I'm sure they were

Other than the obvious creature comforts for the assigned personnel, there are good practical benefits to that location for that mission some of which you mention.

Heh.

Sylvan thought I was nuts for proposing the move of nukes to sunnier locales with umbrella drinks and golf courses.  

Recruitment would be up.  Way up.  Like challenge-each-other-to-single combat up.

Then again North Dakota is probably very nice for a couple weeks of the year too.

The running joke in Grand Forks:  "GUESS THE WEEK OF SUMMER!  Guess the week where last winter's snow has melted, and this winter's snow hasn't fallen yet!"

I seem to recall something about Lemay commenting in his autobiography that General Power of SAC was a bit of a sadist.  

I wonder if Power was the one who grinned like a shark and pointed at a blank spot (also called North Dakota) on the map.  

"Here.  Oh yes.  It will be HERE."

Fayetteville, Fort Sill, and El Paso probably have some space...

There are reasons why the strategic ICBM nuclear deterrent is based deep inland.  Those considerations aren't as applicable to a base used for conventional strikes.

There's a factor of a conventional armed ballistic missle strike which generally is overlooked in discussions of the concept.  That is, the psychological effect of the strike.  Done at the right time of day, incoming ballistic missile warheads would have a very dramatic appearance visible over a large area.  There would be no denying what happened.  If you wanted to make a "shock and awe" statement with a strike, that would be a profound way to do it.

You need to work on that mean streak of yours.

Perhaps a yoga class surrounded by hot bitches in yoga pants would help.  It isn't magic, but it wouldn't do any harm.

Fayettenam?  Yikes.

Whoops.  I don't speak acronymese so I didn't catch the "C" on the front of the "CICBM".  

Maynard James Keenan said that Bliss is a place the Army sends people to contemplate their sins.

I bet it's "Conventional."

Been through Biggs AAF a couple of times and I tend to agree.

I just figured that there were a lot of helicopters at some Army bases.  USAF could just hire taxi services from the Army instead of worrying about replacing its aging Huey fleet.

I don't like the man, but it seems Obama has done more to revitalize or modernize the nuclear fleet than any President since Reagan.  

 

Lima XRay:

Large (35+ tonne) Ballistic missiles in silos made sense back when missile CEP was about a mile or more; and accurately georeferenced imagery was the province of nations with extensive (and expensive) aerial reconnaissance assets such as the U-2 or Keyholes.

Now; when everyone and their cousin has access to google earth imagery; and you can easily find compiled listings of all the Minuteman Silos/LCC lat/long coordinates on the internets, and guided 'brilliant' weapons are proliferating?

Nuclear weapons for all three legs of the triad are going to have to get a lot smaller for the future; to enable all the legs of the triad to adapt and survive for the future.

I've mentioned this before, but:

1.) The smallest atomic bomb we have ever built (at least to public knowledge) fit inside a 155mm artillery shell.

2.) The diameter of SDB is about 190mm.

3.) From a nuclear weaponeering point; it's easier to get a larger yield from a device than it is a really small yield; because if you design it to have a really low yield (for tactical battlefield / neutron) use; it becomes really hard to keep it from fizzling.

4.) JDAM/SDB have proven that the state of the art for mass produced military grade INS units for bombs is really good now; provided it's given an accurate navigational hack before release.

If we started work on a 180~mm diameter Replacement Nuclear Warhead (RNW); we could then refurbish all three legs of the triad; as well as extend the life of existing triad members through various means:

Bombers: SDB sized weapons would allow a much cheaper FB-111H sized aircraft to be developed for LRS-B, and increase the payload capacity of existing bombers and tactical aircraft by a large margin; along with allowing the USN to regain an organic carrier nuclear strike capability (if they so wanted).

ICBM/SLBM: UNCLASS guesses indicate that the W88's maximum diameter is about 550~mm; so a 180mm diameter warhead would enable a significantly smaller missile; particularly if you limited it to a single warhead per missile; enabling the possibility of slightly modified Virginia Block Vs replacing the Ohios in the SSBN role for a *lot less* money than the current black hole of a program that SSBN(X) is acting on the USN's 30 year shipbuilding budget.

There's also the possibility of the USAF and USN jointly developing the new SICBM together to save money; which raises the intriguing possibility of a Skybolt II; but built with all the technological advances 50 years brings -- meaning that you could get the benefits of mobile dispersion while avoiding the security headaches that have dogged the other mobile basing programs (Rail Based and Ground Based).

It took SAC 15 minutes or less to generate 577 bombers and 393 tankers to their position hold spots with the engines running during the Black Hills incident.

Power wanted 10,000 Minutemen, not 1,000.

Yet Obama and Hagel have put forth the idea of reducing our weapons stockpile by 90%, as well as only keeping 900 warheads with only 50% deployed. They also subscribe to Global Zero, a world without nuclear weapons.

Kind of weird that they would spend $1 trillion on the nuclear fleet (but yes, you are correct about the ideas that have been put forth)

 

The NNSA and DoD trillions of dollars to bring the nuclear enterprise into the 21st century.

Life: what the Soviets do while you're making other plans.

I'm having a hard time imagining those folks doing anything other than combing the couch cushions for change, excepting a real change in the way money here handed out in the near future.

Paragraph 2 is why that's no longer reality.

Because SAC didn't know the difference between effected and affected?

What's the BH incident?

This thread has taught me one thing.

There have been numerous tanks with CAPE trying to move money around in DOD to cover the cost; bottom line we are all taking a bite out of the shit sandwich.

You don't have to convince me of that.

On November 24, 1961, all communication links between the U.S. Strategic Air Command (SAC) and NORAD suddenly went dead, cutting off the SAC from three early warning radar stations in England, Greenland, and Alaska. The communication breakdown made no sense, though. After all, a widespread, total failure of all communication circuits was considered impossible, because the network included so many redundant systems that it should have been failsafe. The only alternative explanation was that a full-scale Soviet nuclear first strike had occurred. As a result, all SAC bases were put on alert, and B-52 bomber crews warmed up their engines and moved their planes onto runways, awaiting orders to counterattack the Soviet Union with nuclear weapons. Luckily, those orders were never given. It was discovered that the circuits were not in fact redundant because they all ran through one relay station in Colorado, where a single motor had overheated and caused the entire system to fail.

I have no idea; could be one of those UFO things, but what it is was irrelevant as soon as he mentioned SAC (dead now these 22 years).

I've had a hard copy of that message from the day it came out, and never noticed that.

I sieg heil that grammar, yo.

You think there might...just might...be a difference in aircraft posture between 1961 and 2014?  or even 1981?

And physically impossible on the "577 bombers and 393 tankers at the hold line in 15 minutes."

spent two months at bliss.

truer words were never spoken.

juarez was created simply to remind soldiers at bliss that it could be worse.

I knew it had to be aliens!

uummm, yeah.  I'm just a child of the cold war and a civie and I figured out SAC unfortunately is long gone.  I think the last time I read a post or article we have less than 100 B-52's available, the B-1's are not equipped to carry nukes and there are 20 B-2's.  The good old days of 100's of SAC bombers is waaaay behind us.   I'm assuming the SIOP plans have been adjusted accordingly.  

But on a related note:  about 20 years ago I did get to stop at the SAC museum in Omaha and that was incredible!  That and the National Atomic Museum formerly at Kirkland AFB were two of my favorite side trips during work travel.  Saw the nose cone removed from the business end of a Trident (D5?) and all of the RV's sitting there...just wild.   Making a sales call as Sandia NAtional Labs and the Pentagon was very cool also.  Still have the SAC coffee mug that I purchased at the museum.  Got to pick up the red phone and watch all of the missile and bomber wing lights come on.  Love to go to the newer museum too.

Not to be a dick but isn't WWII the only war in which we've actually used that capability.




 

Pretty sure a Hawaii looks the same as Wyoming from 50 feet under the earth.

We fought WW2 without that capability.  Once we had the capability, we stopped fighting.

there is a lesson in there somewhere.

 

I am sure you could be more pedantic, but I'll be damned if I could figure out how.

All i have to add is.


MERICA!

I bet that's why they surrendered.

 
So, even before the ATO, AAC had a cumbersome, inflexible planning process?

all targets were dictated by arnold in dc.  it was aaf then, too.