[Roadside Relic] AGM28 Hound Dog | Presque Isle & Limestone

Oh. More missiles.

I'm not doing my best impression of a "disappointed Kim Jong Un on Christmas morning", I'm just realizing that this is the fourth time I've written about these fascinatingly retrofuturistic airborne weapons. I hope that between the Snark base in Presque Isle, the Nike sites in and around Limestone and the Bomarc base in Bangor that you're not getting too awfully tired of my mild obsession with the technological progeny of Werner Von Braun.

Summer is coming so it's time to add a new roadside attraction from the age of atomic horror to the list: The AGM28 Hound Dog. Available for your viewing pleasure in Presque Isle and Limestone.

AGM-28 on display in Presque Isle (OC)

This is a distinctively different weapon than what we've covered before. Rather than being located at a stationary base either underground or in a hardened launch structure like the Nike or Bomarc, the Hound Dog was intended to be launched from a B-52 bomber while the aircraft was still out of range of the target area's defensive weapons. This weapon was not designed to destroy the bomber's primary target but rather to get there ahead of the bomber and damage (or destroy) the enemy's defenses.This weapon also carried a W28 nuclear warhead with a 70 kiloton - 1.5 megaton yield. Compare this to the Bomarc and its relatively measly 10 kiloton yield and you can see why these make rather interesting roadside monuments.

To give us a little perspective, according to NUKEMAP if a bomb this size were detonated in the center of downtown Bangor, the fireball would engulf the mall, Husson and over half of the airport. Still, it's a nice place for a picnic.,...

At Veteran's Park (OC)

This missile is located in Veteran's Park in Presque Isle. If you want a picnic, see this one. If you want to see a nicely painted up missile whose graphics are not mailbox letters, the Loring Military Heritage Center can help you there, and their museum is pretty fantastic too.

AGM 28 at Loring Heritage Center (OC)