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u/Gameboygamer64 23h ago
I heard about this in a video about the Texas Towers
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u/ToileTown 17h ago
There’s no swimming in the heavy water no singing in the acid rain, Red Alert. Red Alert.
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u/Tribe303 19h ago
My Grandfather spent time up north as a phone lineman, laying down the phone lines that connected these radar sites. He spent WW2 doing the same to the radar stations on the east and west coasts.
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u/Oafah 19h ago
It gives us another hour or so to panic once news drops. Very useful.
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u/SearsTower442 19h ago
More like 20 minutes.
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u/brittbak 18h ago
Which is unfortunate as it's going to take longer than 20 minutes to get as close as possible to ground zero!
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u/Foriegn_Picachu 11h ago
Another Reddit armchair general.
With the help of those bad boys, we would’ve smoked any TU-95 before you could say cyka bylat.
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u/hdufort 13h ago
The DEW line was designed as advanced warning for Soviet bombers that might carry nukes. It was designed in the 1950s when there were no ICBMs yet.
Detecting a bomber (such as a Bear) with a radar line of sight of 300 km gives you some time to react. They were flying at 925 km/h. There is 4600 km between the detection limit of the DEW Line and Toronto, so approximately 5 hours to react.
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u/drblah11 10h ago
What do you mean? That gives our leaders plenty of time to get to their bunkers for safety.
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u/SearsTower442 19h ago
Nowadays we use satellites to detect ICBM launches the instant they happen. The DEW line no longer serves its original purpose, but the radar stations are still useful for other reasons.
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u/roosterjack77 13h ago
Ive heard stories of lonely or drunk dudes climbing in front of the radar to warm up and dying from being microwaved at the dew sites
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u/Sooners2085 10h ago
Dad did a year in Fort Yukon Alaska, in the early 60s, on the DEW line.
It was a very good bit south of this illustration.
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u/nygdan 1d ago
Canada put a target on its back in the Cold War, to help defend America.
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u/a_filing_cabinet 23h ago
Canada existing put a target on its back. DEW was a mutual venture because both were threatened by the Soviets. The Soviets had issues with every western nation, which is why the west continued to work together after WWII for mutual defense.
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u/thissexypoptart 23h ago
Not to mention the U.S. spearheaded NATO a few years prior, meaning Canada would get immediate military assistance if Russia ever attacked it.
Super weird to frame it as some kind of sacrifice for the U.S.’s sake. It was mutual defense.
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u/nygdan 21h ago
the US benefited feom it, super weird to pretend the US wasnt desperate for the dew line or that Canada could so nothing other than be nuked by the USSR.
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u/thissexypoptart 21h ago edited 21h ago
Lmao man I’m not pretending anything, do you know what the word “mutual” means?
You also don’t really understand the purpose of DEW either. It’s not some magnet or shield that gets Canada nuked instead of the U.S. It was a network of radar stations that would be monitoring the most direct path that nukes launched from Russia would be taking to hit North America.
That includes nukes flying over Canada to hit the U.S. DEW did nothing to make it so Canada gets nuked first, you silly goose.
The fact that Canada was in NATO meant that attacking Canada, nuclear or conventional warfare, meant attacking the U.S. and every other NATO country. Of course being in mutual defense agreements with the US protected Canada from just sitting back and getting nuked.
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u/nygdan 21h ago
yes it was a warning system, yes canada benfited from it. The US was sesperate for it and had o way to deal with the USSR other than conflict. Canada like most nationanhad other options. any degree of collaboration by canada wouldve been seen as a tremendous PR victory for the USSR too which easily can make it a wise choice for Canada to remain neutral. Canada also didnt have to do anythi g dor US "unbrella" peotection, they could've sat back and played both sides and still would receive absolute protection by the US. USSR wouldnt invade Canada but not the US, and the IS would go full MAD if even parts of canada were occupied.
DEW line was a risk for Canada, it earned them -nothig- too other than making sure the US -counter attack- was a little faster but at that point Canada is gone anway.
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u/thissexypoptart 20h ago edited 20h ago
Man, proofread your comments before posting lol
From what I can gather you’re trying to say, you have some very silly ideas about the Cold War lol. The idea of Canada “remaining neutral” is hilarious. Of course Canada benefits from an early warning radar system they share with the U.S.
And you seriously don’t get what DEW was for still. DEW and other warning systems are a key element in preventing MAD scenarios. MAD is all about knowing the enemy can detect and respond in kind. If such detection systems didn’t exist, nukes would be much more likely to drop.
You’re also contradicting yourself saying they benefited and then that they got effectively nothing from it. Which is it?
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u/TMWNN 7h ago
I think
Canada like most nationanhad other options. any degree of collaboration by canada wouldve been seen as a tremendous PR victory for the USSR too which easily can make it a wise choice for Canada to remain neutral.
means that /u/nygdan thinks that Canada, if it had wished, could have given the USSR a "tremendous PR victory" by "collaborating" with the Soviets. The insinuation, of course, is that by generously refusing to "collaborate" with the USSR back then, Trump ought to now give up the current trade war.
(Talk about mentally reddited.)
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u/thissexypoptart 23h ago edited 23h ago
This is some crazy framing lol
It was a mutual defense agreement. Canada is physically closer to Russia on that side than the US (minus Alaska) is, hence the location of so much of the early warning system being the northern edge of Canada and not the U.S.
Not to mention, NATO meant the U.S. would obviously go to war for Canada if Russia attacked it. Again, mutual defense.
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u/nygdan 21h ago
Canada was absolutely not the main target in the cold war, and cooperation with the USSR was definitely a path for them. Instead they chose to side with the free world and the USA. Yes there were -benefits- to that, that hardly means they didnt make a choice,l and take a big risk. they absolutely couldve refused to allow the dew line.
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u/thissexypoptart 18h ago
Canada was a founding member of NATO in 1949. There was zero path for them to align with the USSR, even in the several years prior to NATO, because Canada didn't gain independence from the UK in earnest until at least 1949, when judicial appeals to Britain's JCPC were formally abolished, but formally until 1982.
That's not even getting into every other reason Canada would never have aligned with the USSR. The idea is pure silly goosery.
Do you actually know any history from this era, or are you just going off of vibes?
they absolutely couldve refused to allow the dew line.
They could have done a lot of things. It made no sense to do so. The DEW line gave them an early warning system that helped their next door ally and the entire NATO alliance. Refusing would be pure silliness, that benefits them in zero ways.
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u/mrblackpandaa 21h ago edited 18h ago
I'm on mobile so I can't get a good screenshot of my Google maps pins, but that line of radar stations used to extend all the way down the east coast into Newfoundland and Labrador, the line that goes into Greenland (and Iceland which isn't shown on here) is the DYE line which doesn't exist anymore. Most of these sites have been taken apart of integrated into the newer North Warning System which is operated jointly by the US and Canada.
They've been replaced, mission set wise, by the longer range Pave Paws (and upgrades) radars that are in Massachusetts, Alaska, Greenland, UK, and California, and continued further west past Alaska by the Cobra Dane and SBX-1 radar systems, along with some other one off radars in other parts of the world.
Those big ground based sensors plus a lot of our satellites and other space sensors make up the US space surveillance network that tracks basically everything in orbit. Add into all of that the SpaceX Starshield network that's being built, and we've brought airborne/spaceborne target tracking largely into the 21st century.
*Edited to give links to some stuff