Wednesday, December 31, 2008

Heaven Help Us! What Prime Minister Jim Callaghan Said When He Discovered Britain Only Had Two Days Of Ammunition To Fight The Russians

Photo: James Callaghan described Britain's inability to defend itself as a scandal

From The Daily Mail:

British defences were so perilously low during the Cold War that the RAF's ammunition would have lasted for only two days if the Soviets had decided to launch an attack, official files reveal today.

The RAF's Phantom jets had enough firepower to defend the country for just two waves of attacks from Leonid Brezhnev's bombers.

And if enemy planes had slipped through, air defence missile batteries protecting key strategic targets could have been fired only twice before they, too, ran out of ammunition.

At sea, the Navy would have been no match for the threat posed by enemy submarines and on land the Army was so stretched that even when fully mobilised it would have been unable to cope with a wide-scale campaign of sabotage and subversion from the might of the Soviet special forces.

Read more ....

More News On Britain's Lack Of
Preparedness During The Cold War


Files Reveal British PM's 1978 Cold War Fears -- Defense News
Secret Reports Reveal 'Defenseless' 1970s Britain -- The Danger Room

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