Offence or Defence
‘We don’t want to die’ This is a very short summary of some of the social and cultural features associated with the deployment of nuclear weapons – and particular nuclear …
Course: From World War to White Heat: the RAF in the Cold War
Civil Defence
Civil defence and M.A.D. In this step we consider the following: Centrally organised civil defence was formally ended in 1968. In its place the Government’s ‘Protect and Survive’ civil defence …
QRA – experience and expectation
‘Scramble!’ We used this video step to try and address the following questions, out of the many we might have considered: The concept of the ‘scramble’ really dates from the …
Command and control
Watch the skies. We filmed this video step in the c.1940 RAF control room model in the Battle of Britain Hall at RAF Hendon. Here were our ‘prompt points’ for …
Aircraft versus missiles
Missiles only When we came to consider this topic, we rather stripped down our discussion to the following statement: Has the fad for ‘missiles only’ gone away; or has it …
The Soviet bomber threat
The Soviet bombers When considering how to put this video step together, we thought of the following statements to frame what we wanted to say. The Soviet nuclear threat was …
Introduction
Defending the skies. This week we examine: The threat of nuclear bombers from the Soviet Union The responses of the RAF The changes we see with changing technology. The Soviet …
The Rise and Fall of Skybolt
Skybolt Erratum At 00.47 in the next video Emmett meant to say late-1950s (rather than 1960s)! Cheers, Lauren. Exactly the way to start a step – just point out my …
Thor Missiles in the UK
Thor Missiles. Here are our comments and questions for this video step: Project Emily came out of Eisenhower’s concerns in 1957 that long-range ICBMs would not come online quickly enough. …
The Vulcan Bomber
Footage of the interview with Andy at the RAF Cosford Air Show, cut with flight footage of Vulcan XH558 (Vulcan Bomber) in the air. Andy was a Vulcan navigator plotter …
The V-Force in Action
The V-Force in Action As ever, we came into this discussion with some questions and comments in mind to structure the discussions: The Valiant in particular was designed with the …
The Bomb: Developing & Testing
The Bomb: Developing & Testing When thinking about this topic, here are the questions we came up with to frame the discussion: Britain’s first atomic test came in 1952. Following …
Ordering the V-Force
Ordering the V-Force When we considered how to structure the discussion for this video step, these were the questions and statements we thought of using: What was the logic of …
Global Strategy
The Global Strategy Paper: Interview with Seb Cox Sebastian Cox is the Head of the Air Historical Branch of the RAF, and he is also a director of the Royal …
The Cold War: Britain’s Nuclear Deterrent
The Start of Britain’s Nuclear Deterrent In this article, we consider the following questions and statements: The McMahon Act effectively cut the British out of the legacy of the Manhattan …
These articles are from the online course:
From World War to White Heat: the RAF in the Cold War
