The National Military Command System (NMCS) was the federal government of the United States' Cold War command and control system that consisted of the National Military Command Center (NMCC) at The Pentagon, the Alternate National Military Command Center (NMCC) at Pennsylvania Raven Rock Mountain, 3 National Emergency Airborne Command Post (NEACP) aircraft on 24-hour ground alert, 2 National Emergency Command Post Afloat (NECPA) ships, "and interconnecting communications".[1]
Background
editThe United States' Cold War command and control (C2) history included numerous developments such as the:
- 195x Air Force Command Post (AFCP) established at the Pentagon when the Korean War broke out
- 1955 & 1957 Strategic Air Command nuclear bunkers
- 1956 War Room Annex completed in July at the 1953 Raven Rock nuclear bunker in Pennsylvania
- 1958 "reorganization in National Command Authority relations with the joint commands" (e.g., CONAD) after President Dwight D. Eisenhower expressed concern[specify] about nuclear command and control.[2]
- 1958 McGuire AFB groundbreaking in MONTH for the Burroughs SS-416L Control and Warning Support System with the Semi Automatic Ground Environment to control nuclear anti-aircraft missiles (e.g., BOMARC & GENIE)
- 1960 BMEWS Central Computer and Display Facility at Ent AFB, Colorado, operational on September 20 for centralizing Thule Site J BMEWS radar observations for NORAD and SAC to assess a USSR ICBM attack.
- 1960 Joint War Room at the Pentagon with consoles operational in November
- 1961 groundbreaking for the Cheyenne Mountain nuclear bunker
After initial planning May–July 1962, DoD Directive S-5100.30 "conceived" the Worldwide Military Command and Control System (WWCCS) with five planned groups of C2 systems: the NMCS was the primary group and was to serve the President, the United States Secretary of Defense, and the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
1962 ANMCC
editThe Alternate National Military Command Center (ANMCC) was established on 1 October 1962 at Raven Rock Mountain Complex and included a joint War Room Annex, "Headquarters USAF Advanced" center, an Army communications complex to connect the ANMCC to several communications networks such as NORAD's Alert Network Number 1. The ANMCC subsequently had equipment of the IBM 473L Command and Control System.[3]
1962 NMCC
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The National Military Command Center opened at the Pentagon in early October 1962[4] to replace the Air Force Command Post as the Joint Chiefs' command post. The ANMCC included 473L C2 equipment, including several IBM computers. It was started in early 1962 when the JCS area with the Joint War Room was expanded from ~7,000 sq ft (650 m2) to ~21,000 sq ft (2,000 m2) by 1965[5] (the Pentagon's "Navy Flag Plot" coordinated the Cuban Missile Crisis blockade.)[5]: 312 The NMCC was initially considered an "interim" location until the Deep Underground Command Center (DUCC) could be completed below the Pentagon (never built). The NMCC had "direct communications with MACV headquarters in Saigon" during the Vietnam War.[6]
- 1972 upgrade
- The WWMCCS "ADP upgrade program" included 1972 computer installations (e.g., 2 COC "Data Net 355 computers")[7] and c. mid-1972, additional NMCC expansion enlarged it to ~30,000 sq ft (2,800 m2) and included the Joint Operational Reporting (JOPREP) system.[5]: 317 In 1977, the NMCC was 1 of 6 initial sites of the WWMCCS Intercomputer Network (WIN) developed from a 1971-7 experimental program with testing and use by the JCS.[8] The Command Center Processing and Display System (CCPDS) replaced NMCC UNIVAC 1106 computers c. 1977 with "dedicated UNIVAC 1100/42 computers" for console and large screen displays.[8] By 1981 as part of the WWMCCS Information System (WIS), the NMCC received data "directly from the Satellite Early Warning System (SEWS) and directly from the PAVE PAWS sensor systems".[8]
The NMCC at 38°52′16″N 77°03′20″W / 38.87111°N 77.05556°W[citation needed] (tbd side of the Pentagon) coordinated responses[specify] to the 2001 September 11 attacks[9] (AA Flt 77 struck the west side) and other events. By 2008, the NMCC had the NMCC Alert Center for intelligence fusion in the National Operations and Intelligence Watch Officer Network.[10]
References
edit- ^ Sturm, Thomas A. (August 1966) [declassified "6/05/05"]. The Air Force and The Worldwide Military Command and Control System: 1961-1965 (PDF) (Report). Retrieved 2015-02-16.
- ^ Wainstein, L. (June 1975). The Evolution of U.S. Strategic Command and Control and Warning: Part One (1945-1953) (Report). Vol. Study S-467. Institute for Defense Analyses. pp. 1–138.
- ^ Brown, C.B. (4 December 1962). 473L DPSS/ICSS Interface Description (PDF) (Report). MITRE Corporation. Archived from the original (Technical Memorandum) on October 24, 2014. Retrieved 2014-04-07.
- ^ Vogel, S. (2008). The Pentagon: A History. Random House Publishing Group. p. 362. ISBN 9781588367013. Retrieved 2014-10-24.
- ^ a b c Ponturo, J. (June 1975). The Evolution of U.S. Strategic Command and Control and Warning: Part Three (1961-1967) (Report). Vol. Study S-467. Institute for Defense Analyses. p. 315.
In February [1962], the Secretary of Defense approved a National Military Command System (NMCS) composed of four major elements: the National Military Command Center (NMCC), an evolution of the JCS Joint War Room; the Alternate National Military Command Center (ANMCC), a redesignation of the JCS installation at the AJCC; and two mobile alternates, the NECPA and the NEACP.18 The following October he issued a DoD directive on the Worldwide Military Command and Control System (WWMCCS) that outlined the NMCS in detail, to include the NMCC, ANMCC, NECPA, NEACP, and such other alternates as might be established, together with their interconnecting communications; and defined their relationship to the command and control "subsystems" of the service headquarters, the CINCs, and other DoD agencies.19 … The fixed underground ANMCC would be phased out as superfluous, whichever version [50-man or 300-man DUCC] was chosen, and the other NMCS facilities would be cut back to some degree according to one or the other.
- ^ Ellsberg, D. (2003). Secrets: A Memoir of Vietnam and the Pentagon Papers. Penguin Group US. p. 68. ISBN 9781101191316. Retrieved 2014-10-24.
- ^ Chapter 2: Defense Communications Agency and System p. 19[full citation needed]
- ^ a b c Modernization of the WWMCCS Information System (WIS) (PDF) (Report). Vol. AdA095409. Armed Services Committee, US House of Representatives. 19 January 1981. Archived (PDF) from the original on December 24, 2013. Retrieved 2012-08-29.
Worldwide Military Command and Control System (WWMCCS), is the nucleus of a dynamic and evolving WWMCCS Information System which serves the National Command Authorities and key military commanders across a broad spectrum of planning and operational activities from day-to-day and crisis operations to conventional and nuclear war. The use of this information system, involving 83 Honeywell 6000-series CPUs at 26 sites. … Command Center Processing and Display System (CCPDS) This system consists of dedicated UNIVAC 1100/42 computers, software, display control elements, consoles and associated system support hardware at NORAD, SAC, the National Military Command Center (NMCC), and the Alternate National Military Command Center (ANMCC). Currently, data is received at each of the four CCPDS sites directly from the Satellite Early Warning System (SEWS) and directly from the PAVE PAWS sensor systems. The NMCC, ANMCC, and SAC also receive data indirectly from the Ballistic Missile Early Warning System (BMEWS), Sea-Launched Ballistic Missile (SLBM) Detection and Warning System, COBRA DANE, and the Perimeter Acquisition Radar Attack Characterization System (PARCS) as well as SEWS and PAVE PAWS data by way of NORAD. In 1977, HQ USAF approved the acquisition of UNIVAC 1100/42s to replace the original UNIVAC 1106s at the four CCPDS sites as a means of satisfying the increased processing requirements generated by additional and improved warning systems.
(pdf p. 64) - ^ http://s3.amazonaws.com/911timeline/2002/cnn090402.html http://www.mcguire.af.mil/news/story_print.asp?id=123048097
- ^ Article title [bare URL PDF]