Tactical Nuclear Weapons and NATO.pdf - Program on Strategic ...

saw Pact lines to interdict strategic reserves. Overall,
140,000 km² would suffer radiation of at least 100
Roentgens per hour. Enormous numbers of dead, injured
<strong>and</strong> radiation diseased civilians would confront
military <strong>and</strong> civilian medical services with insoluble
problems. Nevertheless, after this decisive initial exchange,
Warsaw Pact troops would storm on to Paris
<strong>and</strong> reach Calais on the 10th day. 47
OPERATION SNOWCAT
Similar operational calculations would likely have
been made in <strong>NATO</strong>, but there are no detailed declassified
scenario casualty calculations. An indication of
similarly extraordinarily high anticipated loss rates
can however be gained from the high-intensity air
operations scenario for the opening of nuclear war in
Europe, which required coordination of the Alliance’s
non-nuclear aircraft across the theater. This was designated
SNOWCAT: “Support of <strong>Nuclear</strong> Operations
with Conventional Attacks.” It would also have
taken into account the Alliance’s considerable conventional
<strong>and</strong> tactical nuclear naval air capabilities.
(The SNOWCAT plan still exists, but its details are
classified <strong>and</strong> it is probably now planned on a much
smaller scale.) Winning the initial nuclear exchange in
SNOWCAT took priority over air defense of national
territory, so that, for example, non-nuclear Norwegian
fighter-bombers were expected to be held back to attack
enemy air control systems throughout the northern
Warsaw Pact so as to assist <strong>NATO</strong> nuclear strikes,
even though SNOWCAT missions in the early 1960s
had been privately predicted to be “suicidal” by the
Comm<strong>and</strong>er in Chief Allied Forces Northern Europe
(CINCNORTH). 48
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