The Badlands Bombing Range (BBR) refers to

Rapid City Army Air Base Rapid(s) or RAPID may refer to: Hydrological features * Rapids, sections of a river with turbulent water flow * Rapid Creek (Iowa River tributary), Iowa, United States * Rapid Creek (South Dakota), United States, namesake of Rapid City Sport ...

target ranges for

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

which included the current Air Force Retained Area, an inactive

United States Air Force The United States Air Force (USAF) is the Air force, air service branch of the United States Department of Defense. It is one of the six United States Armed Forces and one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. Tracing its ori ...

site "20 miles southeast" of

Scenic, South Dakota Scenic is an unincorporated community in Pennington County, South Dakota, United States. It is located within Scenic Township, which had a 2010 census population of 58 inhabitants. The community is located adjacent to the Badlands National Park, ...

. The retained area is the remainder of federally acquired in 1942 under

eminent domain Eminent domain, also known as land acquisition, compulsory purchase, resumption, resumption/compulsory acquisition, or expropriation, is the compulsory acquisition of private property for public use. It does not include the power to take and t ...

at the

Pine Ridge Indian Reservation The Pine Ridge Indian Reservation (), also called Pine Ridge Agency, is an Oglala Lakota Indian reservation located in the U.S. state of South Dakota, with a small portion extending into Nebraska. Originally included within the territory of the ...

(

Oglala Sioux The Oglala (pronounced , meaning 'to scatter one's own' in Lakota) are one of the seven subtribes of the Lakota people who, along with the Dakota, make up the Očhéthi Šakówiŋ (Seven Council Fires). A majority of the Oglala live on the P ...

). In addition to use by World War II aircraft, BBR was used for a post-war

Army National Guard The Army National Guard (ARNG) is an organized Militia (United States), militia force and a Reserve components of the United States Armed Forces, federal military reserve force of the United States Army. It is simultaneously part of two differen ...

gunnery range and a

Cold War The Cold War was a period of global Geopolitics, geopolitical rivalry between the United States (US) and the Soviet Union (USSR) and their respective allies, the capitalist Western Bloc and communist Eastern Bloc, which lasted from 1947 unt ...

Radar Bomb Scoring Radar Bomb Scoring is a combat aviation ground support operation used to evaluate Cold War aircrews' effectiveness with simulated unguided bomb drops near radar stations of the United States Navy, the USAF Strategic Air Command, and Army Projec ...

site.

Rapid City AAB ranges

Rapid City AAB aircraft (e.g., for Bombardier training used the Butte County #1 Precision Bombing Range (Newell Bombing Range) North of the base, Rapid City #2 Precision Bombing Range (Pierre Bombing Range) East, the Air to Ground Range of & East-Northeast, and the Air to Air Range Southeast. The "air-to-air and air-to-ground gunnery ranges" were on of the

Badlands National Monument Badlands National Park () is a List of national parks of the United States, national park of the United States in southwestern South Dakota. The park protects of sharply Erosion, eroded buttes and Pinnacle (geology), pinnacles, along with the l ...

Badlands gunnery range

Post-war the

South Dakota National Guard The South Dakota National Guard is part of the South Dakota Department of Military & Veterans Affairs. It was created in 1862 as the State Militia. Its headquarters is located in Rapid City, South Dakota. It consists of the South Dakota Army Nati ...

"used portions of the bombing range as an artillery range". Firing took place within most of the present day

Badlands National Park Badlands National Park () is a List of national parks of the United States, national park of the United States in southwestern South Dakota. The park protects of sharply Erosion, eroded buttes and Pinnacle (geology), pinnacles, along with the l ...

with old car bodies and 55 gallon drums painted bright yellow for targets. By 2008 the

National Park Service The National Park Service (NPS) is an List of federal agencies in the United States, agency of the Federal government of the United States, United States federal government, within the US Department of the Interior. The service manages all List ...

had placed an interpretive sign for "The Badlands Gunnery Range".

Badlands Bomb Plot

The Interior Radar Bomb Scoring Site (

callsign In broadcasting and radio communications, a call sign (also known as a call name or call letters—and historically as a call signal—or abbreviated as a call) is a unique identifier for a transmitter station. A call sign can be formally assi ...

Badlands Bomb Plot) opened in August 1960 on

Hurley Butte Hurley Butte is an elevated landform in the South Dakota Badlands that is the location of a Formerly Used Defense Site adjacent to the Pine Ridge Reservation and a few miles from Interior, South Dakota. The Strategic Air Command used Hurley Butte f ...

() adjacent to the Pine Ridge Reservation and a few miles from

Interior, South Dakota Interior (Lakota: ''makȟóšiča otȟúŋwahe''; "Badlands village") is a town in Jackson County, South Dakota, United States. The population was 65 at the 2020 census. Interior got its start in 1907 when the Milwaukee Railroad was extended to ...

to replace the Los Angeles Bomb Plot at Cheli AFS. Operated and maintained by Detachment 2 of the

11th Radar Bomb Scoring Squadron In music theory, an eleventh is a compound interval consisting of an octave plus a fourth. A perfect eleventh spans 17 and the augmented eleventh 18 semitones, or 10 steps in a diatonic scale. Since there are only seven degrees in a diaton ...

(initially by

temporary duty Temporary duty travel (TDY), also sometimes referred to as Temporary Additional Duty (TAD) in the US Navy and US Marine Corps, is a duty status designation reflecting a US Government Employee's official travel or assignment at a location other th ...

personnel), the RBS site was 1 of ~14 that remained after the 1965-6 deployment of RBS site personnel for Vietnam Combat Skyspot. Family housing for the detachment "was on the western edge of Wall", a nearby town, and barracks initially used for the station were shared by

Boeing The Boeing Company, or simply Boeing (), is an American multinational corporation that designs, manufactures, and sells airplanes, rotorcraft, rockets, satellites, and missiles worldwide. The company also provides leasing and product support s ...

facility contractors for the

Ellsworth Air Force Base Ellsworth Air Force Base (AFB) is a United States Air Force (USAF) base located about northeast of Rapid City, South Dakota, just north of the town of Box Elder. The host unit at Ellsworth is the 28th Bomb Wing (28 BW). Assigned to the Glob ...

850th SMS's

HGM-25A Titan I The Martin Marietta SM-68A/HGM-25A Titan I was the United States' first multistage intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM), in use from 1959 until 1962. Though the SM-68A was operational for only three years, it spawned numerous follow-on mode ...

ICBMs. Concrete pads at Hurley Butte remain from when the RBS equipment and personnel transferred to

Holbrook, Arizona Holbrook () is a city in Navajo County, Arizona, United States. According to the 2010 census, the population of the city was 5,053. The city is the county seat of Navajo County. Holbrook was founded in 1881 or 1882, when the railroad was bu ...

(1968-1993, merged w/ Det 19 Poplar MT to move to Det 4 Harrison AR). At the end of the Cold War, numerous nearby radar sites for RBS and electronic warfare simulation included those at the Alzada (2 sites), Ekalaka, &

Hulett The Hulett was an ore unloader that was widely used on the Great Lakes of North America. It was unsuited to tidewater ports because it could not adjust for rising and falling tides, although one was used in New York City. History The Hulett was ...

Mini-Mutes Radar Sites, the

Clark Clark is an English language surname with historical links to England, Scotland, and Ireland, ultimately derived from the Latin ''clericus'' meaning "scribe", "secretary" or a scholar within a religious order, referring to someone who was educated ...

Colony A colony is a territory subject to a form of foreign rule, which rules the territory and its indigenous peoples separated from the foreign rulers, the colonizer, and their ''metropole'' (or "mother country"). This separated rule was often orga ...

Radar Bomb Scoring Sites, and the "

" sites (

Belle Fourche Belle Fourche (; ) is a city in and the county seat of Butte County, South Dakota, United States. The population was 5,617 at the 2020 census, and was estimated to be 5,873 in 2023, making it the 18th most populous city in South Dakota. It is ...

, Colmer, & Horman Radar Bomb Scoring Sites and the Antelope Butte Mini Mute Radar Bomb Scoring Site).

Decommissioning and environmental mitigation

After the Badlands Bomb Plot closed, "the USAF declared most of the range excess property" in 1968, and

Public Law Public law is the part of law that governs relations and affairs between legal persons and a government, between different institutions within a state, between different branches of governments, as well as relationships between persons that ...

90-468 restored control of to the

Oglala Sioux Tribe The Oglala (pronounced , meaning 'to scatter one's own' in Lakota) are one of the seven subtribes of the Lakota people who, along with the Dakota, make up the Očhéthi Šakówiŋ (Seven Council Fires). A majority of the Oglala live on the P ...

. The Oglala Sioux protested the designation of "of formerly held Tribal lands" as the Badlands National Monument In 1999 at the "BBR 1" target, "40 M 38 practice bombs, 4 rocket bodies (2.25-inch SCAR) or rocket warheads (2.75-inch), nd33 pieces of ordnance scrap (mostly tail fins)" were recovered. At the BBR 2 site used as an aerial gunnery target, 2.25-inch SCAR and 2.75-inch rockets were used and 28 "SCAR rocket bodies were recovered" along with 17 M38 bombs and 11 intact warheads from 2.75-inch rockets. A 2008 USAF & Oglala Sioux agreement initiated "a three-month $1.6 million project to remove unexploded ordnance" on the Air Force Retained Area. "The last four known munitions" were exploded on October 3, 2011.

References

{{Reflist, refs= {{Cite report , date=September 1999 , title=ESTCP Cost and Performance Report: Multi-Sensor Towed Array Detection System (MTADS) , url= , publisher=U.S. Department of Defense , quote= The Reservation is located in the Southwest corner of South Dakota, with the largest part of the Bombing Range located in Shannon County. The Badlands Bombing Range (BBR) was a live fire range for over 30 years, and most recently was used as a training range for the Air National Guard. Since 1960, portions of the land have been returned to the Oglala Sioux Tribe (OST) in a step- wise fashion. In 1968, Congress enacted Public Law 90-468 returning 202,357 acres to the OST, and setting aside 136,882 acres of formerly held Tribal lands to form the Badlands National Monument, to be managed by the National Park Service. The U.S. Air Force still retains 2,486 acres of land on Bouquet Table within the Reservation boundaries. … BBR I is a highly visible circular target composed of a 500-foot diameter circular earthberm, with a cross-hair berm inside the circle. … BBR 1…within the National Park, is grassland currently grazed by both horses and cattle. {{Cite web , title=World War II Comes to the Badlands , url=http://www.nps.gov/badl/planyourvisit/upload/Badlands-Gunnery-Range-Bulletin.pdf , archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110725025911/http://www.nps.gov/badl/planyourvisit/upload/Badlands-Gunnery-Range-Bulletin.pdf , url-status=dead , archive-date=July 25, 2011 , publisher= NPS.com , accessdate=2013-01-18 , quote=The Badlands Gunnery Range {{Cite news , title=Combat Evaluation Group - A place for CEVG'ers and Range Rats to Meet , url= , type = Yahoo newsgroup , accessdate= Citations in chronological order: *{{Cite web , last=Denning , first=B , date=January 23, 2002 , title=Re: History , url=https://groups.yahoo.com/group/combatevaluationgroup/message/3215 , format=message 3215 , accessdate=2013-01-20 , quote=Det. 2 moved from Los Angeles to South Dakota in 1960. The site was up and running in early October. ... It was on top of Hurley Butte, 6 miles west of

Interior Interior may refer to: Arts and media * ''Interior'' (Degas) (also known as ''The Rape''), painting by Edgar Degas * ''Interior'' (play), 1895 play by Belgian playwright Maurice Maeterlinck * ''The Interior'' (novel), by Lisa See * Interior de ...

*{{Cite web , title=Message 3257 , url=https://groups.yahoo.com/group/combatevaluationgroup/message/3257?l=1 , quote=I was at Det 9 11th RBS '60 to '63 ... The family housing unit was on the western edge of Wall {{dead link, date=October 2016 , bot=InternetArchiveBot , fix-attempted=yes *{{Cite web , title=Message 3279 , url=https://groups.yahoo.com/group/combatevaluationgroup/messages/3279?o=1&xm=1&m=p , quote=Interior RBSS, atop Hurley Butte ... Havre {{sic, Trainig Site MT (Different place from the earlier

Havre AFS Havre Air Force Station (site designator P-25, Z-25 after 31 July 1963) is a Formerly Used Defense Site that was used as a Cold War general surveillance radar station. In addition to radar facilities and a NORAD Control Center the site ha ...

air defense radar {{dead link, date=October 2016 , bot=InternetArchiveBot , fix-attempted=yes *{{Cite news , title=Re: … Sites not found. , quote=Det 19 was Dickinson ND. The site was actually Southeast of New England ND. Det 19 was merged with Holbrook AZ and moved to Harrison AR. Det 21 was Havre MT *{{Cite web , last=Withers , first=Daniel A. , date=January 30, 2005 , title=RE:…Oil Burner Routes , url=https://groups.yahoo.com/group/combatevaluationgroup/message/12886 , accessdate=2013-01-21 , quote=desolate outpost bordering the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. In the early sixties, Detachment 2, 11th RBS...Badlands Bomb Plot Ranges of the United States Air Force Military installations in South Dakota World War II sites in the United States 1942 establishments in South Dakota 1968 disestablishments in South Dakota