JF Ptak Science Books Post 2439
- Describing computer programs "Picnic" for biological/chem weapons damage, and "Dusty" , for radioactive casualties
While preparing for all eventualities of all-out toe-to-to conflict with the Ruskies it is of course advisable to have ways to figure out what might be left after an "exchange" and how it might be used--but really, the important thing is to be able to have an inventory of the post-apocalypse world so that plans could be made for the next part of existence.
And that is what the following workbook outlined in part.
Mathematics and Computation Laboratory, National Resource Evaluation Center, Analytical Program Compendium NREC Technical Manual No. 119 (Revised) (December 1964. 11x8". 92 pp. GVC-bound, with stiff wrappers of the Executive Office of the President NREC/Office of Emergency Planning) holds some of overall answers to the survival issue.
The preface is signed by Joseph D. Coker, (Chief, National resource Evaluation Center) who writes: "The Analytical Program Compendium gives a brief description of the National Resource Evaluation Center's current general purpose analytical programs and replaces earlier editions of the NREC Glossary of Damage Assessment Programs. It is intended as a guide for users and potential users of these programs to indicate the various programs that are presently available and those that are being produced. Separate Technical Reports or Technical Manuals are available for the standard operating programs and for a number of those which are in preparation. Reference to these manuals and reports can be obtained in the Bibliography of Publications (Technical Manual No. 121) published by the NREC. The Compendium contains descriptions of the computer programs of a substantive nature."
[The NREC and the Office of Civil Defense used the UNIVAC scientific programs USE assembly language and 3600 Fortran.]
The list of the contents of the 92-page work is pretty interesting, the book presented in eight sections (or "casualty classes programs"): (I) Attack Analysis Programs; (II) Vulnerability Analysis Programs; (III) Damage Assessment Programs (Direct Effects, sections dedicated to nuclear shots Dusty III, Flame I, Jumbo III, Streak IV, Dart II, Dart III, Picnic, Ready I.(IV) Resource Evaluation Programs; (V) Economic Analysis Programs ; (VI) Resource Management Programs; (VII) Mapping and Display; (VIII) Manual Procedures for Damage Assessment and Resource Evaluation.
Under section III are described the various other programs computing availability of surviving resources and damages to the rest, and to assess capability and loss. For example: Weapons Edit III (working on an 1103 AS or 1105 computer) calculates missile availability; Dusty III (fallout intensity "...at weapon oriented points"; Flame I ("computes an estimate of the extent of the spread of uncontrolled fire") and can compute fire maps; Jumbo III (a casualty assessment program); Attack Environment III ("determines the blast effect from the dominant weapon and combines the separate effects of fallout and from from all weapons that affect each resource point"); Facility Assessment (Namepoint) III ( for physical damage to facilities); Time-Phased Accessibility ("listing of accessibility of resources in various conditions of damage after an attack"); Population III (summing up casualties in populations after attack; Manpower III (translating population losses into labor losses and how it would affect x,y, and z); Livestock III (keeping tabs on livestock "and livestock products"); Streak IV ('high speed estimate of blast and fallout casualties, estimates of damage and denial of facilities..."); Picnic (!, estimating casualties from biological or chemical weapons), and a number of other programs.
There are some other interesting programs for end game times: Net Inventory ("(a) routine (that) is a balance sheet between supply (inventory and production) and demands (requirements)" and Amounts of Production ("a routine (showing) the production based in facility damage and labor casualties; and of course Survival II, which computes "the total requirements...for regions".
Of course it was necessary to figure all of this stuff out so that in the event of The Big One there is a certain control over what is where and what is left and what is needed and so on.
The last section helpfully describes programs of manual damage assessment ("developed by agency representatives for use when computer estimates are not available").
There is no mention made to where these computers are housed.
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