Post-Attack Command and Control System

PACCS was designed to ensure that National Command Authority would retain exclusive and complete control over US nuclear weapons.

[1] The belief by the Soviet Union in the reliability of PACCS was a crucial component of the US mutual assured destruction doctrine, ensuring a long-term stalemate.

The purpose of such a system would be to use the aircraft as a platform for specially installed communications equipment to ensure delivery of command directives to SAC strike forces in the event ground-based headquarters were destroyed.

The original plan envisioned an aircraft, crew, and command and control team on 15-minute ground alert.

The functions of this PACCS Airborne Command Post kept expanding until it became a true alternate command and control system, complete with force status monitoring, initiation or relay of launch/execution directives, a battle staff, communications to support an alternate CINCSAC, and limited capabilities to reconstitute and replan residual resources.