Largest nuclear weapon ever deployed on display in Arizona

(ARIZONA HIGHWAYS TV) - They say the cold war is over, but Arizona is still holding on to at least one missile from America's nuclear arsenal. It's scary, and yet at the same time impressive. And you can see it inside the Titan Missile Museum in Sahuarita.

[xyanide]

You gotta love guys like this that keep these museums and displays alive.

[TheMasheenist]

Just visited the national atomic testing museum in Nevada, they had a decommissioned m53 9 megaton thermonuclear bomb on display. Very unsettling to stand next to something 600 times more powerful than the bomb dropped on Japan. Even just the casing of such a weapon is still terrifying. Everyone should visit these places to remember how close we stand to destroying our planet

[jelink]

I've written elsewhere on YouTube that my dad was a Titan II site commander at one of the Davis-Monthan sites back in 1964. He actually took me down inside the operational silo, where I got a personal tour of the crew quarters, the command center, and---the really BIG THING---to stand directly on the W-duct underneath the fully-armed missile in its silo, the two engines only fifteen feet above my head. I could look up the silo wall to view the small service porches at several levels, with Liquid Nitrogen venting from a port on the missile's side. I was a Chemical Engineering major back then, and let me tell you----it was waaay coool! l would love to go back.

[JanPeterson]

When I was an AFROTC cadet at Vandenberg AFB in 1984, our flight's FTO was one Captain Brown, who was formerly a Titan launch officer. He had some stories. Some of us (at least me and another cadet from Bozeman MT, Jay Helming) were on Missile scholarships and were planning to be Minuteman crews.

Growing up on a missile base, the thought of a nuclear war was never far from your mind. I wouldn't say we lived in fear, exactly, but we all knew what it would mean if we saw multiple vertical contrails rising out of the Montana landscape. We had faith in those days that our command authority (i.e., the President of the United States) would not order the use of nuclear weapons without a damn good reason. I am glad that that faith was never tested.

For those who served, thank you.

[truthseeker]

Part of what's impressive to me is the lengths the designers went to ensure two people had to agree to launch. There was a balance between the desire to make the threat of launch credible and the response time quick enough (deterrence), and the responsibility they felt to eliminate accidental or rogue launches (safety). I wonder to what lengths other nuclear nations go to achieve a similar balance.

[shenmisheshou]

The "Top to Bottom Tour" is absolutely amazing. This is a very limited tour that they only do only a few times a month and it goes into EVERY space in the silo. The 1 hour tour is ok, but this tour goes into every nook and cranny, including down into the very bottom of the blast deflectors. Because of its limited nature, you need to reserve in advance, but this is the best best best tour I have ever done in my life. You miss nothing. You see every inch.

[DFisk]

Great news report. Just the thought of turning the key gave me chills. When my father was in the navy we were stationed twice at the POLARIS missile assembly facility near Charleston, South Carolina. It was always unnerving seeing missiles being moved by train to the ship yard

[danieloblinger]

My first base that I was assigned when I enlisted in the Air Force was Vandenberg AFB in California. It was a missile test base, in other words they would pull them from various silos from around the country, take the warhead off and send them to VAFB so they could "do their thing" with them. It was interesting to see the launches, although you could usually hear and feel them even if you were nowhere near them.

[murfrirhke]

Former Little Rock Titan MFT here. Your show brought back many memories & really got my heart racing. I can even remember the smells & noise of the complex. Thank you so much.

[nsmooth]

I was in elementary school in Seattle in the 60's during the Cuban missile crisis. We had drills in school where we would have to go in the basement of the wood frame school building and lie down in the hallways in the event of a nuclear attack by the Soviets (as if that would protect anyone). Every Wednesday at noon, they turned the air raid sirens on as a drill. I will never forget that sound or that time. Creeped me out. Even today, the sound of those sirens brings back those memories.

[greggd]

No idea how I stumbled upon this video but glad I did - Incredible. Not only is the history fascinating, but important to preserve so it can be learned from. And that siren - gave me chills. I came of age in the 80s - one of these sirens was on my high school campus. Every last Friday of the month, at 11:00 AM, the sirens all over my home town (maybe even the state) would go off. I remember getting out of class and watching the siren go round and round.. and it was so damned loud. Back then we lived with the fear of nuclear war happening at any minute.. I feared hearing those sirens at any other time than the usual prescribed day and time.

[TrueHighlander_Scotland]

Retired USAF Comm technician with 8 of my 28 years spent during the Cold War and my last 5 at Vandenberg AFB, California in service of the Peacekeeper missile. Mostly familiar with the Minuteman III missile (currently in use), but my dad was a Security Police commander in charge of several locations with nuclear weapon capability.

[byronharano]

Thank you for your service to display what was once our Nuclear deterrent site and to have ordinary citizens feel emotionally the strees of launching a nuclear exchange. Wow. Thank you.

[lexiehunt]

i could listen to this guy for hours, the way he explain all this makes it even more interesting

[brunonikodemski]

Our company, and I myself, designed some of the electronics for the MGAC, and also for the MGC & IMU of the various Titan missiles. The Titan-2-3-34-4s were all used up, for Space & Satellite launcher programs. This was one of the most successful launchers ever made. It is too bad that there is not an MX Peacemaker museum, which was also a nuclear weapons system, similar to this one.

[ivanscottw]

About the sirens. Here in France, the alert sirens are still in operation. Each number of tone is suppose to indicate the type of impending danger (fire, flooding, high winds, bombing..) and the fifth one (5 tones) is supposedly to indicate a nuclear attack (but this was never confirmed nor denied - so could be lore culture). However, you'll hear it throughout France at 12PM (actually twice, once at 12:00 and once at 12:05) every first Wednesday of the month to ensure they still operate properly.

[dbx]

As a kid in the 1960's, I remember hearing this siren. Now, as a 60-year-old watching this video and hearing the man play this siren again, was amazing. Until this moment, I had completely forgotten about this siren. I had forgotten how perilous the times were, way back when.

[dalelestourgeon]

Thank you for this video. Great to have this museum and make people aware of the awesome responsibilities we had. I was Commander of the 373rd Strategic Missile Squadron (Titan) and can attest you got it right.

[BaldEagleVince]

As an Air Force ROTC Cadet in High School in 1973 we toured the training version of the real deal in WY. It was definitely a very maturing experience for us. The idea that we were of the same generation that was still in the silos for a while made it real!🇺🇸

[msgtpauldfreed]

I was stationed at Little Rock AFB in 1985 through 1990. The Titans were in the process of being decommissioned at that time, but several were still active. Even though I was a C-130 troop, I'd helped out with the maintenance of one of the UH-1 helicopters that hauled the crews to the more remote sites. In appreciation, I got a ride on an incentive flight with a couple of other airmen and we "bounced" several of the sites. Impressive doors, and radio antennas. Don't know if it's true, but one of the missile maintenance guys who cross trained into avionics and came to our shop, SSgt Finley, told me if a bird landed on the HF transmitter antenna and they keyed the mic on the radio the bird would drop dead off of the antenna. It had THAT much power.