A couple weeks ago I was having a discussion with some friends about why Russia has decided to commence the invasion of Ukraine. I stated that I think it's because they instilled a KGB agent as their leader and they are under the delusion that the Soviet Union should make a comeback in a big way, as that's the only power system they like.
I remember hearing from someone much smarter than me, something along the lines of: tyrannical/radical leaders aren't the source of the extremism of the populace and they are not exerting their influence on the populace. Rather, they are brought about by the extremism and sentiment of the populace at large. So by that logic, the Russians can not be saved and they are too stupid to get or allow freedom in any form. Exhibit A:
So, if that is the opinion of the average Russian, we should nuke them while we have the chance. As long as they are at their current level of corruption, we shouldn't fear any retaliation, as the fuel in their ICBMs are probably replaced with water at this point. So in that spirit:
I was having a conversation at dinner the other day with some family, and the topic of the Ukraine conflict came up. It seems most people, including the family, agreed that they have pretty much stopped following it at all lately. I on the other hand, was not overly interested when it started but I seem to get more and more interested in the details as time goes on.
In related news, I am totally not a fan of the Ukrainian government, but I absolutely love the land and the people over there. So, I not surprised by this at all:
The old original entrance gate from back in the day.
To put is succinctly, I'm not a fan of the peacenik idjiots who protested (successfully) to prevent ICBMs from being stationed in Utah. No only because they robbed us of some cool real estate one they would eventually be retired, but they also helped likely prevent other nuclear projects in Utah, such as nuclear power plants, which would have vastly improved the air quality if used instead of coal plants.
An interesting logo/patch for the Deseret Test Center headquartered at Fort Douglas.
In my opinion, chemical and biological weapons and warfare are far more terrifying than the dreaded nuke could ever hope to be. Partially because the nuke is no destructive, so final in it's ending of life, it makes a great deterrent. No sane person would want to be the cause of ending the world, or be seen as being responsible for it. Chemical and biological weapons on the other hand, seem to encourage those in power to play god to find out just how far they can take it. To see if they can engineer something to fit their needs, to scale it to just how fast they want it to spread, how far to spread it, what the effect will be to the targets, whether it makes people docile, disabled, dead, sick, insane, or even gay.
What the main gate looks like today. I miss the big lettering on top of the gate. It was much classier.
It's especially terrifying in that because it's not perceived as so destructive and more malleable than the nuke, so it's often seen as a more viable, usable weapon on an unsuspecting public. Even if it's not lethal, it can be used to terrify and sway the public perception and behavior for political or other nefarious ends (see the commie cough, which is now established as being modified/weaponized in a lab).
Not only that, but despite some accidents and security breaches with nukes and nuclear power plants, they don't scare me as much as the security problems and accidents with chemical and biological weapons. Even good natured research into solutions to chemical and biological threats can yield some pretty scary results and accidents. See the following short documentary on the Dugway Proving Ground's accident history:
Now, I'm not even overly anti-chemical or biological warfare research, particularly in defense research from it, but I'm still fuming at the morons who screwed the rest of us Utahans out of the far safer and more practical civilian applicable alternative of good 'ol nukes.
If you got two roads to go down, I choose the bomb.
On a desolate stretch of I-80 in western Utah, there lies the ghost town of Knolls. There ain't much left of it, and there certainly isn't much to see, but what we are interested in is roughly five miles north of that. At that spot, just beyond a hazardous waste site (Clean Harbors waste site, also known as the Grassy Mountain Hazardous Waste Site), on the north side of said waste site, is nestled a small spot of desert land. On that bit of land, there lies a concrete pad, the remains of a bunker, and a Utah State History Division plaque to denote what the National Register of Historic Places calls "The birthplace of the United States Air Force supersonic missile flight test program".
A Google maps picture of the site.
Here is located the site of America's first ever Surface to Air Missile launch. I've briefly mentioned it here before, but figured it deserved a bit more attention.
Developed in the late '40s, with a total of 38 launches of unguided booster test motors from this location starting in June of 1946 by the Boeing Company. They launched from this site into the Wendover Bombing and Gunnery Range on the south side of the current Interstate 80. A funny note here is that, as stated in my previous post about it, they did not have any successful launches until 1947; how many were successful as opposed to not, I did not find out.
The missile itself was called the SAM-A-1 GAPA (Ground-to-Air Pilotless Aircraft), also known internally at Boeing as project MX-606. It had a ramjet booster motor attached at the bottom of a solid fuel missile that was proven to reach speeds up to mach 2, a max range of 30 miles, and max altitude of 59,000 feet.
A picture of the test missiles. I'm also digging the prominent lab coats on the personnel.
The rest of the program was later carried out at what was known then as the Alamogordo Guided Missile Test Base, but now known as Holloman Air Force Base. There, the missile was refined further to test it's radar beam riding (initial guidance) and active radar homing (terminal guidance) systems. An additional 114 test launches were carried out there until the program was ended in 1950, as the GAPA program was cancelled due to losing out to another competing missile program that I mentioned before, the Nike.
All was not lost, as it provided valuable data for not only the military and Boeing, but eventually it would serve as the base of knowledge that would go into developing the later (and totally bonkers) CIM-10 Bomarc nuclear warhead SAM missile program and Project Wizard. This in turn, would form the basis of the engines used on some other crazy cool programs like the Lockheed X-7, the Lockheed AQM-60 Kingfisher, and the Lockheed D-21.
This Bomarc is on display at Hill Aerospace Museum.
This also isn't quite the end of the story either, as the site was pretty much forgotten by the public at large (though, it's still pretty unknown) until 1979, when R. Gilbert Moore (General Manager of the Thiokol Corp. Utah facility at the time) and Richard H. Nelson (Project Engineer for the GAPA program from 1946-1947) visited and photographed the site to submit to the National Register of Historic Places. They did this at the same time that the space shuttle boosters were being developed and tested at Thiokol. I have to wonder if Scott at the Unwanted Blog knows anything about those guys, as he's got a huge repository of knowledge on aerospace and the area around Thiokol.
Pictured here is Richard H. Nelson standing on the launch site in 1979, R. Gilbert Moore was the photographer.
Not sure if I had written about it here before, but back when I was a kid (around 8 or so), I was sent to a week (or two?) long summer camp in the Marin Headlands located in the barracks of old Fort Cronkhite. The goal was to immerse kids in lessons on ecology and marine wildlife and get kids on board with various eco-values both legit and not. I really liked it, we did all sorts of hands on stuff and got to see a bunch of different animals. Though, even as a kid, what was far more interesting to me was the location and it's history, which was almost completely ignored by the staff there at the time.
The old barracks I stayed at for the trip.
Fort Cronkhite was set up in the 1930s as the threat of war in the pacific became an increasing threat, and across the Rodeo Lagoon from the barracks, there was a large coastal artillery battery set up there to defend the critical San Francisco port.
A 16in artillery emplacement of the time (1940s)
What the emplacement looks like now. This is a far more improved condition than when I got to see it as a kid.
I got to climb all over the ruins of the gun emplacements when I was there, and was completely enthralled by the idea that there was this massive piece of World War II history that was just left dilapidated and completely ignored by everyone. Back then, they were certainly describable as ruins, as they were falling apart and we weren't allowed inside. In hindsight, this is likely because they didn't want anyone to get hurt on the meth needles, as most of the coastal defense structures were popular druggie hangouts.
Since my childhood, they have been subsequently been restored to a certain degree, as they certainly look a far sight better now. Still, I had no idea at that age that there was so much more to it while I was jumping around the concrete emplacements.
I had no idea that at the crest of the hill above the artillery emplacements was the dilapidated remains of a subterranean Nike Ajax and Nike Hercules SAM site for ballistic missile defense called SF-87/88. Technically a part of Fort Barry, construction started on the SAM facilities in 1954 and were operational later that year. Security was paramount at these sites and people stationed there were not allowed to discuss their work with any outsider, as the missiles were often armed with nuclear warheads themselves. They were designed and anticipated to be used to intercept incoming Soviet bombers and ballistic missiles. The site was operational until 1974, and was decommissioned and lay dormant until sometime in the 80s when restoration began by a local military vehicle collectors club.
The missile site when operational. You can see the same barracks I stayed at in the background.
It took more than a decade of restoration, thousands of dollars, plus untold hours of time by volunteers to get it to the point it is at today. Now it is an amazing replica of the the facility at the time it was operational (minus one or two structures) that is open to the public for tours on a regular basis and (if you are lucky enough) will occasionally have Army Nike site veterans to come to assist with tours. They will also on occasion raise the restored dummy missiles from their underground storage to launch position!
The infamous bay area fog providing some excellent dramatic lighting for this shot. All photos sourced from Wikipedia.
Despite the trash heap my old home state has become, I would still love to just visit certain places in (The Peoples Volksrepublic of) Kalifornia just for little while, especially this one, as I've never been able to go to the restored site yet. Any plan I have to go back to my home state, would definitely involve going there.
The missiles lowered into their protective underground shelter.
For ages I had been meaning to go to the Tekoi Test Range to check it out. It's not too many hours away from me, and I really wanted to take a day to go there, but never got around to it.
For a long time, it seemed I just couldn't find much info on it other than what I could infer on the CLUI site and the very muddled and poorly written Wikipedia page on it. Maybe my google-fu just sucked at the time, but I honestly don't remember anything showing up when trying to find out more about it roughly 10 years ago. Thankfully, someone on youtube has again beaten me to the punch and made a couple of full videos on it. One video exploring the location and another video explaining not only what was done at the facility in relatively good detail, but also has some actual footage of the tests done there.
The only thing not mentioned in the video is the variety of the rockets tested there. Some of the more prolific ones other than the Trident SLBMs motors that were tested at the site are likely to be:
Today the site is supposedly used by a local drone manufacturer for tests, and is listed a potential filming location.
As an added note that is just barely related, Skull valley is also the same place one of the greatest gunfights in movie history was filmed. I highly suggest you Google search Way of the Gun if you are unfamiliar.
A little known, but influential site in Utah Cold War history, is the Buckhorn Wash Underground Explosive Test Site #8. Also know today as simply the MK tunnel system. I'm not sure how I initially found out about them, but for this article I'm using the Cold War Tourist site as a source, which has excellent write ups on the program and it's sites. Go give it a look see, it's an excellent site with details on a lot of other places of note.
Morrison Knudsen was a company contracted by the US Army in 1948-1952 to set off controlled detonations on the naturally occurring rock in the San Rafael Swell area in Utah as a part of the Underground Explosion Test Program. The purpose of these tests was test the suitability of the rock and to refine the design of underground structures to defend against aerial explosive attacks of various sizes and in various locations across western states.
The site is Utah has three sandstone tunnels of various sizes, in which 19 explosions were set off at various depths above the tunnels with payloads ranging from 320 lbs. of explosives to a whopping 320,000 lbs. of explosives!
Being a very soft rock, the sandstone there was likely deemed unsuitable, and then another phase of the UET program later began testing in the granite cliffs of Unaweep Canyon, Colorado. These tests likely directly contributed to the eventual development of the famous Cheyanne Mountain Complex later. Although I don't have any sources or info to back it up, I did hear somewhere that the info from these tests also contributed to the development of the underground facilities built for the Titan II missile launch complexes.
Kind of a neat folding mechanism, so I had to get it.
Because I am a sucker for cool knives, I recently bought a folding "paratrooper knife" for kicks and giggles. However, the particular type of knife I got was EXTREMELY hard to find. Why you ask? Because it seems that it's extremely rare to find a version of the knife that doesn't have a huge freaking swastika emblazoned on the side of the damn thing!
Now, being someone who hates nazis, be they traditional, neo, Illinois, or any other kind, this confuses me. Why the hell would you want a new build ANYTHING with a mother effing swastika on it!?
'Nuff said
Now, don't get me wrong, here. Although it doesn't interest me at all, I would still be understanding of other people who have a penchant for collecting various WW2 historical items, like knives, helmets, uniforms, etc, even if it is nazi in origin. I would also be totally understanding of people who cannot afford to do so and prefer to buy reproductions of historical items, be it for reenactments, collecting, or any other amusement.
What I don't understand is buying something that did not even exist in 30s or 40s and then slapping a big 'ol I "I hate teh Jews" label on it. Hell, from what I understand these knives weren't even invented till the 60s or 70s. I mean, I'm at a loss for words and just I don't get it. I don't think I ever will.
