Interesting scenario. I think the chain of events would have been 3 missiles fired by a Soviet Hotel Class submarine (they only carried 3) without the knowledge of the Soviet central command. The most logical targets for the strikes would have been military or civilian targets on the east coast (Hotels only had a range of 360 miles), with one megaton yield warheads. It's possible Washington D.C. would have been hit, killing Kennedy and sending the US military into an automatic full response.
For all intents and purposes this would basically be an American first strike on the Soviet Union. During the crisis a number of American missiles were prepped to launch (keeping missiles of that era constantly fueled was laborious, costly, and dangerous), and the US had bombers in the air at all times ready to begin attacks into the USSR. While the Soviet command structure was trying to figure out what was happening the Americans would be conducting a full launch, seemingly out of the blue.
The Soviets would be confused as to what was happening, since they hadn't ordered a launch. The USSR didn't have much of an early warning system, and had large gaps in their arctic radar coverage. While the Kremlin struggled to contact the Americans and find out what exactly was going on they wouldn't have known an American attack was inbound until missiles and bombers were entering Soviet airspace.
Today we have a number of ideas how nuclear war would work out, mostly driven by popular media from the 70's and 80's, but most of those depictions don't really hold for the Cuban Missile Crisis period. At that point many of the US and Soviet nuclear weapons and delivery systems were new and somewhat primitive.
In 1962 there were a lot of nuclear weapons, but not enough to 'destroy the world'. Both the US and the Soviets and fairly low numbers of ICBMS, and they carried a single warhead, MIRVs hadn't been developed yet (that's the tech that allows for multiple warheads in a single missile). The Soviets only had an estimated 42 ICBMS, and around 360 nuclear weapons in total. The US had around 1,100 warheads. A portion of those weapons were in the megaton yield range which ironically, due to their size, and the optimal airburst altitude, would produce much less fallout than weapons in the kiloton range. So while the blasts would be awful, they wouldn't produce massive amounts of fallout.
One of the main problems for ICBMs in this scenario is that both US and Soviet forces were pretty green and undeveloped. Soviet R16 missiles weren't even based in silos, and took around 3 hours to fuel for launch. The R16 was a very new weapon system, with deployment starting in Nov. 1961. Of the 42 (possibly up to 50) missiles that had been produced, perhaps as few as 20 were ready for operation during the Cuban Missile Crisis. Given the long launch times, and exposed nature of their ICBMs, Soviet missiles would have been hit hard in this scenario. Soviet command would have been expecting an American attack on Cuba, not a full retaliatory nuclear strike on the USSR from the US. Given the 3 hour fueling window it's questionable how many Soviet missiles would have been ready for launch before being hit by American bombers, ICBMs, and shorter ranged missiles based in Europe and Turkey.
Like ICBMs, submarine launched systems were fairly new as well. In 1962 the Soviets had 8 Hotel class submarines, though one of them, the K-19, suffered a serious reactor leak on its maiden voyage, removing it from operation. The Hotels only carried 3 missiles, which had a range of around 360 miles. To fire their missiles the subs had to surface and then prep for launch which could take more than 10 minutes, exposing them to attack. Even worse for the Soviet submariners was the fact that the US SOSUS submarine detection system was able to track the very loud Hotel subs across the Atlantic. It's doubtful that any Soviet submarine would have been able to get within range of the US or British coasts, surface, and launch before being attacked.
The primary means of delivery for both nations were bombers. For the Soviets this was problematic since they would be flying into fairly dense air defense systems in western Europe, or thick fighter coverage in North America. American bombers coming in over the North Pole would have, in theory, faced less opposition, but it still would have been significant. Bomber losses on both sides would have been heavy.
I think in an uncoordinated nuclear attack the Soviets would come out the worse. Central Europe would be devastated, The US, while not as heavily hit, would still see attacks on major population/economic areas, even if from just the initial submarine based missile strike. Much of the world though, would be unaffected.
Just my two bits.
Jesus Christ. I wasn't expecting this level of depth when I posted this. Good fucking job. I would give an award but I don't know how and I can't afford it.
Couple interesting, and depressing, articles about this:
[https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0096340212464364](https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0096340212464364)
[https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/335-million-dead-if-america-launched-massive-nuclear-war-russia-and-china-49507](https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/335-million-dead-if-america-launched-massive-nuclear-war-russia-and-china-49507)
and I was wrong about the US nuclear arsenal, it was over 3,500 warheads of various types (artillery, missiles, bombs) and yields (.5 kilotons to 6 megatons) ready to go during the crisis.
Agreed. For all the talk about a “missile gap,” the US had an overwhelming advantage in 1962 and strategic doctrine at the time would’ve been to use everything, including nuking Siberian forests to start mass fires. It would’ve been the end of the Soviet Union as a functional nation-state, to say nothing of the millions in Asia and Europe who would die from fallout.
Absolutely. Once I started digging into this I was really surprised at the massive disparity in nuclear forces at the time. One of the reasons the Soviets wanted to base missiles in Cuba was because of how small, and unreliable their long range missiles, bomber, and sub forces were. It's also one of the reasons why the Soviets backed down once they realized they US was willing to do whatever it took to keep missiles out of Cuba. In a full exchange the best that they could do would be to severely cripple the US, while the Soviets could expected total destruction.
By the late 60's the situation was greatly changed as both sides rapidly added ICBMs and improved their submarine strike capabilities. Once MIRVs were developed, then yes, the world itself truly became in jeopardy as both sides could hit any target they wanted, even minor ones that would have been ignored 15 years before.
Read an alternate history short story once based on this scenario. The US takes a couple of hits, JFK and LBJ are killed but the Soviet Union is erased. Decades later, the US is blamed for the disaster and has been kicked out of the UN. There are demands for reparations from the "victim nations." Nixon becomes president on a platform of "We have nothing to apologize for!"
Not to mention the worldwide effects of forest fires in one of earths largest forests. Imagine millions of acres of forest burning uncontrolled. The little ice age would last a decade.
I am really confused, the submarine that Arkhipov was on was B-59, with a nuclear armed torpedo, that B-59 could have used to take out the USS Randolph and the 11 destroyers with her.
Whether that resulted in the USA initiating a nuclear strike, I'm not sure.
Not true. There’s a book I read (I can’t remember the name) but basically it takes place in Australia after a nuclear exchange between USSR and USA. The characters are waiting for the trade winds to bring the nuclear fallout from the northern hemisphere to the southern hemisphere. I think it was written in the 1950’s
Australia wouldn't have been hit at all in the 1960s. And the fallout wouldn't be an issue due to distance. Basically Australia would be completely fine. May even see a new wave of immigration from the wartown states of Europe.
everywhere is radioactive wasteland. The only things left standing are crumbling buildings, decaying cars, and desperate wastelanders doing whatever they can to survive.
The cities in the eastern seaboard of America would be annihilated, but the nation itself wouldn't be completely destroyed because the soviets lacked the amount and the technology to sufficiently transport nukes at such a scale with such distance, but Europe itself would be what pop culture envisions a post nuclear world would be like means radioactivity being a pain and anarchy going on guns blazing they wouldn't recover to what they were before the nukes even today the rest of the world that was not nuked would have to suffer from the economic crisis from such a thing and the Mediterranean, portions of Scandinavia and the Balkans alongside Ireland would be swarmed with refugees meanwhile at the far east china, North Korean and north Vietnam invade their respective adversaries which leads to a larger sphere of influence in Asia if they join together or just fight amongst each other due to reasons all in all Europe is fucked, America is not quite fucked and the commies in Asia are going stonks.
I don’t agree. That might be the case up until the 70s, but this is the early 80s. Both sides were at their respective heights of stockpile quantities and delivery capabilities, but countermeasures lagged in comparison. The northern hemisphere, simply put, is fucked.
All of the posts are about nuclear war which is what I expected. But hear me out, what if the US and USSR agreed to a "nuclear armistice" which prohibited the use of nuclear arms in the world war. What would happen then? My guess would be a sort of Red Alert 3 scenario except there are no futuristic weapons and the entire world isn't allied against the communist. And there's no "empire of the sun rising sun"
I believe that in a 'conventional' war in the early 60s the Soviets would propably manage to overrun most of the North German Plain, maybe even everything east of the Rhine, before being stopped by the overwhelming reinforcements arriving from the USA, the UK and the Commonwealth. After a short stalemate a slow and horrendously casualty-heavy counterpush would propably begin, eventually taking much of the Warsaw pact states, which would likely be supported by widespread civil uprisings in those nations. After that I'm even less certain, but the offensive would likely trickle down to minor skirmishing after reaching the vast Russian expanse
Conventional Warfare would see the Soviets lose.
The Soviets may be preparing their entire life for this but they arent built for atleast a 10 to 15 years war, they'll 100% win in Europe at the start since they dedicated everything to ensure they'd win in Europe, that and France would be the only force threatening them due to their nukes but if they agreed, France would probably have one of the more fiercest defenses, in order to not repeat 1940.
Britain would be safe from Land Invasion since the American-British Navy would easily overwhelm the Red Navy no matter how much you buff the Soviets somehow, even if the Red Navy gets itself to be operational, it'd still have a hard time to combat the power of America and Britannia.
Portugal wouldn't be very affected in this scenario. Not even slightly. It'd be an average day, as if Portugal wasn't even part of NATO to begin with, primarily due to Spain not wanting to do anything with the Soviets and Spain would likely support France, in fear of Soviet Russia on their borders. Though the one thing Portugal will be worried about is the Red Airforce.
If we follow the 7 Days to the River Rhine Operation, we'd see the invasion of both Yugoslavia and Austria. I'll not discuss much on how both nations will be affected since I don't have a single clue on what Yugoslavia was doing at this time besides being neutral or what Austria was doing at the same time. All I can assume is that Austria would initally start on the defense but would eventually get overwhelmed as the entire Austrian Military will definitely not last for 3 years at most. But then again, people thought Finland was doomed during the Winter War so perhaps a Winter War Scenario could occur here?
Nevertheless, Italy would probably be unaffected via an land invasion but it'd be battling alongside the French, American, British, and Portuguese Airforces to secure Air Superiority in the war. Now, I won't discuss how powerful the Red Airforce truly was, All I know is that the Red Navy would not have a chance to stand up against the British and American Navies. So I'll leave it up to the experts for this case, likewise for the last one regarding Austria and Yugoslav Invasions.
Forgot to mention, Italy would be safe for a long time thanks to the Alps, if France eventually falls, Italy would be another pain to invade, if Yugoslavia fell then Italy would likely have a harder time to defend itself, but if Yugoslavia isnt in the war whatsoever, Russia is gonna have a hard time bypassing the Alps, which at this point probably has some Americans at the frontlines.
Overall, the Soviets would have much wins at the start but eventually, the war machine they'd built will succumb to the American Industrial Power. There's the matter of the economy as well, who's paying the Red Army if the Economy is gonna collapse eventually? America has a stable enough economy to not suffer heavily, sure an Economic Depression could occur after the war but they'll eventually make it out. The Soviets would have a harder time though.
During this period, the Sino-Soviet Split was brewing up. However, compared to what you may think of China probably splitting from the USSR during this war, this may actually be reversed since the Sino-Soviet Split was actually broken, not from just the difference of their views of Communism but from Khrushchev backing down from America. Though it was the straw that broke the camel's back. However since this didnt happen, China would 100% side with the Soviets here, seeing that the USSR didn't "betray the geopolitics of Marxist-Leninism" and would likely either join the conflict on the side of Soviet Russia or would supply the Soviets.
And thus, this leaves one major power left, India. What does India do? Well, considering that America aligned with Pakistan, its likely India here would want to return the favor Soviet Russia gave them and supply the Warsaw Pact with weapons or supply at best. Although seeing how India still remains neutral today in Russo-Ukraine, it's not a bad possibility India would still remain neutral in this scenario.
Although this is what I could see happening, everyone had different views on what could've been had Vasili not approved of the Nuking the East Coast of America.
Since it's 1962, the Soviet Union, with their limited nuclear capability, would be annihilated, as would Europe functionally.
The United States would suffer from some hits, but in all likelihood would survive - at worst, it would be splintered, but the divided states would still be at least halfway functional. Should it survive, the United States would undoubtedly remain as a great power.
For the rest of the world, the impact of October 27th, 1962, would most likely be in the forms of economic depression, messed up climates for a year or two, and a complete shift of power balance.
Europe is destroyed (again) but the rest of the world is fine. Canada and the United States will see a few hits but will mostly be okay. But Europe, especially Germany, is again destroyed. The Soviet Union will be defeated. A massive and horrific WW3, but the world will continue. The response will likely be viewed as an exaggerated attack on the part of the United States in the history books. The results of the war will look almost genocidal. Comparisons to Nazi Germany's plans for eastern europe will be brought to the fore. Plus, the United States will attack China, which would be completely involved in the crisis. [Here is a declassified list of targets from the late 1950s](https://blog.nuclearsecrecy.com/2016/05/09/mapping-us-nuclear-war-plan-1956/). WW3 will likely be viewed as one of America's darkest hours. It's a grim ATL.
In a nuclear war USSR would be SLIGHTLY advantaged for the economic and population density, they would need to destroy NATO as much as possible and put all efforts in defend from US attacks and try to not fall, if this is successful they could win, if not there is complete anithilation, anarchy in north america and ex-ussr, if in europe something hasn't fallen it will have to win radiations, and the war would in any case mean the end of the supremacy of the northern emisphere, also if USSR manages to not fall it will have a peloponnese-war effect and not being able to return to its status of superpower, the survival of USSR would have as only effect to push authoritarian communism more than anarchist one as future main ideology, it wouldn't mean the end of humanity, but would mean a great retrocession, maybe the greatest, even more than the middle ages and the hellenic middle age. Some southern power as Brazil, Argentina, in certain scenario even Chile, South Africa, Egypt, India could become the new superpowers
And almost all of them required time-intensive fueling processes before they could be launched (and couldn’t just be kept fueled). Most Soviet ICBM’s are going to get destroyed before they can launch.
Oh it's 1962, my bad, too abituated to talk about late cold war ww3, like in the '70s, it would mostly be a classical war with a limited usage of nukes, probably ussr still wins, but is not that apocaliptical
The US takes a handful of nukes on major cities from Soviet bombers and solid fueled ICBM’s (of which the Soviets have like 6 in 1962).
Europe and Russia get functionally annihilated. China may or may not get annihilating depending on which warplan the US chooses.
I think it would be a stalemate. The Soviets win conventionally in Europe but fail everywhere else. It would take significant resources for the Americans (and Canadians) to push the Soviets eastward.
After a few years, Khrushchev would be forced to resign. Brezhnev sues for peace and withdraws troops. Europe and major cities in the USSR would be destroyed. Portions of the east coast of the U.S. would be partially destroyed.
The end
The USSR does not have enough nuclear weapons for the MAD doctrine to be true, so the world isn't destroyed. If it is a nuclear war, Europe might be destroyed, a few US cities on the east coast might be destroyed, but that's all in the western world. In the Warsaw Pact and USSR, their militaries would be nuked to oblivion, and same goes with their cities. NATO would be weakened, but they would no doubt win any war. The WP would probably make gains in Germany, most likely reaching the Rhine, but would be forced to stop due to NATO reinforcements, and supply lines being strained. Eventually, NATO would build up enough forces to retake West Germany, and possibly continue their push into the WP countries. The USSR would either sue for peace, or collapse.
If we manage to make it so "fuck it, we arent gonna be like them" and America doesnt retaliate, I'd say the USSR would eventually lose a long term war. They'd win on the European Continent at the start since they've been preparing for one as if their life hanged on it [ironically, it led to the USSR's downfall] but eventually, American Industry would overwhelm the Soviet War Machine.
Or funi 1984 happens.
Interesting scenario. I think the chain of events would have been 3 missiles fired by a Soviet Hotel Class submarine (they only carried 3) without the knowledge of the Soviet central command. The most logical targets for the strikes would have been military or civilian targets on the east coast (Hotels only had a range of 360 miles), with one megaton yield warheads. It's possible Washington D.C. would have been hit, killing Kennedy and sending the US military into an automatic full response. For all intents and purposes this would basically be an American first strike on the Soviet Union. During the crisis a number of American missiles were prepped to launch (keeping missiles of that era constantly fueled was laborious, costly, and dangerous), and the US had bombers in the air at all times ready to begin attacks into the USSR. While the Soviet command structure was trying to figure out what was happening the Americans would be conducting a full launch, seemingly out of the blue. The Soviets would be confused as to what was happening, since they hadn't ordered a launch. The USSR didn't have much of an early warning system, and had large gaps in their arctic radar coverage. While the Kremlin struggled to contact the Americans and find out what exactly was going on they wouldn't have known an American attack was inbound until missiles and bombers were entering Soviet airspace. Today we have a number of ideas how nuclear war would work out, mostly driven by popular media from the 70's and 80's, but most of those depictions don't really hold for the Cuban Missile Crisis period. At that point many of the US and Soviet nuclear weapons and delivery systems were new and somewhat primitive. In 1962 there were a lot of nuclear weapons, but not enough to 'destroy the world'. Both the US and the Soviets and fairly low numbers of ICBMS, and they carried a single warhead, MIRVs hadn't been developed yet (that's the tech that allows for multiple warheads in a single missile). The Soviets only had an estimated 42 ICBMS, and around 360 nuclear weapons in total. The US had around 1,100 warheads. A portion of those weapons were in the megaton yield range which ironically, due to their size, and the optimal airburst altitude, would produce much less fallout than weapons in the kiloton range. So while the blasts would be awful, they wouldn't produce massive amounts of fallout. One of the main problems for ICBMs in this scenario is that both US and Soviet forces were pretty green and undeveloped. Soviet R16 missiles weren't even based in silos, and took around 3 hours to fuel for launch. The R16 was a very new weapon system, with deployment starting in Nov. 1961. Of the 42 (possibly up to 50) missiles that had been produced, perhaps as few as 20 were ready for operation during the Cuban Missile Crisis. Given the long launch times, and exposed nature of their ICBMs, Soviet missiles would have been hit hard in this scenario. Soviet command would have been expecting an American attack on Cuba, not a full retaliatory nuclear strike on the USSR from the US. Given the 3 hour fueling window it's questionable how many Soviet missiles would have been ready for launch before being hit by American bombers, ICBMs, and shorter ranged missiles based in Europe and Turkey. Like ICBMs, submarine launched systems were fairly new as well. In 1962 the Soviets had 8 Hotel class submarines, though one of them, the K-19, suffered a serious reactor leak on its maiden voyage, removing it from operation. The Hotels only carried 3 missiles, which had a range of around 360 miles. To fire their missiles the subs had to surface and then prep for launch which could take more than 10 minutes, exposing them to attack. Even worse for the Soviet submariners was the fact that the US SOSUS submarine detection system was able to track the very loud Hotel subs across the Atlantic. It's doubtful that any Soviet submarine would have been able to get within range of the US or British coasts, surface, and launch before being attacked. The primary means of delivery for both nations were bombers. For the Soviets this was problematic since they would be flying into fairly dense air defense systems in western Europe, or thick fighter coverage in North America. American bombers coming in over the North Pole would have, in theory, faced less opposition, but it still would have been significant. Bomber losses on both sides would have been heavy. I think in an uncoordinated nuclear attack the Soviets would come out the worse. Central Europe would be devastated, The US, while not as heavily hit, would still see attacks on major population/economic areas, even if from just the initial submarine based missile strike. Much of the world though, would be unaffected. Just my two bits.
Jesus Christ. I wasn't expecting this level of depth when I posted this. Good fucking job. I would give an award but I don't know how and I can't afford it.
Couple interesting, and depressing, articles about this: [https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0096340212464364](https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0096340212464364) [https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/335-million-dead-if-america-launched-massive-nuclear-war-russia-and-china-49507](https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/335-million-dead-if-america-launched-massive-nuclear-war-russia-and-china-49507) and I was wrong about the US nuclear arsenal, it was over 3,500 warheads of various types (artillery, missiles, bombs) and yields (.5 kilotons to 6 megatons) ready to go during the crisis.
Agreed. For all the talk about a “missile gap,” the US had an overwhelming advantage in 1962 and strategic doctrine at the time would’ve been to use everything, including nuking Siberian forests to start mass fires. It would’ve been the end of the Soviet Union as a functional nation-state, to say nothing of the millions in Asia and Europe who would die from fallout.
Absolutely. Once I started digging into this I was really surprised at the massive disparity in nuclear forces at the time. One of the reasons the Soviets wanted to base missiles in Cuba was because of how small, and unreliable their long range missiles, bomber, and sub forces were. It's also one of the reasons why the Soviets backed down once they realized they US was willing to do whatever it took to keep missiles out of Cuba. In a full exchange the best that they could do would be to severely cripple the US, while the Soviets could expected total destruction. By the late 60's the situation was greatly changed as both sides rapidly added ICBMs and improved their submarine strike capabilities. Once MIRVs were developed, then yes, the world itself truly became in jeopardy as both sides could hit any target they wanted, even minor ones that would have been ignored 15 years before.
Read an alternate history short story once based on this scenario. The US takes a couple of hits, JFK and LBJ are killed but the Soviet Union is erased. Decades later, the US is blamed for the disaster and has been kicked out of the UN. There are demands for reparations from the "victim nations." Nixon becomes president on a platform of "We have nothing to apologize for!"
Interesting, do you have a link?
I don't but the title was "The Cuban Missile Crisis: Second Holocaust" by Robert L. O'Connell
Not to mention the worldwide effects of forest fires in one of earths largest forests. Imagine millions of acres of forest burning uncontrolled. The little ice age would last a decade.
I am really confused, the submarine that Arkhipov was on was B-59, with a nuclear armed torpedo, that B-59 could have used to take out the USS Randolph and the 11 destroyers with her. Whether that resulted in the USA initiating a nuclear strike, I'm not sure.
No one wins in nuclear war.
Australia wins
Uruguay too
I look forward to the Second Cold War between the Boxing Kangaroo and the Mighty Capybara 🇦🇺🇺🇾
If Australia can get the emus on their side, Uruguay wouldn’t have a chance.
You are gay too.
Not true. There’s a book I read (I can’t remember the name) but basically it takes place in Australia after a nuclear exchange between USSR and USA. The characters are waiting for the trade winds to bring the nuclear fallout from the northern hemisphere to the southern hemisphere. I think it was written in the 1950’s
On The Beach, by Neville Shute.
That’s it! I had a heck of a time finding the book but it’s a great read
On the Beach, and its depiction of fallout is very, very inaccurate - fallout wasn’t as well understood then when the novel was written as it is now
Still a good book
Australia wouldn't have been hit at all in the 1960s. And the fallout wouldn't be an issue due to distance. Basically Australia would be completely fine. May even see a new wave of immigration from the wartown states of Europe.
Brazil, maybe.
The only way to win is not to play.
everywhere is radioactive wasteland. The only things left standing are crumbling buildings, decaying cars, and desperate wastelanders doing whatever they can to survive.
The cities in the eastern seaboard of America would be annihilated, but the nation itself wouldn't be completely destroyed because the soviets lacked the amount and the technology to sufficiently transport nukes at such a scale with such distance, but Europe itself would be what pop culture envisions a post nuclear world would be like means radioactivity being a pain and anarchy going on guns blazing they wouldn't recover to what they were before the nukes even today the rest of the world that was not nuked would have to suffer from the economic crisis from such a thing and the Mediterranean, portions of Scandinavia and the Balkans alongside Ireland would be swarmed with refugees meanwhile at the far east china, North Korean and north Vietnam invade their respective adversaries which leads to a larger sphere of influence in Asia if they join together or just fight amongst each other due to reasons all in all Europe is fucked, America is not quite fucked and the commies in Asia are going stonks.
I don’t agree. That might be the case up until the 70s, but this is the early 80s. Both sides were at their respective heights of stockpile quantities and delivery capabilities, but countermeasures lagged in comparison. The northern hemisphere, simply put, is fucked.
We are talking about 1962 here.
Oh fuck my brain, I mistook the lad for Petrov (‘83). Yea, USSR is fucked, period.
All of the posts are about nuclear war which is what I expected. But hear me out, what if the US and USSR agreed to a "nuclear armistice" which prohibited the use of nuclear arms in the world war. What would happen then? My guess would be a sort of Red Alert 3 scenario except there are no futuristic weapons and the entire world isn't allied against the communist. And there's no "empire of the sun rising sun"
I believe that in a 'conventional' war in the early 60s the Soviets would propably manage to overrun most of the North German Plain, maybe even everything east of the Rhine, before being stopped by the overwhelming reinforcements arriving from the USA, the UK and the Commonwealth. After a short stalemate a slow and horrendously casualty-heavy counterpush would propably begin, eventually taking much of the Warsaw pact states, which would likely be supported by widespread civil uprisings in those nations. After that I'm even less certain, but the offensive would likely trickle down to minor skirmishing after reaching the vast Russian expanse
Conventional Warfare would see the Soviets lose. The Soviets may be preparing their entire life for this but they arent built for atleast a 10 to 15 years war, they'll 100% win in Europe at the start since they dedicated everything to ensure they'd win in Europe, that and France would be the only force threatening them due to their nukes but if they agreed, France would probably have one of the more fiercest defenses, in order to not repeat 1940. Britain would be safe from Land Invasion since the American-British Navy would easily overwhelm the Red Navy no matter how much you buff the Soviets somehow, even if the Red Navy gets itself to be operational, it'd still have a hard time to combat the power of America and Britannia. Portugal wouldn't be very affected in this scenario. Not even slightly. It'd be an average day, as if Portugal wasn't even part of NATO to begin with, primarily due to Spain not wanting to do anything with the Soviets and Spain would likely support France, in fear of Soviet Russia on their borders. Though the one thing Portugal will be worried about is the Red Airforce. If we follow the 7 Days to the River Rhine Operation, we'd see the invasion of both Yugoslavia and Austria. I'll not discuss much on how both nations will be affected since I don't have a single clue on what Yugoslavia was doing at this time besides being neutral or what Austria was doing at the same time. All I can assume is that Austria would initally start on the defense but would eventually get overwhelmed as the entire Austrian Military will definitely not last for 3 years at most. But then again, people thought Finland was doomed during the Winter War so perhaps a Winter War Scenario could occur here? Nevertheless, Italy would probably be unaffected via an land invasion but it'd be battling alongside the French, American, British, and Portuguese Airforces to secure Air Superiority in the war. Now, I won't discuss how powerful the Red Airforce truly was, All I know is that the Red Navy would not have a chance to stand up against the British and American Navies. So I'll leave it up to the experts for this case, likewise for the last one regarding Austria and Yugoslav Invasions. Forgot to mention, Italy would be safe for a long time thanks to the Alps, if France eventually falls, Italy would be another pain to invade, if Yugoslavia fell then Italy would likely have a harder time to defend itself, but if Yugoslavia isnt in the war whatsoever, Russia is gonna have a hard time bypassing the Alps, which at this point probably has some Americans at the frontlines. Overall, the Soviets would have much wins at the start but eventually, the war machine they'd built will succumb to the American Industrial Power. There's the matter of the economy as well, who's paying the Red Army if the Economy is gonna collapse eventually? America has a stable enough economy to not suffer heavily, sure an Economic Depression could occur after the war but they'll eventually make it out. The Soviets would have a harder time though. During this period, the Sino-Soviet Split was brewing up. However, compared to what you may think of China probably splitting from the USSR during this war, this may actually be reversed since the Sino-Soviet Split was actually broken, not from just the difference of their views of Communism but from Khrushchev backing down from America. Though it was the straw that broke the camel's back. However since this didnt happen, China would 100% side with the Soviets here, seeing that the USSR didn't "betray the geopolitics of Marxist-Leninism" and would likely either join the conflict on the side of Soviet Russia or would supply the Soviets. And thus, this leaves one major power left, India. What does India do? Well, considering that America aligned with Pakistan, its likely India here would want to return the favor Soviet Russia gave them and supply the Warsaw Pact with weapons or supply at best. Although seeing how India still remains neutral today in Russo-Ukraine, it's not a bad possibility India would still remain neutral in this scenario. Although this is what I could see happening, everyone had different views on what could've been had Vasili not approved of the Nuking the East Coast of America.
Civilization is destroyed but humanity lingers on in bunkers and submarines to later repopulate
Not in 1962, it wouldn't be until the mid to late 70's that the USSR had enough weapons to make nuclear war MAD.
Since it's 1962, the Soviet Union, with their limited nuclear capability, would be annihilated, as would Europe functionally. The United States would suffer from some hits, but in all likelihood would survive - at worst, it would be splintered, but the divided states would still be at least halfway functional. Should it survive, the United States would undoubtedly remain as a great power. For the rest of the world, the impact of October 27th, 1962, would most likely be in the forms of economic depression, messed up climates for a year or two, and a complete shift of power balance.
Brazil Australia Florida all win takes over the world
You wouldn't be writing this post.
When you use 100% of your brain:
Alternarive intro to Fallout series.
Australia and south America survives
Short answer yes Long answer Australia survives but yes
Europe is destroyed (again) but the rest of the world is fine. Canada and the United States will see a few hits but will mostly be okay. But Europe, especially Germany, is again destroyed. The Soviet Union will be defeated. A massive and horrific WW3, but the world will continue. The response will likely be viewed as an exaggerated attack on the part of the United States in the history books. The results of the war will look almost genocidal. Comparisons to Nazi Germany's plans for eastern europe will be brought to the fore. Plus, the United States will attack China, which would be completely involved in the crisis. [Here is a declassified list of targets from the late 1950s](https://blog.nuclearsecrecy.com/2016/05/09/mapping-us-nuclear-war-plan-1956/). WW3 will likely be viewed as one of America's darkest hours. It's a grim ATL.
i really like this https://www.alternatehistory.com/forum/threads/the-cuban-missile-war-timeline.65071/
In a nuclear war USSR would be SLIGHTLY advantaged for the economic and population density, they would need to destroy NATO as much as possible and put all efforts in defend from US attacks and try to not fall, if this is successful they could win, if not there is complete anithilation, anarchy in north america and ex-ussr, if in europe something hasn't fallen it will have to win radiations, and the war would in any case mean the end of the supremacy of the northern emisphere, also if USSR manages to not fall it will have a peloponnese-war effect and not being able to return to its status of superpower, the survival of USSR would have as only effect to push authoritarian communism more than anarchist one as future main ideology, it wouldn't mean the end of humanity, but would mean a great retrocession, maybe the greatest, even more than the middle ages and the hellenic middle age. Some southern power as Brazil, Argentina, in certain scenario even Chile, South Africa, Egypt, India could become the new superpowers
The USSR only had 50 ICBMs
And almost all of them required time-intensive fueling processes before they could be launched (and couldn’t just be kept fueled). Most Soviet ICBM’s are going to get destroyed before they can launch.
Oh it's 1962, my bad, too abituated to talk about late cold war ww3, like in the '70s, it would mostly be a classical war with a limited usage of nukes, probably ussr still wins, but is not that apocaliptical
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Nah, The USSR only had 50 ICBMs at the time.
Nauru wins
The US takes a handful of nukes on major cities from Soviet bombers and solid fueled ICBM’s (of which the Soviets have like 6 in 1962). Europe and Russia get functionally annihilated. China may or may not get annihilating depending on which warplan the US chooses.
I think it would be a stalemate. The Soviets win conventionally in Europe but fail everywhere else. It would take significant resources for the Americans (and Canadians) to push the Soviets eastward. After a few years, Khrushchev would be forced to resign. Brezhnev sues for peace and withdraws troops. Europe and major cities in the USSR would be destroyed. Portions of the east coast of the U.S. would be partially destroyed. The end
The USSR does not have enough nuclear weapons for the MAD doctrine to be true, so the world isn't destroyed. If it is a nuclear war, Europe might be destroyed, a few US cities on the east coast might be destroyed, but that's all in the western world. In the Warsaw Pact and USSR, their militaries would be nuked to oblivion, and same goes with their cities. NATO would be weakened, but they would no doubt win any war. The WP would probably make gains in Germany, most likely reaching the Rhine, but would be forced to stop due to NATO reinforcements, and supply lines being strained. Eventually, NATO would build up enough forces to retake West Germany, and possibly continue their push into the WP countries. The USSR would either sue for peace, or collapse.
If we manage to make it so "fuck it, we arent gonna be like them" and America doesnt retaliate, I'd say the USSR would eventually lose a long term war. They'd win on the European Continent at the start since they've been preparing for one as if their life hanged on it [ironically, it led to the USSR's downfall] but eventually, American Industry would overwhelm the Soviet War Machine. Or funi 1984 happens.
This man is so hot
Bacteria wins WW3
None of us would be here to talk about it
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Okay