3h 40min, sep 26, 1983 y - Sept. 26, 1983 – 03:40 GMT+3 (Moscow Time), USSR

Description:

The Serpukhov-15 bunker's computers indicate that a US missile is heading toward the Soviet Union. At first, Akrimov reasons that a computer error has occurred, since it is only one missile and it doesn't make sense that the US would launch one single missile in an attack. Questions about the reliability of the satellite detection system have been raised in the past, so he dismisses the warning as a false alarm, concluding that there was no actual missile.

Very shortly though, the computers indicate that a second missile has been launched, then a third, a fourth and and then a fifth. Akrimov, a faithful reader of "Pravda", where he had read much of the "warmongering of the American President Reagan", now feels as if the attack was real. He telephones the headquarters of the Strategic Rocket Forces and tells them that his computers show that a massive US attack is underway.

General Secretary Andropov is awakened by his staff and rushed to an evacuation helicopter standing by. On the way he is informed by the generals that they have "reliable information" that the Americans are launching a first-strike. They recommend a full retaliatory strike. Andropov, frail and stunned by the news, nods and gives the launch codes to the SRF commanders.

Four and a half minutes later, at over 300 missile bunkers, a fateful order is given ... launch. Nearly 1100 Soviet ICBMs in staggered order are launched at the United States, American bases in Europe and Great Britain, and in a plan never publicly revealed, at another fifty sites in the People's Republic of China.

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