World War III Pop Culture: The Day After Part III

Even though The Day After received accolades, and rave reviews this doesn’t mean the finish product was a flawless movie. There were mistakes, just as there are in almost every movie ever made. Some were noticeable and identified by many viewers rather quickly. Others were more subtle and provincial, picked up mainly by residents of the Kansas City area. In other instances, the inaccuracy or blunder was on the military side of things, noted mostly by people familiar with nuclear war and strategic forces.

I’ve selected two of the more glaring military-related faux pas and oversights found in The Day After and will wrap up the review by going over them.

 

 Improbable Timeline

ABC’s original plan was to air The Day After as a four-hour movie spread out over two nights. Nicholas Meyer, the director, had a different idea. He felt the original script was lengthy and wanted to cut out an hour of material. Meyer also wanted the movie to be presented on one night. He eventually got his way and so did ABC to an extent. It was eventually shrunk to a 120 minute running time that squeezed the lead up to war into an unrealistic timeframe.

Originally, the pre-war events in the movie were supposed to be spread out over a week or so. This decision was in line with how crises play out in real world. The events leading up to the nuclear war in the movie would probably take at least a week to play out. Unfortunately, the editing process became a factor and the finished product contained a pre-war segment where seven to ten days worth of buildup and conventional war played out in a little over a day.

The movie starts late in the afternoon of 15 September, 198X. By 9PM that evening the Soviets had mobilized its forces in Eastern Europe, blockaded Berlin entirely, and the US already issued an ultimatum and were moving its forces to DEFCON 2. Early in the morning on 16 September NATO moves armored units into East Germany to relieve Berlin. Fighting takes place and around 12:00 PM (Central US time) the Soviets invade West Germany. Within an hour…or maybe ninety minutes of real world time…NATO is dropping tactical nuclear weapons on the lead Soviet tank divisions. The exchanges escalate and at 3:36 PM the first Soviet ICBMs reach Kansas City.

The leadup to the nuclear exchange was riveting to be certain. But was it realistic? Not at all. There’s just no way to cram all of those events into a 24-hour period. The invasion of West Germany is the best example to look at here. There is no conceivable way 3^rd Shock Army and the other Soviet army groups are going to penetrate so deep into West Germany within an hour or so that it brings on a NATO nuclear response. Over two or three days, sure. But not a couple of hours.

If the filmmakers could’ve stretched the lead up to war out over a week it could’ve added immeasurably to the anxiety and tension the at-home audience experienced. When Threads came out a little more than a year later it spread the lead up to war events out over a month or so. This kicked up the tension,  and developed the characters and plot more so than its American counterpart did.

 

Why Nuke Kansas City?

In the original script of the film Kansas City was not attacked. Whiteman AFB (the base, and missile fields) was the intended target. KC felt the aftereffects of the detonations and had to contend with thousands of survivors streaming in from the affected areas. The Soviet first strike was directed at military targets, primarily strategic assets. The cities were left alone. This set up makes sense because it clearly defines the attack as counterforce. This makes sense because there’s no point in nuking American cities first and leaving the missile silos, bomber bases, and command posts untouched. I realize most apocalyptic movies and works of fiction somehow work in the destruction of big cities first but that’s not how a nuclear war will take place.

Of course, the script changed. When all was said and done KC and Whiteman were hit simultaneously. Counterforce and countervalue all wrapped up into one. While this scared the living crap out of just about everyone who watched the movie, again, its just not realistic. Whiteman would go at least a couple of hours before Kansas City, if the city is even touched. It would all depend on what happens after the first wave of missiles arrive. Is there a second strike next, a ceasefire, or surrender by the US or Soviet Union? Nitpicking, I know, but it bothers me.

And for that matter, when the first nuclear detonations occur around the missile silos, why are they airbursts instead of ground impacts? The Soviets knew (and Russians today still know) the only way to neutralize US missile fields is to dig them out of the ground. That’s the sole reason the  SS-18s were even built.

 

 

Okay, that’s enough nuclear war for a while. 😊 Time to get back to the conventional war raging around the world in July, 1987.