[MRCA] Today in 1983

[Dave Merrill]

We should all take a shot of vodka today to honor the cool head of Lt Col.
Stanislav Petrov.

Dave N9ZC


On Tue, Sep 26, 2023, 8:02 AM Walter Skavinsky <walter.skavinsky at comcast.net>
wrote:

>
>
>
> *Today we celebrate Petrov day in honor of Stanislav Petrov, "the man who
> saved the world"*
>
>
> Lt. Col. Stanislav Petrov was duty officer at Serpukhov-15, the secret
> bunker outside Moscow that monitored the Oko ( 'Eye')Soviet missile defense
> early warning program consisting of satellites in Molniya and
> geosynchronous orbits. Oko satellites are used to identify launches of
> ballistic missiles by detection of their engines' exhaust plume in infrared
> light, and complement other early warning facilities such as Voronezh,
> Daryal and Dnepr radars.
>
> On September 26, 1983 alarm bells went off shortly after midnight. One of
> the satellites signaled Moscow that the United States had launched five
> ballistic missiles at Russia. Given the heightened tensions between the two
> countries — the alarm coincided with the beginning of provocative NATO
> military exercises (Fleet-ex 83) and barely three weeks after the Russians
> shot down a South Korean airliner that had wandered into Soviet air space —
> Petrov could have been forgiven for believing the signal was accurate. The
> electronic maps flashing around him didn't do anything to ease the stress
> of the moment. But Petrov stated, "I had a funny feeling in my gut" that
> this was a false alarm. For one thing, the report indicated that only five
> missiles had been fired. Had the United States been launching an actual
> nuclear attack, he reasoned, ICBMs would be raining down on them.
>
> "I didn't want to make a mistake. I made a decision, and that was it."
> Petrov's gut feeling was due in large part to his lack of faith in the
> Soviet early-warning system, which he subsequently described as "raw." He
> reported it as a false alarm to his superiors, and hoped to hell he was
> right.
>
> Petrov was initially praised for his cool head but later came under
> criticism and was, for a while, the scapegoat for the false alarm. It was
> subsequently determined that the false alarms were caused by a rare
> alignment of sunlight on high-altitude clouds and the satellites' Molniya
> orbits, an error later corrected by cross-referencing a geostationary
> satellite.
>
> In explaining the factors leading to his decision, Petrov cited his belief
> and training that any U.S. first strike would be massive, so five missiles
> seemed an illogical start. In addition, the launch detection system was new
> and, in his view, not yet wholly trustworthy, while ground radar had failed
> to pick up corroborative evidence even after several minutes of the false
> alarm.
>
> Oleg Kalugin, a former KGB chief of foreign counterintelligence who knew
> Soviet leader Yuri Andropov well, said that Andropov's distrust of American
> leaders was profound. It was conceivable that if Petrov had declared the
> satellite warnings valid, such an erroneous report could have provoked the
> Soviet leadership into becoming bellicose. Kalugin said: "The danger was in
> the Soviet leadership thinking, 'The Americans may attack, so we better
> attack first.
>
> Col Petrov sadly passed away on May 19 , 2017
>
> Celebrate the sacrifices of Col Petrov and many others during the period
> of the Cold War by participating the the Operation Able Archer '83 Special
> event (October 21-22, 2023)  Callsign W3A
>
> Web Page
> www.ablearcher83.com
>
> Facebook
> https://www.facebook.com/groups/AblerArcher83
>
>
>
> Walt
> KB3SBC
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