The Cuban Missile Crisis: A nuclear order of battle, October and November 1962

http://bos.sagepub.com/content/68/6/85.full

The Cuban Missile Crisis: A nuclear order of battle, October and November 1962

1. Robert S. Norris
2. Hans M. Kristensen

Abstract

This year marks the 50th anniversary of the Cuban Missile Crisis, when the United States and the Soviet Union walked back from the brink of a nuclear war. In this issue of Nuclear Notebook, the authors analyze the order of battle of nuclear forces that were available to military and civilian officials in both the United States and the Soviet Union in October and November of 1962. This detail, they point out, has remained widely overlooked by authors, experts, and researchers over the past five decades. Once these nuclear forces are defined, the authors write, the true nature of the crisis was even more serious and dangerous than previously thought.

There is little argument that October 1962—the Cuban Missile Crisis—marked the closest the world has come to nuclear war. Today, 50 years later, volumes have been written about the crisis. Even so, in the tens of thousands of pages that interpret and analyze this conflict, there are essential details missing—specifically, a comprehensive nuclear order of battle. That is, there still remains to be a full accounting of the numbers and types of US and Soviet nuclear weapons that were operational, some of which were on high levels of alert and could have been readily used, from mid-October to November 20, 1962, when the naval blockade of Cuba ultimately ended.
Depending on their range, yield, location, and delivery mode, the types of nuclear weapons varied. Most writings on the crisis, however, describe certain weapon types and leave others out. The tally, therefore, remains incomplete.
To accurately assess how close the world actually came to nuclear war, it is paramount to analyze the order of battle of nuclear forces that were available to military and civilian officials in both the United States and the Soviet Union during the Cuban Missile Crisis in October and November of 1962. Examining in detail the status of each weapon system shows the true nature of the crisis—and that it was even more serious and dangerous than previously thought.