This 1960s film about the Strategic Air Command features B-52 bomber aircraft serving in a nuclear deterrent role. The film also shows operations inside a missile trainer, similar to the type of underground facility in an operational silo, command and control facilities, and the interior of an actual Minuteman missile silo. Offutt Air Force Base is featured, the headquarters (as the narrator explains) “for the strongest and most capable force ever conceived.”
The film shows full scale drills including a simulated atomic bomb drop by a B-52 as part of practice activities, air to air refueling, and a test LGM-30 Minuteman missile launch.
At the 20 minute mark, B-52 strikes are shown in Vietnam as well as strikes by F-105 attack aircraft.
At the 24 minute mark, a restricted area is shown where SAC crews are on alert, isolated from the world for seven days at a time.
Strategic Air Command (SAC) was both a Department of Defense Specified Command and a United States Air Force (USAF) Major Command (MAJCOM) responsible for Cold War command and control of two of the three components of the U.S. military’s strategic nuclear strike forces, the so-called “Nuclear Triad,” with SAC having control of land-based strategic bomber aircraft and intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs). SAC also operated all strategic reconnaissance aircraft, all strategic airborne command post aircraft, and all USAF aerial refueling aircraft, to include those in the Air Force Reserve (AFRES) and Air National Guard (ANG), with the exception of those KB-50, KC-97, HC-130 and MC-130 aircraft operated by Tactical Air Command (TAC), Military Airlift Command (MAC), Air Force Special Operations Command (AFSOC), or associated AFRES and ANG aerial refueling aircraft gained by TAC, MAC or AFSOC.
SAC primarily consisted of the Second Air Force (2AF), Eighth Air Force (8AF) and the Fifteenth Air Force (15AF), while SAC headquarters (HQ SAC) included Directorates for Operations & Plans, Intelligence, Command & Control, Maintenance, Training, Communications, and Personnel. At a lower echelon, headquarters divisions included Aircraft Engineering, Missile Concept,[1] and Strategic Communications.
In 1992, as part of an overall post-Cold War reorganization of the U.S. Air Force, SAC was disestablished as both a Specified Command and as a MAJCOM, and its personnel and equipment redistributed among the Air Combat Command (ACC), Air Mobility Command (AMC), Pacific Air Forces (PACAF), United States Air Forces in Europe (USAFE), and Air Education and Training Command (AETC), while SAC’s central headquarters complex at Offutt AFB, Nebraska was concurrently transferred to the newly created United States Strategic Command (USSTRATCOM), which was established as a joint Unified Combatant Command to replace SAC’s Specified Command role. In 2009, SAC’s USAF MAJCOM role was re-activated and re-designated as Air Force Global Strike Command.[
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This film is part of the Periscope Film LLC archive, one of the largest historic military, transportation, and aviation stock footage collections in the USA. Entirely film backed, this material is available for licensing in 24p HD and 2k. For more information visit http://www.PeriscopeFilm.com
