Qualla: Hard Rock (Exercise)

Hard Rock (Exercise): Introduction

Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Johnragla, CC BY-SA 3.0. Twelve and a half million dead. That was the estimate the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament published in 1982 for the casualties from the attack scenario Britain's government had planned to simulate. The Thatcher government had deliberately scaled down the nuclear attack from earlier exercises - fewer than 50 megatons compared with more than 200 megatons in 1980's Square Leg simulation - because the public reaction to the previous figures had been so dire. Even so, CND ran the numbers. Twelve and a half million dead from 50 megatons. Thirty-nine million from 220 megatons - 72 percent of the British population at the time. They published their counter-analysis under the title 'Hard Luck'. By July 1982 nineteen county councils had refused to take part. The exercise was postponed indefinitely. It never ran.

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Image: Johnragla | CC BY-SA 3.0

Hard Rock (Exercise): The Civil Defence Cycle

Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Johnragla, CC BY-SA 3.0. Since 1949, Britain had been planning for nuclear attack. From the mid-1970s the government ran a major national civil defence exercise every two or three years. The 1980 Square Leg exercise had been the most realistic of the cycle - and after parts of its scenario leaked to the ...

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Image: Johnragla | CC BY-SA 3.0

Hard Rock (Exercise): Nuclear-Free Zones

Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Scott Wylie from UK, CC BY 2.0. From 1980 a movement had been growing across British local government. Councils were declaring themselves 'nuclear-free zones' - symbolic gestures that committed them to opposing nuclear weapons and refusing to cooperate with nuclear infrastructure. The Greater London Council und...

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Image: Scott Wylie from UK | CC BY 2.0

Hard Rock (Exercise): Twelve Million Casualties

Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Johnragla, CC BY-SA 3.0. The journalist Duncan Campbell, working with Philip Steadman of the Open University and Stan Openshaw of Newcastle University, ran the Hard Rock attack scenario through their own model. They forecast 12 million deaths or serious injuries: 2 million from the bombs themselves, 5 mi...

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Image: Johnragla | CC BY-SA 3.0

Hard Rock (Exercise): What the Cancellation Meant

Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Johnragla, CC BY-SA 3.0. The civil service proposed running Hard Rock again after the Conservatives' landslide victory in the 1983 general election. It never happened. Labour peer Willie Ross, Baron Ross of Marnock, claimed in the House of Lords that the Ministry of Defence was actually glad the exercise...

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Image: Johnragla | CC BY-SA 3.0