Mike wrote:
There was some cold war era movie that starred Rock Hudson as the
President about 25 years ago.

I can't remember the name, but I think it might have been called World
War 3.

1982 telemovie, also starring David Soul and Brian Keith. Fairly typical
brinksmanship drama which IIRC included a Soviet invasion of Alaska. Or
was it just a special forces attack? I definately remember scenes of
small arms fire around the pipeline.

There was one scene in the movie where they talked about how as
tensions had risen, the Soviets had sent their Backfire bombers over
Seattle as a show of force.

But weren't Backfire Bombers later found to have never been anything
more than a medium-range bombe?

The actual range of the Backfire was (and still is) hotly debated, as is
whether they were capable of being refuelled in flight. Officially they
didn't have refuelling probes, but some sources say these could be
screwed in at short notice and the refuelled range was said to be
comparable to the Bison.

While the Soviets claimed that they did not have intercontinental range,
this was a moot point. If carrying the Kh-55SM they only needed to get
within 1300nm of their targets. That puts almost any fixed target in the
western USA within range of an unrefuelled Backfire.

If it was just a show of force, a Backfire with extra tanks in the bomb
bay could probably get from Anadyr or Mys-Schmidta to Seattle and back.

Cheers
David