this post was submitted on 21 Oct 2023
71 points (96.1% liked)

No Stupid Questions

35882 readers
3676 users here now

No such thing. Ask away!

!nostupidquestions is a community dedicated to being helpful and answering each others' questions on various topics.

The rules for posting and commenting, besides the rules defined here for lemmy.world, are as follows:

Rules (interactive)


Rule 1- All posts must be legitimate questions. All post titles must include a question.

All posts must be legitimate questions, and all post titles must include a question. Questions that are joke or trolling questions, memes, song lyrics as title, etc. are not allowed here. See Rule 6 for all exceptions.



Rule 2- Your question subject cannot be illegal or NSFW material.

Your question subject cannot be illegal or NSFW material. You will be warned first, banned second.



Rule 3- Do not seek mental, medical and professional help here.

Do not seek mental, medical and professional help here. Breaking this rule will not get you or your post removed, but it will put you at risk, and possibly in danger.



Rule 4- No self promotion or upvote-farming of any kind.

That's it.



Rule 5- No baiting or sealioning or promoting an agenda.

Questions which, instead of being of an innocuous nature, are specifically intended (based on reports and in the opinion of our crack moderation team) to bait users into ideological wars on charged political topics will be removed and the authors warned - or banned - depending on severity.



Rule 6- Regarding META posts and joke questions.

Provided it is about the community itself, you may post non-question posts using the [META] tag on your post title.

On fridays, you are allowed to post meme and troll questions, on the condition that it's in text format only, and conforms with our other rules. These posts MUST include the [NSQ Friday] tag in their title.

If you post a serious question on friday and are looking only for legitimate answers, then please include the [Serious] tag on your post. Irrelevant replies will then be removed by moderators.



Rule 7- You can't intentionally annoy, mock, or harass other members.

If you intentionally annoy, mock, harass, or discriminate against any individual member, you will be removed.

Likewise, if you are a member, sympathiser or a resemblant of a movement that is known to largely hate, mock, discriminate against, and/or want to take lives of a group of people, and you were provably vocal about your hate, then you will be banned on sight.



Rule 8- All comments should try to stay relevant to their parent content.



Rule 9- Reposts from other platforms are not allowed.

Let everyone have their own content.



Rule 10- Majority of bots aren't allowed to participate here.



Credits

Our breathtaking icon was bestowed upon us by @Cevilia!

The greatest banner of all time: by @TheOneWithTheHair!

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
 

In the beginning of Wargames, they have a drill for a missile launch which includes opening the exterior doors required for 10 missiles.

Would people living in the local area have been able to hear this and understand what the noise was?

I'm guessing the missile bases were isolated but how much so?

top 16 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] Nouveau_Burnswick 51 points 1 year ago (1 children)

In short, very isolated. At least 8km for the nearest town, which are normally tiny.

Here's a subset of launch sites as an example : https://www.newyorkprepper.com/post/u-s-nuclear-missile-silo-fields-maps-and-coordinates

The is purposely done, both for security of the sites themselves, and security of people who would happen to live near sites.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Good thing the preppers posted those locations.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

All major players know exactly where each other’s silos are. The real question is, do all of them have missiles in them?

A missile costs the same as a missile, but a hole in the ground is vastly cheaper. If you can entice an adversary to use a missile to bomb your hole in the ground, you can cheaply soak up counter force strikes.

Nuclear war logic fucking sucks.

[–] [email protected] 32 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I seriously doubt they would be able to hear it as they were/are in the middle of nowhere.

See for yourself:

decommissioned missile silo for sale

[–] [email protected] 14 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Do they have any around Bozeman, Montana that comes with the missile? I don't need the warhead, I got other plans...

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 year ago

You ain't getting to escape velocity with a Minuteman unless it's just you and a lawn chair maybe.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 year ago

You wouldn't happen to be Zephram Cochrane would you?

[–] [email protected] 16 points 1 year ago

Not around the ranch lands where they are located. But, you do know when the SAC bases scramble. 20 or more B52s lifting off is hard to miss.

[–] fubo 11 points 1 year ago (1 children)

My impression is that US missile silos are located mostly in sparsely populated areas of the Great Plains and Rocky Mountains, where there are not a lot of locals to overhear the garage door opening.

[–] Fuckfuckmyfuckingass 5 points 1 year ago (3 children)

The caps to missile silos are several feet thick and made from concrete and steel. From what I remember, when the door opens it's pushed to the side by rockets. So it's a little more dramatic than a garage door.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Pfft maybe more dramatic than your garage door.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

Probably at least 3/4 horsepower then.

[–] Zippy 1 points 1 year ago

They can open the doors slowly via some hydraulic method. I do not suspect during tests they use the rocket opening option which can open the door in two seconds.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago

Fun fact unrelated to your question. Salem ariport still isn't as big as it was depicted as being in this film 40 years ago.

[–] Substance_P 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Was there a large audible sound in the scene? I've seen the movie more than a few times as a kid but don't recall loud mechanical sounds of the missile doors. If it was a drill, no doubt they would had routinely opened the doors on the regular in the past, and at the bare minimum, they should have done due maintenance to ensure silky smooth and squeek free opening of said doors.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

a large audible sound

As opposed to an inaudible sound, or a visual sound?