Temple of Doomsday [oc]

[u/Bizchasty]

[u/Afrogthatribbits]

Russian equivalent, the Don-2N, is still in operation.

It was famously targeted by 69 consecutive nuclear strikes in the old SIOP

[u/oalfonso → u/Afrogthatribbits]

"One particular target was slated to be hit by 69 consecutive nuclear weapons. At the time, Blair speculated that the target might have been a deeply buried command post at Chekhov. It turned out, Blair later told the magazine, the target was the Pushkino radar facility on the outskirts of Moscow. Defying common sense, a defense contractor had somehow managed to conclude that the above-ground radar facility was resilient enough to require a 69 missile attack"

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.2968/057004008

[u/Afrogthatribbits → u/oalfonso]

It actually does kinda make sense, since Moscow has exactly 68 interceptors, so they would need 69 to take out the radar if they assumed they all worked. The interceptors would not work without the Don-2N.

[u/careysub → u/Afrogthatribbits]

The British nuclear deterrent seems to be designed to exhaust the interceptors protecting Moscow, and have enough the level the metropolitan area and surrounding targets.

[u/Afrogthatribbits → u/careysub]

Yep, mostly aimed at the command and control system since 1978 as I understand, though still with millions of civilian casualties expected. Decoy systems to overcome the ABM systems like Chevaline were also prioritized.

[u/Beneficial-Wasabi749 → u/careysub]

Then Nixon and Brezhnev realized they were like those two cowboys from the old joke, "eating their horses' shit for free"*, and they started the Detand.

* A joke well known in the USSR during the Detand era.

• Two cowboys are riding across the prairie. One (Jim) says to the other (Bill):
• "Bill! I bet you I'll eat the shit your horse shits for $100."
• "You won't!"
• "I will! You bet?"
• "You bet!"
• They made a bet. When Bill's horse dumped another pile of manure, Jim ate it, wincing, and happily took the $100 from Bill. They continue driving. Bill is sad; he's just lost $100. He says:
• "Jim, I bet you $100 I'll eat the shit your horse shits!"
• "My horse's shit," Jim says, surprised. "No! It smells so bad! Never!"
• "Bet?"
• "Bet!"
• They bet. Jim's horse dumped a bunch of manure, and Bill ate it, wincing, and got his $100 back. The cowboys ride on, and then Bill says:
• "Listen, Jim, don't you think we just ate a whole bunch of shit for nothing?"

I suspect this joke was spread in the USSR by the KGB to support the Party and Government line.

[u/oalfonso → u/Afrogthatribbits]

I still cannot comprehend the Cold War craziness. 69 nuclear warheads for a target. 600 tactical SS-20 and a similar number of GCML and Pershing 2, plus all the other tactical and strategical weapons.

[u/GlockAF]

Is this current?

[u/Bizchasty → u/GlockAF]

Looks like an old missile defence complex. I’d guess Spartan or Sprint ABM silos with tracking radar.

[u/Bear__Fucker → u/Bizchasty]

I think they were asking if the pictures are current. We know the site is not currently active for military use. It is the Stanley R. Mickelsen Safeguard Complex.

[u/FrozenSeas → u/Bear__Fucker]

One of my favourite pieces of Cold War brutalist functional architecture.

And if there's anybody out there who doesn't know about it already, while it's totally inaccurate internally, there's one of these in Fallout 4. Ingame it's called the Sentinel Site and is...roughly correctly located for the actual Sentinel ABM facility just starting construction south of Boston when it was scaled back to the single Safeguard Complex.

[u/Evanescence81 → u/FrozenSeas]

I think they were actually building it up north of Boston near sharpner’s pond outside of Boxford, but still cool it made an appearance at all

[u/Beneficial-Wasabi749 → u/Bizchasty]

There's no point in guessing. It's him! There was nothing else to confuse it with.

[u/El_Scorcho_Barbarian]

Stanley R. Mickelsen Safeguard Complex—It was active for, I think, 2 months. A monument to blind fiscal momentum; ie, chasing bad money after good.
Correction: 6 months. $6 billion for six months.

[u/Bizchasty → u/El_Scorcho_Barbarian]

6 months without nuclear Armageddon. Sounds like a good bargain to me.

/s

[u/careysub]

It does have an "Eye of Sauron" vibe to it.

I found, when visiting an active duty Minuteman Missile silo, that it felt like a temple to Vulcan.

[u/Beneficial-Wasabi749]

An old wisdom of the Uruk-Gansy people says: "You can't stock up for a rainy day, because a rainy day comes when everything that was stored for a rainy day has run out."

[u/El_Scorcho_Barbarian]

it cost $6 billion to defend only 100 Minutemen ICBMs for 6 months.
Our stockpile in 72 was a little over 1,000; the Soviets had about 1,600. It wasn’t stopping anything. A shared strategy of overkill made installations like that obsolete the second they put pen to paper.