- Post-Attack Command and Control System
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The Post Attack Command and Control System (PACCS) was a network of communication sites (both ground and airborne) for use before, during and after a nuclear attack on the United States. PACCS was designed to ensure that National Command Authority would retain sole, exclusive, and complete control over US nuclear weapons. Among other components, it included Strategic Air Command assets such as the LOOKING GLASS aircraft and mission, and various hardened command and control facilities.[1]
The belief by the Soviet Union in the reliability of PACCS was a crucial component of the US mutual assured destruction doctrine, ensuring a long term stalemate.
Peacetime Orbits of PACCS aircraft (c. 1972)
Contents
History
The Strategic Air Command headquarters staff, under the direction of General Thomas S. Power conducted the feasibility of placing a continuous command and control element in an airborne mode. The purpose of such a system would be to use the aircraft as a platform for specially installed communications equipment to insure delivery of command directives to SAC strike forces in the event ground-based headquarters were destroyed.
The original plan envisioned an aircraft, crew, and command and control team on 15-minute ground alert; this was later changed to a continuous airborne alert posture. The functions of this PACCS Airborne Command Post kept expanding until it became a true alternate command and control system, complete with force status monitoring, initiation or relay of launch/execution directives, a battle staff, communications to support and alternate CINCSAC, and limited capabilities to reconstitute and replan residual resources.
PACCS, in later variants, included an Airborne Launch Control System (ALCS) capability, which provided an alternate means of execution messages to get to missile combat crews and a back-up launch control center, forcing the Soviet Union to target each missile silo, rather than just the launch control centers to incapacitate the Minuteman force.[2]
Components
Airborne
- E-4B National Emergency Airborne Command Post (NEACP)
- 1st Airborne Command and Control Squadron - Offutt AFB, Nebraska
- EC-135 Airborne Command Post (ABNCP) "Looking Glass"
- 2d Airborne Command and Control Squadron - Offutt AFB, Nebraska
- 4th Airborne Command and Control Squadron - Ellsworth AFB, South Dakota
- 22d Air Refueling Squadron - March AFB, California; West Auxiliary Command Post (West AUXCP) [3]
- 99th Air Refueling Squadron - Westover AFB, Massachusetts; East Auxiliary Command Post (East AUXCP) [4]
- 913th Air Refueling Squadron - Barksdale AFB, Louisiana; Central Auxiliary Command Post (Central AUX)
- EB-47L
- 4362d Post Attack Command and Control Squadron - Lincoln AFB, Nebraska[5]
- 4363d Post Attack Command and Control Squadron - Lockborne AFB, Ohio[5]
- 4364th Post Attack Command and Control Squadron - Mountain Home AFB, Idaho[5]
- 4365th Post Attack Command and Control Squadron - Plattsburgh AFB, New York[5]
Ground
- Barksdale AFB, Louisiana (8th Air Force Command Post)
- Westover AFB, Massachusetts (8th Air Force Combat Operations Center, aka "The Notch")[6]
- March AFB, California (15th Air Force Command Post)
- Grissom AFB, Indiana
- Offutt AFB, Nebraska (SAC Headquarters)
See also
- Survivable Low Frequency Communications System (SLFCS)
- Ground Wave Emergency Network (GWEN)
- Minimum Essential Emergency Communications Network (MEECN)
- Emergency Rocket Communications System (ERCS)
- The Cold War
- Game theory
- Continuity of government
References
- ^ Ogletree, Greg. "A History of the Post Attack Command and Control System"
- ^ Strategic Air Command: "Weapon Systems Acquisition 1964-1979", 28 Apr 1980
- ^ 2d Airborne Command and Control Squadron history
- ^ Strategic Air Command Regulation 100-24 Vol III: SAC Communications System Operations/EWO Support Requirements, 6 Jul 1979
- ^ a b c d Lloyd, Alwyn T. (January 15, 2000). A Cold War Legacy: A Tribute to Strategic Air Command 1946-1992. Missoula, Montana: Pictorial Histories Publishing. ISBN 1-57510-052-5. OCLC 44672618.
- ^ Westover Yesterday: "The Notch and Grayson: Eighth Air Force's alternative command posts", no date
External links
Categories:- Military equipment of the Cold War
- Nuclear command and control
- E-4B National Emergency Airborne Command Post (NEACP)
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