There are several "worst case" scenarios, feared by high ranked US military personel and politicians connected to Nuclear Weapons. For example a "Nuclear Pearl Harbor", a surprise attack against the continental United States with Nuclear Weapons, a constant fear during the Cold War era. Or to just lose Nuclear Weapons during training exercises or similar events, something which happened far too often during the last decades. And there was a fear (And still is) which sounds like the plot from one of these great Action movies from the 1990s. That terrorists could capture a ICBM missile silo complex within the United States and/or would take the crew as hostages. Just one captured silo in such a scenario would be enough, that the United States would be confrontated with the largest existential crisis in it`s history.
Well even if it sounds like a bad action movie plot, it was serious enough to concern high ranked military planners in the US. Such concerns led to several countermeasures, including the creation of special units, assigned to ICBM missile units which not only protected such sites, but would had been also responsible for their recapture in a case of an attack against such missile sites. Such units came from special trained Air Force Security Police personel, also visible on the photos. Such units were equipped like regular Army units and operated rifles, LMG`s and if needed also anti tank weapons, mortars or sniper rifles. Supported by airmobile Air Force assets, such security forces would had been rapidly deployed to a threatened missile site in a worst case scenario like a terrorist attack.
Todays photos were made during exercises which trained exactly such a scenario. They show Air Force Security personel, supported by UH-1N`s of the 40th and 37th Rescue Flight near Missile Alert Facilities which belonged to the Malstrom Air Force Base, Montana and the Francis E. Warren Air Force Base, Wyoming in 1996 and 1997. Such Missile Alert Facilities contained the operational command center of the site, with the missile itself and the silo located nearby but separated. Such sites were not only perfectly disguised as farm houses or rural areas, they were also protected by electrical fences, motion sensors and surveillance cameras.
The units which participated among both exercises were the 341st Missile Wing, Malstrom AFB, at that time equipped with LGM-30G "Minuteman III" ICBMs and the 320th and 400th Missile Squadrons, both also equipped with the LGM-30G. During the late 1990s most of the "Minuteman III" ICBMs were equipped with a MIRV (multiple independently-targetable re-entry vehicle system) vehicle which included three separate W78 warheads, each with a detonation power of up to 350 kilotons.
Luckily the specially trained Air Force Missile Security units were never called for a real use.
