Hawthorne Army Depot

In deserts of rural, western Nevada, by the city of Hawthorne is the army depot. It’s where munitions are manufactured, but more importantly stored in these little isolated bunkers. Armies all over the world store munitions in similar fashion. I had believed that humidity might play into the life expectancy of munitions, and if that’s true, these bombs will be safe from corrosion for a very long time. Or perhaps the U.S government does not need to spend money on climate-controlled storage. The bunkers are equidistantly spaced, so that if there’s a mishap in one, it doesn’t cascade into all your weapons crates, burning up all your rockets, and making one giant crater.

These bunkers are concrete, with a concrete front, and sand is piled atop them. Native vegetation often grows over the bunkers, as we see in this image. What I find interesting in this site is that not only is each bunker serviced by a road, but the curving arcs toward the top of the image indicate rails. We can move weapons across the country by either transportation method.

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