Variable-Angle Launcher (site)

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Former location of the A-frame, cast concrete Variable-Angle Launcher (VAL). The VAL measured 260 feet in length at the base, and was 100 feet high. The launcher and firing range were on the southwest side of the peninsula, and a counterweight ramp and car were located on the northeast side.

With strength and rigidity of the utmost importance, the A-frame launcher was constructed with a minimum of doors and windows. Various rooms were located on six different floors within the structure. Under the launching slab, the 20-foot wide rooms included a secondary control room, an electronics lab, photo lab, generator room, battery charging room, and storage areas. Under the counterweight slab was located a larger photo lab, secured storage vault, and storage room.

The counterweight car, carrying a pig iron ballast, weighed 600 tons and was built to standard gauge railroad specifications, operating on standard railroad wheels, axles, and tracks.

The launcher bridge, an all-welded steel structure measuring 300 feet in length, was at one time the longest all-welded steel spanning structure in the United States. Within the launcher bridge were two tubes, each 300 feet long. The inner diameters of the tubes were 22.5 and 30 inches. The 22.5" tube was the first tube to be constructed and used. Later, the 30" tube was added. There were plans for launching tubes of various diameters, but a wooden sabot encasing the projectile allowed the facility to launch smaller torpedoes out of a larger diameter tube.

The muzzle end of the launching ramp was supported by two floating, connected barges.

An overhead camera tower, like the conning tower of a ship, rose 48 feet above the concrete A-frame and was constructed from surplus Army H-10 box girder sections. The camera box could travel along a cable by an electronic friction wheel to any point along the firing range centerline up to a distance of 1800 feet from the top of the lauuncher structure. Three overhead cables supported the camera box: one fastened to the overhead camera tower on the VAL, the other two anchored to the hillsides east and west of the tower via a five ton handcrank and concrete-encased steel beam deadman.