Car Club Field Trip

[dart4forte]

The Phoenix Mopar club met up yesterday morning for a trip down to Tucson to check out the Titan Missle Complex Museum. Real interesting in that Igrew up during those early days of the cold war. Just to think, two officers in a bunker had control of a 9 megaton bomb that could destroy over 900 square miles

 

[Davea Lux]

The Phoenix Mopar club met up yesterday morning for a trip down to Tucson to check out the Titan Missle Complex Museum. Real interesting in that Igrew up during those early days of the cold war. Just to think, two officers in a bunker had control of a 9 megaton bomb that could destroy over 900 square miles

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They used to give each of those two guys a 1911 Colt pistol in case the other guy went nuts.

Dave

 

[bigmoparjeff]

Neat!

I'll have to put a visit there on my to-do list.

 

[BigblueC]

My sixth grade English teacher spent about 3 years being one of the guys in the bunker (he called it "the pill"). He told us a few stories. Nothing crazy, just mainly how excruciatingly boring that job was. Pretty cool pictures.

 

[CBODY67]

In 1967, my uncle (in the Air Force) was knew he would have a duty cycle in Thailand, doing missions into N Viet Nam. So he got everything set up, bought a new Caprice for them, etc. so she would be "set" in case he didn't come back. One of his "psych-up" deals was that he got us a private tour of an active "bunker" near where he was stationed at the time. So we all had to have a security clearance in order to go, which he arranged.

We drove to where he was stationed on a Friday. On Saturday morning, we went to the base, picked-up the "officer with the map book", and then proceeded to "the silo", which looks like the one pictured. Once there, the officer had to contact the base to contact the officers in the silo, so one could come up to open the door and gate. That officer said they were prohibited from going "up" to check anything out that happened to trip the alarm, even if it was a bird flying by, somebody from the base had to come out and check it out for them.

We went down the elevator to their office and such. Looked like everything had 15 coats of paint on it! One of their periodic maintenance items, it seemed. All electronics had redundancy in the room. Except the Red Buttons to set things off. There was a laser beam which had to be maintained to a window on the side of the rocket. If it was interrupted, automatic deployment, no matter what. Those massive coil springs are really BIG, as they are supposed to cushion everything from the shock of the rocket leaving. After enjoying their excellent hospitality, we took the officer back to base and were requested to not tell anybody where it was. Of course, the map had many turns in it to follow the prescribed route to get there. Of course, since we weren't from that area and had no other interest in it (than my uncle being based up there for a while), we agreed.

It was a pretty neat tour, especially back then! I think that many "target material" metro areas had a cluster of these places around them. In the DFW area, we had/have many defense contractors, so there were some down here, too. A friend moved into a then-new area (farm land, formerly). I went to visit one day years ago. When I was driving around the area, I noticed some de-commissioned silo areas. Chain link fence, "guard shack", crushed stone, just like what we'd seen "back then" and like the picture above. On a manufactured hill of sorts. I think that after they removed the rockets, they filled the whole "hole" with crushed stone?

Thanks for posting and the pictures!
CBODY67

 

[dart4forte]

In 1967, my uncle (in the Air Force) was knew he would have a duty cycle in Thailand, doing missions into N Viet Nam. So he got everything set up, bought a new Caprice for them, etc. so she would be "set" in case he didn't come back. One of his "psych-up" deals was that he got us a private tour of an active "bunker" near where he was stationed at the time. So we all had to have a security clearance in order to go, which he arranged.

We drove to where he was stationed on a Friday. On Saturday morning, we went to the base, picked-up the "officer with the map book", and then proceeded to "the silo", which looks like the one pictured. Once there, the officer had to contact the base to contact the officers in the silo, so one could come up to open the door and gate. That officer said they were prohibited from going "up" to check anything out that happened to trip the alarm, even if it was a bird flying by, somebody from the base had to come out and check it out for them.

We went down the elevator to their office and such. Looked like everything had 15 coats of paint on it! One of their periodic maintenance items, it seemed. All electronics had redundancy in the room. Except the Red Buttons to set things off. There was a laser beam which had to be maintained to a window on the side of the rocket. If it was interrupted, automatic deployment, no matter what. Those massive coil springs are really BIG, as they are supposed to cushion everything from the shock of the rocket leaving. After enjoying their excellent hospitality, we took the officer back to base and were requested to not tell anybody where it was. Of course, the map had many turns in it to follow the prescribed route to get there. Of course, since we weren't from that area and had no other interest in it (than my uncle being based up there for a while), we agreed.

It was a pretty neat tour, especially back then! I think that many "target material" metro areas had a cluster of these places around them. In the DFW area, we had/have many defense contractors, so there were some down here, too. A friend moved into a then-new area (farm land, formerly). I went to visit one day years ago. When I was driving around the area, I noticed some de-commissioned silo areas. Chain link fence, "guard shack", crushed stone, just like what we'd seen "back then" and like the picture above. On a manufactured hill of sorts. I think that after they removed the rockets, they filled the whole "hole" with crushed stone?

Thanks for posting and the pictures!
CBODY67

There were 17 such silos around the Tucson. Each had its own launch crew. At the time from 1962 till the early 80’s all we’re out in the middle of the desert. The site which we visited was dubbed the copper site due to it being next to a copper mine. I’m sure the locals knew exactly what was going on at those sites.

Interesting that the silo we were at is only 15 miles from the border.

 

[dart4forte]

The security they had at the sites was strict. When there was a crew change the new crew would arrive at a gate there was a phone they used to call for the gate to be opened automatically. Once through the gate the new crew began doing system checks of everything above ground. The crew consisted of two officers, the silo commander, deputy commander and two enlisted techs. Whiclethe crew was inspection the above ground systems the commander went to another phone and called the crew inside to open the first door. This had to be done within 5 minutes. If not a security force would be deployed.
There were two other phone that had to be used in order to access the silo.

The secured the inside of the compound using Doppler radar. There were Doppler stations around the perimeter of the compound and at all four corners of the missle silo

 

[dart4forte]

The security they had at the sites was strict. When there was a crew change the new crew would arrive at a gate there was a phone they used to call for the gate to be opened automatically. Once through the gate the new crew began doing system checks of everything above ground. The crew consisted of two officers, the silo commander, deputy commander and two enlisted techs. Whiclethe crew was inspection the above ground systems the commander went to another phone and called the crew inside to open the first door. This had to be done within 5 minutes. If not a security force would be deployed.
There were two other phone that had to be used in order to access the silo.

The secured the inside of the compound using Doppler radar. There were Doppler stations around the perimeter of the compound and at all four corners of the missle silo

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The fuel these monsters used was pretty volatile. When they fueled the missle the crew would wear what would be described as space suits. Very dangerous in that any fuel that touched the skin meant certain death. Without running the risk of screwing the spelling up here’s something I took from Wikipedia.

Most of the Titan rockets were the Titan II ICBM and their civilian derivatives for NASA. The Titan II used the LR-87-5 engine, a modified version of the LR-87, that relied on a hypergolic propellant combination of nitrogen tetroxide for its oxidizer and Aerozine 50 (a 50/50 mix of hydrazine and UDMH) for its fuel instead of the liquid oxygen and RP-1 combination used in the Titan I.

Interesting about the guidance systems used. In the early 70s boing was contracted to upgrade the geospatial guidance system which was the same system used on their new 747.

Targeting depended on a tape into the computer. Once the missle launched there was no turning back. The first 12 minutes was powered flight, 6 minutes for the first stage and about 6 for the second. There were smallrocket motors that made slight deviations in flight. After the second stage ran out of fuel the missle was ballistic

The first Titan II guidance system was built by AC Spark Plug. It used an Inertial measurement unit made by AC Spark Plug derived from original designs from the Charles Stark Draper Laboratory at MIT. The missile guidance computer (MGC) was the IBM ASC-15. When spares for this system became hard to obtain, it was replaced by a more modern guidance system, the Delco Electronics Universal Space Guidance System (USGS). The USGS used a Carousel IV IMU and a Magic 352 computer.[3] The USGS was already in use on the Titan III space launcher when work began in March 1978 to replace the Titan II guidance system. The main reason was to reduce the cost of maintenance by $72 million per year; the conversions were completed in 1981.[4]

 

[tbm3fan]

I have a patient who guarded these things back in the early 60s. He joined the Air Force to get out of the packing plants in Fresno, CA. Told he qualified for three specialties since he was dyslexic. Cook, photographer and military police. He picked photographer and told him closed so he ended up as an MP. Spent two years patrolling the perimeter of these bases which he said was boring and hot as hell. To pass time they would pit a rattler, tarantula and gila monster against each other in a box. He is funny as hell talking about this stuff today.

One day when he got irritated when a Corporal tried to blame him for stinking a skunk in the Sarge's jeep He threw a rock at the Corporal. Missed and broke a window in the guard shack. When he got back to base some other MPs picked him up and escorted him to a plane. Next day he was patrolling the perimeter, at night time, around Elmendorf Air Base Alaska. Tells me that moose are really fast on their feet. He entered as Airman 3rd class and left as 3rd class. His one specialty they always called on him for was cleaning up after propellar strikes on an airman. Today he has Parkinson's but is a hell of a funny story teller. Little guy at 5'9" and 150 lbs.

 

[1978 NYB]

Very cool!

 

[1978 NYB]

When President Reagan told Gorbachev and the world that we will use tactical battlefield nukes in Europe during the Cold War he was specifically talking about M110A2 8 inch Self Propelled Howitzers.

I had 24 of them.....

 

[dart4forte]

You must of been a BN CDR.