Looking up from the depths of the underground silo… with a nuclear missile perpetually straining at the leash. …and now with the top blast shield pulled halfway aside…
The Titan II was the largest operational land based nuclear missile ever used by the United States.
Everything is spring-mounted — from the overhead lights and cableways to the missile itself — to help isolate it from external attacks. The rocket rests on a thrust mount ring, held in place by four explosive bolts. Here you can see the 30-ft. springs that hold the thrust mount ring.
This underground complex, known as 571-7, is all that remains of the 54 Titan II missile sites that were on alert 24×7 across the United States from 1963 to 1987.
When given the command, it could launch within 58 seconds and deliver a 9-megaton nuclear warhead to targets 6300 miles (10,000 km) away in 30 minutes. It reminds me of the USAF high-speed delivery logo I once saw at a Minuteman facility which looked a lot like a Domino’s logo… served hot anywhere on the globe.
This was the era of MAD. The infrastructure to protect this missile is massive, as its intended use was a retaliatory strike — after most of the U.S. was destroyed, this needed to be able to destroy the attacker in return.
So the entire underground launch complex was capable of only being used once… and ideally never.
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