“The staff at Minot Air Field had neglected to follow procedure for the sake of saving time. The verification of weapons — what kind, what warheads they carry, their armament status — should take about 45 minutes, and be performed before anything else happens. “
In a surprise attack can we really even count these weapons in our arsenal. I mean if it takes 45 minutes to verify they are what the sheet says they are couldn’t they be lost in a first strike against us???
Gotta be a better way folks.
Gotta be a better way folks.
Nuclear Weapons and their delivery platforms have been placed in a stand-down since the end of the Cold War.
Bombers are not on nuclear alert status so they can be in the air within 30 minutes to strike the enemy. ICBMs are not targeted at anything specific. Tactical nuclear weapons are missing a critical part that prevents them from being used quickly.
The breakout crew and/or delivery crew cut corners by not identifying what the pulled out of the storage structure. They assumed what it was. This is possible because the weapons were probably tarped. Inert, conventional weapons are sometimes inside the same storage building on trailers. They just hooked up and pulled the wrong munitions trailer. If everyone in the WSA thought they had no nukes including the security personnel, who should have inspected the trailer, then they'll waltz out the WSA gate with what they are towing.
This has always been the possibility of this happening if the procedures are ignored ever since the AF has been in existence.
I've read that the recommendation to prevent this type of future mishap is to use radiation detectors.
Imho, this is the fallout from placing nuke cruise missiles where they could go east in a relative hurry, and that action was not a mistake.