Underground missile door mechanism - video

[Ron B]

Most of those old silos are long abandoned now and exist more as monument to proflgate spending by governments in the past .

[mklotz]

Most of those old silos are long abandoned now and exist more as monument to proflgate spending by governments in the past.

I guess I don't understand how defending your country can be considered "proflgate (sic) spending".

Hardened ICBM bunkers were a key element of the MAD (Mutual Assured Destruction) doctrine. Even if you launch an all-out attack on us, our retaliation capabilities will survive and you'll suffer as much damage as you inflicted. It's terribly sad that mankind has devolved to the point where this doctrine makes sense; nevertheless, it's kept us from a nuclear exchange for a very long time.

[Ron B]

I see it from a different angle. I consider that the money was wasted especially after seeing the numbers of silos built, the amount of work it took to keep weapon "locked and loaded" and then with a change of Government ,the whole lot scrapped . I was in Russia when Yeltsin came to power as an interested tourist . My route there had taken me up the middle east (Iraq ) . I got to see a lot of the soviet era equipment up close because it was everywhere and folks just seemed to be helping themselves to it,especially Gaz 4x's. On the Russian ,military's own TV channel I watched an Article on the problems facing the soldiers at that time .One group were in charge of a fleet of mobile missile launchers, really big machines, just like Nth Korea is displaying right now . The problem was ,the computers were all valve operated units which would arm and set a missile by itself thanks to corrosion in the equipment. And even the TV's in the various Hotels i stayed in were color but full of vacuum valves. :-) . At that point i understood completely what was happening. The US had told us for 40 years that the soviets were our enemy and that we were all under the threat of nuclear annihilation ,but how? . None of the missiles i saw looked capable of leaving Russia let alone wipe out Europe or the US. We were played for fools by the US arms industry and it's happening all over again, with Clinton selling uranium to Iran, iran selling rocket technology to nth Korea and Nth Korea being made to look like some sort of aggressor. I haven't been to Korea but the population of the nth is half starved and wouldn't be capable of fighting any sort of war today. But further to all of this, A relation was employed by a company called marconi systems . A secretive outfit whose founder invented radio. His job was installing radar controlled missile systems and one of the big jobs was to install some in a country which overseas the Straits of Hormuz. With all of the trouble in the middle east since 1948, you will never find any information about this country in any news reports etc. Why? because they had actually have the weaponry on hand to wipe most nearby nations off the map .No Isi ,Iraq, Saudi or Iranian problems there. So, when the Argentine's decided to try and steal the Falkland Islands from Gt Britain, Maggie Thatcher ordered the Royal nay to be ready at 24 hours notice. Unfortunately, the fancy radar controlled missile systems they had (US sourced in the main ) didn't exist. it was all a front for the UK taxpayer. So marconi had 24 hours to actually install enough working weapons systems in a few ships so they could sail for the Falklands. little wonder the badly trained Argentine fighter pilots and the naval exocets were able to cause so much damge to the Royal navy's fleet .Yet another case of spending to make a government look good but one whioch could have ended in a worse disaster .

[mklotz]

I see it from a different angle. I consider that the money was wasted especially after seeing the numbers of silos built, the amount of work it took to keep weapon "locked and loaded" and then with a change of Government ,the whole lot scrapped . I was in Russia when Yeltsin came to power as an interested tourist . My route there had taken me up the middle east (Iraq ) . I got to see a lot of the soviet era equipment up close because it was everywhere and folks just seemed to be helping themselves to it,especially Gaz 4x's. On the Russian ,military's own TV channel I watched an Article on the problems facing the soldiers at that time .One group were in charge of a fleet of mobile missile launchers, really big machines, just like Nth Korea is displaying right now . The problem was ,the computers were all valve operated units which would arm and set a missile by itself thanks to corrosion in the equipment. And even the TV's in the various Hotels i stayed in were color but full of vacuum valves. :-) . At that point i understood completely what was happening. The US had told us for 40 years that the soviets were our enemy and that we were all under the threat of nuclear annihilation ,but how? . None of the missiles i saw looked capable of leaving Russia let alone wipe out Europe or the US. We were played for fools by the US arms industry and it's happening all over again, with Clinton selling uranium to Iran, iran selling rocket technology to nth Korea and Nth Korea being made to look like some sort of aggressor. I haven't been to Korea but the population of the nth is half starved and wouldn't be capable of fighting any sort of war today. But further to all of this, A relation was employed by a company called marconi systems . A secretive outfit whose founder invented radio. His job was installing radar controlled missile systems and one of the big jobs was to install some in a country which overseas the Straits of Hormuz. With all of the trouble in the middle east since 1948, you will never find any information about this country in any news reports etc. Why? because they had actually have the weaponry on hand to wipe most nearby nations off the map .No Isi ,Iraq, Saudi or Iranian problems there. So, when the Argentine's decided to try and steal the Falkland Islands from Gt Britain, Maggie Thatcher ordered the Royal nay to be ready at 24 hours notice. Unfortunately, the fancy radar controlled missile systems they had (US sourced in the main ) didn't exist. it was all a front for the UK taxpayer. So marconi had 24 hours to actually install enough working weapons systems in a few ships so they could sail for the Falklands. little wonder the badly trained Argentine fighter pilots and the naval exocets were able to cause so much damge to the Royal navy's fleet .Yet another case of spending to make a government look good but one whioch could have ended in a worse disaster .

"I see it from a different angle. I consider that the money was wasted especially after seeing the numbers of silos built, the amount of work it took to keep weapon "locked and loaded" and then with a change of Government ,the whole lot scrapped ."

So you would have preferred to continue the arms race with each nation adding to its weapon complement? Most folks feel more comfortable with fewer and fewer nuclear weapons available to their and other governments.

"The problem was ,the computers were all valve operated units which would arm and set a missile by itself thanks to corrosion in the equipment."

Two points here. First, there has never been an accidental launch of an ICBM. Both the USA and the USSR carefully forewarned the other when a test launch was to be made. ICBMs aren't carried around on mobile launchers. Yes, after the collapse of the Soviet Union maintenance of Soviet military equipment deteriorated but they realized the consequences of a mistake with the nuclear stuff so they must have made a special effort there.

Secondly, don't underestimate tube electronics. Tubes are relatively insensitive to the EMP resulting from a nuclear explosion whereas solid state electronics are very susceptible to damage. The use of tubes does demonstrate how they lagged in solid state development but the resulting hardness of their designs were a happy benefit of that developmental lag.

"None of the missiles i saw looked capable of leaving Russia let alone wipe out Europe or the US."

They probably weren't capable of leaving Russia. If you saw missiles on mobile launchers they were probably battlefield tactical missiles with only short range capability.

"We were played for fools by the US arms industry and it's happening all over again, with Clinton selling uranium to Iran, iran selling rocket technology to nth Korea and Nth Korea being made to look like some sort of aggressor."

So you don't consider North Korea firing unannounced missiles over Japanese airspace aggressive? Given the geographic proximity of Australia to North Korea, you might want to rethink your opinion.