TACAMO

TACAMO (Take Charge and Move Out) is a U.S. military system of survivable communications links designed to be used in nuclear war to maintain communications between the decision makers (the National Command Authority) and the triad of strategic nuclear weapon delivery systems. Its primary mission is to receive, verify and retransmit Emergency Action Messages (EAMs) to US strategic forces. It does this by maintaining the ability to communicate on virtually every radio frequency band from very low frequency (VLF) up through super high frequency (SHF) using a variety of modulations, encryptions and networks. This airborne communications capability largely replaced the land-based extremely low frequency (ELF) broadcast sites that became vulnerable to nuclear strike.

There are several components to the current TACAMO system. The main part is the airborne portion, the U.S. Navy's Strategic Communications Wing One (STRATCOMWING ONE), a U.S. Strategic Command (USSTRATCOM) organization based at Naval Air Facility Tinker at Tinker Air Force Base, Oklahoma. STRATCOMWING ONE consists of three Fleet Air Reconnaissance Squadrons (VQ-3, VQ-4 and VQ-7) equipped with Boeing IDS E-6B Mercury TACAMO aircraft. As well as the main operating base at Tinker, there is a west coast alert base at Travis AFB, California and an east coast alert base at NAS Patuxent River, Maryland.

The acronym was coined in 1961 and the first aircraft modified for TACAMO testing was a Lockheed KC-130 Hercules which in 1962 was fitted with a VLF transmitter and trailing wire antenna to test communications with the fleet ballistic missile submarines (see communication with submarines).

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