Operation Dropshot

You can help expand this article with text translated from the corresponding article in Russian. Click [show] for important translation instructions. View a machine-translated version of the Russian article. Machine translation, like DeepL or Google Translate, is a useful starting point for translations, but translators must revise errors as necessary and confirm that the translation is accurate, rather than simply copy-pasting machine-translated text into the English Wikipedia. Do not translate text that appears unreliable or low-quality. If possible, verify the text with references provided in the foreign-language article. You must provide copyright attribution in the edit summary accompanying your translation by providing an interlanguage link to the source of your translation. A model attribution edit summary is Content in this edit is translated from the existing Russian Wikipedia article at [[:ru:План «Дропшот»]]; see its history for attribution. You may also add the template {{Translated|ru|План «Дропшот»}} to the talk page. For more guidance, see Wikipedia:Translation.

Operation Dropshot
Part of the Cold War
Shot Apple-2, where the 723rd Tank Battalion participated in a tactical maneuver test as part of the nuclear test
Date 1 January 1957 (projected). Objectives: To impose the national war objectives of the United States on the USSR and its allies Location Western and Northern Europe, the Middle East, the North Atlantic, and the Far East Status Never carried out
Belligerents
United States Western Bloc	Soviet Union Soviet Bloc
Casualties and losses
none	none

Operation Dropshot was the United States Department of Defense code name for a contingency plan for a possible nuclear and conventional war with the Soviet Union and its allies in order to counter the anticipated Soviet takeover of Western Europe, the Near East and parts of Eastern Asia expected to begin about 1957. The plan was prepared in 1949 during the early stages of the Cold War and declassified during 1977. Although the scenario included the use of nuclear weapons, they were not expected to play a decisive role.

At the time, the US nuclear arsenal was limited in size, based mostly in the United States, and depended on bombers for delivery. Dropshot included mission profiles that would have used 300 nuclear bombs and 29,000 high-explosive bombs on 200 targets in 100 cities and towns to wipe out 85 percent of the Soviet Union's industrial potential in a single stroke. Between 75 and 100 of the 300 nuclear weapons were targeted to destroy Soviet combat aircraft on the ground.

The scenario was devised prior to the development of intercontinental ballistic missiles and included the note that the plan would be invalidated if rocketry became a cheap and effective means of delivering nuclear weapons. The documents were later declassified and published as Dropshot: The American Plan for World War III Against the Soviet Union in 1957.^[1] Never approved, Dropshot was withdrawn in February 1951 and superseded by Reaper, a plan that anticipated a war in 1954.^[2]

• United States war plans (1945–1950)
• Plan Totality
• Operation Unthinkable
• Seven Days to the River Rhine
• Basic Encyclopedia

• Ross, Steven T. (1996). American War Plans, 1945-1950: Strategies for Defeating the Soviet Union. Frank Cass.
• "Dropshot - American Plan for War with the Soviet Union 1957". www.allworldwars.com. Retrieved 2020-10-01.

• John J. Reilly, "World War III in 1957" via johnreilly.info, archived at Internet Archive, 2006
• George Hulett, "Cold War Warrior", Air Classics, 21 August 2004

This article about the Cold War is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it.

• v
• t
• e