated, and because the moonshot was financed to the extent it was because it was Kennedy's legacy, it's possible that Apollo might have been scuttled due to its insane costs.

 

[Stuckenschmidt]

He gets laid with all women in Washington DC.

*sigh*

He died too soon.

 

[Yakman]

He gets laid with all women in Washington DC.

*sigh*

He died too soon.

he was pretty much done already...

man was a player. supposedly he was sleeping with a german spy during ww2.

 

[99KingHigh]

Read 11/22/63.

 

[Yakman]

also, Steven King would not have written that book and Oliver Stone would not have made that movie.

 

[soda7777777]

also, Steven King would not have written that book and Oliver Stone would not have made that movie.

And the world would have been a much better place.

 

[Herbert West]

And the world would have been a much better place.

Heresy!

:shoots soda back and to the left:

 

[Veldmaarschalk]

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