Can a Hardened Nuclear Missile Silo Be Disable With A conventional weapons strike?

That is for STINGER. I did some ops with them and was trained in their use, but that was not my MOS.

Was not an 11B, but was an 0311 for 10 years. The irony was the first time I met our new First Sergeant, he immediately pulled me out of the Motor Pool and threw me as one of the leads in RSOP because I was previously Infantry. Turns out he was an 11B before moving to PATRIOT, and was actually one of the instructors at JOTC in Panama when I went through the course. We would often joke about that in later years, as it was likely we had met but of course 20 years later neither of us would have remembered it.

But the Raytheon location for PATRIOT at White Sands was amazing, spent about three months there helping work on the initial integration of PDB 7. And that site is amazing.

https://www.google.com/maps/search/.../@32.4154312,-106.2794557,2129m/data=!3m1!1e3

I spent quite a bit of time talking with one of the guys about to retire, and he actually started there in the late 1970s. And I had actually figured out a lot of what and why that place was set up the way it was which he later confirmed, I think mostly because of my age. None of the others in my section even remembered the Cold War, and how different things were.

In almost the center of the satellite above, you can see a gray metal building at an angle. It is actually sitting on railroad tracks, and back in the 1960s and 1970s that sat over the first launcher, so it could not be seen by Soviet satellites (but moved off when they needed to test or fire it). He said they had not used it since around 1981, and it will likely never move again from that location. At the NE corner of the buildings, there is one canted at an angle. And if you look the northern face is actually at an angle, that was the original RADAR unit. The array was long gone, but the darker paint where it sat was the same shape but just a bit larger than the array on the current RADAR units. They had to use the building as they were largely using COTS at that stage, and still had to miniaturize it.

Being stationed there for three months was quite interesting, as the base is still littered with Cold War relics like that. And it was interesting trying to explain to the "kids" that things over 30 years ago were very different than they are today.

 

Yes, I also find it amazing how quickly the Cold War has been forgotten. We really do need to find a better way of transmitting historical perspective from generation to generation, especially with the current trend of masking or ignoring history in our schools. One way is simple word of mouth.
There was a great old lady that ran our Officer's Club at Babenhausen during my first tour in Germany. She would tell us about how Germans ran from the Russians, who were murdering and raping at will, into the arms of the Americans, who trearted them fairly and made them feel safe. Fe liberals these days would recognize such facts.
I was lucky enough to have great parents who took us kids on vacation to places like Williamsburg and Gettysburg. Both my parents were Army Officers in WWII. Mom was an Army nurse in Britain and dad fought his way from New Guinea to Leyte Gulf. Their stories put the Cold War of the 1950's and 1960's into perspective.
Your experiences and mine would seem quite alien to today's younger folks who lack access to such information from school, media and, as the VOLUNTEER FORCE has become entrenched, the personal experiences of the dwindling number of veterans.
Just another sad comment about where we are heading.

 

That would do no good, as those decades younger just do not have the same frame of reference.

One interesting thing in returning to the military after 14 years, I saw some huge changes. In the early 1990s, nobody had cell phones. The Internet was not yet in common use, and about the most powerful game system was the classic Nintendo.

When I came back, everybody had a smart phone, high speed Internet was the norm, and even game systems were far more powerful than any computer when I left the Marines.

I lived most of my life and almost all of my initial military career under the umbrella of the Cold War. Hell, I had a Nike Battery with nuclear tipped missiles stationed less than 3 miles from the house where I lived growing up. "Duck and Cover" drills were a part of my childhood in school, as much as fire and earthquake drills.

And suddenly, in 1992 all that was over. And I know that at least for me, it took a great many years to really grasp what that meant. My first duty in the military was actually guarding nukes at a Naval Weapon Station. I proudly followed the Olympic Torch in LA in 1984 in my Dress Blues, and campaigned for President Reagan for reelection. But only a decade later, things had drastically changed.

When I returned to the military, most of those I served with ere children when I first got out. Trying to explain to somebody who was 8 years old what the Cold War was like when it ended is basically impossible. And it became even harder when by the time I retired, I was serving with those that were born after that all happened. Almost every aspect of our popular culture from that era revolved around the Cold War. From TV shows and movies to pop music and everything else.

And every time somebody in here vomits up a scare-mongering post about some Russian plane or sub 50 miles off the US coast today, I pretty much just laugh. 40 years ago that was simply expected, and most would actually be surprised if there was not such a plane or sub in place. We were so paranoid and sure that eventually it would all end in a nuclear war that it is simply incomprehensible to the younger generation.

Hell, one of the funniest things I can remember in 2008 was when I got into a fight with one of our Medics. As I was in my mid-40s, many wondered at my history to be back in the military so old. And when I said I was in the Infantry for a decade, he asked where my Infantry Expert Badge and all my other badges and tabs were. I simply said that the Marines did not do things like that, and the only "Tab" I had was removed by the Army decades earlier (the "Jungle Expert" tab). And when he asked about my deployments, I had a hell of a lot of Cold War ones, but no combat ones.

He said I was not a "Real Grunt", and that the Cold War was not a "Real War". Funny thing is, our First Sergeant unknown to us was listening in, and he pulled the guy right up and told him otherwise. Events since 2001 made a lot of changes, but it was nothing compared to the paranoia we all had from the 1950's until the early 1990's. Today we train a lot for NBC, but at that time it was all about training for operating in a "nuclear battlefield".

And the thing is, you just can't teach things like that. I once was watching the movie "Threads" on duty, and the guy I was on watch with asked me what it was about. It was a really horrifying movie when it came out (the UK version of "The Day After"), but he thought it was laughable and boring. And many who play even modern games like "Fallout" take it all as a joke, not realizing that those of us at the age of the creators or older actually thought that things like that were a real possibility. We saw "A Boy and his Dog" as a possible outcome, they see it as a kind of comedy today.

In comparison, it is like taking my great-grandfather and trying to get those who are just reaching adulthood to understand his world. He was born before airplanes, and actually on a Reservation. Leaving when such was actually against the law (before "The Great War"), and spending most of his life denying he was an Indian because most still thought of them as either savages, or alcoholics and criminals (ironically he changed how his last name was spelled multiple times to "Wolfe" then back as that was often seen as a "German Variant"). Today, he would be paraded as some kind of saint, and would be told that everything he suffered was the fault of others. The frame of reference between him and the "kids" today is so vast, that they are barely even speaking the same language.

You simply can't "teach" something like that, as the younger generations have no frame of reference. They hear "I Melt With You" and "The Future's So Bright (I Gotta Wear Shades)" and do not hear songs written around everybody dying in a nuclear holocaust, but a fun happy pop song. They hear "99 Red Balloons" (or the German version), and hear the same thing. Not the fear we all had that some accident would cause WWIII and kill everybody.

To be honest, I see most of the "youth" as spoiled, having information at their fingertips that we could only have dreamed of 40 years ago. And largely wasting it.

Hell, I have even tried to explain to others that having nuclear missiles in LA or San Francisco 50 years ago was simply how things were. Yet many refuse to believe that ever happened, and say I am a liar for even saying it ever happened. When I was last living near Baghdad by the Bay, I even invited many to go visit SF-88, a Nike Battery just north of the Golden Gate Bridge and learn for themselves. It is now a public museum run by the National Park Service, and they will even let you tour the old launch site and see mock-ups of the nuclear missiles that were once stationed there until the early 1970's.

But they are happier just saying I am lying, and never bothering to go and see a museum where they were actually at and learn the truth for themselves.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nike_Missile_Site_SF-88

 

I share many of your attitudes. I experienced the same technology changes. I grew up with a phone in the living room and another in the bedroom. . Now a waitress looked at me like I had three heads when I told her I didn't have my phone with me to read the read the symbol on the table and get the menu on my iPhone.

I remember the "hide under the desk" Cold War Drills in school in the 1960's too. I Commanded a nuke capable Artillery Battery in Germany in the early 1980's. I learned a lot about tactical use of nukes and the reality of inflicting things like "latent lethality" on an enemy. But I never really feared any of that. Somehow I had real faith in "MAD" (Mutually Assured Destruction) and felt that a nuclear war could never really happen, even when I attended a V Corps briefing in the IG Farben Building in Frankfurt which graphically portrayed the probable outcomes of the use of tactical nukes in the most likely scenario for a European war. The red indicators of contamination from radiation spread over the whole map, covering western Europe. It just never seemed real. I knew it was real, but emotionally, it seemed more like a movie script than reality.

We practiced manual assembly of nuclear rounds to get the designated yield. (Its all automated and digital now.) We had a Nike Battery in the woods behind our Kaserne. There was a huge air defense complex on the East German-West German border at a place called the "Wasserkuppe". In 1981 a huge formation of Soviet aircraft came across the border unannounced and was detected by the massive radar arrays at the Wasserkuppe. We almost fired on them and started WWIII except for the Duty Officer, a gutsy Major that refused to give the mandatory ok to fire. It turned that the flight had been cleared by USAREUR. It was a bunch of Soviet military and civilian aircraft headed to the Paris Air Show and the 1st Army Air Defense Command never got the word. I'm sure there were other close calls, but again, I never believed it could ever really happen.

Your reference about Russian aircraft flying along our coast is familiar to me. I was stationed at Fort Eustis, just north of Norfolk, VA 1982-1985. I lived in a little town called Poquoson in a house just across from the end of the runway at Langley AFB. Many nights I was awakened by F-15's screaming as they took off to intercept a Russian "Bear" that had drifted into US airspace on its way to Cuba. I understand we do the same sort of probing on the edge of North Korean airspace to test their detection and reaction times. It never scared me though. Again, in my gut I never thought anyone would actually start a nuclear war. It was all in the spirit of a popular bumper sticker I often saw at Langley... "Jet Noise! The Sound of FREEDOM!"

I understand your comments about the Infantry. Aside from a few months in my early days, I never wore crossed rifles. I was Commissioned in the Field Artillery. My most significant firefight experience was as a civilian contractor in Iraq one day when we came across a tank that had outrun its Infantry support and dismounted to provide security until help arrived. Does that mean I was a "grunt"? Who knows? I don't really care anymore.

I never knew either of my Grandfathers, they died before I was born. But both my parents grew up in the reality of the Depression and were Army Officers in WWII. They gave me a sense of the hardships possible in the "real world".

I read "One Minute After" years ago and it put the fear of God in me. My education is in Electrical Engineering and I have worked in defense electronics for decades. I'm going to find those movies you mentioned and watch them. We have developed non-nuclear EMP generators and the next major war will undoubtedly see their use. I never believed anyone would ever start a global nuclear war. But widespread use of EMP scares the bejeesus out of me.

While I never believed that nuclear war was really possible in the good old days, I find things have changed. Putin has threatened use of tactical nukes and he's crazy. He's also dedicated to doing all he can to re-establish Russian prominence before he die, which might not be far away. He might open Pandora's Box. "MAD" may go out the window.

Then there is Iran with nukes. Radical islamists don't care about dying and Iran's ruling imams are radical islamists. I learned in Iraq from my I-T (Interpreter-Translator) that such muslims view this life simply as a foyer at the entrance to PARADISE. Their focus is on the next life... NOT this one. And killing "infidels" (that's us) is the key. Nukes in the hands of such folks is another scenario where "MAD" becomes meaningless. So while I never believed a nuclear war was possible years ago... I believe it is certainly possible today.

And I agree with your assessment of today's youth. They are clueless. With all the threats in he world to our very existence, what do they choose to expend effort and expense working on? Pronouns. Kids changing sex. Rewriting American history. Cow farts. Windmills.

Maybe an attack by a foreign enemy will change this. Maybe violence in the streets will get to them. Perhaps hunger may get their attention. There are so many unpleasant scenarios.

I'm just an old guy now, no longer filled with idealistic dreams of saving the world and fighting for freedom. I'm happy just caring for my family and some friends, retired to an out of the way place, hoping to avoid the worst of what I truly believe is an imminent and unpleasant future for America.

 

I doubt that. Look what happened in Afghanistan within a year or so. And with ANTIFA the last few years they are already seeing violence in the streets.

 

Non-nuclear EMP weapons are the future (actually even the present now) of ICBM and other nuclear threat defenses. Kinetic defenses are essentially obsolete already.

 

Moar nukes!

I think nukes have taken the fun out of war for the generals. They can only beat up on non nuclear countries. Imagine if Ukraine had nukes? Either way the general message is that if you go nuke you are going "all in". That is what is so scary about the Iranians. Muslims worship death as a goal of life.

 

Well, the Mullahs are certainly loony, but Iranians are not Arabs, and are far less 'crazy' as a people, so if some internal coup can be pulled off, that would be best; most of them are not at all drooling over getting into a hot war with the U.S., or even with the Saudis, who are some really nasty people to go to war with.