RAF Molesworth

With all due respect, exercises are fine, but did they allow for having to blast local, innocent people out of the way, I’m not knocking this in times of a national emergency, rest assured I’m not a ‘chain yourself to the fence type’, presumably it would be the case in such a scenario. Is this all classified, top secret stuff that we won’t know about for 50 years, if at all.
I can’t believe that any exercise would completely allow for the unexpected, or would they.
Imagine trying to get a convoy past Fred Dibnah, out for a jaunt in his rather large and heavy steam roller, ‘Mmm’, removing cap and scratching head, ‘I don’t reckon much to them thur transporters’, producing piece of paper and redesigning the things in front of horrified troops, ‘Ave you got any watter ortherwise t’ b####r will blow a fusible plug and you’ll do nowt to try and save t’ world, for what it’s worth. How much do you Yanks know about reciprocating, compound beam engines, mmmmm, I thought as much, now let me do a deemonsturation’.
Don’t you just miss the bloke, bless him.

There was the old rumour that some Eastern European truckers in the UK at the time were intelligence gathering.

Not an unreasonable assumption. Travelling the German autobahns in convoys, we would often spot Eastern European wagons with ‘co-drivers’ who looked rather out-of-place, their driver looking distinctly uncomfortable, as their mate jotted down details of our wagons. They’d appear in large numbers during the autumn exercise period.

There was huge exercises in the UK during the 80s in regards to countering Spetsnaz forces. The threat was taken very seriously indeed. You can just imagine the amount of effort the Russians/Warsaw Pact put into finding out every piece of detail. MI5 must have been seriously busy tracking and monitoring individuals who showed interest in attempting to follow/monitor the exercises.

Brave Defender in 1985 was the last national one I can remember (and took part in), it was the most boring one I ever took part in as well, the camp i was at got attacked on the ground once in the four days the exercise lasted, by what could best be described as a ‘Drive by shooting’ along back road that ran alongside the airfield by a landrover with a rear mounted GPMG firing blanks .

Some interesting info here.

Presumably when Molesworth, and Greenham, were selected as the sites for mobile cruise launchers, some strategic plan of local launch areas was written up, that the vehicles had to get to prior to an attack. No doubt this would be a relatively concealed and sheltered woodland area well away from the base.
At the time of the plans assumed conception, the A14 was not completed, and the roads around Molesworth are’nt exactly major trunk routes.
I recall at the time seeing cartoon or early CGI, scenarios of these launchers being driven independantly to secret sites and firing off their missiles, all done so easily.
How would they have coped with the traffic on these roads, imagine coming across Farmer Palmer and his combine, would he care about WW3, I doubt it, ‘I need to get back to the farm and fix the bailer, ****** the USAF’.
They must surely have had all sorts of equipment to force the traffic off the roads in order to prepare for Armaggedon, it would probably have been a bloodbath before the Soviet strike arrived, and I’m only thinking of the application to the locals, I’m sure that the peace activists would have gone to all sorts of lengths to prevent these vehicles from leaving the base.
Not a very practical idea, I always imagined a huge traffic jam of cruise launchers trying to get out the base, then, wallop, all gone, goodbye world.

UK Forces were also part of the guard force for use at the base and dispesal points. It was the hosts nations duty throught Europe for force protection and getting them through to their dispersal points. Bases in the UK wouldn’t just stop controlling up to the limit of their fences in wartime or periods of tension. Plans were in force for bases to extend their control over areas beyond their immediate fence line.

There was huge exercises in the UK during the 80s in regards to countering Spetsnaz forces. The threat was taken very seriously indeed. You can just imagine the amount of effort the Russians/Warsaw Pact put into finding out every piece of detail. MI5 must have been seriously busy tracking and monitoring individuals who showed interest in attempting to follow/monitor the exercises.

There was the old rumour that some Eastern European truckers in the UK at the time were intelligence gathering. During the 80s fishing and coastal ports were extremely well watched. Even members of the now disbanded Royal Observer Corps, who lived at coastal locations, were tasked with monitoring foreign fishing fleets and merchant vessels.

Recently there has been a Cold War TV programme with an interview from a former KGB or GRU commander. He detailed the interest and boasted about how well watched and monitored the GLCM activities were.

Some interesting info here.

Presumably when Molesworth, and Greenham, were selected as the sites for mobile cruise launchers, some strategic plan of local launch areas was written up, that the vehicles had to get to prior to an attack. No doubt this would be a relatively concealed and sheltered woodland area well away from the base.
At the time of the plans assumed conception, the A14 was not completed, and the roads around Molesworth are’nt exactly major trunk routes.
I recall at the time seeing cartoon or early CGI, scenarios of these launchers being driven independantly to secret sites and firing off their missiles, all done so easily.
How would they have coped with the traffic on these roads, imagine coming across Farmer Palmer and his combine, would he care about WW3, I doubt it, ‘I need to get back to the farm and fix the bailer, ****** the USAF’.
They must surely have had all sorts of equipment to force the traffic off the roads in order to prepare for Armaggedon, it would probably have been a bloodbath before the Soviet strike arrived, and I’m only thinking of the application to the locals, I’m sure that the peace activists would have gone to all sorts of lengths to prevent these vehicles from leaving the base.
Not a very practical idea, I always imagined a huge traffic jam of cruise launchers trying to get out the base, then, wallop, all gone, goodbye world.

Whatever the Joint Analysis Centre does, I would quietly suggest, is possibly NOT done in those two, carefully tended – and used – bunkers in the SW corner of the site. Are those vertical pylons security lighting or aerial arrays.
HTH
Resmoroh

Those bunkers are the old GLCM (Ground Launched Cruise Missile) storage areas. The Russians under the INF treaty last inspected those bunkers back in 1999. After the Cruise Missiles were removed the infrastructure was perfect as a storage area.

RAF Molesworth is also home to the NATO Intelligence Fusion Centre as of 2006.

http://www.nato.int/shape/news/2006/10/061016a.htm

http://www.nato.int/shape/news/2006/10/061011a.htm

TJ

Those buildings would be a good basis for a memorial museum or such..

303rd Congressional Medal info : http://www.303rdbg.com/missionreports/024.pdf

Incidentally, looking at the memorial, what were the Congressional Medals awarded for?

Whatever the Joint Analysis Centre does, I would quietly suggest, is possibly NOT done in those two, carefully tended – and used – bunkers in the SW corner of the site. Are those vertical pylons security lighting or aerial arrays.
HTH
Resmoroh

It is home to the Joint analysis centre now.

That was a coincidence, interesting pics and a most impressive memorial, I’ll definately have a look at that the next time I go up that way.
Does any one know exactly why the USAF still has a presence there.

Another odd place is that small area off the B1090 at Sawtry, it was obviously used as a possible fuel store? in connection with Alconbury, now seemingly abandoned, it always struck me as being rather remote from the airfield to be of any use, or was it a weapon store and it’s remoteness was a protection against attack, with vehicles being able to quickly access the airfield via the A1, if there was any of it left of course.

I was at Molesworth with the Hunts Aviation Group on Friday.

We photographed the memorial, five guys with cameras near the main gate caused a bit of a flap, but they were very good about it, and rather than asking us to leave, they gave us a phone number to arrange a proper visit (dunno what the chances of that actually coming off are…….)

Theres also quite a bit of the old Site 7 left, which we explored, though the farmer says he’s getting fed up with thieving tresspassers and is going to pull a lot of it down.

Yes, still very active (non-flying) under USAF control.

Moggy