IKS Exploration

When most people imagine nuclear war, they think of the fireball and the blast. In reality, if you survive those first few minutes, your greatest threat will be something less visible but just as deadly radioactive fallout.

Fallout is created when a nuclear explosion sucks earth, dust, and debris high into the atmosphere, contaminating it with radiation before it falls back down across the landscape. In Britain, Cold War planning often assumed survivors would retreat into shelters or improvised earth-dug bunkers. If you ever found yourself in this nightmare scenario, what should you do?

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Seal Yourself In

As soon as you enter your dug-out, make it as airtight as possible. Fallout particles are like radioactive dust, if they get inside, they’ll contaminate everything. Block cracks and gaps with soil, clay, plastic sheets, or blankets. The most dangerous period is the first few hours after detonation, when fallout can begin to settle.

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The Rule of 7–10

Radiation decreases over time, and survival depends on waiting it out. This is summed up by the 7–10 rule:
• After 7 hours, radiation levels drop to about one-tenth of their initial strength.
• After 2 days, they’re around one-hundredth.
• After 2 weeks, levels are low enough that limited outdoor activity may be survivable.

The key point: stay underground for at least 14 days, leaving only if it’s absolutely unavoidable.

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Rationing Essentials

Inside your dug-out, food and water will be your lifeline. Stick to:
• Tinned or sealed food – safe from fallout dust.
• Stored water in bottles or containers – outside water may be radioactive. If you must collect it, let it settle and filter it through cloth.
• Strict rationing – stretch supplies to last at least two weeks.

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Protect Yourself If You Must Go Outside

No one should step outside during the first few days unless it’s a matter of survival. If you must:
• Cover every part of your body — gloves, coat, boots, mask or improvised cloth.
• On return, brush off fallout dust before re-entering the dug-out.
• Never bring contaminated clothing or gear inside.

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Keep Informed

During the Cold War, the UK’s Protect and Survive programme advised households to keep a battery or wind-up radio. Broadcasts would announce when radiation levels had dropped and when to leave shelters. Even today, a small emergency radio could be the difference between isolation and vital information.

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Endurance and Morale

Life in a dug-out will be cramped, dark, and frightening. Survival depends as much on mental resilience as on physical safety. Keep track of time, ration supplies carefully, and if you’re not alone, support each other. The first fortnight is the hardest and the most dangerous.

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Final Thought

If nuclear weapons ever fell on the UK, the dug-out would become your only barrier between life and death. The blast may pass quickly, but fallout lingers. By sealing yourself in, rationing supplies, and waiting out those critical first two weeks, survival is possible.

The rule is simple: Stay inside. Stay patient. Stay alive.

11 hours ago | [YT] | 45

IKS Exploration

In the shadow of the Cold War, RAF Woodbridge was more than just a runway. Hidden within the base was a surface communications bunker, built to survive nuclear war.

Armed with blast doors, decontamination chambers, and hardened walls, it was a fortress of signals, designed to keep the USAF connected when the world was falling apart.

Decades later, the guards are gone, the wires are stripped, and silence fills the corridors. But the structure remains, frozen in time.

This week, we return. To step inside the forgotten bunker. To uncover its secrets. And to show you what history left behind.

👉 Episode 2 of our RAF Woodbridge series

https://youtu.be/099ScvWL7H8

14 hours ago | [YT] | 11

IKS Exploration

Check out fez new video folks

1 day ago | [YT] | 7

IKS Exploration

We’re diving into the hidden history of Suffolk’s twin Cold War bases but focusing on RAF Woodbridge.

Once home to the USAF, these sites were at the heart of the nuclear standoff, bunkers, and weapons storage areas that were guarded around the clock.

Our new series takes you inside the abandoned remains of USAF Woodbridge, where forgotten bunkers still whisper the story of a world on the edge of war.

First episode is out now — join us as we step back inside this Cold War giant.

👉 Will you be watching?

https://youtu.be/FQA6urKrptk

3 days ago (edited) | [YT] | 26

IKS Exploration

When the atomic bomb struck Hiroshima in 1945, the flash was so intense it permanently burned outlines of people, objects, and buildings onto stone and concrete.

These “Hiroshima Shadows” are haunting reminders of the unimaginable power of nuclear weapons, silhouettes frozen in time at the very moment of the blast.

Some were the outlines of bicycles, steps, or even human figures, ordinary life etched into the city’s ruins.

They remain among the most chilling and sobering symbols of the atomic age.

👉 What do you think? Are these shadows history’s most powerful reminder of the dangers of nuclear war?

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5 days ago | [YT] | 71

IKS Exploration

Tonight on Bunker Wednesday we’re cracking open TWO survival kits from Britain’s bunker story:
👉 One from the 1970s/80s Cold War era, the kind you’d expect in an ROC post.
👉 And a mystery vintage cabinet that might go back to Civil Defence… or even WW2 ARP.

What’s inside tells us how Britain prepared for the unthinkable, from iodine bottles and boracic lint to disposable burn dressings.

🔍 The challenge: Can YOU help identify the era of the older kit?
https://youtu.be/KFZJ9KKHBWg

5 days ago | [YT] | 11

IKS Exploration

Our final stop brings us to Stp 259 Pechnelke – MKB Flugplatz, an incredible German battery hidden in the fields near Boulogne, France.

Built as part of Hitler’s Atlantic Wall, this strongpoint formed part of the defenses of Festung Boulogne, with four huge Regelbau 671 casemates, heavy artillery, and support bunkers designed to stop an Allied landing.

Today, many of these bunkers lie abandoned on private farmland, slowly being reclaimed by nature. But their concrete shells still remain — silent reminders of the scale of Germany’s coastal fortifications in WW2.

In this episode, we explore the history, layout, and surviving remains of Stp 259, uncovering the forgotten story of this lost fortress.
https://youtu.be/DrQwP_INGSA

1 week ago | [YT] | 17

IKS Exploration

This French Fortress Survived 3 Wars… Barely
https://youtu.be/M19bhXTwlQY

1 week ago | [YT] | 18

IKS Exploration

🛑 The Day the World Nearly Ended – 1983 🛑

On 26 September 1983, Soviet early-warning systems reported incoming US nuclear missiles.
The alarms were blaring, screens showed launches… but it was a false alarm.

One man, Stanislav Petrov, the duty officer, chose not to report the “attack” to his superiors. Instead, he trusted his instincts that it was a system error.
He was right. His decision prevented a possible nuclear war.

👉 Imagine the pressure: the fate of millions hanging on one choice.
Should we call him the man who saved the world?

1 week ago | [YT] | 78

IKS Exploration

Once the largest brick building in Europe, Royal Hospital Haslar opened in 1753 to treat the sick and wounded of the Royal Navy. From Dr. James Lind’s scurvy research, to WWII D-Day casualties, to Britain’s first naval psychiatric ward, this place has seen it all.

Closed in 2009, it now lives on as a luxury waterfront village… but its history is still written in every corridor.

1 week ago | [YT] | 23