Iraqi Tunnel Complexes

I watched an interesting piece that examined the sophisticated technologies involved in contructing Saddams' underground bunker complexes... in many cases under his many palaces.
In one case, the USA's best bunker-busters (6,000 lb laser-guided munitions) were unable to penetrate and destroy this complex.
It was stated that Iraq learned it's contruction techniques from the masters of underground bunker-builders: The Yugoslavs.
It seems TITO's partisans created a vast network of bunkers/tunnels in the mountains... and the Nazis were never able to discover and eliminate them in WW2.
I wonder if these Yugoslav bunker-complexes played any significant role after WW2? Under Soviet rule? During the NATO intervention... or was it a different region?

Tim

 

This is not true. During the war no unerground complexes were built + we were never under the Soviet rule. Even after the liberation in 1945 soviet pulled out according to Stalin-Tito agreement. In 1948 when Tito and Stalin got into dispute (Informbiro) we were under threat of invasion by Soviets and their allies.

Here is a good article on the topic of Iraqi super bases:
http://www.acig.org/artman/publish/article_377.shtml

Acctualy superbases were built by Yugoslav companies. I even know few poeple that were building them. Yugoslavs learned building these bases in cold war and were to be protected even to direct nuclear blasts with small nukes.
Good example was airforce base Željava (eng. pron Zhelyava) which was built in utmost secrecy between 1957-1968. It is situated near Bihač ( on top of Croatian-BiH border)
Complete lenght of underground tunels is 3500meters. Complete underground structure had 4 entry/exit tunells conected with passageways of which 3 were used for aircraft. Each tunel could be hermeticaly sealed with movable heavy concrete and steel doors of dimensions 1m (thick) x 9m (high) x 21m (wide) weighing about 100tonnes. Airbase had 2 take-off/landing and 3 take-off strips.
It was protected against all conventional (at the time) and even ground nucler blast of 20kt. For this reason each of 4 tunnels had built prechamber or blenda (i.e. concrete shields that could be lowered from the celing every 10m) which amortised the blast so heavy doors wouldn't be hit with blast of more then 3atm.

Distance between two enty/exits was constructed so that it prevented simultaneous destruction of two tunnels. Rooms inside the base were closed by 56 heavy armoured doors. 3 main gallerys that could contain more than 100 planes were connected in shape of M with elongated middle line for chekup of 2 planes with additional gallery on the side. Dimension of the tunnel is 8-10m high and 20m wide.

Inside of the tunnels planes were moved by electric tractors, outside by their own power. Each parking place in the tunnel had its own fuel pump for kerosene. Each of 3 strenghtened squadrons had it's own preparation space (briefing etc.). Inside the underground complex was a big mess hall that could provide for 1000 poeple at once.
Basic living and working conditions for entire base (completly autonomus) were provided for 30 days:
- electric, water supply and sewige disposal
- 2 reserve diesel/electric generators (1000kVA and 625kVA)
- munitions & spare part depot
- kerosene (base internal: 5 cilindric steel tanks of 100tonnes each on "aqua"principle to minimise fire ans explosion risk) and diesel fuel storage with necessary distribution network
- room for decontamination of airplanes
- etc. (eveything any underground base with 2000+ personell needs to have to be complety independant in case of nuclear war together with testing facilities....)

Kerosine fuel was transported by special pipe line of ~20km long from underground fuel depot on Pokoj hill near Bihać. external ammo depot was near 5km distant village of Vedro Polje.

Base was extensivly used during initial stages of war in Croatia. With outbreak of war in Bosnia geostrategical postion of the base was untennable. JRV evacuated all planes, technics and personnel to Serbia & Montenegro. Outside objects (command post) were given to Army of republika Srbska - Bosnian Serb army) one part of the oustisde object was under control of Armija BiH (Bosnian Army).

On saturday 16.05.1992 with 56 tonnes of explosives JRV destroyed infrastructure of the base which was worth 4-8 billion USD and where 2000 military and civilian perssonel worked. We are still paying it off :angry: Basicly what coud be blasted (runways, taxiways, barracks) was blasted.
Try Zeljava in google, YouTube search

Source:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xrUtGIpHR4I&eurl=


Another film of remains of the Željava base in 2005 (in croatian)- was assured by a guy who did serve there for short time that they were guessing a bit what was what
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=6747060752178343783

Željava aerodrome excellent site in croatian (with maps):
http://firewirehr.ifastnet.com/Zeljava-index2.html

Another "undestructible" bunker was built in Slovenia for Slovene political leadership in Kočevski Rog. Not much is known about it as jurnalists were allowed in in the bunker only few times. All it is known is that it was built totaly independant of military and that JNA didn't even know about it.

 

to bad its not in English

 

Forgot to translate the beggining. The entire area around the base was under "dead" guard (i.e. shoot without warning).
map of underground part of Željava:

 

TISO:
It's a fascinating topic... and it sounds like the Yugoslavs really know how to design and build them!
Thanks for sharing great insights on the region and the many different factions. Quite confusing.

Tim

 

Anotther one is in serbia,near belgrade in hill named "strazevica".Poblic dont know much about that complex,but suspect is that there was supreme command doing NATO agression.NATO droped tons of bombs to penetrate strazevica,but newer manage to do it.It was allso made as Nuclear bunker,some roumors say for TITO himself.I dont hawe much information on strazevice,it is more less,public seacret.

 

I can't find anything on Udbina. Were there also underground facilities?

I know Rajlovac (near Sarajevo) had some underground complexes but i don't know the extent or if they were just storages for fuel and technics. my unce was "plavac" serving his "time" as guard there.

 

Udbina was digged in military airport.I will try to digg more,got no much info.

 

are they really nuke proof?

 

Yes up to 20kt surface blast.

 

20kt is pretty small. That's approximately the yield of the Nagasaki device.

 

Yes but that number assumes the 20kt bomb is dropped directly on top of this bunker... The destructive forces actually affecting the bunker will depend upon where the bomb is dropped, as the blast damage of a nulcear device is relativly small when compared to the radiation emitted... Most damage caused by a nuclear explosion is by radiation... Seeing as the bunker is underground, we assume it is safe from radiation, as long as a blast equivalent to 20kt does not physically destroy it...

For instance, according to WEAPONS (editor david harding) if you drop a 10MT bomb, all metal will vaporise within a 10km radius... And 3rd degree burns will be will occur within a 50km radius... However, the blast will only cause widespread destruction within 6km... Anything outisde will look more like hurricane damage... Outside 6km, large office buildings will remain damaged but intact, so we assume an underground bunker could easily survive a 10MT bomb explosion, so long as it was dropped at least 6km away... It could probably survive if the bomb were dropped considerably closer, given that it is underground and concrete re-inforced...

Even a 200Kt bomb "only" destroys an area of 1.6km radius, yet 3rd degree burns occur within 8km... A bunker would be easily be safe if the bomb were dropped at half that distance, a mere 800m away

 

here you can find a good video of Željava when it was still operational with rows and rows of MiG-21's inside and sad series of photos now:
http://www.advrider.com/forums/showthread.php?t=240446

 

Wow, thanks for the link

 

wow!!!
very interesting, and as noted before, sad to see it destroyed
i like the vid and the music too!!!!