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Site VII - Rittersdorf
71st Tactical Missile Squadron

The abandoned Rittersdorf Mace launch site, 1981

Photo courtesy of Scott Murdock (scott-murdock@consultant.com)

Rittersdorf Site VII, October 1961

Photo Courtesy of Garld and Janice Edwards (geje@comcast.net)

In The Beginning... A Pictoral History of a Mace B Hard Site

The original Matador B Pad (below) at Rittersdorf. The road today is a paved major road, (L-9) en route to the golf course near the Sport Hotel. There are no remnants of the original Matador pads. The Mace hard sites are several hundred yards to the left of the photo, on the other side of the road. The forest chapel, right of center, remains today.

The map to the left does not show the site nor the road L-9, which are just to the west of the town of Rittersdorf Matador B Pad - Bitburg

The Rittersdorf launch complex, photo taken during summer, 1993. The complex was built only several hundred yards from the old "soft" Matador "B" pads.
The US Army used the site for Patriot Missile deployment during the Gulf War period of the early 90's

Photo courtesy of George Mindling (myakka@embarqmail.com)

Rittersdorf Site VII - May 2007

"The area is now private property of a building contractor. His name is Marco Palzkill (see contact information below). The area is completely fenced in and construction machinery is placed all over there.

Seven of the eight missile cells are gutted (cannibalized) and empty. All outer and inner doors – except of one cell – are dismantled and scrapped. Mr. Palzkill intends to maintain one cell with its interior and the complete underground rooms. He hopes to conserve it as a little museum of the former “Cold War”. That was the intention of Mr. Palzkill as stated in the summer of 2005. I have not any contact with him since then."

"I visited the Rittersdorf Site last time in late summer 2005."

Here is the complete address of Mr. Palzkill if you would like to contact him:

Palzkill Transporte-Erdbau GmbH

Marco Palzkill
Gewerbegebiet Bildchen 1
54636 Rittersdorf
Phone: (0 65 61) 9 48 47 0

Bernhard Gross (bernhardgross@t-online.de)

Photo by George Mindling (myakka@embarqmail.com) 2 May 2007

The planned layout for a hardened Mace B site. Each of the two Launch Command Centers, buried 60 feet under the paved loading and transport ramp, controls four launch bays. The Mace site was called a "semi-hardened" launch site, even though the facility was designed to withstand a nuclear attack. The Main Personnel Access Stairwell is actually centered in the middle of each complex.

Photo courtesy of George F. Kovach (GFKGDK@aol.com)

Bernhard Gross's Illustration of a typical Site Layout

The Jammed Launch Door

Rittersdorf, Site VII, 1962

Photo courtesy of Glen Curl (gcurl@bv.net)

Photo courtesy of Scott Murdock (scott-murdock@consultant.com)

The European Stars and Stripes Article, August 24, 1964

The main launch doors were originally designed to be filled with water, however, leaks and swelling when frozen led to the doors being filled with concrete instead. Raising the doors was a time consuming process.

The Personnel Doors were solid steel The Personnel Launch Door

The Stars and Stripes Visits a Launch Site

The gaps in the concrete allowed the flat bed trailers to back up exactly against the lowered door, aligning the tracks built into the door with the tracks on the trailer. The missile/launcher assembly was then winched down the incline into the launch bay by cable. The winch unit was part of the trailer unit. Once the missile, with the RATO bottle attached, had been lowered into place, the next trailer arrived to load the warhead section.

Once the warhead section was attached, the third and final trailer brought and downloaded the nose section, which contained the Guidance and Flight Controls Systems. The warhead and nose sections were mounted on 4000A trailers that straddled the built in rails.

S/Sgt Mann and S/Sgt Chapman purge a fuel cell on a
CGM-13B at Rittersdorf during final shutdown in April, 1969. The wings have already been removed, a procedure used only in dismantling the missile. For transportation to and from the Missile Support Area, the wings were normally folded back along side the fuselage.

Photo courtesy of Kathy Geary (k.geary@worldnet.att.net)

Photo courtesy of Scott Murdock (scott-murdock@consultant.com)

The Launch Bay Exhaust Door.

The Exhaust Doors, located on top and to the rear of each launch bay, had to be opened to allow runup of the J-33-A-41 jet engine during systems checkout. The rumor that the missile came out this door was started by a bored E&A crew chatting with several AP's on the ramp. To the casual observer, the story seems quite logical! If it were a vertical launch weapon, this must be where it comes out!

Photo courtesy of Scott Murdock (scott-murdock@consultant.com)

The LCSC, in the Launch Control Center, 60 feet underground,
after the site was re-opened for salvage in 1995

Photo courtesy of George F. Kovach (GFKGDK@aol.com)

Many tense hours were spent here by alert crews of the 71st Tactical Missile Squadron. The condition of the LCSC in 1995 belies the emotion, boredom and often "extreme concern" crews experienced 60 feet underground,

Photo courtesy of George F. Kovach (GFKGDK@aol.com)

The abandoned Rittersdorf launch site, August, 1995, The site will soon be completely overgrown.

Photo courtesy of George Mindling (myakka@embarqmail.com)

Rittersdorf, Kreis Bitburg, Germany - "B" Pad - Site VII - 2005
( 49 º 59´ 05.59" N, 6 º 28´ 51.54" E. )

Photo courtesy of Google Earth

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Site VII - Rittersdorf 71st Tactical Missile Squadron

In The Beginning... A Pictoral History of a Mace B Hard Site

Bernhard Gross's Illustration of a typical Site Layout

The Jammed Launch Door

Rittersdorf, Site VII, 1962

Rittersdorf, Kreis Bitburg, Germany - "B" Pad - Site VII - 2005 ( 49 º 59´ 05.59" N, 6 º 28´ 51.54" E. )

Site VII - Rittersdorf
71st Tactical Missile Squadron

Rittersdorf, Kreis Bitburg, Germany - "B" Pad - Site VII - 2005
( 49 º 59´ 05.59" N, 6 º 28´ 51.54" E. )