A rather short question, but has our military or that of another nation ever made anything (weapons, ships, bases, etc) that have a bona fide “self destruct” function? I personally have always thought it a cinematic device as opposed to reality, but wondered if there might be a hint of reality to it somewhere.
German U-boats had a charge onboard that could be set to destroy the boat in WWII – this was to keep the encryption machine out of the hands of the allies…it worked for a while before a allied ship was able to get onboard a U-boat that the device either failed or was not set.
The F-117 and the B-2 are rumored to have self-destruct devices, but I’d imagine this to be difficult to prove, as these two planes are kept under tight scrutiny. However, it only makes sense to keep valuable information away from the enemy by having as many safe-guards in place, destruction being the last resort.
I believe that the SR-71 also had a self-destruct mechanism, as well as the U-2 (both spyplane and band… just kidding), since they served as spyplanes and carried highly advanced equipment for their time.
Finally… I’ve heard rumors that the Playstation 2 comes shipped with a self-destruct mechanism, for reasons known only by the higher-ups at Sony.
Uncle sam made transmitters with onboard encoding devices, you simply preprogrammed your message into it, inflated the helium balloon that was part of the package and let the thing drift skyward and miles away from your position. Then at a pre determined time, it would burst the encoded data. Then self destruct itself with an explosive charge so that it couldn’t fall into enemy hands.
Many types of long-range missile (e.g. cruise missiles) are fitted with self-destruct mechanisms. I don’t know whether they’re operator-controlled or automatic, though (e.g. detonating after a specified time period of if they detect a navigation failure). Example? US Army Selectable Lightweight Attack Munition (SLAM).
Try searching the web with +“self destruct” and +missile.
I worked for the USAF test center for a number of years.
All of the self-propelled and airdropped munitions came with a self-destruct mechanism built in. However, I am not sure if these were provided in the production version of any of the weapons.
The self-destruct was operator controlled and the weapon was detonated if it headed towards the test range boundary. Otherwise, it was left to fly on its own, even if it was off course.
An interesting note: The sea launched cruise missile launch times were classified because members of Green Peace had tried to catch one, in flight, with large hand-held nets.
I wanted to see that!
Missiles fired from Vandenberg (CA) are destroyed in flight with some frequency. As quoted above, an operator destroys the missile if it is heading in an unsafe direction.
An interesting note: I worked on the air-launched cruise missile (ALCM) project. The flight dates were classified, but the “ready dates” were not. And the flight date was always a certain time after the ready date. (Which reminds me of an early model of the SR-71 or A-12 – IIRC. It was put on display, and a model maker asked its dimensions. He was told the dimensions were classified. But the size of the expansion joints in the concrete were not classified. He got some high pictures of the plane on the ramp, and did the math.)
According to Francis Gary Powers’ account of the U-2 incident (sorry, forgot the title), the plane was equipped with a suitible quantity of high explosive. Also, all surface warships can be scuttled (deliberatley sunk), although I’m not sure if this has ever been done.
German U-boats were deliberately scuttled in WWII. I don’t think they were equipped with explosives, as another poster said. But I could be wrong. There may have been a “scuttling charge” in addition to the seacocks that could be opened to flood the vessel. I think there was a sledge hammer or something to destroy sensitive equipment. There is some evidence that the German battleship Bismark was scuttled by its crew after losing its battle with the Royal Navy.
According to the History Channel, one of the U.S. aircraft carriers (the Lexington ?) was scuttled after the Japanese damaged it in a WW2 battle. It wasn’t a “self-destruct device,” though. They had a destroyer in the convoy sibk the carrier.
I imagine that if the USS Eisenhower to be crippled by the Russians, there would certainly be some method for ensuring that it didn’t fall into their hands. They would probably set a time bomb in the ammo storage rooms or something.
Thanks. I was aware of Germans and probably other nations scuttling ships at sea, but was under the impression that it involved blowing up munitions located in the ship or else otherwise sabotaging the vessel rather than pressing a big red button and getting a pleasant female voice saying “Self destruct in one minute…” The information about the planes and missiles was news to me though although I probably could have guessed the missile destruct if I sat and thought about it long enough.
Navy vessels have throughout history been scuttled to prevent capture – it’s a question preparing and setting up scuttling charges as needed.
Now, in the case of air, sea or land units, classified equipment and documents you are expected to make personally sure of their destruction – Shred, burn, smash, throw overboard, induce a power surge that fries its electronics, run tapes and disks through a magnetic bulk-eraser, eat it, whatever it takes. An important event in WWII happened when one German U-Boot was captured so fast that they did not get around to destroying or dumping the Enigma machine.
jrd
Don’t all rockets have destruct mechanisms built in? It seems to me that even the SRB’s on the shuttle can be blown up by the Range Safety Officer if the rocket goes off course.
A little off the point, but German bridges built after the war had to have chambers built into them which could be filled with explosives to destroy the bridge. This was partly in case the Germans began to rearm, but also as a large part of the NATO defense strategy to stop a Warsaw pact army making it across the Rhine into the flat north of Germany, excellent tank country, before reinforcements could arrive from the US.
Most Danish bridges, as well. I’ve been present at quite a few “dry runs” where the people who would have blown the bridge in real life mustered, put in practice explosives (delivered by truck from the location where the real explosives were stored), ran through the radio procedure and then… the CO would say “bang” very softly and the exercise would be over. Rather anticlimactic.
Destroying a bridge is an extremely serious thing and one of the few situtions where you keep a written log of when and from whom you received your orders, presumably to find out at your court-martial why you blew a billion-dollar bridge a mite too early.
As for “proper” self-destruct devices, I’ve heard first-hand from a Danish WWII resistance radioman that some of the radios used to communicate with the SOE (I believe it was) had a small explosive charge built in. (He had to use it once, escaped under fire, made it to Sweden and then to England, joined the British Army and fought under Montgomery until he got home. He was a janitor at my elementary school when I met him and seemed quite content. You sometimes find heroes in the strangest places…)
Supposedly, all of the bridges and tunnels leading into Switzerland can be collapsed, too.