Let me guess that they will acquire some conventional rounds and externally modify them to look like, say, training rounds? Then if the theft is discovered its "just" an accounting error? Should nicely help to hide the theft as well because no one will be examining the rounds in storage that often or in such detail as to open one up?
So simply swap the nukes for conventional rounds with no modifications done. At face value it still remains an accounting error, with the added bonus that every ammo storage facility, whether or not they are listed as storing 203mm rounds, will need to be thoroughly searched in an effort to find the missing nukes. That search will take a long time and will, naturally, be fruitless. Then the West have a problem to solve - what really happened? Which, given the passage of time, is likely to be a question never answered, as indicated by the whole theme of this wonderful thread. Oh there will doubtless be several theories and perhaps they might even come close to the truth but will they really want to make any of this loss public? It's going to be a very closely kept secret, which over the years will fade from the collective memory as the personnel move on. All of which adds a level of security to the German stockpile.Nuclear weapons have to be extensively maintained and checked to make sure that they work, so eventually such a swap out would be discovered. That's not to say that swapping them out wouldn't buy you a good deal of time to squirrel them out of West Germany.
So simply swap the nukes for conventional rounds with no modifications done. At face value it still remains an accounting error, with the added bonus that every ammo storage facility, whether or not they are listed as storing 203mm rounds, will need to be thoroughly searched in an effort to find the missing nukes. That search will take a long time and will, naturally, be fruitless. Then the West have a problem to solve - what really happened? Which, given the passage of time, is likely to be a question never answered, as indicated by the whole theme of this wonderful thread. Oh there will doubtless be several theories and perhaps they might even come close to the truth but will they really want to make any of this loss public? It's going to be a very closely kept secret, which over the years will fade from the collective memory as the personnel move on. All of which adds a level of security to the German stockpile.
I'd imagine some enlisted technician first finds the discrepancy, boots it up to his sergeant, who quickly boots it up the chain of command until it gets to a general who clamps down on the distribution of the knowledge of it all happening. Except while this is happening, possibly every enlisted and non-commissioned in the original unit hears about it, so there's a fair number of folks in need of silencing. Then there will be the (2 or 3?) relatively senior officers overseeing the stocktake who are in the loop. Probably somewhere around 30-40 people or so in total, assuming the original unit is a specialist one numbering less than a platoon in size? Even if the knowledge can be kept to only those within that unit who were at the storage site on the day of the discovery, it's still likely to be 20 or so.Now I'd love a snippet of the officers in the American armed forces reacting to the missing nukes
So simply swap the nukes for conventional rounds with no modifications done. At face value it still remains an accounting error, with the added bonus that every ammo storage facility, whether or not they are listed as storing 203mm rounds, will need to be thoroughly searched in an effort to find the missing nukes. That search will take a long time and will, naturally, be fruitless. Then the West have a problem to solve - what really happened? Which, given the passage of time, is likely to be a question never answered, as indicated by the whole theme of this wonderful thread. Oh there will doubtless be several theories and perhaps they might even come close to the truth but will they really want to make any of this loss public? It's going to be a very closely kept secret, which over the years will fade from the collective memory as the personnel move on. All of which adds a level of security to the German stockpile.
I did a little research with Google Earth, the Helicopter pad in this version dates back to 1990/91 and not before, probably last changes in 1996/97.
The previous post also made me think a little bit about this topic, where to hide secret depot bunker?
I did a little research with Google Earth, the Helicopter pad in this version dates back to 1990/91 and not before, probably last changes in 1996/97.
The GDR has their own experience with secure buildings and there are a least three different countries, from whose experience they can learn, the three countries are USSR, Iraq and Nazi Germany:
- The Soviet ideas about masking bunkers were ingenious. Thus, a nuclear war bunker for the leadership of the Estonian SSR was located under a rural vocational secondary school. Hence a secret bunker under a administrative building or maritime school is a possibility. And when they are prepared to disregard the Geneva Convention - under a hospital, especially under radiology department. Other possibility is in some prison complex.
- Covert movement of large numbers of people is difficult, the simplest solution is to dissolve the movement into smaller patches in different times - In Moscow there was a secret bunker staffed 24/7, the staff at any moment was about 200, the normal lenght of a shift was 8 hours and so the first shift of 6 to 7 peoples arrived at 8 o'clock, the next shift 15 minutes later and so on for next 24 hours and there was a special clue: the entrance was hidden in a bath building.
- Security against trespassers can be counterproductive to security against spy planes and satellites. One of the easiest ways for NATO imaginary analysts to find soviet ICBMS was to follow local roads, what were straight, had curves with great radius and ended in a area, what was surrounded by several consentric circles of barbed wire. A secure location must be somewhere, where you can use armed guards, heavy doors and/or other security measures without suspicion.
- Iraq had method for masking secret part of industrial complex - building inside a building. German companies did build in the 1980-s a bunker complex or bunker-palace for Saddam Hussein and the Iraqis did get military help from both sides of Cold War, e.g weapons handling building of British origin.
- Nazi Germany was there before communists and there are certainly ideas and objects, that can be adapted.
- One of the most effective possibilities is the separation of a part from an existing bunker - no heavy earthworks and no need to hide the building process of the object from spy planes and from ground based intelligence.
I look forward, to see how it is going to be solved.
These were Die Schildkröte Und Die Hase (the tortoise and the hare).
If you use articles, the correct german would be "Die Schildkröte und Der Hase" (english stayes the same).
But considering those are code-names it should be "These were Schildkröte und Hase."
Oh I like the tunnel idea very much. Very much indeed. This is basically a bank heist but with nukes rather than cash/gold the prize, so not out of the bounds of possibility at all. Ingenious.
The geology of each bunker complex can be assessed beforehand to help select the one with the easiest ground to tunnel through and a location that would explain the spoil from the tunnel as it appears on the surface. A building of some sort near the bunker would be a good cover for the tunnel entrance. Perhaps there's a quarry near one of the sites, or a dense forest where the spoil can be discretely dispersed? The bunker floor - would it be any more than 200mm or so of reinforced concrete? An easy thing to cut through in a weekend.
Presumably the work rota at the selected complex will be studied in the greatest detail, with a window for the break-in/theft being chosen for a time when the period between the bunker doors being opened is at it's greatest - at a weekend? Christmas-time might be good! The only thing that might cause a problem is if there are unscheduled "snap" inspections, initiated by higher command to check that the unit on site is up to the mark. An observer watching the complex with binoculars from afar should be able to provide adequate warning in the hopefully unlikely event of something unexpected happening though, so not really a big problem?
I think the Pakistanis would be better "culprits", they'd be much more difficult for a Western intelligence agency to penetrate than the more western South Africans. Although if clues could be left pointing to both, well, who can say which of the "real" culprits is trying to frame the other? An empty packet of South African cigarettes and a crumpled note in Urdu discovered in the tunnel should be sufficient. Clumsy and obvious? Yes, of course - but as long as they have the desired effect...
In the absence of motion sensors, it doesn't really matter how thick the floor is. All but the last 150mm or so can be cut out prior to the final breakthrough. There might be significant reinforcement to cut through but again, as long as what is left of the floor is still sufficiently stable, no one above will know that most of the floor slab has been removed.
Edit: Who built the bunkers? If there was a civilian contractor involved, perhaps the Stasi could get hold of the plans or get information from one of the site workers?