Talk:Dead Hand

Wired Magazine article
Wired Magazine postet an article about the project, any info there that is new to this page and can be added in? --CyberK (talk) 20:26, 22 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Be bold in editing articles ellol (talk) 21:29, 22 September 2009 (UTC)

Perimeter vs Dead Hand
Here, in Russia, this system known only as "Perimeter". The name "Dead hand" (coined by western journalists) is not used. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.83.238.1 (talk) 20:35, 22 March 2010 (UTC)

US ERCS Fundamentally Different
Emergency Rocket Communications System (ERCS)was a system to provide communications. It didn't automatically launch anything. In fact it had to be launched either atop a Minuteman (in place of a warhead) or in the earlier days on top of a Blue Scout rocket. System was deactivated in 1991. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.111.136.160 (talk) 22:05, 26 February 2017 (UTC)

I agree.

I am moving this paragraph to a new heading because it does not logically belong under the heading "Perimeter vs Dead Hand". (It was under that heading.)

Ttulinsky (talk) 22:23, 13 May 2023 (UTC)

Source correction
Changed source 11 (http://www.nytimes.com/1993/10/08/world/russia-has-doomsday-machine-us-expert-says.html) as of 6/28/2010, 1:34 AM GMT-6. This should be changed to the proper format, as I am only a high school student trying to write a paper, I changed the source because the link no longer was direct. I did, however, search the page on NewYorkTimes to find it again. I do not have a wikipedia account but can be contacted at camwi_003 at yahoo .com —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.251.117.17 (talk) 06:38, 28 June 2010 (UTC)

Conflating the Systems
It seems to me that several of the sources are conflating Perimeter with Dead Hand, when these appear to be two different systems. Perimeter is the command and control system that transfers launch authority to three duty officers in a deep underground bunker, while the Dead Hand is a fully-automatic system that was proposed and rejected. Given the high levels of secrecy in the Soviet Union, it is not uncommon for Western sources to get confused on details such as this. I draw your attention to “The Dead Hand: The Untold Story of the Cold War Arms Race and its Dangerous Legacy” by David E. Hoffman, and to “Russian Strategic Nuclear Forces” by Pavel Podvig. I propose a major re-write of this article to focus on what is known about the actual Perimeter system, and include information on the Dead Hand in one of the sections. Preuninger (talk) 16:07, 3 July 2010 (UTC)

Who is Thompson?
A person named Thompson is named, but was given no former introduction. He's just sorta thrust in. Maybe give a little info on him above the section where he's named, so that people will understand the context? 99.251.48.18 (talk) 06:12, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

Needs to be defined: "In contrast, THOMPSON argues that Perimeter's function was to limit acts of misjudgment by political or military leaderships in the tight decision making window between SLBM or cruise missile launches, and impact" — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.199.162.171 (talk) 18:57, 31 January 2013 (UTC)

Confirmation made December 2011
Russian wikipedia page on the same subject mentions that in december 2011, confirmation for "Perimeter" ("Death Hand") existance and present-day continuing functionality - was made by commanding officer of RVSN (russian land-based rocket forces of strategic purpose). It is unknown to me wether this is actually true or not, but obviously in either case english and russian versions should either both include this confirmation, or both have not. I will not fix this myself, due to (mentioned) unsuredness about wether such a confirmation was indeed made, or not.
 * actual link is kp.ru/daily/25805/2785953/ and KP is one of largest newspapers in Russia, though some attribute it "yellow papers". So, if general lieutenant did not intentionally lied, then Perimeter is working now. Well, and actually there is no reason for it to be scrapped anyway. However it is not Doomsday device but a assessment and communication system, with a human making final decision in any case. 85.90.120.180 (talk) 08:50, 26 April 2013 (UTC)

Dead Link
Link 12 is broken Brauden (talk) 20:32, 11 February 2012 (UTC)

Header cleanup
I cleaned up the headers on this page to ensure the table of contents displays correctly. Farawayman (talk) 15:14, 17 August 2012 (UTC)

Dead Hand vs Doomsday Device
There is another article Doomsday device used different term for the same thing. These two should probably be merged. Or, if the current article is intended to be only about the Soviet system, it should be titled "Perimeter". Both "Dead Hand" and "Doomsday Device" are figures of speech, not official name for some system. 79.126.90.5 (talk) 09:30, 7 February 2013 (UTC)
 * i agree, that official name is better than nickname. And both "DH" and "DD" terms are generic terms about concepts, not about particular implementations. However for what it looks to be, Perimeter is not Doomsday Device and always delegates the final decision making to human. Automation is in gathering information and searching for alive and reachable person to empower him with that last decision. Thus those two pages are definitely not "for the same thing". 85.90.120.180 (talk) 09:05, 26 April 2013 (UTC)

http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/international/world-news/russia-can-turn-us-to-radioactive-ash-dmitry-kiselyov-kremlin-backed-journalist/articleshow/32171143.cms he was talking about dead hand being still active, might be worth mentioning. 62.245.69.24 (talk) 14:35, 17 March 2014 (UTC)

This article is about Perimeter, specifically, so I would suggest renaming it. 23.123.142.113 (talk) 16:49, 12 November 2015 (UTC)

Mention in state media, Nov 2015
BBC News - Russia reveals giant nuclear torpedo in state TV 'leak'


 * According to state-run Rossiiskaya Gazeta... "But it can be considered as a means of deterrence - like the Perimetr system, which is on combat readiness, which guarantees retaliation with all of Russia's nuclear forces even if command posts and the country's leadership have been annihilated"

23.123.142.113 (talk) 16:47, 12 November 2015 (UTC)

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Requested move 3 October 2017

 * The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section. 

The result of the move request was: page moved. wbm1058 (talk) 19:24, 19 October 2017 (UTC)

Dead Hand (nuclear war) → Dead Hand – I think that the Dead Hand system is the obvious WP:PRIMARYTOPIC for this term. The current Dead Hand should be at Dead Hand (disambiguation), and the hatnote in this article could also mention potential confusion with Dead Man's Hand. However, this is not enough for the disambiguation to be in the primary namespace. ZXCVBNM (TALK) 15:19, 3 October 2017 (UTC) --Relisting. GeoffreyT2000 (talk, contribs) 00:07, 11 October 2017 (UTC)
 * light support - More because I dislike the choice in parenthetical disambiguation used. Make sure the hatnote also links to dead hand as I feel like a lot of people will land here looking for other uses. -- Netoholic @ 19:16, 4 October 2017 (UTC)
 * The hatnote will read like: This article is about the nuclear control system. For the poker hand, see Dead man's hand. For other uses, see Dead Hand (disambiguation).ZXCVBNM (TALK) 15:05, 5 October 2017 (UTC)
 * no it would read. "... For other users, see dead hand.". This bypasses the redirect which is Dead Hand (disambiguation). --Netoholic @ 19:25, 5 October 2017 (UTC)
 * Assuming this page is moved, then Dead Hand would be the location of this page itself.ZXCVBNM (TALK) 00:30, 6 October 2017 (UTC)
 * You're confusing Dead Hand and dead hand. Note the caps. They matter. No change should be made to the location of dead hand. Netoholic @ 18:40, 6 October 2017 (UTC)
 * The problem is that there are several books called "Dead Hand" (in caps). I think perhaps "Dead hand" should redirect to "Dead Hand (disambiguation)" as there is no article called "Dead hand".ZXCVBNM (TALK) 18:58, 6 October 2017 (UTC)
 * If this is a multi-page move request then the posting should have made it clearer as you've confused Dead Hand (a redirect) with dead hand. At this point I Oppose move of dead hand. You can suggest that separately after this move discussion is done to avoid further confusion. -- Netoholic @ 19:17, 6 October 2017 (UTC)
 * Ok well, that makes sense. It doesn't matter either way, that page is less important and more of a technicality which I am not sure of. I am fine with the 2 pages being "Dead Hand" and "Dead hand" if that's allowed.ZXCVBNM (TALK) 22:42, 6 October 2017 (UTC)
 * Oppose – no rationale presented for why nom intuits a particular primarytopic for this ambiguous term. And I am generally opposed to the (rare) use of caps alone to distinguish titles. Dicklyon (talk) 04:07, 16 October 2017 (UTC)
 * I see no evidence that the term is "ambiguous". The disambiguation at dead hand also contains: a book about the Dead Hand, and Dead man's hand, neither of which are even close to primary topics in comparison to Dead Hand.ZXCVBNM (TALK) 08:05, 16 October 2017 (UTC)
 * Support. Obvious primary topic, receiving 92.6% of the page views among all ostensibly ambiguous articles.|The_Dead_Hand|Mortmain It's worth pointing out that Mortmain is rarely called "Dead Hand", and the book The Dead Hand is about this topic.--Cúchullain t/ c 14:45, 19 October 2017 (UTC)
 * Support, move the disambig Dead hand → Dead Hand (disambiguation), and redirect Dead hand to this article. As Cuchullain says, this receives the majority of the page views for all the topics,|Mortmain|The_Dead_Hand|Dead_hand_(mini-boss)|The_Profits_of_Religion|Foundation_and_Empire even when you include tenuous links such as Foundation and Empire. Google searching the term also yields results overwhelmingly related to this topic. &mdash; Amakuru (talk) 15:50, 19 October 2017 (UTC)


 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

"Limited nuclear war" is hardly a US-only or US-originated concept
I object to the description of "limited nuclear war" as being "the concept developed in the US." There have been nuclear strategists and theorists since Hiroshima around the world who have developed various concepts of nuclear war at various levels of force utilization. Certainly, the USSR, China, India, and Pakistan at a minimum do not all plan to launch all their weapons in all circumstances that they launch even one weapon, so by definition, all of them have concepts of limited as opposed to all-out nuclear war. Another problem with this sentence is that it conflates specific PLANS for a particular hypothetical limited nuclear attack by the U.S. against the U.S.S.R. (which of course would be developed within the U.S.) vs. the CONCEPT of limited nuclear war (which is a theory that's been developed around the world, however realistically or unrealistically). I'd say a better rewrite of this passage would to simply eliminate this phrase: " in accordance with the concept developed in the US called "Limited nuclear war"" A first strike could be limited or all-out; either one could destroy a C&C center; therefore the phrase adds only confusion and problems, not information. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 217.140.103.75 (talk) 21:58, 4 October 2017 (UTC)

"Dead Hand (nuclear war" listed at Redirects for discussion
The redirect [//en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Dead_Hand_(nuclear_war&redirect=no Dead Hand (nuclear war] has been listed at redirects for discussion to determine whether its use and function meets the redirect guidelines. Readers of this page are welcome to comment on this redirect at  until a consensus is reached. Utopes (talk / cont) 07:02, 21 February 2024 (UTC)