It made for a great movie opening ("Wargames", 1983): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s6aCpS0-yls (Don't worry; that guy went on to be White House Chief of Staff.)
And the other guy went to cut off someone's ear.
US ICBM Launch Center Virtual Tour
21–30 of 88 posts
Re: US ICBM Launch Center Virtual Tour
#22Earlier quoted context omitted.
According to this [0] the number of warheads as of 2020 is 3750 which does kind of qualify as "thousands upon thousands". Edit: I don't think it matters if "only" 400 are land-based, does it? it's still "thousands". [0] https://www.state.gov/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/Fact-Sheet_...
There's MIRV, so depends what you mean by "these things". But also some among these 3750 are in subs, and bombers. And as for "100 would do": Well, if they all hit their targets, maybe. But part of the reason for overkill is so that even a sneak attack that's 90% successful should trigger MAD. Well, I say "should", but more like that's the cold logical deterrence rationale.
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Re: US ICBM Launch Center Virtual Tour
#23Earlier quoted context omitted.
The US has 400 land-based nuclear weapons, not thousands upon thousands. They're there to be a better thing for our enemies to aim at than our cities.
Exactly. If anyone is curious, look up the term Nuclear Sponge.
Nobody's going to be aiming at nuclear silos in the middle of nowhere that are not only designed to withstand a nuclear attack, but may well have also launched by the time your missile arrives. US early Cold War targets have been declassified. [1] We did make efforts to target airfields where nukes would have launched from (prior to the ICBM), but those were valuable and weakly defended targets, regardless of whether the enemy's ships were already airborne or not. But a large chunk of our missiles were directed towards agriculture, industry, medicine product, and a large number of targets were justified as simply "population." The Soviet targets likely would have been more or less identical.
In nuclear war the goal will not be to eliminate the enemy's military - military's can be rebuilt. At the point of nuclear war absolutely all norms and rules of conflict will have been discarded. The goal is going to be to eliminate the enemy's entire country, such that he might never be a threat again. In such a situation I'd feel far safer standing near a nuclear bunker out in the middle of nowhere than I would in the middle of a high population, high economic value urban area.
[1] - https://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/23/us/politics/1950s-us-nucl...
Re: US ICBM Launch Center Virtual Tour
#24What's inside of the locked down door? Is that just the main door in? I'm assuming that hallway is the museum.
And what is on the map with the circles? Is that a geographical map or some sort of system map?
And what shock do the Shock Isolators stop? Shock from a launch?
Re: US ICBM Launch Center Virtual Tour
#25This video shows a bit more in action step by step: https://youtu.be/HWZXinRwCaE?feature=shared
That looks like a much later system. I'm surprised that "pop-up menu" was a part of this particular interaction scenario. But much of the rest of the UI looks more like what I would've guessed.
Yes, that video looks to be the "REACT" [0] upgrade that was done in the 1990s. It specifically says it changed it to make the operators sit side-by-side.
0: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rapid_Execution_and_Combat_Tar...
Re: US ICBM Launch Center Virtual Tour
#26It made for a great movie opening ("Wargames", 1983): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s6aCpS0-yls (Don't worry; that guy went on to be White House Chief of Staff.)
After a goose chase to confirm, it was John Spencer playing in The West Wing. Not an actual CoS...
Re: US ICBM Launch Center Virtual Tour
#27If anyone is near Cheyenne Wyoming or passing through on I-25, I highly enjoyed visiting Quebec-01 State Park. Former silo left intact where you can tour. I think you need a reservation:
https://wyoparks.wyo.gov/index.php/places-to-go/quebec-01
Then go back and watch the first 15 minutes of Wargames. They did a great job.
Re: US ICBM Launch Center Virtual Tour
#28I can help but think the missileers would be less depressed (it's a known problem) if some more attention was paid to aesthetics and comfort, given the amount of time they spent locked in there.
I'm not going to claim that it's much better these days, but it's worth noting that the launch center in the link is quite old. The launch center have had multiple upgrades since then; the link here [0] shows some videos from inside a newer configuration, which does look a little bit more comfortable, and even that video is from the early 2000s. I would have to guess that more upgrades have been made since then.
Re: US ICBM Launch Center Virtual Tour
#29Whenever I see things like this I think it's so cool, but it's always followed by this weird feeling that lasts a few hours where all I can think about is, "What have we done?" Why does destruction come to easy to us? Why has it always been a prioirty?
Being able to destroy everyone else is what prevents them from destroying us.
Something I think about and feel bad about is the "nuclear sponge". Why do we have a bunch of ICBMs in the midwest? So that if someone wants to nuke NYC, they have to nuke the Great Plains first, or face total destruction. Makes nuclear war that much more expensive. Of course, it's kind of an outdated assumption that that alone would be enough; we still have bombers and submarine-launched missiles.
I have mixed feelings about mutually assured destruction; it would be nice if the human race couldn't destroy the entire planet. But, it does make sense on some level. Why don't you go up to lions in the zoo and pet them? I bet they're soft! The reason you don't is because you know it will bite your arm off. We hope the same logic applies to nuclear first strikes. (I also feel a little bad knowing that my country is the only one that ever used nuclear weapons. The world didn't end, but that's little consolation for the 200,000 civilians we vaporized in an instant.)
Re: US ICBM Launch Center Virtual Tour
#30Earlier quoted context omitted.
According to this [0] the number of warheads as of 2020 is 3750 which does kind of qualify as "thousands upon thousands". Edit: I don't think it matters if "only" 400 are land-based, does it? it's still "thousands". [0] https://www.state.gov/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/Fact-Sheet_...
There's MIRV, so depends what you mean by "these things". But also some among these 3750 are in subs, and bombers. And as for "100 would do": Well, if they all hit their targets, maybe. But part of the reason for overkill is so that even a sneak attack that's 90% successful should trigger MAD. Well, I say "should", but more like that's the cold logical deterrence rationale.
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