In a military that operates Raptor stealth fighters, A-10 tank busters, B-52 bombers and Harrier jump jets, the U.S. Navy’s placid-looking E-6 Mercury, based on the 707 airliner, seems particularly inoffensive. But don’t be deceived by appearances.
The E-6 command and control plane could order a launch in response to a nuclear attack.
Key point: The airborne command post helps to ensure deterrence by showcasing how the President could still give orders from the air. Here is how the Cold War-era role is still kept today.
In a military that operates Raptor stealth fighters, A-10 tank busters, B-52 bombers and Harrier jump jets, the U.S. Navy’s placid-looking E-6 Mercury, based on the 707 airliner, seems particularly inoffensive. But don’t be deceived by appearances. Though the Mercury doesn’t carry any weapons of its own, it may be in a sense the deadliest aircraft operated by the Pentagon, as its job is to command the launch of land-based and sea-based nuclear ballistic missiles.
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This presentation provides a window into what it took to be a Cold War Missileer at all levels and in many capacities, from Second Lt. Parker reporting for duty at Ellsworth AFB to his rise to commanding the deployment of 1,000 missiles at six bases. But the second phase of his career, as Director the On-Site Inspection Agency, while depending heavily on his experience as a missile commander, called for additional skills: as a diplomat and as an expert evaluator of technological situations with very important strategic consequences.
General Parker will take us through the highlights both of his leadership of the forces controlling some of our most devastating strategic weapons and what it looks and feels like to be part of an on-site missile inspection team where the stakes were very high, and error was not an option.
These types of contingencies point precisely to the reason why the U.S. nuclear triad exists.
Here s What You Need To Remember: The Air Force is now moving along with efforts to build as many as 400 new, high-tech, more capable ICBMs intended to bring U.S. nuclear weapons capability into a new era.
Imagine if America’s land-based intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) launch silos were destroyed, its nuclear-armed ballistic missile submarines have been found and neutralized, and its nuclear bombers cannot get over enemy airspace. All the while, during this nightmare, the continental United States itself is suffering a catastrophic nuclear weapons attack. This scenario is highly unlikely, but not impossible.