Ramstein AB issues real world missile alert warning

| December 12, 2020

Ramstein issued an incoming missile alert for the base. It’s unclear what early warning system triggered the alert. Once it was apparent there was not an actual strike coming they chalked the experience up to a training exercise.

In a seemingly odd sequence of events today, The War Zone was made aware that Ramstein Air Base in Germany, America’s massive central European military hub, alerted its personnel of a potential incoming missile strike. After the strike never materialized, the sprawling installation’s command post put out a notice stating that “the missile launch was then assessed to be part of a training exercise” and wasn’t deemed a threat to the base.

You can read the entire message below:

“Attention Team Ramstein, Today, the Ramstein Air Base Command Post was notified via an alert notification system of a real-world missile launch in the European theater. The Command Post followed proper procedure and provided timely and accurate notifications to personnel in the Kaiserslautern Military Community. The missile launch was then assessed to be part of a training exercise and not a threat to the KMC area. The situation is all clear. We’d like to thank our Command Post members for their quick response to ensure our people stay informed so they can take the proper safety precautions.”

More at the source; The Drive

***UPDATE***

It wasn’t just a missile alert. It was a full MOPP 4 alarm red call. OPSEC is dead in the age of social media. I redacted some from this post, but this is the message sent out from the command post.

The all clear was reportedly given two minutes later.

Category: Air Force, Breaking News

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KoB

Back yonder, if we got an incoming missile alert, it meant we had just enough time to put our heads berween our legs and kiss our azzes good bye. They figured, maybe 7 minutes between detection and impact. At the most.

It was as big a joke as the whole “duck n cover” thing in school in the ’60s. Some of these dumbazzes have convinced themselves that a nuclear war can be “limited”…and winnable. Maybe they think that the FIRST Strike will be with conventional warheads and the nukes will come later. Good luck with that. As the Baby Nukes march East and West, vaporizing Troops and installations, the next step is vaporizing cities. Then is just starts to feed on itself and spirals out of control. Least ways, that was what the ops orders read like then. Hopefully, for the Worlds sake, that has changed…but I don’t hold out a lot of hope for that.

MarineDad61

My elementary schools had these signs… FALLOUT SHELTER,
and a combination of drills, to either go under the desks,
or follow the signs, and huddle in the dank basement.
All gone by about 1973.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fallout_shelter

26Limabeans

Yep. Same here in the mid fifties.

A Proud Infidel®™

I remember the Fallout Shelter signs when I was a kid in the Seventies and Eighties, the latter being when the mainstream media was parroting the line that Ronald Reagan was doing all he could to start a nuclear War with the USSR.

Anonymous

I still go to do that in the ’80s. (Remember, kids, put your hand you don’t write with over the back of your neck to protect from flying glass… )

AW1Ed

Any other year and that would be considered strange.

Prior Service

And there I was, yesterday, thinking maybe I should go to Ramstein to eat at Chili’s. Next time I have the urge, I guess I’ll have to break out MOPP 4. I’m such a pogue now that I don’t even have an assigned pro mask (and they’ve already fielded a new one I’ve never trained with).

CCO

The MP-40? It was being evaluated when I was on active duty.

26Limabeans

We used to get warned about incoming as soon as the first round hit.

Roh-Dog

MOPP level KMA!
I’m crawling into a fine scotch and hasing a cigar.
Why bother running if your on the x? Just gonna die tired.
How’s the PX doing on underwears?

26Limabeans

The girls by the fence will be fine.

MarineDad61

Roh-Dog,
Believe it or not, my local PX (now X / Exchange)
will no longer sell underwear to retirees at Clothing Sales.
I bought brown (and later tan) undies at the PX for years,
but a few year ago, they were deemed “essential”.
Essential Underwear. For real.
No fan of white undies (TMI if I say why (lol)),
I’ve since turned to black t’s and undies by Gildan and Hanes.

Roh-Dog

You’ve got to be kidding.
I got some moisture wicking shorts at a all-in-one PX up in Chicopee year back. Damn good kit.
I’m hoping that rule was local and/or temporary.
Cost/quality/durability/function is usually higher in military kit, imho.

MarineDad61

Roh-Dog,
Yep.
Fort Indiantown Gap PX (PA National Guard HQ).
Bummer, because I always kept stocked up
on the military’s 2 greatest uniform inventions:
1 – Brown underwear
2 – Woodland camouflage handkerchiefs.
But no more.

timactual

You young folks missed out on the 100% wool socks; they were nice.

SFC D

I tried to buy socks at clothing sales 2 weeks after I retired in 2012. Denied. It’s an issue item, retirees can’t have them.

11B-Mailclerk

When the “test-ignore” siren is a long steady tone,

and some idiot instead presses the “woopwoopwoopwoop” button for “real – take immediate shelter” for a few very long seconds, then switches to “test”. Oops.

26Limabeans

We had a siren that took forever to spool up.
By the time it reached full speed the last round had splashed.

MarineDad61

After 2 years of MOPP4 training exercises at Ramstein AB,
I experienced a few days of these real world calls
at my next base, Comiso AS, Sicily, Italy.
Why?
Because the USA sent the F-111 jets (from England) to Libya,
and Qaddafi the nut was launching missiles at us.
However, they were all falling (way short) into the Med,
with only 1 falling 100 miles short,
near a little island called Lampedusa.

I ended up being a de facto Comm Sq MOPP suit checker,
since everyone else was green to wearing the green.

MarineDad61

(My quotes)
No, TSgt, you put your Marlboros in the outside pocket, and zip this up.
No, LT, you can NOT smoke through the drink tube.

11B-Mailclerk

Ft Stewart, mid eighties.

An officer thought it well and proper to send his unit out for “gas mask PT”. He, of course, did this on days he was not running with his unit. Apparently, the Good Idea Fairy shared this with several other ” leaders”, some of whom also were non-participants on those days.

Enter new BN management.

Officer’s PT was announced to include an upcoming gas mask run. -plenty- of time to prepare.

Heh.

You guessed it. Some of those same officers had removed the voicemitter disk/valve from their M-17 masks, allowing greater and easier airflow, at the cost of rather diminished functionality. This included at least one of the not-with-my-unit folks.

What was not announced was that the CSM would be hiding along the route, armed with a CS grenade.

Or two.

Hilarity ensued. Then, there was an -epic- ass-chewing about lead by example. Then the masks, where needed, were repaired. Then the run resumed.

MarineDad61

11B-M,
Great story. lolololololol

timactual

I remember the M-17. Had to remove it to change the contaminated filters from the inside. Always wondered about that. But then, there were a lot of things I wondered about back then.

A Proud Infidel®™

I spent many a night in the field using my M17 mask and carrier as a pillow!

Green Thumb

WTF?!?

Green Thumb

You know that cool, tingling feeling and sensation that you get when you look around and everyone is in a pro mask but you?

Yeah.

Nice.

Ain’t nothing like it in the world.

xyzzy

I thought it was Rammstein. With a double m.

MarineDad61

That’s the band.
The airbase, and the German town next to it, are 1 M.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ramstein-Miesenbach

Skippy

Air Force war games are a trip
Try being on a Air Force base when they lock it down for training
And they won’t let you leave for 2 hours with a screaming baby

ChipNASA

I’ve told this story here before and I preface it with: I used to be NCOIC of Chem Warfare/Disaster Preparedness for the Squadron. (1990) I think they call it CBRN or some thing like that now. We had the old M-17 masks with the two eye holes, not the newer rubber full face ones until around 2000 I believe but nonetheless, it doesn’t matter, this point… The filters and the suits do nothing for *methane*. Trust me, I know. We had an exercise at the Wing and had little “bunkers” made of tape/sandbags or furniture etc in the warehouse. I was with a bunch of guy in MOPP 4 in the cover area and the Commander and First Sergeant were standing around evaluating the situation with IG inspectors in the area. A couple of the guys in my area started leaving the “cover” and low crawling across the warehouse. The Commander and First Sergeant kinda went ape shit and started yelling at the guys, “Hey STOP!! What are you DOING?!?!?” and started to walk over to the “bunker”. The got about 3 or 4 feet away and stopped dead. “WHAT THE FUCK!!!???” They immediately turned 180 degrees and started for the warehouse roll up door and then started on the chain pull opening the door even though we were “under attack”. I laid there laughing so hard sticking my gloved fingers into my thigh as hard as possible to stifle it as much as I could as if it were an atropine injector. One or two of the other guys in the cover area hadn’t moved either because they were either immune or afraid of getting yelled at but… knowing I actively cleared the area during an exercise and it was the Commander and the Shirt and yet they couldn’t tell who (smelt it)”dealt it” or (denied it) “supplied it”, anyway, it was one of the proudest moments of my entire Air Force career… I guess it was because we had been eating MREs for a better part of the extended 3 day exercise Drill Weekend. That’s what I’m going… Read more »