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Subterranean ballistic missile systems

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Concept.png Subterranean ballistic missile systems
(Weapon,  Nuclear weapon,  Nuclear war,  Subterranean structure)Rdf-entity.pngRdf-icon.png
Tunnel Iran.jpg
Underground missile facility of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps.[1]
Start1960s?
Ballistic missile systems (nuclear and otherwise) that are stored underground.

Subterranean ballistic missile systems are launch systems for ballistic missiles that are stored underground and which can be deployed from known and hidden exits, or in case of declassified US projects, were to "drill out of the ground" via tunnel boring machine (TBM).[2][3]

China

China does have a large underground network.[4][5] Wikipedia writes:[6]

The Underground Great Wall of China is the informal name for the 3,000 mile (5,000km) system of tunnels used by China to store and transport intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs).

There is increased focus from the US side at least from the Nuclear Posture Review of 2002 on, to develop: "improved earth penetrating weapons (EPWs) to counter the increased use by potential adversaries of hardened deeply buried facilities".[7] The NDAA of 2013 asks the United States Strategic Command to submit a report: "on the underground tunnel network used by the People’s Republic of China with respect to the capability of the United States to use conventional and nuclear forces to neutralize such tunnels and what is stored within such tunnels".[8]

Iran

In 2015 Iranian state television has broadcasted footage of underground tunnels with mobile launchers,[9][10][11] with additional footage released some ten years later.[12]

A tunnel boring machine (TBM) that will move a missile to the surface into firing position - Air Force Weapons Laboratory, document: AFWL-TR-79-120, Vol. I, Pt. 1 (published in two parts)[13][14]

United States

A now declassified project from the 1960s aimed to build a network of mobile nuclear missile launch sites under the ice in Greenland.[15]

Another feasibility study from 1982 envisioned an underground system with 400 miles of tunnels across the US.[16]


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References