Cruise missiles at Wethersfield

I can’t think there can be any moratorium on discussion of an obsolete and withdrawn weapons system. Otherwise we’d have to delete all of Historic.

Moggy

Moggs. I was in the ATC Peterborough 115 sqdrn, would I be allowed to say I actualy saw them at RAF Alconbury, or not?.;)
Jim.

Lincoln .7

IIRC Cruise was also based at Molesworth – In which case I’d guess – and itns nothing more – that Alconbury was involved.

Moggy

OPSEC Operational Security, PERSEC Personal Security.I am sorry for using jargon.(it annoys me too when I don’t understand it)

The media are good at poking camaras at Forces that don’t wish to be identified for various reasons. Also if members on here see or have taken a picture of a strange looking bit of kit on an aircraft maybe its better not to mention or post a picture of it.

Good point and also a time to remind contributers to this forum OPSEC and PERSEC should always be considered when posting.

You may have to tell some contributors, such as this contributor, what OPSEC / PERSEC are so that we can consider them when posting!

I can probably guess by-the-way but it is impossible for me to give away any secrets; I don’t know any.

Anyway how can you stop people giving away secrets? Let’s say I did know that cruise-missiles were being flown into somewhere other than Greenham Common; I could say something like:

Do you really think a few delusional women protesters would prevent the US bringing cruise missiles to the UK? If I’d have been the US I’d have started bringing the support equipment long before I made any announcement about the deployment of cruise-missiles. Greenham Common would be a complete smoke screen; the launch-vehicles and missiles flown into RAF Fairford in broken-down kit form and then flown by C-130 Hercules to RAF Welford, the USAF weapons storage facility a few miles from Greenham Common (and the one with the ‘secret’ exit onto the M4 – you’ll know the ‘Works Unit Only’ decoy signs!). This would be the real cruise-missile operational base. There are no proper runways at RAF Welford but the lightly-laden C-130 Hercules aircraft could get in on rough-grass strip (low flying C-130 Hercules flights from nearby RAF Lyneham distracting an unwanted attention; all at night of course). Anyway, treaties between the US / USSR were agreed and all the missiles are gone now.

I know Alan but I am not talking about 30 years ago I am just adding a reminder about current ops and this seemed as good a place as any to do it.

Good point and also a time to remind contributers to this forum OPSEC and PERSEC should always be considered when posting.

I would hardly think that something which happened 30yrs ago, is sensitive
information. Especially when in certain circles, it’s apparently an open secret.
There’s far more “sensitive” material available elsewhere on this forum, and
indeed on the Internet in general.

I mean, we’re not talking Wikipedia here, or going behind the scenes at Menwith Hill.

Back then, I WAS a local!

Adrian

So you would have been there during the U2 deployment ?

If anyone here were in a position to confirm or deny this, do you really think they’d do so on an open internet forum?

Good point and also a time to remind contributers to this forum OPSEC and PERSEC should always be considered when posting.

I misread it and thought it said Weatherfield, I must have had one more pint of Newton and Ridley’s than usual.

Back then, I WAS a local!

Adrian

Come on, the only thing flying into Wethersfield then was sparrows!

Adrian

Yes of course, I think some of the locals would have disagreed. 🙂

greenham is now derelict it appears on many urban exploring and dereliction sites

i myself am pretty convinced that greenham was a decoy and they were probably everywhere else but there !!

costs relatively nothing to send genuine looking decoy nuke vehicles for the public to shout at

whilst the real ones are carried in plain vehicles like bedford 3 tonners or fodens !!

I can believe that they’d be flown into somewhere other than Greenham Common (hey, with Welford just down the road, you’re talking first place for Brezhnev to nuke!). But Wethersfield?

Come on, the only thing flying into Wethersfield then was sparrows!

Adrian

Discussing the movements or Arms or troops should be stayed well clear of.
Even during a War or a skirmish, with a million reporters giving live commentary…they cannot give numbers seen or show all the kit. “I cannot say how many Harriers were involved, but I counted them all out and I counted them all back”.

But use your mind, do you think the real World would stop for a group of protesters? If/how/where and when such kit was moved is of no matter, what matters is the Defence of the civilised world carried on.

If anyone here were in a position to confirm or deny this, do you really think they’d do so on an open internet forum?

I don’t see why not, it’s something which happened about 30 years ago.
At the time it would no doubt have been something known by many people,
and a story which was told to a group of us when someone gave a talk at a
club I belonged to.

If anyone here were in a position to confirm or deny this, do you really think they’d do so on an open internet forum?