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What’s it like hauling nuclear weapons across the country?
- robbiet480 5y ago> The salary range for an NV-01 (basic) federal agent NMC is $48,682 to $76,981. For the amount of training required for this job and personal risk, I’m shocked at the low salary band.
- throwaway0a5e 5y agoNobody does it for the money. Everyone does it for the bennies. This is probably the least risky OTR trucking job ever since you have so many people making sure everything goes right and you don't have dispatch pushing you to do insane shifts that stretch the law.
- ttul 5y agoImagine the security going on behind the scenes that the drivers never even know about…
- TedDoesntTalk 5y agoYeah and I’m guessing the vehicles are unmarked, vanilla trucks that we pass on the roads all the time without knowing.
- beerandt 5y agoThat was the idea. The truck manufacturer has been out of business long enough now that seeing a surviving example is relatively rare.
- rootusrootus 5y agoPeterbilt? I believe they still make trucks.
- shadilay 5y agoThe trucks the Peterbilt's replaced.
- queuebert 5y agoBased on the article picture, you might be able to pick them out by the bulletproof windows.
- ttul 5y agoI bet 2/3rds of them aren’t even hauling actual weapons.
- wolverine876 5y ago> Nobody does it for the money. Everyone does it for the bennies. Is that based on experience?
- throwaway0a5e 5y ago>Is that based on experience Yeah pretty much. Ask any government worker why they're still working for the government and they'll tell you something about benefits and stability.
- wolverine876 5y agoGovernment workers I know seem to primarily credit reasonable hours (e.g., government coders don't get 100+ hour weeks; they go home at 5) and decent management (i.e., actual professional management, not screaming morons), but certainly stability and benefits too.
- MisterBastahrd 5y agoEvery government dev I know who isn't a manager will strongly disagree with the "professional management" take. People generally don't become managers of government dev shops because they're great at managing people. They become managers because they're what's left after everyone else has gone on to do other things.
- vmception 5y ago+1 to this Public sector is serious brain drain The counterpoints are people so uninspired and risk averse that it is the same as brain drain, and a subset of them are the people that began with a “serving the public” ideal and accidentally accumulated too many obligations by the time they figured out they wanted to live in a nicer neighborhood or send their children to a good college The good talent are people that took a plea deal for non prosecution that included public service
- 5y ago
- tehjoker 5y agoThis article is illuminating: https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/14253/the-us-moves-nukes-in-booby-trapped-tractor-trailers-straight-out-of-an-action-movie https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/14253/the-us-moves-nuk... "The expose painted a dismal picture of an overworked and underpaid organization where over a third of the personnel would put in more than 900 hours of overtime each year, equal to more than 35 extra days on the job. Couriers and agents spend most of that time on the road on long, boring drives unable to stop for protracted periods or even leave their vehicles in many circumstances. If they get pulled over by local law enforcement for some reason, the truck drivers aren't even allowed to speak to the police without the security force commander being present during the conversation. Underscoring these issues, in 2010, the Department of Energy's Inspector General cataloged 16 alcohol-related incidents within OST in the preceding three years, including an incident of public intoxication where a courier was arrested and another where two employees ended up in police custody after getting into a drunken bar brawl. The report uncovered New Mexico court records showing the office's top executive had gotten a DUI after police came across him parked on a sidewalk apparently drinking in the car with a blood alcohol level of 0.15 percent."
- throwaway0a5e 5y agoReading between the lines they're making a killing on OT and while the job is mind numbing these guys party it up real good when they're not on duty. Sounds a lot like gambling auditing TBH.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- DaiPlusPlus 5y agoI thought “bennies” was short for Benjamins - $100 bills, I.e. the money? Or they provide benzodiazepines on the job now?
- kevinbowman 5y agoI assumed "benefits", i.e. perks beyond the basic salary
- DaiPlusPlus 5y agoAs a non-American living in the US the way people talk about tangible public-sector benefits (or lack thereof...) led me to think otherwise. The only significant "benefit" people do talk about is job-security, I guess because people are hard to replace if they're being underpaid...
- allenrb 5y agoJust speculating, but is it possible that this provides a path to other, more senior federal agent gigs?
- dylan604 5y agoI would be shocked if higher levels of gov't job positions don't start to include minimum requirements of X years in job, education levels, etc just as any private sector job would.
- ALittleLight 5y agoI'd bet they have pretty low personal risk. Where would the risk come from? I could see being close to radioactive materials as a risk - though hopefully there is sufficient shielding to negate that. I don't see much risk from people attacking you to take the nukes. I feel like that doesn't happen very often. Maybe some risk from lots of vehicle miles traveled. It seems like an awesome job for someone with the right set of preferences. Spend half your time training, working out, going to the range. Half your time on long road trips. Huge responsibility, but extremely low chance you'll ever need to actually do much. Kind of like being a cop who never has to arrest or deal with people.
- dylan604 5y ago> I feel like that doesn't happen very often. It has been the plot of several movies/books/etc.
- ALittleLight 5y agoAny that were non-fiction?
- bdowling 5y agoThe documentary Command and Control [0] included a small part about the recovery and transport of a warhead after an accident in which they missile it was mounted on exploded. [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Command_and_Control_(film) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Command_and_Control_(film)
- AnimalMuppet 5y agoThat still wasn't an attack, though. (Though it might have been as dangerous as if it were...)
- ALittleLight 5y agoAnd it was also caused by a maintenance accident at a silo if I understood the wiki correctly. Not a transport incident at all.
- pie420 5y agoYou familiar with government pensions and benefits? That's your answer.
- bpodgursky 5y agoBut actually though! People don't realize how much having a federal pension + healthcare changes your income calculus.
- asdfasgasdgasdg 5y agoHrmmm, have any of these agents ever been assaulted in connection with their official role? I guess we wouldn't know but also I guess not. Seems not too bad for personal risk.
- metaphor 5y agoHuh?? That's just entry-level base pay specifically for the Albuquerque-Santa Fe-Las Vegas, NM locality with 3 additional levels of opportunity above that[1], and you'd be getting paid the entire time to train towards a CDL + small arms + tactics qualifications...not to say anything about additional unadvertised compensation and standard fare of benefits that accompany typical blue collar federal jobs. I suspect the biggest general public barrier to entry here would be competing against a glut of qualified applicants with 5-/10-point veterans' preference, assuming time was taken to put notification hooks in place for immediate action on job postings that'll close almost as soon as they're announced. [1] https://www.energy.gov/nnsa/downloads/nnsas-demo-pay-system-compared-general-schedule https://www.energy.gov/nnsa/downloads/nnsas-demo-pay-system-...
- trainsplanes 5y agoThe article says they recruit people with military and police experience. There’s a good chance this job is full of 40-50 year olds who retired early and need a way to keep busy.
- JoeyBananas 5y agoJust like in the military, they pay for the training
- goodcanadian 5y agoOutside the HN bubble, that is actually a pretty good salary. Median personal income is about $36000.
- wolverine876 5y agoI don't know the security, of course, but because of the value to some parties of a nuclear weapon or some of its components, I wonder how it could be adequately secured in a convoy on the open highway.
- vkou 5y agoThe problem with highway robbery is that you have very limited means of getting whatever you stole transported somewhere else. This isn't the 18th century, anymore. A semi carrying stolen cargo can't just bushwack its way away with the loot.
- PaulDavisThe1st 5y ago1 word: Sikorsky
- meepmorp 5y agoWhy wouldn't they bring a couple manpads along when they're moving the nukes around? It's not like airborne attack is a particularly odd scenario.
- newsclues 5y agoI’d guess there is a fighter jet nearby on standby. Air superiority is still assumed.
- meepmorp 5y agoBut the manpads is more awesome.
- ffffwe3rq352y3 5y agoEven though they are super cool I'd assume that if they didn't have air superiority they wouldn't transport the nuke!
- United857 5y agoWhy road transport at all instead of via military aircraft/helicopter instead, at least for the majority of the way?
- JumpCrisscross 5y ago> Why road transport at all instead of via by military aircraft/helicopter instead, at least for the majority of the way? Failure modes. Trucks crashing are, while more frequent, less energetic than planes. There's an elevated risk of capture, but that is more manageable.
- GartzenDeHaes 5y agoNukes are never transported by air. After some nasty crashes in the 50's and 60's, the DOE decided that air transport was a bad idea (the DOE owns all of the nuclear weapons).
- jsjohnst 5y ago> Nukes are never transported by air. This is definitively not true, just look up PNAF if you don’t believe me.
- failwhaleshark 5y agoYep. 62nd Airlift Wing, Air Mobility Command, McChord Field. C-17's.
- GartzenDeHaes 5y agoI'm thinking that is for overseas transport. CONUS is ground only.
- jsjohnst 5y agoNope, PNAF does CONUS flights too. There’s even a famous flight not fifteen years ago where they accidentally flew six nukes unsecured and the plane sat on the tarmac for like 36hrs. If you search PNAF as I suggested, you can read a bunch of bulletins and operating procedure docs and learn more than I can say here on the topic.
- NiceWayToDoIT 5y agoWhat is the procedure when someone accidentally hijacks one of those trucks? If I understood correctly sometimes those trucks will not have an escort.
- ceejayoz 5y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Safeguards_Transporter https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Safeguards_Transporter > When traveling, the tractor and trailer are typically escorted by three dark colored Chevrolet Suburbans, each containing four armed crew members. Additionally, all missions include heavily armed aerial support. The semi-tractor(STG) itself is heavily armored, and equipped with a Caterpillar diesel engine coupled to an automatic transmission. The cab-over tractor is a sleeper design, but instead of a bed, it has two seats containing additional armed support crew. The tractor also contains firing ports, run flat tires, and automatic sanders for slick roads. You're not going to accidentally hijack one.
- gpm 5y agoAlso > If a SGT comes under attack, unspecified security features in the vehicles give them, according to the NNSA, the capability to "surprise and delay even the most aggressive adversary". The full range of defensive components in SGTs is unknown, but according to some media reports the vehicles are equipped with autonomous weapons systems and other "high-tech surprises" that allow them to independently engage and repel attackers even if all human crew have been killed or disabled.
- Lev1a 5y ago> but according to some media reports the vehicles are equipped with autonomous weapons systems and other "high-tech surprises" that allow them to independently engage and repel attackers even if all human crew have been killed or disabled For some reason I'm imagining the scene from one of the F&F movies where the side panels of a bus pull up and a bunch of revolver cannons come out. In reality it's probably more something like ejectors for smoke screens, grenade launchers for concussion/flash grenades, stuff like that since the line says "independently engage and repel attackers" not "everything with a heat signature within X meters will be mowed down by autonomous gunfire".
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- MeinBlutIstBlau 5y agoI just imagine you could pull a Joe Dirt and duct tape yourself to it and create an incident if you were desperate. Although, these are real as opposed to a poop tanks.
- jareklupinski 5y agopainting the cab anti-flash white is a nice touch https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-flash_white https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-flash_white
- JoeyBananas 5y agoIt's probably just titanium dioxide white, which is common for fleet vehicles because it's cheap (especially government/military fleets) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_fleet_%28military_vehicles%29?wprov=sfla1 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_fleet_%28military_vehicl...
- baybal2 5y agoFunny factoid, Pakistan purposefully carries its nukes in inconspicious white Isuzu vans, allegedly intentionally bought second hand to make them stand out even less.
- skunkworker 5y agoLast year they tested the Mobile Guardians Transporter being hit by a rocket sled at Sandia National Laboratories. https://newatlas.com/military/nuclear-weapon-transport-truck-crash-test-snl/ https://newatlas.com/military/nuclear-weapon-transport-truck...
- canjobear 5y agoI have a lot of experience of this from playing Blast Corps
- choeger 5y agoFirst of all, that sounds like a great plot for one of those mindless-yet-entertaining summer movies. Something like "White House Down" on a road trip. With trucks. Second, how comes that all these federal agencies in the US demand "law enforcement experience"? Are you supposed to do a stint as some local Sheriff's deputy somewhere or go into a local police school (if that's a thing) first? Isn't that awfully inefficient? Shouldn't the federal government (as well as state governments) try to get the youngest, fittest, and brightest recruits?
- CamperBob2 5y ago"I'm not sure what's more disturbing -- the fact that you lost a nuclear weapon, or that it happens so often that there's a term for it." -- Broken Arrow
- stonogo 5y agoThey do try! A few years enlisted as an MP is a common start.
- AndyMcConachie 5y ago"one of the toughest and most secretive jobs in the transportation industry" I see lots of faces of people I can track and even a license plate. Maybe not that secretive. If I wanted to find out where the weapons were I could identify everyone in that photo and track their whereabouts.
- _n_b_ 5y agoHonestly, you could just Google it… it’s not exactly a secret where the nukes and their various major subcomponents components live. Pantex, Y-12, LANL, etc.
- Ichthypresbyter 5y agoThe UK also has regular road convoys carrying nuclear warheads between the Atomic Weapons Establishments in Aldermaston and Burghfield and the Royal Navy Armaments Depot in Coulport. These are a lot more obvious than the US ones (the vehicles are all marked, and they have police escorts which stop traffic at side roads). Probably also have a lot less of the James Bond kit.
- failwhaleshark 5y agoI'm sure the highest probability densities are around and between Pantex and Y12, and then to ports and silos.
- DarkContinent 5y agoSort of surprised that truck drivers are still providing nuclear transportation services--air transport is much safer considering almost any hazard.
- Arrath 5y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_military_nuclear_incident_terminology#Broken_Arrow_incidents https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_military_nuclear... While routine transportation of nuclear devices by air is a different ballgame than, say, Operation Chrome Dome, there isn't exactly a stellar record to look back to.