User Panel
Posted: 8/26/2011 5:20:31 PM EDT
Just visited a number of such sites in North & South Dakota and will
be highlighting those visits in the coming months on my website: www.coldwartourist.com This is not a money-making site, just planning to take photographs and write about these facilities. The sections on the Stanley R. Mickelson Safeguard ABM Complex, Titan Missile Museum, AMARG and the Atomic Cannon are complete. The rest will be updated in the coming months. You can scroll to the bottom of any page and choose to "Like" my Facebook site which will notify you automatically when I post updates on the main website. |
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I love this type of stuff. Thanks for posting - and nice site!
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Nice site, OP- thanks!
All the old Nike sites around DC are overgrown with weeds and trees. Im sure they were stripped out and bulldozed over many years ago. I think the old larger missile sites are cool as hell.. fixed Nike sites were not much but a few concrete pads and small revetments, and pads for radar sets and control trailers, anyway, Sort of ho-hum... There are a few along the Fairfax (VA) County Parkway, and one on the old Lorton Prison site. They are marked with a nice cast metal placque put up by the Commonwealth of Virginia... why? I don't know. As a kid on Okinawa ('56-59) my buddies and I used to climb around on a BIGGER THAN A BOXCAR Atomic Annie (280MM atomic-capable artillery piece) that was "hidden" (not so well) in a valley just southwest of the Ryukyuan Command HQ on Okinawa. Good times for an Army brat.. Never saw a guard there, and there was a padlocked gate at the access off the main highway running the length of the island, but not a shred of fence. Some "security" for such a weapon, huh? ....it could easily have been sabotaged... My old man was a Nike Ajax, Hercules and HAWK First Sergeant. SALUTE, Dad- RIP. '03 |
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Quoted: I love this type of stuff. Thanks for posting - and nice site! Thanks, I appreciate it! |
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In my hometown, the old Nike base is now a ballet school, Day Care, and Indoor Pistol Range
Just found this. Good reading on a lesser known part of our cold-war tech http://www.mace-b.com/38TMW/ |
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Amazing pictures.
I'd love to see more of the aircraft boneyard, if you have any. I also get a kick out of just regular old closed bases. For instance, on Mythbusters they do a lot of driving myths in old base housing areas, and the area seems kind of creepy. It would be cool to see stuff like that, or barracks from the 60s and 70s. |
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Quoted: Nice site, OP- thanks! All the old Nike sites around DC are overgrown with weeds and trees. Im sure they were stripped out and bulldozed over many years ago. I think the old larger missile sites are cool as hell.. fixed Nike sites were not much but a few concrete pads and small revetments, and pads for radar sets and control trailers, anyway, Sort of ho-hum... There are a few along the Fairfax (VA) County Parkway, and one on the old Lorton Prison site. They are marked with a nice cast metal placque put up by the Commonwealth of Virginia... why? I don't know. As a kid on Okinawa ('56-59) my buddies and I used to climb around on a BIGGER THAN A BOXCAR Atomic Annie (280MM atomic-capable artillery piece) that was "hidden" (not so well) in a valley just southwest of the Ryukyuan Command HQ on Okinawa. Good times for an Army brat.. Never saw a guard there, and there was a padlocked gate at the access off the main highway running the length of the island, but not a shred of fence. Some "security" for such a weapon, huh? ....it could easily have been sabotaged... My old man was a Nike Ajax, Hercules and HAWK First Sergeant. SALUTE, Dad- RIP. '03 Thanks Lumpy03. I salute your Dad for his service. |
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Quoted: I see Ft Igloo, but no Minuteman Missile NHS near Wall, SD. It's there, under Delta-01, Delta-09. Some of these take awhile to write up and I'll be completing Ft. Igloo and the Minuteman sites during the next couple of months. At Delta-09 they opened the personnel hatch for me and I got to go into the silo, I have some pretty cool photos from that....more to follow. |
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Set up refineries & nuke plants on them. Solve the NIMBY problem.
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God, I miss the Cold War.
US vs. the Evil Empire. Balance of power. |
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Nice site. Have you seen any cold war bunkers that were bought and converted to homes?
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Quoted: Very good. You might do some research on Killeen Air Force Base, which is now part of Fort Hood. They used to repair nuclear weapons there. The "mountain" next to Gray Army Airfield has lots of tunnels in it and the perimeter has some old concrete pill boxes/guard towers that were still around not too long ago. We took a tour of the tunnels when I was a kindergartener in the 70's.Quoted: I see Ft Igloo, but no Minuteman Missile NHS near Wall, SD. It's there, under Delta-01, Delta-09. Some of these take awhile to write up and I'll be completing Ft. Igloo and the Minuteman sites during the next couple of months. At Delta-09 they opened the personnel hatch for me and I got to go into the silo, I have some pretty cool photos from that....more to follow. |
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Quoted: Amazing pictures. I'd love to see more of the aircraft boneyard, if you have any. I also get a kick out of just regular old closed bases. For instance, on Mythbusters they do a lot of driving myths in old base housing areas, and the area seems kind of creepy. It would be cool to see stuff like that, or barracks from the 60s and 70s. I do have more photos from the boneyard. Are there any specific aircraft that you want to see more of? It was a last minute trip so I didn't have any kind of insider access. All photos were taken from the tour bus so the quality isn't the best....most of the decent ones are already on the site. |
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So, with all of these missile sites decommissioned, what is our line of defense? Are we basically a cruise missile based military?
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Quoted:
Quoted:
Very good. You might do some research on Killeen Air Force Base, which is now part of Fort Hood. They used to repair nuclear weapons there. The "mountain" next to Gray Army Airfield has lots of tunnels in it and the perimeter has some old concrete pill boxes/guard towers that were still around not too long ago. We took a tour of the tunnels when I was a kindergartener in the 70's.
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I see Ft Igloo, but no Minuteman Missile NHS near Wall, SD. It's there, under Delta-01, Delta-09. Some of these take awhile to write up and I'll be completing Ft. Igloo and the Minuteman sites during the next couple of months. At Delta-09 they opened the personnel hatch for me and I got to go into the silo, I have some pretty cool photos from that....more to follow. I used to pull guard duty at The Mountain in the 80's. Cool place. It was odd that, considering what we were guarding, they never issued us live ammo. |
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Quoted: So, with all of these missile sites decommissioned, what is our line of defense? Are we basically a cruise missile based military? There are still several hundred Minuteman III ICBMs at three different bases. We also have Trident SLBMs deployed at sea. I assume that B-2 and B-52 bombers can still be loaded with nukes. No more nukes on carriers and no more tactical nukes. We do have a limited ABM capability with interceptors at Vandenberg and Ft. Greely and some Aegis vessels. |
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Quoted:
So, with all of these missile sites decommissioned, what is our line of defense? Are we basically a cruise missile based military? Most are old SAM sites. In Michigan there was a Nike Base on Grosse Isle. |
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Quoted: Quoted: Quoted: Very good. You might do some research on Killeen Air Force Base, which is now part of Fort Hood. They used to repair nuclear weapons there. The "mountain" next to Gray Army Airfield has lots of tunnels in it and the perimeter has some old concrete pill boxes/guard towers that were still around not too long ago. We took a tour of the tunnels when I was a kindergartener in the 70's.Quoted: I see Ft Igloo, but no Minuteman Missile NHS near Wall, SD. It's there, under Delta-01, Delta-09. Some of these take awhile to write up and I'll be completing Ft. Igloo and the Minuteman sites during the next couple of months. At Delta-09 they opened the personnel hatch for me and I got to go into the silo, I have some pretty cool photos from that....more to follow. I used to pull guard duty at The Mountain in the 80's. Cool place. It was odd that, considering what we were guarding, they never issued us live ammo. So you carried firearms but no ammo? |
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[/div] I used to pull guard duty at The Mountain in the 80's. Cool place. It was odd that, considering what we were guarding, they never issued us live ammo. [/div] Interesting, I was part of the security for the Pershing II missles in Germany '86-'88 and we did carry live ammo. |
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Quoted:
Nice site, OP- thanks! All the old Nike sites around DC are overgrown with weeds and trees. Im sure they were stripped out and bulldozed over many years ago. I think the old larger missile sites are cool as hell.. fixed Nike sites were not much but a few concrete pads and small revetments, and pads for radar sets and control trailers, anyway, Sort of ho-hum... There are a few along the Fairfax (VA) County Parkway, and one on the old Lorton Prison site. They are marked with a nice cast metal placque put up by the Commonwealth of Virginia... why? I don't know. As a kid on Okinawa ('56-59) my buddies and I used to climb around on a BIGGER THAN A BOXCAR Atomic Annie (280MM atomic-capable artillery piece) that was "hidden" (not so well) in a valley just southwest of the Ryukyuan Command HQ on Okinawa. Good times for an Army brat.. Never saw a guard there, and there was a padlocked gate at the access off the main highway running the length of the island, but not a shred of fence. Some "security" for such a weapon, huh? ....it could easily have been sabotaged... My old man was a Nike Ajax, Hercules and HAWK First Sergeant. SALUTE, Dad- RIP. '03 All The Way!!! Lumpys Dad.. |
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Quoted:
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Very good. You might do some research on Killeen Air Force Base, which is now part of Fort Hood. They used to repair nuclear weapons there. The "mountain" next to Gray Army Airfield has lots of tunnels in it and the perimeter has some old concrete pill boxes/guard towers that were still around not too long ago. We took a tour of the tunnels when I was a kindergartener in the 70's.
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I see Ft Igloo, but no Minuteman Missile NHS near Wall, SD. It's there, under Delta-01, Delta-09. Some of these take awhile to write up and I'll be completing Ft. Igloo and the Minuteman sites during the next couple of months. At Delta-09 they opened the personnel hatch for me and I got to go into the silo, I have some pretty cool photos from that....more to follow. I used to pull guard duty at The Mountain in the 80's. Cool place. It was odd that, considering what we were guarding, they never issued us live ammo. So you carried firearms but no ammo? Never had sidearms. M16's and Winchester Trench shotguns only. The Sergeant of the Guard had shotgun ammo, but it was locked away. |
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The Pershing II site I was on in Germany is some kind of rental car storage today. Only a couple of towers left standing. If I could figure out how to put pics from facebook here I would but I am failing hard.
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Awesome, so awesome.
Your visiting old military sites, and putting them on a site. I love doing shit like this too. |
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Quoted:
[/div] I used to pull guard duty at The Mountain in the 80's. Cool place. It was odd that, considering what we were guarding, they never issued us live ammo. [/div] Interesting, I was part of the security for the Pershing II missles in Germany '86-'88 and we did carry live ammo. God bless the United States Air Force. We always carried live ammo whether guarding nukes or regular patrol and gate guard duties. 240 rounds for M16s over seas 140 state side and 18 rounds of .38 SPL for our revolvers. We carried HE rounds for our M203s in ammo cans with seals. I think that the M60 ammo was in sealed ammo cans as well. |
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Excellent website, thanks for your works!
Bookmarked the page for future reading(hopefully you post more soon, as I eat this stuff up.) It's amazing what we build to be secret and safe, and then abandon and rebuild 'better' later... |
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Quoted:
[/div] I used to pull guard duty at The Mountain in the 80's. Cool place. It was odd that, considering what we were guarding, they never issued us live ammo. [/div] Interesting, I was part of the security for the Pershing II missles in Germany '86-'88 and we did carry live ammo. God bless the United States Air Force. We always carried live ammo whether guarding nukes or regular patrol and gate guard duties. 240 rounds for M16s over seas 140 state side and 18 rounds of .38 SPL for our revolvers. We carried HE rounds for our M203s in ammo cans with seals. I think that the M60 ammo was in sealed ammo cans as well. Well, just for the record, I was with 2/4 Inf 56th FA. U.S. Army. |
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I have used Google Earth to look around some of the old storage sites and bases. Pretty interesting to see that you can still pick out the double fence areas where weapons may or may not have been stored. Most overseas Navy Air Bases had MAUW sites for Patrol (P2 and P3) aircraft. Hidden behind the MK43 torpedo shop was the Modified part of MAUW.
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Other suggestions:
- Whiteman AFB has a Minuteman site on base that they turned into a museum. Plus you can see B2s in their natural habitat at Whiteman. - Oscar Zero (MMIII site) outside of Cooperstown, ND. Now the Ronald Reagan Minuteman Missile Site. Totally different Minuteman command and control system. The ones at Grand Forks and one squadron at Malmstrom were designed and built by Sylvania, all the others were designed and built by Boeing. - The Greenbrier Government Relocaton Facility - Bradbury Science Museum, Los Alamos National Labs Will add others as I think of them. |
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Quoted: Nice site. Have you seen any cold war bunkers that were bought and converted to homes? Not yet but they are on my list. |
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There are a few along the Fairfax (VA) County Parkway, and one on the old Lorton Prison site. Really? I am intrigued... |
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Forgot to mention––there was supposed to be a second Safegaurd site in Montana, just east of Conrad. The main blockhouse is built, but it's empty. Still a good place to add to your list.
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The museum at what used to be Chanute AFB has the former Minuteman tarining complexes.
Info here. I got to go into the below ground one before the water problems closed it. I bet you could talk them into giving you access. |
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Quoted: Quoted: Quoted: So, with all of these missile sites decommissioned, what is our line of defense? Are we basically a cruise missile based military? There are still several hundred Minuteman III ICBMs at three different bases. We also have Trident SLBMs deployed at sea. I assume that B-2 and B-52 bombers can still be loaded with nukes. No more nukes on carriers and no more tactical nukes. We do have a limited ABM capability with interceptors at Vandenberg and Ft. Greely and some Aegis vessels. Also Ellsworth AFB. SD, home of the B-1B, is a strategic nuclear wing, and continues to safe guard us today, http://i447.photobucket.com/albums/qq193/rohitkossery/B-1Blancer.jpg Correction: Ellsworth is home of the 28th Bomb Wing, which has 2 squadrons of B-1B's, however there are no nukes at Ellsworth anymore. They were all removed by the early 90's. |
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There are a few along the Fairfax (VA) County Parkway, and one on the old Lorton Prison site. Really? I am intrigued... I'll try to get a pic of google earth with some maptacks as to the "where", if you want to have a look. It may be a while - must do a fast pre-storm trip and then make sure anything loose outside is tied down. easy one, though. Go north on 123 across the Occoquan Bridge, and turn right on Lorton Road just past the old prison (now some artsy-fartsy Art Center). Follow the road down the hill, and back up to the right thru the remains of an old bridge abutment. Road bears right, and after a couple of hundred yards, Furnace Road is on the right...just after the road bears back to the left and begins downhill again, very close to Furnace Road, the sign is on the right at the bottom of a medium-sized bluff. Watch for Copperheads. At least two more are on the FFX Cty Pkwy northbound, just bast Fair Lakes Blvd. on the right - seems one is just a hop past the Fair Oaks Hospital. and another one a few miles further north. '03 |
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I know some people out in Kimball NE that live in a converted Atlas site. (I think it was an Atlas site) Pretty cool place. You can see it on google earth. South of the interstate, just west of the Kimball NE exit.
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Quoted: Excellent website, thanks for your works! Bookmarked the page for future reading(hopefully you post more soon, as I eat this stuff up.) It's amazing what we build to be secret and safe, and then abandon and rebuild 'better' later... Thank you. I should have another update in about 30 days or so....either Fort Igloo or the Minuteman site at Ellsworth. I've got the notes and photos, just need to organize my outline and start writing. |
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A popular drinking spot and "lovers lane" for teenagers in the hills overlooking the Spokane Valley was I think an abandoned Nike missile site. IIRC the tubes were about 30" to 36" in diameter, there were two with an underground facility with steel doors over a foot thick.
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Quoted: Also Ellsworth AFB. SD, home of the B-1B, is a strategic nuclear wing, and continues to safe guard us today, without nukes of course http://i447.photobucket.com/albums/qq193/rohitkossery/B-1Blancer.jpg but im sure you knew that |
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Quoted: Other suggestions: - Whiteman AFB has a Minuteman site on base that they turned into a museum. Plus you can see B2s in their natural habitat at Whiteman. - Oscar Zero (MMIII site) outside of Cooperstown, ND. Now the Ronald Reagan Minuteman Missile Site. Totally different Minuteman command and control system. The ones at Grand Forks and one squadron at Malmstrom were designed and built by Sylvania, all the others were designed and built by Boeing. - The Greenbrier Government Relocaton Facility - Bradbury Science Museum, Los Alamos National Labs Will add others as I think of them. Thanks limaxray. I did tour Oscar Zero near Cooperstown and I'll complete that part of the website after I finish with Delta-01 and Delta-09. I toured Oscar-01 at Whiteman last year but that was before I decided to put together coldwartourist.com so I didn't take any notes and not nearly enough photos. I'll probably have to go back to do it justice. The Whiteman tour was one of the most memorable days of my life because I got to "fly" a B-2 Spirit for one hour in the B-2 simulator. I sat next to a B-2 pilot and was able to take off from Whiteman, fly for a bit, attempt an aerial refueling (it was just about impossible!) and land. Was not allowed to use radar, receive threats or release weapons. Nevertheless, it was awesome, I still can't believe that it happened. |
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Amazing pictures. I'd love to see more of the aircraft boneyard, if you have any. I also get a kick out of just regular old closed bases. For instance, on Mythbusters they do a lot of driving myths in old base housing areas, and the area seems kind of creepy. It would be cool to see stuff like that, or barracks from the 60s and 70s. I do have more photos from the boneyard. Are there any specific aircraft that you want to see more of? It was a last minute trip so I didn't have any kind of insider access. All photos were taken from the tour bus so the quality isn't the best....most of the decent ones are already on the site. no nothing in particular, but i thought all the modern aircraft there was interesting. |
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Quoted: Forgot to mention––there was supposed to be a second Safegaurd site in Montana, just east of Conrad. The main blockhouse is built, but it's empty. Still a good place to add to your list. Yes, I think they started to pour concrete for the Perimeter Acquisition Radar before they canceled the project. At some point, it will be worth a visit. Thanks again. |
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Quoted: I wish I had that property Ft. Igloo sits on.. It's a beautiful piece of grassland. All privately owned now so maybe it will be for sale one day. |
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Very good. You might do some research on Killeen Air Force Base, which is now part of Fort Hood. They used to repair nuclear weapons there. The "mountain" next to Gray Army Airfield has lots of tunnels in it and the perimeter has some old concrete pill boxes/guard towers that were still around not too long ago. We took a tour of the tunnels when I was a kindergartener in the 70's.
Quoted:
I see Ft Igloo, but no Minuteman Missile NHS near Wall, SD. It's there, under Delta-01, Delta-09. Some of these take awhile to write up and I'll be completing Ft. Igloo and the Minuteman sites during the next couple of months. At Delta-09 they opened the personnel hatch for me and I got to go into the silo, I have some pretty cool photos from that....more to follow. I used to pull guard duty at The Mountain in the 80's. Cool place. It was odd that, considering what we were guarding, they never issued us live ammo. So you carried firearms but no ammo? Not only nuclear weapons, they could have landed the shuttle too! |
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