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For anyone who hasn’t seen it, the highly hn-relevant film WarGames kicks off with a launch order scene between a MCCC and a DMCCC that doesn’t depart wildly fr

For anyone who hasn’t seen it, the highly hn-relevant film WarGames kicks off with a launch order scene between a MCCC and a DMCCC that doesn’t depart wildly from the description here. The rest of the film is pretty good, too! Turn your key, sir!

wkat4242 2y ago
What about the fake house? Was that realistic? I've always wondered. I can imagine shaping buildings like a house to fool satellites but the furnished living room looked a bit too much. I assume these bases were military territory with fences around them.
- mrguyorama 2y ago
  I'm from northern Maine, where we use to have Loring Air Force Base. Back during the SAC days, it was one of the primary nuclear bases in the US. It even gets nuked in Wargames! If you know the right people in town, you can get some fascinating information. At one time, supposedly most of the nuclear weapons in the US passed through Loring. There was a large field area that had bunkers dug into it that held nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons. There were many more bunkers than weapons needing storage, so that you could rotate the munitions constantly so that the Ruskies would have to guess which bunker to nuke. On top of this field full of bunkers was a bunch of buildings that looked very boring, and were supposedly made to look like "boring" military buildings. One building was a large concrete cube. About 40 ft on all sides. It was supposed to represent something like a small schoolhouse. It was designed to contain the detonators for the bombs. It supposedly had 4ft thick reinforced concrete walls. It was supposed to be able to survive a near direct strike. This all made a lot more sense back in the 60s when bombs were less accurate, smaller, and satellite intel was significantly more limited. https://maps.app.goo.gl/rauEmMeHagTpVgGQA https://maps.app.goo.gl/rauEmMeHagTpVgGQA this is the location I describe above. If you look to the south-west of the runways, you can see a similar road layout where some base-housing used to be. The bunker area was meant to be hard to distinguish from those from a spyplane or early satellite.
- ben_w 2y ago
  Thinking of (possibly) fake building, was noodling around Google Maps looking for some interesting walks in my area, and found these surprisingly widely spaced groups of buildings: https://maps.app.goo.gl/K5MMuAdLtZ63hL8Y8?g_st=com.google.maps.preview.copy https://maps.app.goo.gl/K5MMuAdLtZ63hL8Y8?g_st=com.google.ma... Might well be totally mundane, but it sure seems odd to me with my complete lack of knowledge about civil engineering.
  - crote 2y ago
    They're pig or chicken farms, if you go on a walk you can tell by the absolutely awful smell. Note the vertical cylinders for food storage in your link. I bet the spacing is mainly due to environmental regulations.
    - ben_w 2y ago
      Thanks, I'd missed the vertical cylinders. Not that it would have helped me without the rest of your comment — although I've seen a vertical cylinder in a farm in Aberystwyth I'd assumed that instance was fuel, and similar elsewhere were labeled as liquified air tanks. But chicken farms make a lot of sense.
- neilv 2y ago
  "Andromeda Strain" has a related filmmakers' conception of a secret/discreet government facility: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rgDmJzaSd40&t=13s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rgDmJzaSd40&t=13s
  - whartung 2y ago
    Then, of course, there’s the rocket launched from beneath the swimming pool.

wkat4242 2y ago

What about the fake house? Was that realistic? I've always wondered. I can imagine shaping buildings like a house to fool satellites but the furnished living room looked a bit too much. I assume these bases were military territory with fences around them.

mrguyorama 2y ago
I'm from northern Maine, where we use to have Loring Air Force Base. Back during the SAC days, it was one of the primary nuclear bases in the US. It even gets nuked in Wargames! If you know the right people in town, you can get some fascinating information. At one time, supposedly most of the nuclear weapons in the US passed through Loring. There was a large field area that had bunkers dug into it that held nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons. There were many more bunkers than weapons needing storage, so that you could rotate the munitions constantly so that the Ruskies would have to guess which bunker to nuke. On top of this field full of bunkers was a bunch of buildings that looked very boring, and were supposedly made to look like "boring" military buildings. One building was a large concrete cube. About 40 ft on all sides. It was supposed to represent something like a small schoolhouse. It was designed to contain the detonators for the bombs. It supposedly had 4ft thick reinforced concrete walls. It was supposed to be able to survive a near direct strike. This all made a lot more sense back in the 60s when bombs were less accurate, smaller, and satellite intel was significantly more limited. https://maps.app.goo.gl/rauEmMeHagTpVgGQA https://maps.app.goo.gl/rauEmMeHagTpVgGQA this is the location I describe above. If you look to the south-west of the runways, you can see a similar road layout where some base-housing used to be. The bunker area was meant to be hard to distinguish from those from a spyplane or early satellite.
ben_w 2y ago
Thinking of (possibly) fake building, was noodling around Google Maps looking for some interesting walks in my area, and found these surprisingly widely spaced groups of buildings: https://maps.app.goo.gl/K5MMuAdLtZ63hL8Y8?g_st=com.google.maps.preview.copy https://maps.app.goo.gl/K5MMuAdLtZ63hL8Y8?g_st=com.google.ma... Might well be totally mundane, but it sure seems odd to me with my complete lack of knowledge about civil engineering.
- crote 2y ago
  They're pig or chicken farms, if you go on a walk you can tell by the absolutely awful smell. Note the vertical cylinders for food storage in your link. I bet the spacing is mainly due to environmental regulations.
  - ben_w 2y ago
    Thanks, I'd missed the vertical cylinders. Not that it would have helped me without the rest of your comment — although I've seen a vertical cylinder in a farm in Aberystwyth I'd assumed that instance was fuel, and similar elsewhere were labeled as liquified air tanks. But chicken farms make a lot of sense.
neilv 2y ago
"Andromeda Strain" has a related filmmakers' conception of a secret/discreet government facility: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rgDmJzaSd40&t=13s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rgDmJzaSd40&t=13s
- whartung 2y ago
  Then, of course, there’s the rocket launched from beneath the swimming pool.