Missile Silos

37chief

Well-known Member
Location
California
Did any of you have a missile silo on or near your land? If so how close could you farm next to it? Maybe we should have kept them in operation with all that's going on in the world. Stan
 
(quoted from post at 13:45:56 08/28/14) Did any of you have a missile silo on or near your land? If so how close could you farm next to it? Maybe we should have kept them in operation with all that's going on in the world. Stan
till enough to blow up a lot of earth. :!:
 
Shhhhhh ! Don't let our national secret out.
Every old farm silo is being converted to missile silos.
 
There are several here in KS. One about 1/2 mile from my Brother. There is pasture all around it, but some different people lived in a trailer house on the property. It probably only covers a couple of acres or so. I would assume you could farm right up against it.

The ones around here were the old Minutemen Missiles from the Cold War.
 
There are a lot in western SD and some still live. Fellow worker (Worked for competitor at the time) was plowing fiber optics for the telephone exchange out there. Cut a fiber near a silo. Black SUV with blacked out windows where there in minutes. Plow crew immediately left the area. They didn't even have there fiber cables known by the local telephone company.
 
There were some in our area and the people farmed right up to the fence. I suppose if the fence was hit there would have been helicopters from nearby Elsworth Air Force Base show up pretty quickly! When copper prices got high several years ago, there was lots of copper wire, that supplied the underground shelters, dug up and sold. The landowners cashed in pretty good.
 
We are rumored to have one here in one of our finger lakes. For sure there is something well guarded out in the middle of the lake.
 
There was/is an Army Nike surface to air site about 10 miles from our place when I was small.

The site was intended to protect Cincinnati, OH (GE Aircraft Engines) from Russian bombers.

It operated for about 10 years before being closed as obsolete.

It is now privately owned.

Dean
 
We have lots of live ones here. The farmers farm right up to the fences. Not much land wasted other than the road going in.
 
there was a nike base about 10 miles north of us in naperville il. then about a half mile south of was was about 100 acre woods. the joliet army ammunition plant stored high explosives in small metal sheds there. when the towns started moving in, they abandoned the "dynamite houses " as we used to call them. about 10 years ago, some survey crew was out in naperville and a guy fell thru the roof of the old nike base. the newbies there made such a big deal, the old farmers all knew where it was.
 
Worked on an Atlas ICBM (that was a big one, in New Mexico in 1961. Went by the site last year. The 2 60 ton doors were standing up, wide open. Hole about 200 ft. deep as I recall In a desolate area, I threw a rock in the hole, could hear water splash. Couldn"t help wondering how many bodies was in it. No farming for many miles, just cactus and rattle snakes.
 
I was in Lewistown, MT last week and the Minuteman sites are farmed right to the fences around the silo.
 
Just south east of Belleville Illinois there is one that hasn't been used for years and this year it was sold at auction. I don't know what it went for.
 
We had a few Nike sites near here way back when, protecting Baltimore and DC. And then, there were the 16 Polaris and Poseidons I lived next door to for three years in the service.....
 
Here in ND there were quite a few of them, the farmers farmed right up to the fence. I remember as a kid hearing the helicopters flying around and shortly after a long convoy of pickups, cube vans and a semi with lots of wheels on it would come by on the highway. I have coffee with a guy every no and then that's retired from the military, he used to be stationed in one of those silos I'll try remember to ask him what it was like being stuck in that thing for days on end. I'm sure it wax pretty boring not being able to see what was going on outside.
 
One of the small systems that I used to take care of was a small Nortel system in the yellow-brownish house off of Rt 53, the office for the Joliet Arsonel before they moved that guy's office into a building along the river in Wilmington. I used to tell people that the cattle grazing out there were there for two reasons. One, if they lived they were sold off as beef. If they didn't live, its because they fulfilled their No. 1 duty, locating unexploded munitions lying around in the fields, buried. They would walk, graze around...KABOOM...BOOM...BOOM!!! Found another. Of course, I was pulling their legs, but they didn't know and believed me.

Mark
 
Was a silo less then 2 miles from us to protect
Forbes air base. Seems like it took longer to build them then they were used.
 
There is 12-13 around Abilene Tx. Several years ago there was tour of one south of Merkel. Son and I went. Kinda neat All the controls gone. Some others are homes. Even couple guys that build them were there. Local labor was used on building them.
 
(quoted from post at 14:58:03 08/28/14) There are a lot in western SD and some still live. Fellow worker (Worked for competitor at the time) was plowing fiber optics for the telephone exchange out there. Cut a fiber near a silo. Black SUV with blacked out windows where there in minutes. Plow crew immediately left the area. They didn't even have there fiber cables known by the local telephone company.

As in the phone company plough crew ran scared? Or the military loaded them into the SUV and hauled them away for a grilling?
 
(quoted from post at 11:05:54 08/28/14)
Somewhat obsolete . Easier, cheaper and more flexible to drop a guided gravity bomb, SAM or a cruise missile.

The Silos were not well thought out. All they were, were targets for the Soviet Missile Forces, just like their silos were targets for ours. Once both sides had pretty good sat surveillance of each others silos that could detect a launch in real time, giving the other side time to launch a retaliatory before the silos were destroyed, they were obsolete. After all, the sites would be contaminated for at least 50 years so the silos couldn't be reloaded. One time shot kind of deal.

What I find interesting was the MX missile that was supposed to replace the Atlas. Smaller rockets, cheaper to make and maintain, that were small enough to carry a single warhead and be carried in a normal sized semi trailer. The concept was that the silos being stationary thus a target while what looked like a normal RR box car or a normal semi truck hidden in plain view, constantly moving would be impossible to target. The idea came up when Regan was in office. It was opposed by many people who didn't want a nuke parked in their back yard. The idea was allegedly scrapped, right about the time they announced that they were going to start shutting down some of the silos.

OK someone said that we don't need the Atlas any longer citing cruise missiles, subs and guided bombs. We don't have guided nukes. They require a laser beam to follow that has to have a designator. That's done one of 2 ways. On larger targets another aircraft can illuminate a target while diving at the target. Not exactly what you would want to do. Getting ever closer to the point of impact until the bomb goes off. The other is with someone on the ground. Our small nukes would wipe out either the aircraft or the team on the ground.

Anyone ever see or hear of a nuke artillery round? The tactical battle field nuke? They fire out of a 155MM gun. Supposed to have the yield of the bombs dropped on Japan. The bombs dropped on Japan were so big in size, not power, that it took a B29 to carry just one. Not the same power is in a 110 pound artillery round.

Rick
 
(quoted from post at 12:31:58 08/28/14) There are several here in KS. One about 1/2 mile from my Brother. There is pasture all around it, but some different people lived in a trailer house on the property. It probably only covers a couple of acres or so. I would assume you could farm right up against it.

The ones around here were the old Minutemen Missiles from the Cold War.

I heard each site covered 40 acres 8)
 
(quoted from post at 06:45:49 08/29/14)
(quoted from post at 12:31:58 08/28/14) There are several here in KS. One about 1/2 mile from my Brother. There is pasture all around it, but some different people lived in a trailer house on the property. It probably only covers a couple of acres or so. I would assume you could farm right up against it.

The ones around here were the old Minutemen Missiles from the Cold War.

I heard each site covered 40 acres 8)

I've driven by the silos in ND. Maybe 4-6 acres on average.

Rick
 
My dad told me there was a lot of excitement when the silos were being built, a lot of people thought it was a good deal but looking back he said they didn't really think about how disposable the gov't thought people were.
 
Should have mentioned that with a nuke you don't need pin point accuracy. Close is good enough. :twisted: :twisted:

We were told in the Army that the Atlas ICBMs war heads were accurate within plus or minus a couple of yards. Now these were large warheads with astounding yields. 100 times that of the Japan bombs. They were much more accurate than they had to be.

Rick
 

Worse comes to worse I'm sure there is a contigincy plan to strap a hydrogen warhead into a cruise missile payload bay.
May void some paperwork but hey, it's war and all .
 
About 30 years ago when I worked for IH combine development, was with a crew in ND harvesting around one of those missle silos. After unloading a combine and with the unloader still out, I dribbled a little grain over onto the other side of the fence. Within a few minutes there was a military jeep with 4 soldiers and a large mounted machine gun in the field with us. They asked us what we did to set off the sensors. Told them it must have been grain from the unloader. They told us to not do that again.
 
I thought nukes were suppose to detonate well above the surface for maximum effect, like a 1/2 mile or something. You don't need great accuracy for that. I also remember that the minute man missiles carried 60 small nukes inside of them, each one having it's own target.

I could be remembering wrong though.
 
(quoted from post at 13:34:28 08/29/14) I thought nukes were suppose to detonate well above the surface for maximum effect, like a 1/2 mile or something. You don't need great accuracy for that. I also remember that the minute man missiles carried 60 small nukes inside of them, each one having it's own target.

I could be remembering wrong though.

I think it's 3 warheads. Some of our targets were hard targets designed to withstand a nuke. For those they had a delayed fuse to make em go off underground. That at least was to my understanding. In the mid 80's they really started telling us line soldiers a lot about WMDs. Things were getting dicey with the former Soviet Union. For a while we had a lot of training on what to expect, who in the Soviet military had the authority to use tactical nukes and what to expect with chemical weapons. They also told us about ours I think to give us confidence in our ability to win. Could never figure that out. You have a nuke exchange between us and Russia or us and China the countries without nukes who are not targeted are going to be the clear winners. That's why the Soviets were so afraid of the neutron bomb. Designed to detonate really high. The radiation would kill every living creature in an area about 25 miles across. The radiation deteriorated rapidly and the area would be safe for humans in 5 years. Because of the height of the blast little they claimed that little if any damage would occur to buildings and such on the ground. That was when the Soviets got real serious about the SALT negotiations. Don't know how close we were to having it or if it was just propaganda, or if we honored our agreement not to build them. That was a time when we were openly talking about the "start wars" missile defense system and other things. Regan made speech's about all of it (doesn't make sense, all that stuff should have been highly classified). Don't know if any was real or if was something to push the Russians over the brink trying to keep up. What ever the true story is it did make the Russians spend money they didn't have and it wasn't long before things started to cool down with the Iron Curtain finally coming down. But don't thump your chest over that. The Russians pulled far more scams on us through the years. Just how much did we spend looking for "suitcase nukes" when all that was said was they scouted for locations to plant them?

As far as nukes, the cruise missile can carry a nuke payload. A nuke arty round is only about 110 pounds IIRC and we had 75 pound back pack devices for Spec Ops. Cruise missile has a much larger payload than that. The cruise missile scared the Russians bad too. Shortly after they were deployed a West German teen took off in a light plane and went nap of earth (NAP), undetected through East German airspace and landed in Red Square. Russia at that time had no defense against a cruise missile flying NAP maybe carrying a nuke warhead. Was an interesting time to be active duty.

Rick
 
Rick you are correct. The Minutuman 111 has 3 MIRV warehads. Or as the guys at the Grand Forks AFB called them, the "physics package". MIRV for those that don't now is Multipal Independently Targetable Reentery Vehicale. The much larger MX Peacekeeper had 10, and they were much more powerful. They are gone now, the rockets used to launch civilian communication stuff. The early 1980's were a interesting time to be im the Army in Germany.
 
(quoted from post at 15:28:01 08/29/14) Rick you are correct. The Minutuman 111 has 3 MIRV warehads. Or as the guys at the Grand Forks AFB called them, the "physics package". MIRV for those that don't now is Multipal Independently Targetable Reentery Vehicale. The much larger MX Peacekeeper had 10, and they were much more powerful. They are gone now, the rockets used to launch civilian communication stuff. The early 1980's were a interesting time to be im the Army in Germany.


I was in 8ID, Bco 2/68 Armor from 83-87 in Baumholder. When and where were you?

Rick
 

Wasn't there something about one missile's independent warheads could be staggered to hit the same target minutes apart. The idea was for bunker busting ?
 
Eldon- used to park at the one northeast of Reardan when in college- I think it had Nike missiles at one time, but in any event, by the late 60's it was known unofficially as the Nookie Site.
 
I happen to work around missile silos here in Wyoming. The regulations say that the landowner has to keep 25' away from the security fence,although some of the farmers have tilled closer than 25', mainly in the Nebraska and Colorado sites.
 
I am sure that they could have. But you have to wonder, I think each one of those warheads yielded something like 170 kilotons of tnt, more than 10 times the bombs that serviced targets in Japan. What needs to get hit twice ? What I knew about it I learned after the I was in the army when I was going to UND in Grand Forks. Lots of guys from the AFB were going to college, and as there was no Airforce ROTC they were going to Army ROTC learning to fly helecoptors. Long time ago so my memory is iffy, and the Air Force guys didn't talk about it much, but I think if they wanted to hit something twice, or actually make sure they got it, they would use wareheads from different missles, incase something went wrong with one. Although I pretend no expertise in nuke warefare (or any other kind for that matter) I would have to wonder if a silo or command center was attacked by a nuke would it work ? Would the communication cables work, would the rocked in the silo get knocked off its foundation or whatever it is called. And although they never really told me, I think the Mutually Assured Distruction plan indicated they were going to destroy cities. They did tell me though, they could shoot those things over the north pole, and the CEP (circular error probable)was 0.5 miles. Perhaps there is some old SAC guy could offer up more details.
 
(quoted from post at 15:28:31 08/30/14) I would have to wonder if a silo or command center was attacked by a nuke would it work ? Would the communication cables work, would the rocked in the silo get knocked off its foundation or whatever it is called.

Being national defense there would be no shortage of seismic , over pressure and thermal protection.
Unless a warhead actually detonated close enough to a silo to collapse the silo enough. That the missile couldn't physically launch due to binding or blockage. I'll bet they would still go whoosh and kaboom with a push of the button.
 
(quoted from post at 20:58:14 08/29/14) 1 St Battalion, 33 rd Armour, 3rd Armoured Division. Gelnhausen, 1982-1984 M60A3 crewmember.


Yep, 19E3HB8 at the time. Armor crewman, SSG, Instructor and M60A3 qualifications that the time. The A3 was a vast improvement over the M60A1 and A1RISE.

You should have stuck around for the M1's! Man what a tank! Remember start out at the bottom of a hill and being stuck in 1st till you got to the crest? The M1's would accelerate up a steep hill and at least get into 2nd. Plus the laser rangefinder, thermal sights, computer and fire control system were part of the basic design. On the A3 that was all add on. While the A3 was much improved for accuracy over the A1 the A3 isn't in the same league as the M1. FWIW on the A1 you were supposed to fire 2 rounds at each target to insure a hit and we didn't get turret stab until the RISE edition came out in about 77. We got new tanks that year. The RISE. Didn't even know how to operate the turret stab system, they didn't have a NET team come out and train us. I was on my first tour of Germany and in Aco, 4/73 Armor, Stuttgart area. We rail loaded our old tanks and the following week unloaded new, not rebuilds, tanks. The gun tube was in blocks on the fenders down one side and the BII in a crate tied down to the rear deck. Everything prior to that for offense was fired at a short halt. Inspectors came from Anderson ARMY and did TI's and the manufacturer (Chrysler at the time) had reps there to repair any faults before we took full control. They even had the MP's clock em with radar to ensure they would go at least 30 MPH on a test track. The tank I was gunner on at the time got a new engine before my tank commander ever signed for the tank. The reps could only get something 28 MPH out of it.

When the unit I was in at the time was issued M1's we got "inspect and repair as needed" M1IP's (IP=improved). How that worked was a unit getting new tanks were told to turn in the old ones. Inspectors from Anderson came in and did a TI on one tank from each company. The unit was given a budget to repair these tanks outside of normal repair funds. When they past the inspection they accepted the tank and then sent it directly to another unit. Most often they didn't allow enough money because they didn't inspect the worst tanks but picked them at random. They were not the best tanks I'd ever seen. Then a year later we got reman M1A1's directly from Anderson Army. Best tank I was ever issued. The Anderson Army tanks had fewer faults than new ones from the factory.

Rick
 
It was actually a turn of a key, no button. But I like the
woosh and kaboom thing. Starting in high school I spent almost 3 years in the ND Army National Guard, 3 years active duty and 2 more years back in the NDANG, along with hanging out in ROTC (was never going to get a comission cause of a back operation but they let me go to summer camp at Ft Lewis WA and had a few great weekends at that MN reserve base near Little Falls tearing things up with a M113). Woosh and kaboom were military terms never taught to me in any of the schools I went to. Sounds like they could come in handy.
 
Actually a ground burst could cause a collapse of a silo if it's close enough. Back in the day we knew the Soviets had multiple warheads targeting each of our silos. So a preemptive strike could of wiped out our silo ICBMs. Then along came the ability to monitor their silos with satellites that would allow us time to launch before their missiles hit. The thing we couldn't protect against were the ballistic missile subs unless we knew where they were 100% of the time. They could park a boomer off the east coast with about a 60 second flight time for a strike on DC or any of our major ports. If our attack subs were not right on them we would not know in enough time to react.

Whoosh and boom were not anything we were taught, nor did we teach it when I taught Armor Tactics to the new butter bars at Ft Knox.

Rick
 

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