Message posted by Richard on September 22, 2000 at 11:00:16 EST:

Heres my two pence worth.

From 1950's to 1970's most major airforce bases had underground complexes constructed in europe and the united kingdom, for example, there are tunnels over 10 stories high and going for over 2-5 miles underneath the county of wiltshire that were used for Storing and manufacturing weapons including storing nukes.
Most of these tunnels are now defunct and some open to the public i believe. In a few tunnels they have complete production plants with miles of conveyors to convey the weapons to and from bases that were linked.
Another is RAF Welford,still used by the USAFE for storing nuclear and conventional weapons for use at RAF Fairford in time of conflict (used during allied force) and these tunnel conplexes lie derilict until war comes up. for example Welford wasnt used since 1991, then Allied Force popped up.
Alot of these tunnel complexes extended to many bases, not all Air Force however. some extneded to command and control and some were just used as bunkers.

In the United States is another matter.
The only extensive underground complexes i know of are the Minuteman and Peacekeeper silo's and living complexes which are built for the purpose of surviving a direct hit from a nuke, with a large amount of survivability from overpressure caused from the blast.

Then we come to other bases:
The most strategic and important bases will have underground areas, but not these massive undeground complexes people think about. Most just have underground bunkers.

Coming then to Groom Lake, i dont see why the should have such a large complex underneath the ground. It is very extensive above already.
However, it must be brought about that even Groom Lake "may" of had some sort of underground complex built in the 60's maybe to survive a nuclear attack.
This in the way of just a medium sized bunker to get the important scientists and developers into safety and for them to stay there until its all settled.
I dont believe there is an underground production/developing area, its just not worth the funds to do this, when its easier and costs less to have it above ground.

So far the only production/manufacturing plants i know of completely underground by several miles are the ones that use to be working in the UK and of course that of NORAD and another complex in america which lends out its tunnels for commercial use in storing and unit areas.

What im getting at, is that most NATO/US bases had some sort of underground bunker system.
I think Groom Lake was probably included once the Air Force and CIA realised how important that location was, and would be. And like i said before, maybe a medium sized bunker system for the Cold war use and nothing else.
Today its probably defunct or used as storage (IF IT IS THERE)

Richard

In Reply to: Re: 1m Sat Photos posted by Magoo on September 21, 2000 at 19:40:18 EST:

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