Prime Base

[tsofian]

Fallout over the base location

Someone brought up the possibility that the base is in the fallout pattern from a known nuclear target. In a way I think this is actually a very good thing. If the base gets a dusting of fallout it is even less likely to have visitors. The base itself is totally protected from the threat this would pose.

By the end of the five year fallow period a lot of the fallout will have decayed (basically everything with a half life of 6 months or less will have undergone its ten half life cycles and be gone). Weathering will also help, at least to a certain extent.

However I propose that the fallout pattern was not as predicted and the base wasn't hit by any fallout. At first this was viewed as a blessing-Then the refugees started showing up

[ArmySGT.]

Remember that every link is another chance for something to go wrong. Indeed, the more links you have, the easier it is for someone to deliberately render you blind.

I would think that Prime Base would have many, many transmitters. These would be spread about to conceal the location of the Base..... The transmission antennas are expendable. They spent a lot of time and money on the unmanned transmission site in Final Watch. I would expect that Prime Base can use directional antennas or burst transmission to Morrowsat to communicate through a retransmission site. A retransmission site would have Omni and directional antennas built in. You could find it but, any one of several directional antennas could be point back toward Prime Base or another retrains site, or a U.S. facility, or a precoordinated trans site for a Combined Group.

TMP excels in sophisticated over the top and elaborate schemes.... So any of this isn't out of character for the Morrow Project.

Yes and no. We have a tendency to assume a certain superiority in our technology that is not always 100% true. SINCGARS is extremely difficult to detect... if you only have a limited time and instruments to catch it. If I have the right tools and the ability to park near a stationary transmitter, I can find it after a relative handful of transmissions. Remember that you are talking about a set of stationary transmitters - concealing the message is pretty easy, concealing their location is not.

That finds one transmitter. If that transmitter is a retransmitter or one that links to another omnidirectional burst transmitter in a chain what did you gain

[tsofian]

That was pretty much what I was thinking, a network of nodes. Most nodes can be sacrificed. Unless the bad guys are really lucky they can hunt through nodes without destroying the overall intergity of the network or finding Prime base.

During the pre 1989 era the nodes can consist of numerous microwave towers. If they have an extra horn who would know In a more modern project there can be all sorts of cell towers and such.

[cosmicfish]

I'm not going to press this any more since you guys are so enthusiastic about it, I've worked with defense communications for a long time now and everything about this screams "danger danger danger!" to me. Overly complicated and massively counterproductive, as it will make the base MORE obvious while simultaneously introducing unnecessary complexity in a vital network.

[tsofian]

Cosmicfish
Given what you say how does Prime Base, before the ultra kaboom, gather all the electronic signals that it is designed to do It is collecting radio (everything from CB to Ham to commercial and military) television, microwave and satellite downloads.

There have to be some serious receiver arrays that are active during the everyday period before the war starts, as well as collecting as much as possible until everything goes dark. This means the arrays will need to be wide spectrum, they will need to be able to survive at least some level of EMP and they must be able to send a lot of band with into Prime. They have to pick up signals from every direction. It should be redundant. In addition they must not look out of place in 1982 to a vacationing guy from Bell Telephone driving across the west with his wife Blanche and son little Jimmy. Finally if at all possible the data path should not lead someone to Prime Base, before, during or after the war.

Maybe there are numerous arrays that are connected by by buried land lines to the base, but this seems like it would be a really easy path to follow

[tsofian]

These are the kind of arrays Prime Base needs to do the mission as described

[cosmicfish]

Cosmicfish
Given what you say how does Prime Base, before the ultra kaboom, gather all the electronic signals that it is designed to do It is collecting radio (everything from CB to Ham to commercial and military) television, microwave and satellite downloads.

This was always one of the weak points in the PB concept, and it is somewhat related to the problem with connecting sensors to PB through free-space communications channels.

Yes, there is a big problem with having all the antenna arrays that PB would need to do the aforementioned monitoring. They would be all but impossible to conceal and would draw attention to the site - remember that PB has to survive Russian satellite scrutiny, and there is no way to keep massive and functioning dishes and antenna arrays from getting painted as a missile target. The only solution I could see for this would be to disguise them as a commercial satellite comms facility some substantial distance away and run some subterranean cables to the actual facility - a daunting task but they did it for the Chunnel! And then give PB a secondary, dormant facility that can be unpacked once the shooting stops if the primary is taken out.

And at least that would be a non-radiating facility. There is a risk to finding any cables, but even with burst communications, a fixed transmitter is going to be identified before too long. And that is why I would hardline the security/environmental sensors - you can conceal a cable a lot more effectively than you can conceal constantly operating transmitters. You're shouting at the universe, someone is going to hear.

[ArmySGT.]

Why not just have them under camouflage until the War has begun or finished

War plus 30 days blow the panels and raise the dish.

The exposure modules in the module are already hidden by fake doors and rise up to be used.

[cosmicfish]

Why not just have them under camouflage until the War has begun or finished

War plus 30 days blow the panels and raise the dish.

The exposure modules in the module are already hidden by fake doors and rise up to be used.

That would be the "secondary, dormant facility" I was talking about. But if it is dormant it cannot monitor before or during the war, and that is perhaps the most important period anyway.

And by the way, remember that all of these antennas and arrays are going to require some degree of maintenance. If I was curious about an antenna, I might sabotage it and see if anyone comes out to fix it.

[tsofian]

Cover for the base

This has and still does bother me. I liked my hospice idea, but can see the down sides. I don't like the ranch for the reasons that have been talked about since 1987 (Dear Lord almost 30 years ago!)

So let's go back to first principals:

The cover has to last a couple of decades
It has to allow for a large number of people to come in and a much smaller number to go out of the base during normal prewar operations
It cannot attract undue attention before the war either from the public, the government or the Soviets looking for a place to drop excess nuclear materials
It cannot offer much in the way of shelter or resources to survivors of the war

We know the original base was built under cover of a mine. If as SGT suggests the base was staffed and provisioned in one step and then walled off until the war was over no other cover is needed. I am not so certain the base was staffed and sealed, but it does make life a whole lot easier and it requires absolutely no cover story after the mine closes.

If on the other hand there is going to be some in and out, and especially if the base needs to be resupplied during the prewar period then there needs to be a cover story that allows for it. I think the base is at least partly open during this period. The march of technology during the period seems to be to require that the base be open. New technology, especially computers, and communications gear, as well as drugs and medical devices will be developed between when the base is completed and the war starts.

The ghost town idea got used in Desert Search and seems a nogo anyway. It would attract people.

The hospital idea I see the flaws with, but perhaps it can be modified (more later on that)

The ranch, is again, out-although if the ranch was not on top of the ridge that might make it a more viable option

The hazardous materials storage facility (it would be a TSDF or Treatment, Storage and Disposal Facility technically) has some things in its favor but will attract regulators (a hospital would as well) and possibly protesters before the war

I am wondering if a simple salvage yard would maybe fit the bill. The idea would be that the salvage yard would turn over its material very quickly so instead of acres of wrecks just screaming "parts and shelter" there is a very small amount of material that has arrived and not yet been processed and shipped back out. The facility consists of a small yard, a number of really beat up tin buildings which contain the tools used to break down what every is being salvaged, (maybe kitchen appliances, or something else really useless in the post war world-how about a place that recycles phone books) Wait I like the phone book idea. The "books" come in great big trailers. The plant has a couple of giant shredders that reduce the books to mulch which is then shipped out in other big trucks.

There is another shredder that isn't. Its the secret entrance to the base. The trucks with supplies or staffers mate up with the "shredder".

This facility would have maybe a dozen "employees. When the big kaboom happens the twelve guys throw some torches into the facility and close the hatch behind them. All that is left is the burned out remains of a couple of Quonset huts.

"nothing to see here, move along"

[RandyT0001]

Change the location to western Missouri. The construction of the site uses the cover story of a limestone mine about 500 to 1000 feet deep. The mine closes once the excavation is done. The site remains dormant for a few years. The site is bought by a new company that modifies the mine to be used as a underground storage facility and office space. A small portion is leased out while deeper in the mine the base is outfitted with the equipment, personnel and stores. The storage company files bankruptcy and the leases are evicted. The base is sealed. A "front office" is established to "monitor the mine" (and the war) and the items stored (the base that is in cyro sleep).

Missouri is a central location, close to the geographic center of the lower 48 states and the population center of the US as well.

Now the WoK do not have to travel across the Rockies to get to PB. PB is in a state close to their home area (area 7 (4th) - Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, etc.)

[nuke11]

If you need a covert way to get transmissions to and from PB, you could always use the AT&T Long Line Microwave Repeater system that was built across the country in the 50's and 60's. It was shut down in 1984, but most of the sites where sold off, which doesn't mean that MPI couldn't have bought most of them up and continued to use them well into the 2000's

Since the list of industrialists is long and full of very important companies, it would stand to reason that AT&T would be on this list somewhere.

There is a series of towers that runs thru northern Nevada south of PB. It would be easy to camouflage a single thru this system.

A good history and further site links : http://www.coldwarcomms.org/

You can also poke around on this site to get the locations of the current system : http://www.city-data.com/towers/other-Nevada.html

[ArmySGT.]

Since the list of industrialists is long and full of very important companies, it would stand to reason that AT&T would be on this list somewhere.

Does AT&T maintain the Defense Service Network (DSN) The hardened landlines that connect all installations.

[ArmySGT.]

I am ok with the ranch cover story.

Cattle and sheep doesn't call for a lot workers. Those workers have a place in PB as well. They are the hands on teachers of animal husbandry. Likewise, there is still good reason for trucks, even large semi trailers to come and go. Feed mostly, you have to lay in supplies of hay and grains for cattle and working horses. Manure is shipped out in great loads by semi trailer to fertilizer companies. Cattle are sold in the late fall to meat packing plants and that is another reason for semis coming and going.

[tsofian]

If you need a covert way to get transmissions to and from PB, you could always use the AT&T Long Line Microwave Repeater system that was built across the country in the 50's and 60's. It was shut down in 1984, but most of the sites where sold off, which doesn't mean that MPI couldn't have bought most of them up and continued to use them well into the 2000's

Since the list of industrialists is long and full of very important companies, it would stand to reason that AT&T would be on this list somewhere.

There is a series of towers that runs thru northern Nevada south of PB. It would be easy to camouflage a single thru this system.

A good history and further site links : http://www.coldwarcomms.org/

You can also poke around on this site to get the locations of the current system : http://www.city-data.com/towers/other-Nevada.html

That is EXACTLY what I am looking for! That should be perfect. Thank yo so much