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Abstract
In 1955 British Operational Research (OR) analysts attached to the British Army conducted a hypothetical study of the likely impact of nuclear weapons as they might have been deployed by Anglo-French forces in resisting the German invasion of North-East France in May–June 1940. The study formed the first major attempt by OR analysts to assess the use of nuclear weapons at the tactical level. In deriving lessons from 1940, OR analysts focused on several battlefronts where nuclear weapons could have provided relief to defending forces. Consideration was also given to a situation where the invading forces were also nuclear-equipped. As this paper demonstrates, valuable insights were gained from the events of 1940 on the deployment of battlefield nuclear weapons. However, in neglecting the wider strategic environment, OR analysts failed to consider the possibility that a nuclear land battle fought in Europe between the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation and the Warsaw Pact could precipitate a strategic nuclear exchange.
Acknowledgements
The authors are grateful to Tony Wilson and an anonymous referee for their comments and advice on this paper.
Notes
1M.W. Kirby and R. Capey, ‘The Air Defence of Great Britain, 1920–1940: An Operational Research Perspective’, Journal of the Operational Research Society 48/6 (June 1997), 555–69; M.W. Kirby, Operational Research in War and Peace: The British Experience from the 1930s to 1970 (London: Imperial College Press 2003).
2Gen. Sir Frederick Pile, Ack-Ack: Britain's Defence against Air Attack during the Second World War (London: Harrap 1948): C.H. Waddington, O.R. in World War 2: Operational Research against the U-Boat (London: Elek Science 1973); M.W. Kirby, ‘Operations Research and the Defeat of Nazi Germany’, Military Operations Research 5/1 (Jan. 2000), 57–70.
3Richard Overy, Bomber Command 1939–45: Reaping the Whirlwind (London: HarperCollins 1997); A.C. Grayling, Among the Dead Cities: The History and Moral Legacy of the WWII Bombing of Civilians in Germany and Japan (New York: Walker 2006); Freeman Dyson, ‘A Failure of Intelligence: Operational Research in RAF Bomber Command, 1943–1945’, Technology Review (Nov./Dec. 2006), 62–71.
4The National Archives, Kew, United Kingdom [henceforward TNA] WO 291/2459, The Army Operational Research Conference held at the War Office, London, 21–30 April 1949.
6‘Operational Research in NW Europe: The Work of No. 2 ORS with 21 Army Group: Jun 44–Jul 45’. Scientific Advisor to the Army Council Report. Reprinted in R. W. Shepard (ed.), Readings on Early Military Operational Research (With Particular Reference to Army OR (Shrivenham: The Royal Military College of Science, Operational Research Branch 1984), 299.
5TNA CAB 90/5, War Cabinet Scientific Advisory Committee: Minutes of a Meeting held on 24 March 1944.
7TNA AIR 14/3924, Draft Programme of Work in Peacetime for the ORS, Bomber Command, 14 Feb. 1946; TNA ADM 219/630, Future of Naval Operational Research Department, 26 July 1945.
10TNA DEFE 2/1252, Chiefs of Staff Committee, Future developments in Weapons and Methods of War, 1 July 1946.
8TNA DEFE 2/1252, Chiefs of Staff Committee, Future developments in Weapons and Methods of War, 1 July 1946.
9TNA WO 291/2459, Army Operational Research Conference, 1949.
11TNA WO 291/2459, Army Operational Research Conference, 1949.
12John Baylis, Ambiguity and Deterrence: British Nuclear Strategy 1945–1964 (Oxford: OUP 1995), 170.
13TNA WO 291/1502, Army Operational Research Group [AORG]: The Possible Use of Atomic Weapons in Critical Defensive Situations, Report No. 11/55, Nov. 1955.
14TNA WO 291/1498, AORG: The Use of Atomic Weapons in Set-Piece Offensive Operations, Report No. 5/55, May 1955.
15TNA WO 291/1498, AORG, Appendix 30.
16TNA WO 291/1502, AORG, 1. At the time when the AORG report was being compiled the term ‘atomic weapons’ was used, notwithstanding the fact that ‘the recently approved terminology’ referred to ‘nuclear weapons’. In citing the report the latter term has been used.
18TNA WO 291/1502, AORG, 2.
17Attaining realism and battlefield exposure in relation to atomic weapons was to prove a considerable problem for the Army. As such, by the mid-1950s the AORG had initiated two studies: one concerned the merits of ‘nuclear indoctrination’, i.e. enabling soldiers to view a nuclear explosion. This took place at Operation ‘Buffalo’ in 1956 where 250 British and Commonwealth soldiers were witnesses to British atomic trials in Australia. The other study was into the atomic weapons knowledge of the ordinary soldier (which was found to be poor, particularly in relation to the effects of radiation). See TNA WO 291/1526: The Value of Live Indoctrination at a Nuclear Trial, Report no. 9/57, Nov. 1957; also TNA WO 291/2436: Attitudes to Nuclear War and Knowledge of Nuclear Weapons and their Effects. Report no. 1/59, Aug. 1959.
19TNA WO 291/1502, AORG, 2.
20TNA WO 291/1502, 6–7.
21Ibid. Emphasis in original.
22TNA WO 291/1502, 4–5.
23TNA WO 291/1502, 7.
24TNA WO 291/1502, 9.
25TNA WO 291/1502, 12.
26TNA WO 291/1502, 16.
27TNA WO 291/1502, 16.
28TNA WO 291/1502, 23.
29TNA WO 291/1502, 23. The reference to ‘Hitler's orders’ in the context of St Omer highlights the fact that German troops in the area were ordered not to press home their attack on the BEF at Dunkirk.
30TNA WO 291/1502, 1. Emphasis in original.
31TNA WO 291/1502, 24.
32TNA WO 291/1502, 24.
34TNA WO 291/2213, AORG, The Land Battle in Nuclear Warfare: A Discussion of Tactical and Other General Trends. Memorandum No. H. 15 Dec. 1957, 1.
33TNA WO 291/2233, AORG, The Army Operational Research Group Tactical War Game: Report No. 6/59, April 1959.
35TNA WO 291/2213, 15.
36TNA WO 291/2213, 17.
37Baylis, Ambiguity and Defence, 170.
38Ibid., 170–1.
39 Defence: Outline of Future Policy, Cmnd. 124 (London: HMSO 1957).
40Ibid., para. 27.
41Martin S. Navias, Nuclear Weapons and British Strategic Planning 1955–1958 (Oxford: Clarendon Press 1991), 87.
42Navias, Nuclear Weapons, 229; Kaoru Kikuyama, ‘Britain and the Procurement of Short-Range Nuclear Weapons’, Journal of Strategic Studies 16/4 (Dec. 1993), 539–59.
43Navias, Nuclear Weapons, 230.
44Lawrence Freedman, Britain and Nuclear Weapons (London: Macmillan/Royal Institute of International Affairs 1980), 130.
46TNA WO 291/2547: ORS (BAOR) Liaison Letter No. 14, June 1958, 5.
45Freedman, Britain and Nuclear Weapons, 131.
47Baylis, Ambiguity and Deterrence, 374.
48Cited in ibid.
49Baylis, Ambiguity and Deterrence, 375.
50Ibid., 375.
51TNA WO 279/279, ‘The Corps Tactical Battle Nuclear War 1958’, 16.
52G. C. Peden, Arms, Economics and British Strategy: From Dreadnoughts to Hydrogen Bombs (Cambridge: CUP 2007), 296.
53TNA WO 291/1502.
