Posted on 07/20/2016 11:00:58 AM PDT by Kaslin
The United States runs its air operations against ISIS in Iraq from Incirlik Air Base in Turkey. The base, used by other NATO forces as well, is not American. It is Turkish, and the U.S. needs government permission to fly from there. Since the 15 July coup attempt in Ankara, U.S. forces at Incirlik are essentially hostages to the Turkish government. The Turkish base commander and his aides have been arrested; U.S. personnel are confined to base; outside power has been cut off; and while the U.S. has been permitted to resume operations over Iraq and Syria, it is working under adverse conditions, to say the least. Most worrisome, about 50 hydrogen bombs are stored by the U.S. at Incirlik, ostensibly on behalf of NATO. These bombs are "protected" by Turkish troops and to some degree their potential use is shared with the Turkish Air Force.
The deployment goes back more than 50 years, begun as an effort to counter the Soviet military buildup as an offset to quantitatively larger Soviet ground forces facing Europe. But by the mid-1980s the U.S. put more emphasis on "tactical" missiles, largely to counter the Soviet Union's deployment of SS-20's, a short to medium range missile with multiple, independently targeted warheads (MIRV) in the second and third versions of the SS-20. In 1987 the Intermediate and Short-range Missile Nuclear Treaty (INF) was signed and the Russians and the U.S. began removing their missiles. By 1991, all the missiles of concern on both sides were eliminated.
(Excerpt) Read more at americanthinker.com ...
The gadgets in question are flexible — they can be dialed from 300 tons to 340 kilotons. Bad day for a city. Bad day for a metro area. Depends on the mission.
>Solution? Any?
Fly in a large marine force and start flying out the bombs. Shoot anyone who gets in the way. If they win, nuke the site.
I have to concur.
I was a builder back in the Seventies; at Naval Avionics Center, Indianapolis.
We engineered the things.
The 'tronics were contained in a ring of modules (about 11 of them if Ircc) a few transistors and other components in each one.
It was about as complicated as a Pong® game.
I remember seeing the IR spectrum model being tested in a small lab overlooking the parking lot. Opening the window and viewing the lot after cars had left for the evening, you could see where they had been parked due to the cooler pavement under them.
You could also tell which ladies were wearing pantyhose as they left the building by the different heat signature coming from their fanny area!
Dang!
We MISSED!!
We were aiming at that white dot about 1/4” in from the left side of the picture!!!
Is that Satanic Verses guy still alive?
Good info!
Someone might go nuts!
Mars Bluff crater
Can’t see much; as trees have overgrown the area.
Now THAT is better!!
The ‘crater’ isn’t very big; is it!
Hahahahahaha! I am just imagine the sailors playing around with that IR Spectrum “toy”...:)
Sigh. Men being men. Probably construed as some kind of harassment today.
LOL, looks like a housing development or something. Parents still probably don’t want their children going over there thinking it might be radioactive, but IIRC, the fissile material was not in the bomb when it fell. (I think they had a separate “cage” it was in, and had be inserted before dropping the bomb in anger)
Use them or lose them.
The biggest failing of Bush43 was not securing a permanently deeded base in southern Iraq ( plus repayment in oil ). It would have secured Iraq's own future from Iran, and given us the ultimate forward presence where it was actually needed. Not to mention a great place to keep thermonuclear weapons safe and at the ready.
That, and not splitting Iraq along ethnic lines and rewarding Turkey's perfidy with a brand new Kurdistan on their border.
That, and not splitting Iraq along ethnic lines and rewarding Turkey's perfidy with a brand new Kurdistan on their border.
Excellent! I wish I said that.
It would piss off Iran, too...
Tactical nuclear bombs like the Mk 61 are still in kilotons, but in the hundreds of kilotons.
Just a few more... Pyramid at Dalat, Waterboy at Dong Ha on the DMZ (only one that didn’t start with a “P”. When a typhoon blew Waterboy away they rebuilt at Quang Tri and called it Pamper. Very small world. I’d never be able to tell a guy by the kind of radios we had. They were terrible much of the time.
Thank you for your service. About the rigid manner of handling nukes...two people. Rickover and Lemay. They built a culture trying to reduce the risk as much as possible.
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