Minuteman / Peacekeeper Launch Facility P-06 (Papa-06 LF), Hillsdale Wyoming

P-06 sat northwest of Hillsdale in the open country where southeastern Wyoming's ranch roads and section lines overlapped with one of the most consequential weapons networks of the late Cold War. It began as an unmanned Minuteman launch facility in F.E. Warren's dispersed missile field, but its most distinctive chapter came later, when the Air Force reused former Minuteman infrastructure for the LGM-118A Peacekeeper, the MX missile whose basing controversy ended not with a new city of superhardened shelters, but with 50 modified silos north of Cheyenne.

P-06 was a Launch Facility / LF in Papa Flight, F.E. Warren Air Force Base missile field. It was associated with P-01 Missile Alert Facility / Launch Control Center and the 400th Strategic Missile Squadron, later the 400th Missile Squadron, under the 90th Strategic Missile Wing / 90th Missile Wing. The site was originally part of F.E. Warren's LGM-30B Minuteman I force, later served in the LGM-30G Minuteman III era, and was then converted for the LGM-118A Peacekeeper.

P-06 is inactive and decommissioned. It is no longer an operational launch facility.

P-06 lay in Laramie County, Wyoming, northwest of Hillsdale and northeast of F.E. Warren Air Force Base. Its position placed it west of several of the more Hillsdale-centered Papa Flight silos, in the same broad agricultural and ranching landscape that made the F.E. Warren missile field possible. The site was remote enough to serve the Minuteman and Peacekeeper dispersal concept, but still tied to the flight by roads, buried communications, security routes, maintenance procedures, and the P-01 control facility.

As with other Minuteman and Peacekeeper launch facilities, P-06 was normally unmanned. The missile combat crew served in the underground launch-control center associated with P-01, while maintenance, communications, and security forces visited the launch facility as required. The surface site would have included the normal features of a hardened LF: an access road, security fencing, a launcher closure, personnel-access features, underground launcher and support equipment, communications and power connections, and vehicle hardstand or apron features.

The physical meaning of a site like P-06 was its separation. Each launch facility was one piece of a larger system deliberately spread across open country so that no single strike could easily destroy an entire flight. That separation made the landscape itself part of the weapons system: ranchland, roads, utility corridors, fences, buried cable, patrol routes, and missile-control circuits all became part of the operational geography.

For the full Papa Flight narrative, see P-01 Missile Alert Facility / Launch Control Center

Chronology

• 1963-02-21 SAC redesignated the 90th Strategic Reconnaissance Wing as the 90th Strategic Missile Wing.
• 1963-07-01 The 90th Strategic Missile Wing was activated at F.E. Warren Air Force Base with the 319th, 320th, 321st, and 400th Strategic Missile Squadrons.
• 1964 The 400th Strategic Missile Squadron was organized at F.E. Warren; P-06 belonged to the squadron group later converted for Peacekeeper service.
• 1965-06-15 The 90th Strategic Missile Wing placed its 200th Minuteman missile on alert and became the first fully operational Minuteman wing.
• 1972 F.E. Warren began SAC's Force Modernization Program to replace Minuteman IB with Minuteman III.
• 1973 The 400th Strategic Missile Squadron became the first all-Minuteman III squadron in the 90th Strategic Missile Wing.
• 1974-09-03 The 90th Strategic Missile Wing removed its last Minuteman IB from alert status.
• 1982-11 President Ronald Reagan renamed the MX missile Peacekeeper.
• 1984-07 Peacekeeper support-facility construction began at F.E. Warren, according to public site-listing history.
• 1986-10-10 The 90th Strategic Missile Wing had its first strategically postured Peacekeeper site.
• 1986-12-16 The 90th Strategic Missile Wing reached initial operating capability for Peacekeeper.
• 1988 The Air Force had 50 Peacekeeper missiles in service at F.E. Warren; P-06 was one of the former Minuteman launch facilities in the converted 400th Missile Squadron group.
• 2005-09-14 The 90th Space Wing completed deactivation of the last of its Peacekeeper ICBMs, according to the F.E. Warren wing history.
• 2005-09-19 The Peacekeeper mission formally ended at F.E. Warren; a missile combat crew officer at Papa One Launch Control Center confirmed that no Peacekeeper ICBMs remained on strategic alert in the 400th Missile Squadron.
• 2005-10 The 400th Missile Squadron was deactivated after the end of the Peacekeeper mission.
• 2011-02-05 New START entered into force.
• 2011-11-17 The Air Force published notice of intent to prepare an environmental assessment for Minuteman III and Peacekeeper silo elimination/dismantlement, including 50 Peacekeeper launch facilities and five associated missile alert facilities at F.E. Warren.
• 2013-03-22 AFCEC announced the final environmental assessment and draft finding of no significant impact for dismantling deactivated Minuteman III and Peacekeeper launch facilities under New START.
• 2013-08-23 F.E. Warren announced that 50 previously deactivated Peacekeeper launch facilities north of Cheyenne would be permanently eliminated under New START.
• 2014-12 F.E. Warren's 2013 release identified December 2014 as the planned completion point for eliminating the former Peacekeeper launch facilities north of Cheyenne.
• 2018-02-04 New START required complete dismantlement of covered launch facilities by this date.

Read about the Peacekeeper Missile at F.E. Warren AFB

All Peacekeeper Missile Silo Locations

All Minuteman/Peacekeeper Missile Silo Locations