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.
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