Super Combat Center | |
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The CFB North Bay underground bunker had been planned for a Super Combat Center but was equipped with a vacuum tube AN/FSQ-7 Combat Direction Central after the Q-7 successor, the solid-state AN/FSQ-32, was cancelled. | |
Type | military installation |
Site history | |
Built | 5 SCCs complete by May 1964 [1] 5 SCC/DCs complete by May 1964 [1] 3 above ground sectors with AN/FSQ-32 centrals |
A Super Combat Center (SCC) was a planned Cold War command and control facility for ten NORAD regions/Air Divisions in Canada and the United States. For installation in nuclear bunkers, the command posts were to replace the last of the planned Air Defense Command Combat Centers to be built for vacuum tube AN/FSQ-8 Combat Control Centrals.
The survivable SCCs were to use solid-state (transistorized) AN/FSQ-32 equipment which was to provide the Semi-Automatic Ground Environment for operators at 10 Air Divisions — 5 of the centers were to also serve as Air Defense Direction Centers ("SCC/DCs") for commanding ground-controlled interception in sectors of the 27th, 30th, 32nd, 33rd, and 35th Air Divisions. ADC's November 1958 plan to complete the hardened SCCs by April 1964 included fielding 3 additional AN/FSQ-32 systems above-ground for the Albuquerque, Miami, and Shreveport sectors. [1] (Plans for vacuum tube AN/FSQ-7 Combat Direction Centrals to be installed in hardened "cube" buildings were continued for 21 SAGE Air Defense Direction Centers for most of the 27 NORAD Sectors.) [2]
SCCs were to be able to withstand 200 psi (1,400 kPa) overpressure [2] as from a nuclear explosion. Some caverns were to be excavated in mountains: Kennesaw Mountain GA and Whitehorse Mountain NY [3] for the Raleigh and Syracuse sectors, respectively. In 1956, ARDC had sponsored "development of a transistorized…computer" by IBM and in June 1958, the "SAGE Solid State Computer…was estimated to have a computing capability of seven times" the AN/FSQ-7. [1] ADC's November 1958 plan to field—by April 1964—the 13 solid state AN/FSQ-7A [1] (designated AN/FSQ-32 after December 1958) was for divisions at Ottawa, St Louis, San Antonio, Raleigh, Syracuse, Chicago, Spokane, Minot, Portland, Phoenix, and 3 above-ground sites for Miami, Albuquerque, and Shreveport divisions. [1] By December 1959 an SCC was also planned for the 26th Air Division (Denver Air Defense Sector). [2]
DoD's June 19, 1959, Continental Air Defense Program reduced the number of SCCs to 7 and on December 9, 1959, the USAF eliminated both the SCC for the Denver sector and the Albuquerque sector's above-ground AN/FSQ-32. [2] On December 21, 1959, the Office of Defense Research and Engineering informed NORAD a stop order had been placed on AN/FSQ-32 production and in January 1960, the Office of the Secretary of Defense recommended the SCC program be canceled [2] (cancellation was March 18, 1960.) [2]
The canceled SAGE SCC/DC planned for the 35th NORAD Region/Ottawa Air Defense Sector was replaced with the only vacuum tube AN/FSQ-7 deployed underground. Construction of CFB North Bay for the Ottawa sector had started in 1959[ specify ] for a bunker ~700 feet (210 m) underground, and the facility was used for DC-31 (operational October 1, 1963) [4] (3 AN/FSQ-8 Combat Centers were operational in 1963.) To replace the GCI contingency capability that SCCs would have provided when an AN/FSQ-7 Direction Center and its neighboring DCs had been incapacitated, Air Defense Command deployed pre-SAGE General Electric AN/GPA-37 Course Directing Groups at NORAD Control Centers and other dispersed sites for Back-Up Interceptor Control.
The Semi-Automatic Ground Environment (SAGE) was a system of large computers and associated networking equipment that coordinated data from many radar sites and processed it to produce a single unified image of the airspace over a wide area. SAGE directed and controlled the NORAD response to a possible Soviet air attack, operating in this role from the late 1950s into the 1980s. Its enormous computers and huge displays remain a part of cold war lore, and after decommissioning were common props in movies such as Dr. Strangelove and Colossus, and on science fiction TV series such as The Time Tunnel.
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Continental Air Defense Integration North (CADIN) was a Cold War program to develop military installations in Canada for the air defense of North America using the Semi Automatic Ground Environment already being deployed in the CONUS. CADIN was a revision of the 1955 Operation Pillow for a "Fourth Phase Radar Program" to "extend the combat zone northward" with additional radars in Canada After the 25 July 1958 NORAD plan included a single SAGE sector in Canada, Canada's Minister of National Defense proposed increased Canadian manning on the DEW Line, a right granted by the May 1955 US-Canada agreement. In December 1958 NORAD also approved 52 Canada radars with Frequency Diversity for FY61-63, and the initial 5 January 1959 CADIN cost sharing agreement was for 2 CIM-10 Bomarc squadrons, 7 heavy radars, 45 gap fillers, an Air Defense Direction Center, and SAGE upgrades for 25 existing radars. The USAF and RCAF approved on 13 July 1959 the construction of the Ottawa Super Combat Center to be "fully operational on 1 July 1963" to control BOMARC missile sites to be completed in 1962 at LaMacaza and North Bay. The cost sharing was for $305 million (USAF) and $135 million (RCAF) that included "tying into...32 ground-to-air radio sites."
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Continental Air Defense Command (CONAD) was a Unified Combatant Command of the United States Department of Defense, tasked with air defense for the Continental United States. It comprised Army, Air Force, and Navy components. It included Army Project Nike missiles anti-aircraft defenses and USAF interceptors. The primary purpose of continental air defense during the CONAD period was to provide sufficient attack warning of a Soviet bomber air raid to ensure Strategic Air Command could launch a counterattack without being destroyed. CONAD controlled nuclear air defense weapons such as the 10 kiloton W-40 nuclear warhead on the CIM-10B BOMARC. The command was disestablished in 1975, and Aerospace Defense Command became the major U.S. component of North American Air Defense Command (NORAD).
In September 1956, CONAD proposed to the JCS the collocation of the Missile Master and the Air Force's AN/GPA-37 in ten areas. The Office of the Secretary of Defense concurred on 30 October 1956.
On 18 March 1960, the JCS advised NORAD that they had approved cancellation of the SCC program for the U.S.
A number of Super-SAGE Combat Centers (AN/FSQ-32) were planned, but none was built. Most were to have built underground… White Horse Mountain near West Point, NY… One prototype Q-32 was installed at the IBM programming center in Santa Monica, CA.(T. E. Page cites: Shield of Faith by Bruce Briggs (Simon and Schuster, 1988.)
The North Bay SAGE centre is the only one on the continent to be fully "hardened", or constructed underground.