The deployment of Soviet ballistic missiles to eastern Siberia in 1962 has been overlooked in the existing literature. This SS-5/R-14 site was capable of causing extreme disruption of the northwestern defences of North America if a war was initiated during the dangerous 1960s.
Declassified by the CIA, this image shows the ballistic missile launch sites for R-14 (SS-5 SKEAN) at Ugoln’yy taken in 1966 by an NRO KH-7 GAMBIT satellite equipped with a high resolution spotting system. (Source: CIA, declassified under the Freedom of Information Act, 2015)
Note: there was not enough room in the article for all of the illustrations, so I have added them here.
Ugolny’y R-14 missile site today (Google Earth)
12th GUMO barracks and storage facility. (Google Maps)
Any R-14 missile targeting CFB Comox that overshot would have landed in the Strait of Georgia and, if it detonated, might have produced a radioactive base surge into the City of Vancouver. Note that the fallout prediction is idealized and would have been dependent on wind strength and direction. (Source: NukeMap)
A second R-14 missile attack would have struck the air defence system in the northwest, opening the way for follow on bombers, and a mass strike of R-16 ICBMs against SAC ICBM and bomber bases in eastern Washington State. Canada would not have been unscathed as these fallout predictions depict. (Source: NukeMap)
This map depicts the northern CHROME DOME B-52 routes with communications check in points. Six pairs of B-52 bombers each equipped with six nuclear weapons flew this route in a counter-clockwise direction daily. The dog leg to the west over Alaska placed the aircraft within cruise missile range of Ugoln’yy and its facilities. (Source: USAF, declassified under the Freedom of Information Act, 2015)
Preemptive action on the part of CHROME DOME B-52’s would have been the only way to prevent the strategic damage that would have been generated by an R-14 launch from Ugoln’yy. These are the Ugoln’yy facilities pre- strike, and post-strike from a single B-52G carrying two Hound Dog cruise missiles and four Mk-28RI bombs. The radii depict damage from ground burst weapons. From outward to inward: thermal radiation (3rd degree burns); air blast radius (5 psi); air blast (20 psi); 500 rem radiation dose; and fireball radius. The fireball radius would have equaled the crater radius at the various ground zeros. (Source: NukeMap)
