[QUOTE=Blacksheep;4867128Bomber Command regularly came to readiness on their home bases through Exercise "Mick" [/quote] which was a fully fueled states and Alert Condition 3. Apart from the need to download live wepaons before any flight it would have been necessary to defuel the aircraft to transit states.
[quote] theoretically disappear to dispersal from that status within 15 minutes./quote] this would only have been from Alert Conditon 2.
Sometimes Bomber Command would test us when the station was declared ready, by saying "Off you go then!" just to see if we were bullsh*tting.
if you mean to dispersal then that was the annual Micky Finn. The other, during a Mick, was a start engines to Readiness 02 and the whole force would do a waddle around the airfield.
We could - and regularly did - perform Exercise "Micky Finn" and disperse the entire 'V' Force from a cold start within 24 hours. (That includes all aircraft and aircrew plus the ground crews to maintain them. We went in Hastings, Beverleys and even 42 seater busses.) We may have been a scruffy ill-disciplined crowd of misfits and reprobates, but we knew our jobs inside out and were very proud of our technical ability.
This was another reason why the Alert Condition 2 state was expected to be of short duration. The ground crews could not be in two places at once and the necessary AT could not be held back waiting for them!