Quote:
Originally Posted by tsofian
I'm not looking at a near miss. I'd give it the save level of protection Cheyenne Mountain gives NORAD. You can't count on it not getting a direct hit, even if my accident. It is a one of a kind (maybe two of a kind) resource. I wouldn't cheap out on the depth of the facility
I'm also looking at some other issues: 200 feet deep will probably allow fairly easy surface detection and drilling 200 feet is not too hard. It also would not be immune to things like a Grand Slam or Tall Boy bomb. 1000 feet might be overkill but I still think 200 feet is not deep enough. How deep is Cheyenne Mountain?
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It depends on how you measure I would think. There is 2500' of granite above it. But I don't think the blast tunnel, which give access to the complex, goes nearly that far into the mountain side. The Cheyenne Mountain Complex (since NORAD only uses 15% of the complex) probably wouldn't survive a direct hit either. It was built to survive a 30 MT detonation as close as 2km away.
Edit:
I found a drawing for the blast tunnel on globalsecurity.org and the shorter north tunnel is indeed 1200' from the blast doors. So 1000' is not unreasonable. I return you to your regularly scheduled forum.