1,000,000 frames/second isn't good enough for you?

Would the crew know who they were nuking or just the captain?

We can get better footage than this from 1955

The majority of the crew certainly wouldn't know. I'm not even sure the CO would. He doesn't pick and choose which targets to launch at. He launches the birds he's told to launch at the target packages they are programmed for.

I figured not. Both for security and also to keep that off the crew's mind.

So the target determines which boat they ring the bell for, or however they're alerted today?

If a boat should clear all the tubes, all there buoyancy issues to contend with?

Feel free to decline to answer.

The loss of the missile weight is compensated for with sea water. So no buoyancy issues, the submarine will continue to be a submarine.

Makes sense, when you think about it.

There's a cool documentary on these. It's either Modern Marvels or Smarter Every Day but they show the guys doing daily checks on the tubes. Basically it looks like they want certain levels of everything in there.

They go with books and read all the gauges

For the record, this exchange is between two people much, MUCH smarter than me on how nukes actually work.

I was just a monkey pushing the buttons; these guys were designing the function of said buttons.

We had the ability to print out our target cases, but it was a long, moderately painful process that generated classified material (well, more than the file cabinet full we already had in the LCC), so avoided just because of the pain-in-the-ass aspect of controlling that crap.

I'm sure the subs had the same kind of ability, especially if they also had a retargeting capability. We were often bored and that was a way to both increase your weapon system knowledge/abilities, and pass the time.   But it wasn't for everyone.

And frankly, only the geeks among us (guilty  ) cared enough to find out.

The targeting changes I saw were not "man readable", they were "machine read". Though there may be a geek or savant out there that could.

I suspected there was another set of individuals present off-camera. Combat cameraman said, 'go over there and do something nuke-y'.
.... or they were way behind mailing that present to Joe and all agreed to drop the book reading and just get it done?? LOL




Oh no. Not me; when I was little, someone fucked up and gave me a library card... in Oak Ridge



I didn't even think about ballasting. My thought was there might have been other 'launchables'. For instance AF had a system that put up a survivable radio in an emergency. Is it treaty countable if a system in the train is there just to clutter up the corridor with penetration aids?

While the SSGNs are experimenting with other launchables, I suspect STRATCOM would give a loud HELL NO! to putting anything other than a missile or a ballast can in an SSBN missile tube.

Today's Minuteman Missile History Lesson:  Communications

In a lot of the old SAC movies, you'd hear a warble tone, followed by a message.  That was the Primary Alerting System (go to about 9:30 in the below movie to see the system in action):



When that happened, this is what the air-breathers at SAC would do:



BTW, the aircrews were authorized to break not just some, but ALL traffic and vehicle laws to get to the alert pad. During their week-long alerts, they could travel, as a crew, to most of the business section of the base (commissary, BX, finance, etc).  Which meant when the klaxon went off, they needed to get to the alert pad ASAP...and if you got in their way, prepare to get hit.  

Their ability to go anywhere really, really bothered us missileers.  Because that meant they could also do things like go to a movie on alert. I couldn't walk more than 30 feet in a straight line on alert, meanwhile, they're backing up to the dugout at the base softball fields, clipping their beepers to the fence, and playing while on alert.  Which meant that in intramurals, we didn't care how badly we did during the season, as long as we beat the bomb squadron.  (Insert unspoken "those prima donna bastards" here.)  

At the start of the missile business in 1958 the only comm systems were radio and phone lines, so the Primary Alerting System (voice transmission) was the primary means of getting messages.  Which is why there are so many hardened AT&T facilities across the country--the then-called Ma Bell was the big phone company at the time and built most of that phone infrastructure.

In the 1970s two things started becoming more robust and survivable--digital networks, and satellite communications.

By the late 1980s, there was the PAS, one UHF satellite comm system, three radio systems (one UHF,  HF, one VLF), and the very start of the first digital network, called SACDIN.  

The satellite system was interesting.

Attached File


As you can see, it's an odd shape for an antenna.  That's because it's hardened against nuclear blast and overpressure.  But because it's cone-shaped, it was the source of numerous practical jokes on the site.

There's also the old HF antenna system.  There was a soft "Christmas tree" antenna, but there was also a hardened antenna system:

Attached File


Under each of the five circles is a cap held on by explosive bolts, and a telescoping antenna under it.  The plan was the bolts would fire, the antenna would push its way up through any debris, and be active until the next near-miss, in which case you extend another antenna.

After they deactivated the HF system in the late 1980s, occasionally one of the antennas would extend on its own. Here's an example of that (left side of picture near the UHF antenna):

Attached File


The conventional wisdom was to simply stay away from the hardened HF antennas, because you just didn't know what they were going to do.

The oddest and most Cold War system of them all was...ERCS.

Attached File

Speaking of other "launchables":

Six missiles in the 510th Strategic Missile Squadron, Whiteman AFB MO didn't have the standard Mk11 reentry vehicle on top--it had an AN/DRC-8 UHF transmitter in place of the warhead.  This was the Emergency Rocket Communications System (ERCS).  

When in receipt of an Emergency Action Message, the designated crew of the 510th would not be processing the keyturn, they'd be busy repeating the message into the System 494L controller. (That's the big box with the phone the missileer has his hand on in this picture (that's not me, though I do have a pair of those sexy, sexy glasses...):

Attached File


After the missiles launched, the radios would activate and repeat the message until impact.  That way, both bomber and missile crews would have yet another way to receive messages.

ERCS went away when the Whiteman missile field was shut down in the mid-1990s under direction of President George Bush (the Elder) after the Wall came down in 1992.  The Primary Alerting System went away roughly the same time as the nuclear community went with digital and satellite messages over the relatively more unreliable voice messages.

To this day, though, when I hear a warble tone, I reach for a pen to prepare to copy.

My idea as a nurse is to make an alarm clock with sounds such as the Code Blue alert, ventilator & EKG alarms, etc. Can I put you down for one that warbles at your chosen wake-up time?

Parents read you the Rhodes' books for bed time stories?

I never even had a passing thought about nukes until I got a job at LANL. Which probably helped because I had no pre-conceived notions about anything. When I interviewed the old guys told me it takes about a decade to become an expert on all things weapons. I thought they were full of shit, and now almost a decade later they were probably right, but I think most people we hire never fully grasp many of the concepts.

At least sales would be good, because I'd probably destroy one every day in a fit of somnambulant rage.

Funny story.  

I do, in fact have that set.  Except for my wife, hers is the Star Wars Imperial March  .

One day I'm in the Wing/CCs staff meeting.  About half the 60 people there were current or former coneheads.

Phone goes off just as we're leaving.

I could tell EXACTLY who used to pull alert in the days of PAS.  Right arm and face twitched HARD.

Half of them told me they hated me for that.  About half of THEM told me to send it to them.

This is a really cool thread

Not sure of the issue, at least in  my day working on them it was called No Lone Zone, which always required 2 people. Beyond that if not active the area was secured and alarmed.

We didn't have No Lone Zones in submarines. The problem in the photo is that while there are three people present, none are in a position to detect an incorrect or unauthorized procedure by the others. I guess the Two Man Rule/Two Person Concept is a little more stringent than a No Lone Zone.

If they aren't actually doing work, but staging the shot, I could see them getting away with it.  

Photographer:  "Okay, everybody pretend your actually doing something maintenance-y without actually doing something maintenance-y"  [snaps picture]

No TPC violation in that.

I predate his works. (Although, talking to him, he seems like a decent writer, but he doesn't truly understand what he is writing about.)

Not far off the mark, though. I was diagnosed as gifted as a child and reading at the college level in like 3rd grade. A lot of people worked out there, and none of them would talk. So, I had a mystery to solve! Turns out, if you can divorce yourself from the destructive capacity, from an engineering perspective, they are the pinnacle. From a history perspective... they literally invented it as they went along. Imagine not knowing about a basic principle, and having to literally invent ways to measure it and tools to do it with.

So much of our technology owes itself to military application of nuclear energy.

And, if you can't divorce yourself... well, who doesn't like watching shit blow up? That's like the ultimate, Biblical boom. It literally comes from dirt. All-natural you-ranium from the ground. Dust to dust. Sugar packets' worth of material being converted into energy that made islands disappear and affect weather patterns.

Everyone is afraid of it, no one understands how it works, but one can be crafted with 1940's state-of-the-art industry... way more interesting to me than fishing or  hunting or being a kid. So, that's what I studied. There's a lot out there to read if you know where to look. Problem is, no one normal wants anything to do with reading *any* of that shit, so it was hard to find it initially. Look for the moldiest sections of the library.

Now I have OSTI, FOI, and a lot of people just gave me their pubs and things when they retired, because it's garbage to most. Not to me though. I treasure that stuff!



With what my wife went through, the third-tier vent alarm used to make me cry for months after all that. Guess it was payback for fucking with pilots at the airport... I had the 'pull up' stick shaker warning on my phone lol



So, a lone individual could go into any restricted spaces solo? That's weird.

This is what I was saying earlier about someone watching from a distance. Any of them could stab or gouge something, with the other two unawares. No one is following the book, and there are no tool people.

But there are a bunch of these pics floating around the internet. There is even a video of disassembling the ass end of one. Looks like a giant oil filter inside the back lol


.... you can all listen to the same EAM's. Here's a public repository if you don't want to wait on shortwave:  https://eam.watch/

I believe it is a photo op on a trainer. If an NTPI/NWAI inspector walked in on that, it'd be an instant failure. No procedure, no reader/doer?

No, we just didn't have a security area labeled as a No Lone Zone. We had Exclusion Areas and Buffer Zones and an Entry Control Point. But they were temporary and set up when operations required them. Otherwise it was locks, alarms, and roving security. We lived around the tubes and walked by them all of the time.

For those directly involved with nuclear weapons, were psychological assessments of personnel conducted? I ask not because I'm a sissy leftist but because I knew a girl years ago who was joining the Air Force and claimed she would be working with nuclear weapons. She was...a little off. I couldn't, and still can't imagine someone like her being allowed around them.

How did/does that work?

Depends. If you are directly handling anything on full ups you have to be in HRP which requires yearly psych evals, physicals and extra reporting. Otherwise you might just get random polygraphs depending on what programs you get into.

Personnel Reliability Program

DOE's is called Human Reliability Program. God forbid we consolidated program naming conventions  

And security clearances/classification programs!

When I was getting my first physical, the "psych eval" consisted of the following questions from the doc:  "Are you claustrophobic, do you ever feel you want to hurt others for fun, or have you ever had any dreams about your mother?"  (Wish I was kidding.    )

We didn't get yearly psych evals as such.  Missileers get a class 3 flight physical (only practical difference is the vision standards), so that was monitored, but also PRP said anytime anything happens that takes your head out of the game, you're off PRP.  That probably counts as an "ongoing" psych eval.  

Mine was pulled when my MIL passed.  I pulled my people's PRP for a wide variety of reasons, wife in labor, parents sick or dying, UCMJ charges of various flavors, and one where his dog passed.  (Furbaby family.  Yes, the grief was just as bad as if their own kid had died.))

Probably G-code.  Watch out for G4, you'll get a hangfire.  

He didn't ask whether they were good evaluations

I was new and not even a 2Lt yet.  I had much higher expectations for my government back then.  

It's addressed further down int he replies, agree the Two Person Concept is definitely more stringent. Just looking at the picture I didn't consider it at the level of LLC replacement requiring the group on top of each other, hence my comment. Spent plenty of time shoulder to shoulder type work and agree on the reasons behind it.

Depending on what medications you were prescribed would pull you your PRP temporarily and typically you were assigned to the dreaded trailer shop. Had mine pulled once when I was put on sleeping aids after a week long bout of insomnia. I got lucky, got to do some testing of the first vaults being installed.

Had mine pulled for...wait for it...penicillin. For an ear infection.   Reservist flight doc who didn't know PRP, decided it read "ANY meds with ANY chance of side effects", then wouldn't back down when I called him on it.  Burned the backup alert deputy (cardinal sin in missiles--burning the backup means your wife's in labor, YOU'RE in labor, you're so sick you can't make it to the toilet, let alone alert, or your parents just died), backup was pissed at ME, even though I had argued with the doc for about 15 minutes.  

Eh, I will admit to enjoying the week off.

Incredibly interesting thread guys. I'm a child of the 60's and 70's. The pics and information are fascinating. Thanks for taking the time to share.

Thanks for the replies to my question guys. As I suspected, people don't just walk in off the street to a recruiting office and get nuclear weapon duty.

It's possible.

Not in most of the branches, but I'm betting the af missile field does.  There's a lot of maintenance jobs, that tangentially touch nuke stuff.  (Just because it says nuke doesn't mean you'll touch warheads.)

Nobody in the dod side is going to completely assemble them though.  Only group that might completely disassemble them would be EOD. Maybe. (More like 'stabilize for shipment')

ADO is a NNSA function; however,  there are some components that get exchanged by dod due to their limited lifespans, and there are some that get upgraded over time.

Exactly, there are plenty of AF careers where you will "somewhat" be around nukes, those that transport and or may load them, however they are not maintaining them.

That being said the folks maintaining them and doing that kind of work did come off the streets, they just tested high enough on the ASVAB, which isn't too special, passed background checks for security clearances, were able to meet requirements for PRP, had enough sense to make it through tech school and then trained and passed certifications at their duty station for the bombs, missiles there.

Listen--if they let ME around them...well, to paraphrase Groucho Marx, I'd worry about any organization that would have me as a member.  

I never understood why lighting them off required all that stuff. My Estes only needed a lantern battery.  

I suspect it was to keep you guys entertained....

THE SWITCHES! THEY DO NOTHING!!

next recipe:

What was the purpose of the pioneer kit in relationship to the butterfly valve? (May predate you, LX lol)

Love those old SAC videos!  Peace through strength!

I was fortunate enough to have gone through the old/original SAC museum at Offit AFB while on a business trip to NE probably 20+ years ago if not more.  What I remember of it they had the same consoles from SAC HQ like in the video and you could pick up the red phone and all of the wing lights would turn on, etc.

I've always appreciated when places put some effort into their exhibits and make them interactive.

... I hold the distinction of being one of the few people to melt down the old reactor exhibit at the American Museum of Science and Energy lol

Had a departing DO who was ooooold.  Like, his first crew tour was in the 70s old.  Close to mandatory high-year tenure for an O5 (that's 28 years) old.  

One of the skits we did for his going-away simulated a pre-departure briefing in his Lt days.  The transportation guys briefing the status of his horse and buggy, the weather guy talking about using a weather rock for the forecast, the cops being attacked by Indians.  Codes guy walks into the room, says, "We're issuing a change to the launch codes, here are the new ones" and hands him a flint and steel.  


The butterfly valve was a Titan thing, IIRC.  Only knew it second hand, supposedly there was a way to hotwire the missile (one of the reasons missileers couldn't be color blind, so they could tell the wires apart), then knock something on the butterfly valve either off or closed with the fire axe, and get the hell out of Dodge.  

Or so I've been told.  Because an old missileer would NEVER tell a young missileer a tall tale like that.  

Ever.  

The Castle Bravo Disaster - A "Second Hiroshima"