News The British women who secretly served in the Cold War

[Notebook]

For more than 20 years, the green plains of Holderness, East Yorkshire, were the secret location of underground bunker RAF Holmpton, where radars watched the skies amid the threat of the Cold War.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/in-pictures-43333082

They don't make secret bunkers like they used to, or maybe they do?

N.

 

[Urwumpe]

Well, Switzerland claimed they have stopped doing this. But I am pretty sure, if you dig deep enough in Geneve, you might find a 21 km tunnel network there...

 

[Notebook]

I'd expect that sort of precision from the Swiss, we just used old coal-mines...

N.

 

[jedidia]

Well, Switzerland claimed they have stopped doing this.

Switzerland is a game of dwarf fortress gone nuts! :lol:
We have kilometers upon kilometers of underground fortress installations under the alps, many of them still classified, complete with railroad to move Artillery and Equipment, fuel depots, and airports.
Except the airports aren't that useful anymore. You could launch a Mirage with JATOs directly out of the mountain, but the F18 is a bit too large for that trick...

I might have mentioned every now and then that we also have a nuclear shelter under every house built during the 80ies and 90ies (though I'm not sure when the regulation for that was retired... possibly before the end of the 90ies).

 

[Linguofreak]

Switzerland is a game of dwarf fortress gone nuts! :lol:

Lies!

I haven't heard of any industrial accidents in Switzerland involving misadventures with magma.

Nor have I heard of any terrors of shadow and flame issuing forth from Switzerland, nor anything else that would indicate delvings of excessive greed or depth.

 

[jedidia]

Lies!

We do have the advantage of starting to dig down from an elevated altitude. Also, we mostly use the horizontal strategy. Our demands in natural resources are sufficiently covered by trade caravans... :lol:

 

[tl8]

Except the airports aren't that useful anymore. You could launch a Mirage with JATOs directly out of the mountain, but the F18 is a bit too large for that trick...

Just use a steam piston attached to the nose wheel. Or if that doesn't work, I hear a rail gun can be used now.

 

[jedidia]

Just use a steam piston attached to the nose wheel.

Doesn't really help if the doors aren't wide or high enough. I've never heard of an F18 unfolding its wings after launch... :shifty:

 

[Urwumpe]

Doesn't really help if the doors aren't wide or high enough. I've never heard of an F18 unfolding its wings after launch... :shifty:

Would be a good design requirement for a F-18H (elvetia).

Additionally to a liquid rocket booster engine (low smoke to keep the bunker hidden) and an answering machine for handling airspace violation calls outside office hours.

 

[jedidia]

...and an answering machine for handling airspace violation calls outside office hours.

:rofl:

 

[steph]

Definitely doable, though with some effort. I remember some video, I think it was from Norway, with a Saab (or was it a Mirage or Tornado? Can't remember) coming out of a hillside hangar, then esentially driving down a narrow asphalt road, complete with bends, then taking off from a road further down.
Apart from that, I'm pretty sure you could integrate carrier infrastructure on a land runway, even if you don't launch from tunnels. If nothing else, it's the land of STOL aircraft like the F-35. And the mountains hide you from radar
Btw, does anyone remember that old-school flight sim where you had a tunnel runway inside a mountain? Taking off was fun, landing was a bugger but doable.

 

[Urwumpe]

Definitely doable, though with some effort. I remember some video, I think it was from Norway, with a Saab (or was it a Mirage or Tornado? Can't remember) coming out of a hillside hangar, then esentially driving down a narrow asphalt road, complete with bends, then taking off from a road further down.
Apart from that, I'm pretty sure you could integrate carrier infrastructure on a land runway, even if you don't launch from tunnels. If nothing else, it's the land of STOL aircraft like the F-35. And the mountains hide you from radar
Btw, does anyone remember that old-school flight sim where you had a tunnel runway inside a mountain? Taking off was fun, landing was a bugger but doable.

Sadly, it did not work in DCS. Tanks can drive through the tunnel, but aircraft can't. :lol:

 

[jedidia]

Apart from that, I'm pretty sure you could integrate carrier infrastructure on a land runway, even if you don't launch from tunnels.

Oh, we have plenty of those airports. They're still operational, and yes, that works without a problem.
Also, stretches of our highways were deliberately designed to serve as runways for fighter planes, removable crash guards and all.

 

[Linguofreak]

Oh, we have plenty of those airports. They're still operational, and yes, that works without a problem.
Also, stretches of our highways were deliberately designed to serve as runways for fighter planes, removable crash guards and all.

Interestingly, despite having been modeled on the Autobahn, which was built with aircraft operations in mind, the US Interstate system is not (contrary to urban legends). We just have so much open land that space to build airfields is relatively easy to find.

 

[Urwumpe]

Interestingly, despite having been modeled on the Autobahn, which was built with aircraft operations in mind, the US Interstate system is not (contrary to urban legends). We just have so much open land that space to build airfields is relatively easy to find.

I think the difference is also in doctrine there. The German experience was that improvised "mobile" bases are harder to find and destroy by an superior enemy and that experience was applied to the cold war as well. The Winter War of Finnland was likely also an influence there.

Even during my army time, the concept of German warfare as still, a numerically superior enemy which enters Germany will not get attacked by a decisive open battle. He will rather get immobilized and hunted by small hidden units, essentially working to make the German forests as deadly as possible. Even the MBTs would rather be doing "combat reconnaissance" (The enemy WAS where the smoke IS now). I think the British army trained for a similar war in Germany.

That is also why Germany invested so much money back then into VTOL aircraft.

 

[Andy44]

I think the US Navy has airfields configured to look like aircraft carrier flight decks for training use, complete with functional arresting gear. Pretty sure NAS Lakehurst in New Jersey has one (or used to, anyway). Maybe?