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Weapons Storage and Security System (WS3) is a system including electronic controls and vaults built into the floors of Protective Aircraft Shelters (PAS) on several NATO military airfields all over the world. These vaults are used for safe special weapons storage, typically of tactical B61 nuclear bombs.
The complex, which opened in 1992, is located on a 54-acre site at Kirtland Air Force Base in Albuquerque, New Mexico, United States, under the control of the Air Force Global Strike Command [1] It is operated by the 898th Munitions Squadron (898 MUNS) and the 377th Weapons Systems Security Squadron (377 WSSS). The facility is state of the art ...
Inside a PAS, showing a Weapons Storage and Security System vault in raised position holding a B61 nuclear bomb. Reduces vulnerability of aircraft to all but the most accurate precision weaponry; Provides protection against chemical weapon attack. Prevents satellite/aerial reconnaissance seeing whether aircraft are present.
Moreover, the introduction of the WS3 Weapon Storage and Security System has made WSAs obsolete. At present, few WSAs are still operational as modern day special weapons are stored in the floors of concrete aircraft shelters and placed under 24/7 electronic surveillance.
Topol-M launch from silo. A missile launch facility, also known as an underground missile silo, launch facility (LF), or nuclear silo, is a vertical cylindrical structure constructed underground, for the storage and launching of intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), intermediate-range ballistic missiles (IRBMs), medium-range ballistic missiles (MRBMs).
Hawthorne Army Depot (HWAD) is a U.S. Army Joint Munitions Command ammunition storage depot located near the town of Hawthorne in western Nevada in the United States. It is directly south of Walker Lake. The depot covers 147,000 acres (59,000 ha) or 226 square miles (590 km 2) and has 600,000 square feet (56,000 m 2) storage space in 2,427 ...
Blast doors in a missile control bunker at Minot Air Force Base, North Dakota. The 25-ton blast door in the Cheyenne Mountain nuclear bunker is the main entrance to another blast door (background) beyond which the side tunnel branches into access tunnels to the main chambers.
After that plans were finalized for building underground hangars capable of surviving close hits by tactical nuclear weapons. This required that these new hangars be much deeper, with 25 to 30 meters of rock cover, and heavy-duty blast doors in concrete. [11] The Saab 37 Viggen aircraft was designed with a folding tail fin to fit into low hangars.