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The hidden base that could have ended the world
- cyberferret 10y agoNice article. Would love to visit one of these silos one day. NB: I would hope that ALL disused launch silos around the world would have had the warheads decommissioned properly and all accounted for...
- jacquesm 10y agoYou can own one: http://www.missilebases.com/ http://www.missilebases.com/
- smoyer 10y agoThose bases weren't hidden enough ... it's my understanding that we have the same capability today but with "mobile missles", the enemy can't easily defeat a counter-strike.
- ethbro 10y agoThe US nuclear detergent still includes land based missiles as one of its components. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGM-30_Minuteman#Minuteman-III_.28LGM-30G.29 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGM-30_Minuteman#Minuteman-I...
- chrisseaton 10y ago> The US nuclear detergent
- chiph 10y agoThe BGM-109G "Gryphon" ground-launched cruise missiles were all destroyed (except a few for museums) as part of the INF treaty. The warheads were put into storage. https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1990/04/12/cruise-missile-drawdown-begins-at-us-air-base-in-west-germany/2ec6db6a-a062-4f91-bf1b-b8d63c667ce1/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1990/04/12/c... The system used large off-road capable trucks and would drive to one of several pre-surveyed locations in preparation for launch. Source: The 38th Tactical Missile Wing was at Wueschheim Air Station, just down the road from where I was stationed at Hahn. Also, a friend was a surveyor for the Army, who scouted locations for the Pershing II IRBM in the pre-GPS world.
- chakalakasp 10y agoIf by "we" you mean Russia, then yes, you have mobile missiles. America's mobile missiles glide quietly under the ocean in Trident nuclear submarines. All of America's land based launch capabilities are in fixed nuclear silos. They are not and have never been hidden; Russia even gets to come inspect them from time to time (and visa versa) as part of the treaties both nations have signed. Both nations maintain enough weaponry to launch a massive retaliatory strike even if hit with a first strike, it's part of what makes both nations feel secure that neither would be dumb enough to try a sneak attack. For America, some of the silos are placed far north in Montana to make an offensive first strike more effective, some of them are placed further south (Wyoming, Colorado, Nebraska) to give a few more minutes to get missiles off during a surprise attack. The silos are spaced out enough that each would require a ground burst to destroy them, but close enough so that the nuclear debris cloud (mushroom cloud) would potentially damage or destroy incoming warheads (coming in at ludicrous speed) before they made it to the ground. The radioactive cloud that would be farted into the upper atmosphere by the debris clouds from the attacks on these missile fields would probably be responsible for well over half the national fatalities in a counterforce nuclear attack. We're talking hundreds of near-megaton ground bursts.
- mikeash 10y agoAll of those ground bursts are conveniently located upwind from where most of our food comes from, too.
- effie 10y agoHow do you mean, conveniently? That the explosions near the silos will spoil the sources of the food? Sorry I have to ask, I'm not a native English speaker.
- mikeash 10y agoYes, fallout would be blown downwind and contaminate large areas of agricultural land. "Conveniently" is being used sarcastically here, since that is of course very much not convenient.
- arethuza 10y agoEric Schlosser's excellent book Command and Control covers the details of what happened when things went horribly wrong at a Titan missile silo: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1980_Damascus_Titan_missile_explosion https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1980_Damascus_Titan_missile_ex...
- joosters 10y agoan airman [...] dropped a socket from a socket wrench, which fell about 80 feet (24 m) before hitting and piercing the skin on the rocket's first-stage fuel tank, causing it to leak This made me think of the wonderful book 'Ignition!' that has a similar prophetic passage in it: Say that somebody dropped (accidentally or otherwise) a greasy wrench into 10,000 gallons of 90 percent peroxide in the hold of the ship. What would happen — and would the ship survive?
- ethbro 10y agoOut of interest, did you manage to track down a physical copy or read digital? I've been trying to get one for my father but devilishly hard to find at a reasonable price.
- joosters 10y agoNo physical copy, unfortunately. They seem to be extremely rare and hugely expensive when they are sold. The PDF is available at http://library.sciencemadness.org/library/books/ignition.pdf http://library.sciencemadness.org/library/books/ignition.pdf but I've no idea how legal that is...
- FiatLuxDave 10y agoOut of interest, what do you consider a reasonable price? I have a physical copy.
- djaychela 10y agoYes, I came onto this thread to post about that book - it's an absolutely gripping read from start to finish, and tells two stories in one - a specific one and the more general one of nuclear weapons development and safety. I'd thoroughly recommend it to anyone who wants a "thriller" which is realistic (or, indeed real!)
- JumpCrisscross 10y ago> It would have been impossible to start World War Three by accident. "Since 1950, there have been 32 nuclear weapon accidents, known as 'Broken Arrows.' A Broken Arrow is defined as an unexpected event involving nuclear weapons that result in the accidental launching, firing, detonating, theft or loss of the weapon. To date, six nuclear weapons have been lost and never recovered." http://www.atomicarchive.com/Almanac/Brokenarrows_static.shtml http://www.atomicarchive.com/Almanac/Brokenarrows_static.sht...
- arethuza 10y agoThat page seems a bit inconsistent, the K-219 was lost with 34 nuclear weapons and they don't seem to have been recovered: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_submarine_K-219 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_submarine_K-219
- LeifCarrotson 10y agoFrom the wiki: > K-219's full complement of nuclear weapons was lost along with the vessel. > In 1988, the Soviet hydrographic research ship Keldysh positioned itself over the wreck of K-219, and found the submarine sitting upright on the sandy bottom. It had broken in two, aft of the conning tower. Several missile silo hatches had been forced open, and the missiles, along with the nuclear warheads they contained, were gone.[13 [a book reference]] The official story, then, is that they were recovered. What are you suggesting? I suppose the 1988 Soviet media had a few reasons to lie. But still, there are only a few places the warheads could be: In Russian control - they recovered them quickly and didn't want to advertise the capability, and simply didn't tell the Keldysh or the public. Or perhaps the Keldysh's story is true, and they know that because they were the ones who pried open the silos. They could be in American control - we somehow stole them from the sub between the sinking and the survey, and kept it a secret. It sounds like that's the story we are meant to believe. They could be on the sea floor, fired or dropped onto the bottom to make recovery more difficult, or the Keldysh's report was a lie and they're sitting in their tubes on the sub. They could be in the control of some rogue weapons dealer who recovered them, but that seems much less likely than any of the above options. Or perhaps Dirk Pitt used a secret NUMA submersible to recover the missiles from the dangerous Soviet menace, and the warheads are decommissioned and sitting in Admiral Sandecker's basement.
- jhbadger 10y agoI've visited the mentioned Titan Missile Museum outside Tucson -- well recommended. It was recently used to film the reenactment sections of "Command and Control", a documentary based on the book of the same name about the Damascus (Arkansas) incident in 1980 where a Titan missile under maintenance exploded (fortunately not breaching the warhead).
- dsq 10y ago>A code to unlock the missile had to be dialed into six thumbwheels of 16 numbers each Could it be they were using a hexadecimal based system?
- Jgrubb 10y agoThought the same thing, it would have to be no?
- dsq 10y agoYou're right, apparently not hexadecimal. I found a photo of the code thumbwheels: http://static1.businessinsider.com/image/55b7d71a371d2279018ba74e-538/screen-shot-2015-07-28-at-15549-pm.png http://static1.businessinsider.com/image/55b7d71a371d2279018...
- CamperBob2 10y agoThose were probably so-called "BCD" switches. You had four data lines because that's what it takes to represent all digits from 0-9, but not all 16 combinations could be dialed up, just 10. The result of putting N switches together in a control panel is a BCD number where N decimal digits are represented with N*4 binary lines. There are a lot of surplus BCD and other types of thumbwheel switches on eBay, but I'm not sure if they're still being made these days.
- joosters 10y agoWas this the code that was actually set to 0000000 ? I can't find the reference, but I'm sure I read somewhere that the launch codes were not properly set up for a long time...
- arethuza 10y agoThat was Minuteman missiles and it was 00000000 - so over 10 (or 16) times as secure! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Permissive_Action_Link#Development_and_dissemination https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Permissive_Action_Link#Develop...
- Fej 10y ago"Give peace a chance."
- JoeAltmaier 10y agoWasn't it true that most bases never got provisioned with a missile? That building them was enough of a deterrent?
- GarrisonPrime 10y agoNo idea, but I suspect they were all real. The risk of anyone assuming some were fake - and thus thinking the US was bluffing - would have been too high.
- JoeAltmaier 10y agoIts not a bluff is any of them had missiles.
- throwanem 10y agoOh yes it is. It's a dangerous bluff, too; what happens when a high-level leaker tells his handler most of the holes are empty?
- gaius 10y agoWho would believe her?
- throwanem 10y agoNo one would change national policy based on a single report of such gravity - but the report would initiate a frenzied search for confirmation, which would all but certainly be forthcoming. At that point, the United States loses the Cold War.
- JoeAltmaier 10y agoReally? It would be acceptable to be hit with just some missiles, and only all the missiles would be a deterrent? This has gotten silly.
- EGreg 10y ago“The three minutes to get to the silo is a built in security protocol,” Morris explains. “If we didn’t make it in three minutes, the crew underground assumes there is some sort of security situation topside.” Reminds me of the two Russians who "saved the world" by being the one person to prevent an erroneous nuclear launch: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vasili_Arkhipov https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vasili_Arkhipov https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanislav_Petrov https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanislav_Petrov
- mikeash 10y agoI find Arkhipov particularly hair-raising. One bad cup of coffee that morning and he might not have been in the mood to argue with the other guys. Petrov, on the other hand, wouldn't have directly caused a launch had he reported a launch. There was still a good chance that his superiors would have ordered retaliation, it's just not quite as certain. The excellent and rather terrifying Cuban Missile War alternate-history timeline is based on Arkhipov deciding the other way: http://www.alternatehistory.com/forum/threads/the-cuban-missile-war-timeline.65071/ http://www.alternatehistory.com/forum/threads/the-cuban-miss...
- EGreg 10y agoOh man, because of you I just spent 1 hour reading this! Very impressive work by this guy.
- chakalakasp 10y agoThis is an interesting article, but I mean... these bases still exist. They're no secret. Both Russia and the United States have underground missile control facilities that control small clusters of nuclear silos ready to launch at any moment. (Additionally, the U.S. has a large submarine nuclear force that does the same and Russia has a small submarine force ready to do the same, both have a small contingent of bombers, and Russia has quite a few mobile ground based launch platforms). Living in Nebraska, I drive by the Minuteman silos pretty often when I chase storms. They look like this (I took this a couple years ago): https://www.flickr.com/photos/digicana/14505073893/ https://www.flickr.com/photos/digicana/14505073893/ There are lots of them. This is a map of just one of the three fields, based out of Warren: http://www.nukewatchinfo.org/nuclearweapons/nebraska,%20colorado,%20wyoming.jpg http://www.nukewatchinfo.org/nuclearweapons/nebraska,%20colo...
- planteen 10y agoI drive through Wyoming to western Nebraska a few times a year and have seen those. I had no idea! I thought they were oil/gas pipeline access.
- JoeDaDude 10y agoAtomic tourists may also be interested in visiting the Minuteman Missile National Historic Park. The park features a Missile Alert Facility (including bunker where the operators would turn their keys) and a missile silo at some miles distance. https://www.nps.gov/mimi/index.htm https://www.nps.gov/mimi/index.htm
- arethuza 10y agoI always thought the Safeguard ABM missile complex looked seriously weird and interesting: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Safeguard_Program https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Safeguard_Program
- blakeyrat 10y ago... and now I know where that amazing location in Fallout 4 was inspired by. http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Sentinel_site?file=Fo4sentintelsite.png http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Sentinel_site?file=Fo4sentinte...
- Glyptodon 10y agoEver since visiting I find it weird when movies or TV shows have double-key "terrible thing" control systems where both keyholes are within reach of one person.
- lisper 10y ago> The missile was launched by two separate keys (also kept in the safe), turned simultaneously and held for five seconds by the commander and deputy. Located on separate consoles, there is no way they could be operated by one person. It would have been impossible to start World War Three by accident. Seems to me the separate-console defense could have been easily defeated with a simple mechanical contrivance. How hard could it be to make a gadget that lets you turn a key from a distance?
- netcraft 10y agoBut that wouldn't have been accidental. They weren't necessarily trying to prevent attackers from being able to launch - more that someone couldn't put the wrong key in the wrong hole accidentally.
- lisper 10y agoRead the quoted passage again. "Located on separate consoles, there is no way they could be operated by one person." This was supposed to keep one rogue individual from initiating a launch.
- mikeash 10y agoThere's been a constant tension between the desire to control nuclear weapons and the desire to ensure nuclear weapons can be used in a war. These two goals are fundamentally in conflict to an extent. For a long time, the military was more worried about being unable to use a nuclear weapon due to a breakdown in the control system than they were worried about rogue officers using a weapon without permission. Permissive Action Links (devices in bombs which require an authentication code for the bomb to work) were resisted by the military, fearing that the codes might not be available when needed in wartime. That finally got forced on the Air Force and Army, but the Navy to this day doesn't have PALs on their weapons, because they see the risk of communications problems as being too high. For another example, the codes for the Minuteman ICBMs were set to 00000000. They remained like this until 1977. It's quite possible that this hardware was designed under a requirement that it would need two people to launch, but that it was deliberately engineered to make that requirement easy to bypass in case a single person needed to launch in wartime.
- eevilspock 10y agoThe amount of money and resources spent on this absurd and dangerous game rather than on making the world a better place is a sad commentary on humanity. All the time I observe adult disdain and condescension toward children for their "childish" fights and arguments and all the "stupid" things they do.
- ars 10y agoThe exact same titan missile design that is the subject of this article was used to send probes to other planets. Also, this world was designed with competition in mind, tempered with cooperation. So military competition is to be expected. Lacking competition people tend to stagnate. Too much and they suffer as well - a balance is what is needed. But that balance is not zero military.
- CamperBob2 10y agoI haven't seen any world wars lately, have you? Nuclear weapons are arguably a big part of the reason why.
- kevinskii 10y ago“It’s a pin number you have to be able to remember under extreme stress,” says Morris. “How many times have you been in line at the grocery store and can’t remember your pin? We have to be able to remember this code in a war situation.” Heh.
- p_zakharov 10y agoNot feeling on edge today? Read this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanislav_Petrov https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanislav_Petrov
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]