By the height of the Cold War, nuclear arsenals had outgrown traditional military logic.
Thermonuclear weapons were not battlefield tools but instruments of mass annihilation, capable of destroying cities, collapsing infrastructure, and disrupting global climate systems. Civil defense, however, remained rooted in pre-nuclear assumptions about survivability and individual protection.
Measures like hiding under desks, walls and classroom drills persisted not because they were effective against megaton weapons, but because abandoning civil defense altogether would have been a political admission of helplessness.
While a wooden desk offers negligible protection against blast overpressure or thermal radiation from a thermonuclear weapon, it could provide minimal shielding from debris, broken glass, and flash blindness at the outer edges of an attack.
More importantly, these drills functioned as tools of psychological management, ensuring populations remained compliant, productive, and governable in a world shaped by permanent existential threat.
In this sense, Cold War civil defense was less about survival and more about sustaining legitimacy in the face of unprecedented destructive power.
xx_mashugana_xx on
Misunderstanding of “duck and cover” spread through pop history? On my pop history sub?
Ducking under a desk in the event of a nuclear detonation, much like the modern tornado drills, is not meant to protect you from the detonation itself. The idea is that, if you are in an area that is partially protected from the immediate blast, ducking under a desk will protect you from flying debris and direct thermal energy from the detonation (as being directly in the light of a nuke at a close enough distance can result in third degree burns, but simply getting behind something to shade you will prevent this.)
cndynn96 on
It’s better to hide inside a refrigerator
I saw it in a documentary
TimInRislip on
Yes in the event of a massive blast wave, hiding under your desk is a good idea.
T_J_Rain on
Having seen some of the clips that circulated back in the day, this is on message.
Across USA, UK and Australia – the same BS mentality prevailed from the government.
Rather than sell the message repeated across brutally honest depictions of nuclear holocaust such as in the movies Threads, The Day After, The War Game, When the wind blows and so on, the government sold the deluded hope of civil defense and survivability of nuclear war.
I suspect that the same governments are just as deluded on the matter today.
Atzkicica on
The House in the Middle is free to watch on youtube and absolutely nuts. Actually detonating an A-Bomb partly for a propaganda movie saying, Ladies tidy your houses, and fellas repaint your house and mow your lawns and you will survive global atomic war! Absolutely wild.
Ragnarok_Stravius on
To be fair, desks are normally inside buildings, and using a 50 megaton bomb with the Nukemap, somewhere after 7 km from the explosion, there’s an okay chance of your building not totally collapsing.
So a wooden desk would help you protect yourself from the exploding windows.
In a weird way, thankfully most nukes weren’t Tsar Bombas, current known biggest bomb in the US arsenal is a 1.2mt nuke, the B-83, and Nukemap doesn’t even have data for extreme infrastructure damage, just medium and low, and the B-83 has a 7km radius for moderate damage, so I’m guessing after 3 km there’s a good chance your building won’t collapse?
heattreatedpipe on
Hide behind desks drills were in place during the years were ballistic missiles weren’t a thing and megaton bombs weren’t a thing either.
I doubt a 1 megaton bomb existed when those drills were popular among planners
8 Comments
By the height of the Cold War, nuclear arsenals had outgrown traditional military logic.
Thermonuclear weapons were not battlefield tools but instruments of mass annihilation, capable of destroying cities, collapsing infrastructure, and disrupting global climate systems. Civil defense, however, remained rooted in pre-nuclear assumptions about survivability and individual protection.
Measures like hiding under desks, walls and classroom drills persisted not because they were effective against megaton weapons, but because abandoning civil defense altogether would have been a political admission of helplessness.
While a wooden desk offers negligible protection against blast overpressure or thermal radiation from a thermonuclear weapon, it could provide minimal shielding from debris, broken glass, and flash blindness at the outer edges of an attack.
More importantly, these drills functioned as tools of psychological management, ensuring populations remained compliant, productive, and governable in a world shaped by permanent existential threat.
In this sense, Cold War civil defense was less about survival and more about sustaining legitimacy in the face of unprecedented destructive power.
Misunderstanding of “duck and cover” spread through pop history? On my pop history sub?
Ducking under a desk in the event of a nuclear detonation, much like the modern tornado drills, is not meant to protect you from the detonation itself. The idea is that, if you are in an area that is partially protected from the immediate blast, ducking under a desk will protect you from flying debris and direct thermal energy from the detonation (as being directly in the light of a nuke at a close enough distance can result in third degree burns, but simply getting behind something to shade you will prevent this.)
It’s better to hide inside a refrigerator
I saw it in a documentary
Yes in the event of a massive blast wave, hiding under your desk is a good idea.
Having seen some of the clips that circulated back in the day, this is on message.
Across USA, UK and Australia – the same BS mentality prevailed from the government.
Rather than sell the message repeated across brutally honest depictions of nuclear holocaust such as in the movies Threads, The Day After, The War Game, When the wind blows and so on, the government sold the deluded hope of civil defense and survivability of nuclear war.
I suspect that the same governments are just as deluded on the matter today.
The House in the Middle is free to watch on youtube and absolutely nuts. Actually detonating an A-Bomb partly for a propaganda movie saying, Ladies tidy your houses, and fellas repaint your house and mow your lawns and you will survive global atomic war! Absolutely wild.
To be fair, desks are normally inside buildings, and using a 50 megaton bomb with the Nukemap, somewhere after 7 km from the explosion, there’s an okay chance of your building not totally collapsing.
So a wooden desk would help you protect yourself from the exploding windows.
In a weird way, thankfully most nukes weren’t Tsar Bombas, current known biggest bomb in the US arsenal is a 1.2mt nuke, the B-83, and Nukemap doesn’t even have data for extreme infrastructure damage, just medium and low, and the B-83 has a 7km radius for moderate damage, so I’m guessing after 3 km there’s a good chance your building won’t collapse?
Hide behind desks drills were in place during the years were ballistic missiles weren’t a thing and megaton bombs weren’t a thing either.
I doubt a 1 megaton bomb existed when those drills were popular among planners