FFS you peskey red buggers, why didnt you do it!!
A map showing the route Soviet tanks would have taken in a planned invasion of Manchester in 1974 have been revealed. Moscow's generals targeted roads wide enough for the armoured vehicles to roll into the city centre.
The Russians aimed to conquer the city during the Cold War by heading along Washway Road, the Mancunian Way and Princess Road.
The map is on display in an exhibition at the University of Manchester's John Rylands Library as part of the Royal Geographical Society annual conference.
Soviet mapmakers used colour codes to describe targets - black for industrial sites, purple for public buildings and green for military sites.
They also added secret information left out of Ordnance Survey maps from 35 years ago, such as the Risley Moss nuclear research site.
Manchester University geography lecturer and curator Chris Perkins said: "This and other maps in our exhibition called Mapping Manchester reveal a very different side to this city.
"It shows the roads - familiar to many Mancunians - which the Soviets felt were wide enough to carry tanks, including Washway Road, the Mancunian Way and Princess Road.
"They even transliterated place names - such as Urmston, Salford and Stretford - into Russian. Quite unnerving really as the map - and their intelligence - is only 35 years old. It's incredible how detailed their information was. After declassification by the Russians at the end of the Cold War, these maps became available on the international market."
He added: "The Soviet military who compiled the maps used aerial sources such as spy planes and satellite imagery to supplement information from UK Ordnance Survey maps and publicly available road atlases and trade directories. But there's so much extra information, it would be fair to assume that they were able to gather a considerable amount of intelligence on the ground. No doubt Nato were doing similar things in Russian cities."
A map showing the route Soviet tanks would have taken in a planned invasion of Manchester in 1974 have been revealed. Moscow's generals targeted roads wide enough for the armoured vehicles to roll into the city centre.
The Russians aimed to conquer the city during the Cold War by heading along Washway Road, the Mancunian Way and Princess Road.
The map is on display in an exhibition at the University of Manchester's John Rylands Library as part of the Royal Geographical Society annual conference.
Soviet mapmakers used colour codes to describe targets - black for industrial sites, purple for public buildings and green for military sites.
They also added secret information left out of Ordnance Survey maps from 35 years ago, such as the Risley Moss nuclear research site.
Manchester University geography lecturer and curator Chris Perkins said: "This and other maps in our exhibition called Mapping Manchester reveal a very different side to this city.
"It shows the roads - familiar to many Mancunians - which the Soviets felt were wide enough to carry tanks, including Washway Road, the Mancunian Way and Princess Road.
"They even transliterated place names - such as Urmston, Salford and Stretford - into Russian. Quite unnerving really as the map - and their intelligence - is only 35 years old. It's incredible how detailed their information was. After declassification by the Russians at the end of the Cold War, these maps became available on the international market."
He added: "The Soviet military who compiled the maps used aerial sources such as spy planes and satellite imagery to supplement information from UK Ordnance Survey maps and publicly available road atlases and trade directories. But there's so much extra information, it would be fair to assume that they were able to gather a considerable amount of intelligence on the ground. No doubt Nato were doing similar things in Russian cities."
