page_title: TACAMO
hierarchical_section_title: TACAMO
caption_attribution_description: A U.S. Navy Boeing E-6A Mercury aircraft in flight.
context_page_description: TACAMO is a United States military system of survivable communications links designed to be used in nuclear warfare to maintain communications between the decision-makers and the triad of strategic nuclear weapon delivery systems. Its primary mission is serving as a signals relay, where it receives orders from a command plane such as Operation Looking Glass, and verifies and retransmits their Emergency Action Messages to US strategic forces. As it is a dedicated communications post, it features the ability to communicate on virtually every radio frequency band from very low frequency up through super high frequency using a variety of modulations, encryptions and networks, minimizing the likelihood an emergency message will be jammed by the enemy. This airborne communications capability largely replaced the land-based extremely low frequency broadcast sites which became vulnerable to nuclear strike.
context_section_description: TACAMO (Take Charge And Move Out) is a United States military system of survivable communications links designed to be used in nuclear warfare to maintain communications between the decision-makers (the National Command Authority) and the triad of strategic nuclear weapon delivery systems. Its primary mission is serving as a signals relay, where it receives orders from a command plane such as Operation Looking Glass, and verifies and retransmits their Emergency Action Messages (EAMs) to US strategic forces.  As it is a dedicated communications post, it features 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, minimizing the likelihood an emergency message will be jammed by the enemy.  This airborne communications capability largely replaced the land-based extremely low frequency (ELF) broadcast sites which became vulnerable to nuclear strike.
caption: A Boeing E-6 Mercury airborne, painted anti-flash white
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