Hardened Aircraft Shelter with WS3 nuclear bomb storage

Greece / Ahaia / Lapas /
 Upload a photo
Designed to shelter and protect NATO Greek A7E Corsairs and their US B61 nuclear bomb payloads. The bombs were stored in an armored vault under the aircraft's belly and could be quickly raised and loaded in the event of an alert. This system is called the WS3 (Weapon Storage and Security System) and was a cheap, convenient and secure option for storing US B61 bombs at European NATO airbases, although of doubtful survivability against large conventional bombs when compared to a separate hardened storage igloo. WS3 equipped HAS were built on 13 airbases in 7 NATO countries during the Cold War.
 Add place (company, shop, etc.) to this building
Wikipedia article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hardened_Aircraft_Shelter
Nearby cities:
Coordinates:   38°9'37"N   21°24'50"E

Comments

  • Nope. 1)Hardened A/C shelters have circular tops with reinforced, blast-resistant doors. 2)Alert shelters are closest to the runway threshold for reduced reaction time. 3)Live, assembled nuclear weapons would not be this close to the storage area in unhardened shelters. 4)Trace the route that the A/C would have to taxi in order to get to the runway! It's an obstacle course. Also, the "nukes" were not stored under the plane's belly (see photo at Wikipedia). Please delete your comments, then delete mine. Thanks.
This article was last modified 16 years ago