Minuteman Launch Facility Q-05 (Quebec-05 LF), Chugwater Wyoming

Q-05 is the kind of missile site that explains why the Peacekeeper story was never only about hardware. From the road it was a fenced launch facility on open Wyoming rangeland. In the late 1980s, however, the Quebec 01 National Historic Landmark documentation records that about 400 people gathered at LF Q-05 for a rally opposing Peacekeeper conversion. That makes Q-05 more than one of the 50 converted silos at F.E. Warren: it is one of the places where the national MX / Peacekeeper controversy became visible on the ground.

Launch Facility Q-05 was an unmanned missile silo / Launch Facility in Quebec Flight, controlled from Q-01, the Quebec 01 Missile Alert Facility / Launch Control Facility. The site belonged to the F.E. Warren Air Force Base missile field, the 90th Strategic Missile Wing during the Strategic Air Command era, and the 400th Strategic Missile Squadron / later 400th Missile Squadron during the Minuteman and Peacekeeper years. It was originally built for LGM-30B Minuteman I, later served in the Minuteman III force, and was then converted for the LGM-118A Peacekeeper.

Public Peacekeeper site-photo documentation identifies the same site as Francis E. Warren AF Missile Site Q-05, Permanent Installation Number 8693, Installation Location Code GHYN, at 41-28-10, 104-52-38. It was one of the former Peacekeeper launch facilities selected for New START-era elimination and disposition.

Q-05 sat on the high plains north of Cheyenne and south of Chugwater, in the dispersed missile field surrounding F.E. Warren Air Force Base. The location was part of the weapon system. Minuteman and later Peacekeeper launch facilities were not clustered inside the main base; they were spread across rural Wyoming, Nebraska, and Colorado so that a single attack could not easily destroy the entire force.

As a Launch Facility, Q-05 was normally unmanned. Missile combat crews served in the underground Launch Control Center at Q-01, while maintenance teams, security forces, communications specialists, and other support personnel visited Q-05 when required. The visible site was deliberately plain: access road, fencing, launcher-related surface features, power and communications-related equipment, security lighting, and the hardened launcher structure. The military importance of the place was below the surface and inside the launch-control network, not in a large aboveground building.

Public photographs taken in July 2013 show Q-05 before or during the broader period when former Peacekeeper launch facilities were being eliminated. The images show a fenced rural compound with the launch-facility mound, silo-area features, utility poles, lighting poles, power equipment, and remaining aboveground fixtures. Those photographs are especially useful because many former Peacekeeper LFs were subsequently filled, graded, sold, transferred, or otherwise altered after the missile mission ended.

Q-05 was built as part of the 400th Strategic Missile Squadron's Minuteman deployment at F.E. Warren. The Warren Minuteman field ultimately placed 200 Minuteman launch facilities and 20 launch-control facilities around the base. Quebec Flight was one of the flights assigned to the 400th Strategic Missile Squadron, and Q-05 was one of the ten unmanned launch facilities controlled from Q-01.

Q-05 has documented site-specific significance because it appears in the public record of late-Cold War anti-nuclear activism. The Quebec 01 National Historic Landmark nomination notes that in the late 1980s about 400 people attended a rally at LF Q-05, not far from Cheyenne, while peace activists also monitored Peacekeeper conversion work elsewhere in Quebec Flight, including at Q-02.

This matters because the MX / Peacekeeper controversy was national, but Q-05 shows how that debate touched individual silos. The missile was argued over in Congress, studied in basing proposals, and debated through arms-control policy. Yet in Wyoming, the argument also had a local geography: road edges, launch-facility fences, ranch country, converted Minuteman silos, and public demonstrations near actual Peacekeeper infrastructure. Q-05 is therefore one of the few individual Peacekeeper launch facilities with a documented public protest association.

Q-05 is inactive and decommissioned. It is not a public historic site like Q-01.

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

Chronology

• 1963-01-23 Construction began for Quebec Flight facilities in the F.E. Warren Minuteman field, according to published Minuteman construction milestone data.
• 1964-06-03 Quebec Flight construction was completed, according to published Minuteman construction milestone data.
• 1965-04-26 Quebec Flight facilities were turned over to Strategic Air Command, according to published Minuteman construction milestone data.
• 1965-06 The 400th Strategic Missile Squadron, including Quebec Flight, became operational with Minuteman IB missiles.
• 1972 F.E. Warren began implementing the Minuteman force modernization program that replaced Minuteman IB with Minuteman III.
• 1974-09-03 F.E. Warren removed its last Minuteman IB from alert status.
• 1975 Minuteman III replaced Minuteman I at F.E. Warren; Minuteman II was not deployed at the base.
• 1986 Peacekeeper conversion work brought Quebec Flight into the only operational Peacekeeper missile field.
• 1986-10-10 F.E. Warren had its first strategically postured Peacekeeper site.
• 1986-12-16 F.E. Warren reached initial operating capability for Peacekeeper.
• late 1980s National Historic Landmark documentation records that about 400 people attended a rally at LF Q-05 opposing Peacekeeper conversion.
• 1988 Fifty Peacekeeper missiles were in service at F.E. Warren.
• 2002-10 Peacekeeper deactivation began.
• 2005-09-19 The Peacekeeper missile mission ended at F.E. Warren, with no Peacekeepers remaining on strategic alert in the 400th Missile Squadron.
• 2005-10 The 400th Missile Squadron was deactivated after the Peacekeeper mission ended.
• 2011-02-05 New START entered into force.
• 2013-07-13 Public site photography documented remaining Q-05 surface features before or during the broader launch-facility elimination period.
• 2013-08-23 F.E. Warren announced permanent elimination of 50 previously deactivated Peacekeeper launch facilities.
• 2014-12 The Air Force's public plan called for elimination of F.E. Warren Peacekeeper launch facilities by December 2014.

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

All Peacekeeper Missile Silo Locations

All Minuteman/Peacekeeper Missile Silo Locations