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I didn't realize that up until 2008 we had an additional 50 Minuteman IIIs at Malmstrom AFB

prior to the stand down of the Minuteman II's in the early to mid 90s how many of those did we have?

Also apparently the New START treaty say nothing about MIRVs in our ICBMs so are we allowed to play with them again?

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KG-84 crypto unit.   

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One of the interesting turns in Minuteman history was how the cable system developed.  

The 341st MW at Malmstrom AFB, MT is called Wing I. First wing built, 1962.  Also the biggest. They overestimated the size and accuracy of Soviet systems and therefore placed all the sites at least 10 nautical miles away from every other site.  

800 of the 1000 Minuteman launch facilities built used/uses a redundant cable system to communicate.  That means that each of the 165 sites (150 launch facilities and 15 launch control centers) was connected in such a way that there is at least two paths to each site.  

Given those two facts--10nm apart and redundant cable-they realized that the cable system was going to be a LOT of work, and bloody expensive.  We're talking 2,400 miles of cable at Malmstrom.  


For example, here's the schematic for FE Warren's field, the 90th Missile Wing.
https://www.minutemanmissile.com/images/HICSCableConnectivitySchematic.jpg

Which is why Malmstrom is the only wing that big, and the others were all much smaller--they shortened the distance between to 3nm.  Saved a lot of cable--Warren only uses about 1,800 miles, Minot (with only three squadrons) uses about 1,500.

The last 200 missiles were added on a little later, and built by a different contractor (Sylvania instead of Boeing).  Sylvania was charged with coming up with a better--read, cheaper--way to communicate, and developed a cable/radio system (single cable line running through the squadron--in Oscar's example, connecting the five LCCs in the squadron in the order K-O-N-L-M with offshoots to the individual LFs off of that, with a backup medium frequency radio data link), which significantly reduced the cost and effort to communicate, and made it more survivable.  Which, of course, meant the Sylvania system was one of the first wings to be shut down during the drawdown of the 1990s.

The Grand Forks wing, and the 564th Missile Squadron at Malmstrom (northwestern most squadron), were Sylvania systems.  The MF radio rack sits right behind the deputy's chair (the one without the plastic covers over the drawers in one one of your pictures).

Cable connectivity is REALLY important--if you can't talk to the missile, you don't know what it's doing, and more importantly, what's going on out there security-wise.  The "two person concept" for control of nuclear weapons at the remote launch facilities is fulfilled  by the number of LCCs that can see status from that missile, so if no one can see it, no one's controlling it.

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I do. I think about the men in the holes every time I hear the word "nuclear" or see a bomber or fighter fly over.

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There are two accurate moments in that movie:

- That first three seconds of the video where the crew is walking through the blizzard to the building.  Oh, I cannot count the times I had to do that.

- At 2:08, they're doing their inspections after changeover, the deputy says something like, "Hey, sir, got a warhead alarm  on #8," and the commander, without even looking up, says "give it a couple of taps," and the deputy does, and the light goes out. That was pretty accurate for the old legacy system.

Other than that, missileers consider it a comedy. Like Super Troopers, but with nukes.  

ETA:  And I would have done horrible, horrible things for whoever could have gotten me that blast door that closed itself.

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"Sir, we're at launch, turn your key!"

http://www.imfdb.org/images/thumb/9/96/WG_04.jpg/600px-WG_04.jpg

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Other than that, missileers consider it a comedy. Like Super Troopers, but with nukes.  

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Authorized for wear when I was at STRATCOM, so that'd be about 1999-2001.

The joys of being in the military--my friends always ask me how I can easily remember when things happened.  I tell them it's not because I remember what year it was, but where I was when it happened...which tells me what year it was.  )

Two reasons--to "operationalize" space (i.e., make the pilots think the space & missile guys were "operators" just like them ), but also because Space Command had dorked up the acquisition process for the blue bags they were actually more expensive than their green (and fire resistant) counterparts.  

The only down side is some of the features of the blue bag were pretty nice.  The hat actually fit completely in the pocket, the zippers on the lower legs went the right way (so when they were closed, you didn't actually wind up kneeling on them, which is DAMN painful), and the stupid pen pocket flap just wasn't a thing.

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I remember when they wore the blue version of the green fatigues.