100 stories from the hiking route

1978 – The Kadila rocket base was eliminated

Information

Topic

Wars and occupations

Coordinates

Long-Lat WGS 84

Latitude: 59.1876852

Longitude: 26.3462020

L-EST 97

x: 6563367.5
y: 634083.1

Location

Kauksi-Aegviidu Hiking route

In the late 1950s and the early 1960s, nine strategic rocket bases or rocket division campuses were built in Estonia. They were situated in the forest, mostly grouped in pairs. The 304th Soviet Guard rocket regiment was located on Arkna Road in Rakvere in the 1960s and 1970s and it governed two divisions, one in the forests of Kadila and the other in Rohu-Lebavere.
The R-12 medium range missiles, with a flight range of 2000 km, were located Kadila and Rohu. The R-12 had been in mass production in the USSR since 1958; its length was 22.1 m and it weighed 41.7 tonnes when loaded with liquid fuel. The rocket’s nuclear warhead weighed 1.6 tonnes and had the destructive power of 1 mt, the equivalent of miljon tonnes of TNT. The Kadila and Rohu bases had four rocket hangars, each hangar holding two rockets on wheeled stands in a horizontal position.
The Estonian middle range missile base did not have a long life. Most of the rockets and nuclear warheads were taken away already in 1978, due to a treaty between the superpowers to reduce the numbers of strategic nuclear weapons. In 1980, the Kadila rocket base constructions were given over to the Eduard Vilde nominal kolkhoz and the Vinni model sovkhoz technical school. Fertilizers, toxic chemicals and agricultural products were kept in the hangars. Mostly the buildings were demolished and material used for new buildings or scrap iron sold.