Re: Concealing Prime Base

[Bill Garmer <bgarmer@tsc.net>]

At 08:47 AM 8/14/97, you wrote:
>At 02:55 PM 08/11/1997 -0700, you wrote:
>>As far as detecting PB operating (in open), if they waited the five years
>>then the chances of having operational spy sats goes down considerably
(nil).
>>
>>Bill
>
>	Some of the better recon birds are in geostationary orbit. Some of the
>more sophiisticated types are active radar search satellites and
>"evesdropping" satellites. Both of these would find Prime Base. the
>eavesdropper would spot all the commo traffic, and the radar sat would find
>all the vehicles coming and going.

Not the ones taking pictures and not fUSSR ones.  Why - the fUSSR had a
very difficult time communicating with satellites on the opposite side of
the globe.  We get away with it because of our far flung bases.  That was
one of the reasons for trying to get another ally in the western hemisphere.

Now - if you have a later war date you can pull a few things.  I think that
the USSR tracking and data relay satellites were completed somewhere
between '92-94 and that would give them a limited worldwide capability with
GSO on the far side.  Another problem is that GSO slots belong to the
nations overwhich they fly (with rules on population, etc) - a USSR GSO spy
sat would have to take up someone's slot without them being pissed off and
demanding it being removed.

A final problem is that satellite have a hell of a time hearing HF comms.
HF comms is effective because it bounces off the atmosphere back to the
ground.  As long as TMP used HF (ie PRC-70) then those spy sats wouldn't
here much.  Now stations in the USSR may get some of the traffic randomly
depending on the atmospherics at the time so that may be a way to go -
targetting is a bitch without good "channel probing."

>
>	Of course, there are various technical considerations to all this. Also,
>if the Soviets are still trying to run interference on the US recovery
>effort, they will be searching for just such facilities as Prime. They may
>never know it is an independent item. Also, the US might be looking for
>"traitors" and "subversives" with its own gear. Thus, prime needs to be
>doubly careful.

The US government searching is a different story.  Of course the project
knew that this could be a problem and would have, in place, some procedure
to deal with it.  What that could be is up for debate.

>	I prefer a widely decentralized approach. This allows more of the project
>to survive counter-efforts by various governments.
>

The book TM1-1 indicated that there was a decentralized structure - a Prime
Base and an alternative.  Other manned facilities for command (that some
have limited to six due to the number of command cards in the security
rating info).

The question is what happened.  I believe Krell sabotaged the wakeup
sub-routines in the bolt holes and alternative command centers.  That is
how I answered it - I have a friend who uses a timeline based on TW2K where
most of the project was dug up during the war and used to fight the Mexican
Invasion and re-establish the MIL-GOV before the final nuking.

Bill


>
>				Walter M. Rauch
>
>			     Student of Many Things
>
>				walt@digital.net
>
>
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