California ICBM Launched; Wyoming ICBM Silo Attacked By "Terrorists"

Minuteman III Launch Control Room

A very exciting week for our strategic missileers --- as one missile crew successfully launches a Minuteman III across the Pacific...:

The Air Force successfully launched an unarmed Minuteman 3 intercontinental ballistic missile Monday from the California coast to an area in the Pacific Ocean some 4,200 miles away.

The ICBM was launched from Vandenberg Air Force Base near Santa Barbara at 3:01 a.m. and carried three unarmed re-entry vehicles to their targets near the Kwajalein Atoll in the Marshall Islands, said Lt. Raymond Geoffroy.

...another lonely missile crew in a Wyoming ICBM silo is attacked by "terrorists":

F.E. WARREN AIR FORCE BASE, Wyo.  -- A simulated terrorist attack on a 90th Missile Wing ICBM launch facility provided the exercise scenario for Nuclear Weapon Accident/Incident Exercise 2009. 

This national-level exercise involving 11 federal agencies and 1,300 personnel was the largest and most complex exercise ever conducted at a missile base.

Warren AFB is our first operational ICBM field, with Atlas birds first siloed in 1958. Straddling Wyoming, Colorado and Nebraska, it currently has about 150 Minuteman III's in its launch complex.

Comments

[ahrcanum]

These equipment photos looks as old as some of the photos from the cold war out of Russia.

[David B.]

Thank You, we need to stand up to the threat of NK. Their terrorist threats are threatening the peace not only in the U.S. but throughout the word. We need to send them a message we are over a half century in advance of their technology.

[2Hotel9]

Now that right there is a misleading headline! I had visions of the Governator declaring war on the godless heathens of Hawaii, and sending his hand picked West Hollywood Deathshead suicide squads out in retaliation for Wyoming's beef imbargo!

That was a good shoot from Van, can't depend on computer models and happy thoughts for being certain our missiles actually work. As for DoD anti-terrorist exercises, color me underwhelmed. When you list it, in detail, with a set in stone outcome for who wins and loses, in your training schedule a year and a half in advance you are not preparing for diddly squat.

Turn our anti-terror training program BACK into the absolutely unpredictable and capable hands of men such as Demo Dick Marcinko and we would actually be making some headway!

[reason]

"These equipment photos looks as old as some of the photos from the cold war out of Russia."

In Soviet Russia, equipment photographs YOU!

Also, that chair looks far too comfortable to be from a Soviet ICBM silo. The very existence of a chair at all, actually, is far too comfortable to be from a Soviet ICBM silo...

[col.smeag]

I wish I could have seen that launch ICBMs at 3am ...that's like the 4th of July with all the Fireworks going off at once.

[Ben]

Another benefit of the VAFB launch - it's an opportunity to exercise many of our missile defense elements by using the Minuteman III as a target of opportunity:
http://www.mda.mil/mdalink/pdf/09news0013.pdf

[Ryan Crierie]

Ahh, the Russians don't bother with moving missiles to test bases for test launches.

They pick at random some operational ICBM, unload the warheads from it; and then fire it off from it's operational silo, no less.

I sure hope they inform us each time before they do a test.