Word: sheltering
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...nightfall they were growing urgent: "Severe gale, Force 9, increasing strong Force 10, imminent." Most of the 306 yachts in Britain's 605-mile Fastnet race were already in the South Irish Sea, near the bleak rock for which the biennial blue-water classic is named. Running for shelter seemed unnecessary, perhaps impossible. Said Tom McLoughlin, a Californian aboard the French yacht Accanito: "We deluded ourselves into thinking that the weather was going to improve...
...critical moment would come when the TEL moved to the end of a ramp and stopped at a shelter entrance. There it could: 1) deposit an MX in the shelter; or 2) remove one; or 3) do neither, but deceptively remain at the entrance for the time it would take to load or unload a missile. To prevent Soviet spy satellites from detecting what was going on, the TEL's actions would be completely shrouded by the "shield vehicle," another truck that straddles the TEL much as a turtle is covered by its shell...
...additional safeguard, every shelter will contain 96 tons of weights (about equal to the MX), which the TEL would pick up when it drops off a real missile. This would prevent Soviet sensors from discerning the change in the TEL's rumble that would be caused if it no longer carried a load. If the TEL suddenly seemed lighter, for instance, Moscow could conclude that it had deposited an MX at its last stop. The TEL would also carry equipment constantly emitting the same amount of gamma rays and heat as would be given...
...Each shelter would have a device that could push a missile through its ceiling and raise it to a 50° firing angle. Spaced at about 6,000-ft. intervals, the shelters would be far enough apart so that a Soviet warhead that destroyed one of them probably would be too far away to seriously damage another. To be certain of knocking out 200 MX missiles, therefore, the Kremlin would have to fire warheads at all 4,600 shelters, which would so strain the capability of its arsenal that it would have few warheads left for anything else...
...race-track approach offers several advantages over competing MX basing proposals. For one thing, it would be relatively simple for the Soviets to verify U.S. compliance with the SALT accords because the shelter roofs could all be pulled back simultaneously to allow Soviet satellites to count the MXs. For another, not much land would be needed, and all of it already belongs to the Bureau of Land Management. Only the 2.5 acres surrounding each shelter would be cordoned...