The missile base was built in a remote and sparsely populated corner in northern Lithuania at the time, close to the edge of the territory of the USSR and the Baltic Sea in 1960. It was one of the first underground launch silo facilities in the Soviet Union, remaining operational until 1978, it housed four R-12 intermediate-range nuclear missiles, with a range of 1,300 miles each capable of delivering a two megaton warhead to more or less anywhere in Europe.
The base consisted of four silos all inter-connected by underground tunnels to the central command centre. In the event of war the whole base could be hermetically sealed off and the crews could have held out underground for two weeks.
There was also a small military town, Plokstine was part of the 179th rocket regiment which also included a set of eight surface missiles. A nearby storage bunker held eight nuclear warheads as well as extra rockets.
The R-12 missile stood 70 ft tall, the 2 megaton thermonuclear warhead alone measured 13ft high. The missiles that were stored here were in fact secretly dispatched by ship to Cuba. Though their journey was aborted en-route the ground crew from the base had already prepared the bases to be on the island.
In 1978 the base was closed and the missiles removed, the R-12s were withdrawn from the soviet arsenal and replaced with the superior mobile launched SS-20. A treaty between the USSR and the USA in 1987, resulted in the banning of land mased nuclear missiles. The last R-12 was destroyed in the 1990's
From it's closure until the break up of the Soviet Union the Plokstine base lay silent, eventually, it was saved and turned into a heritage site. First opening its doors as a museum in 2011.
Since I first visited the Soviet Union in the 1970's I have been fascinated by all things east of the iron curtain, my god this bunker did not disappoint, underground we went to wander the tunnels soak up the history of the Soviet war machine. My kind of museum, relevant and not full of broken cups and bowls allegedly from 1,000's of years ago.
Boring!
An informational panel detailing various ICBM's , aircraft, and strategies used by the U.S. Air Force and Navy. it covers various types of weaponry, with key specifications, range, speed, payload, and operational details, including B52's and air-to-air refuelling capabilities of the KC-97 and KC-135 tankers.
It was a full on history of the Cold War
What really got me orgasmic, was the serious amount of, now much collected and sought after, Soviet propaganda posters and literature. Surely worthy of the term "Fine Art".
The first two MY HAPPINESS DEPENDS ON YOUR SUCCESS! and DON'T BE NAUGHTY
The black smudge on the statue of liberty is actually a depiction of a lynching, with the words THE SHAMEFUL STIGMA OF AMERICAN DEMOCRACY, next to it a poster extolling Glory to Soviet science! Glory to the Soviet man, the first cosmonaut!
STRICTLY KEEP STATE AND MILITARY SECRETS!
There was also numerous examples of Civil Defence posters, Public Information, about what to do in the event of
A nuclear attack
I mean lets be honest in the event of a nuclear attack just go outside and stand in the open, better a quick vaporising death than a slow painful one through radiation poisoning.
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