Square leg is also a fielding position in cricket; see Fielding (cricket)

Fielding (cricket)

Fielding in the sport of cricket is the action of fielders in collecting the ball after it is struck by the batsman, in such a way as to either limit the number of runs that the batsman scores or get the batsman out by catching the ball in flight or running the batsman out.Cricket fielding position...

.

Square Leg was a 1980 British

United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

 government

Ministry of Defence (United Kingdom)

The Ministry of Defence is the United Kingdom government department responsible for implementation of government defence policy and is the headquarters of the British Armed Forces....

 home defence

Civil defense

Civil defense, civil defence or civil protection is an effort to protect the citizens of a state from military attack. It uses the principles of emergency operations: prevention, mitigation, preparation, response, or emergency evacuation, and recovery...

 exercise that assessed the effects of a Soviet

Soviet Union

The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....

 nuclear attack

Nuclear warfare

Nuclear warfare, or atomic warfare, is a military conflict or political strategy in which nuclear weaponry is detonated on an opponent. Compared to conventional warfare, nuclear warfare can be vastly more destructive in range and extent of damage...

. It was assumed that 131 nuclear weapons would fall on Britain with a total yield of 205 megatons (69 ground burst

Ground burst

A groundburst is the detonation of an explosive device such as an artillery shell, nuclear weapon or air-dropped bomb that explodes upon hitting the ground...

; 62 air burst

Air burst

An air burst is the detonation of an explosive device such as an anti-personnel artillery shell or a nuclear weapon in the air instead of on contact with the ground or target or a delayed armor piercing explosion....

). This was felt to be a reasonably realistic scenario, although the report stated that a total strike in excess of 1,000 megatons would not be unexpected.

Mortality was estimated at 29 million (53% of the population); serious injuries at 7 million (12%); short-term survivors at 19 million (35%).

Square Leg was criticised for a number of reasons: the weapons used were exclusively in the high yield megaton range--with an average of 1.5 megatons per bomb--whereas a realistic attack based on known Soviet capabilities would have seen mixed weapons yields, including many missile-based warheads in the low hundred kiloton range; no targets in Inner London

Inner London

Inner London is the name for the group of London boroughs which form the interior part of Greater London and are surrounded by Outer London. The area was first officially defined in 1965 and for purposes such as statistics, the definition has changed over time. The terms Inner London and Central...

 are attacked (for example Whitehall

Whitehall

Whitehall is a road in Westminster, in London, England. It is the main artery running north from Parliament Square, towards Charing Cross at the southern end of Trafalgar Square...

, the centre of British government); towns such as Eastbourne

Eastbourne

Eastbourne is a large town and borough in East Sussex, on the south coast of England between Brighton and Hastings. The town is situated at the eastern end of the chalk South Downs alongside the high cliff at Beachy Head...

 are hit for no obvious reason.

Operation Square Leg was one of the exercises used to estimate the destructiveness of a Soviet nuclear attack in the 1984

1984 in television

This article is a list of television-related events in 1984.-Events:*January 9 – Wendy's "Fluffy Bun" ad first airs, which propels Clara Peller and her "Where's the beef?" catchphrase to national prominence....

 BBC

BBC

The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...

 production Threads

Threads

Threads is a British television drama produced by the BBC in 1984. Written by Barry Hines and directed by Mick Jackson, it is a documentary-style account of a nuclear war and its effects on the city of Sheffield in northern England....

.

See also

• Nuclear weapons and the United Kingdom
  Nuclear weapons and the United Kingdom
  The United Kingdom was the third country to test an independently developed nuclear weapon, in October 1952. It is one of the five "Nuclear Weapons States" under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, which the UK ratified in 1968...
  
  
• World War III
  World War III
  World War III denotes a successor to World War II that would be on a global scale, with common speculation that it would be likely nuclear and devastating in nature....
  
  
• The Warsaw Pact
  Warsaw Pact
  The Warsaw Treaty Organization of Friendship, Cooperation, and Mutual Assistance , or more commonly referred to as the Warsaw Pact, was a mutual defense treaty subscribed to by eight communist states in Eastern Europe...
  
   operation Seven Days to the River Rhine
  Seven Days to the River Rhine
  Seven Days to the River Rhine was a top secret limited war game exercise developed in 1979 by the Warsaw Pact. It depicted the Soviet bloc's vision of a seven-day atomic war between NATO and Warsaw Pact forces.- Declassification :...
  
  
• RAF Greenham Common
  RAF Greenham Common
  RAF Station Greenham Common is a former military airfield in Berkshire, England. The airfield is located approximately south-southwest of Thatcham; about west of London....
  
  airfield