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Nuke-Lobbing 422

Posted by michael from the bombs-away dept.
SlideGuitar writes "The following is a fascinating article about how the Navy in the 1950s, wanting to assure that it had a carrier based nuclear force, used A1 Skyraider (single engine propellor driven aircraft) to lob nuclear bombs using a manuever called the "goofy loop" (read the article.) The goofy loop put about seven miles between them and a Mark 7 nuclear device at detonation. The pilots knew that (1) they couldn't get far enough away to survive, and (2) if they did survive there probably wouldn't be a carrier to go back to anyway. There are lots of emails from pilots who did the manuever and what they thought about the whole business."
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Nuke-Lobbing More

Nuke-Lobbing

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  • Nowadays... (Score:5, Funny)

    by SushiFugu ( 593444 ) on Sunday April 20, 2003 @04:11AM (#5767941)
    Nowadays they use T-Shirt cannons.

  • Physics (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Bios_Hakr ( 68586 ) <xptical@gmEEEail.com minus threevowels> on Sunday April 20, 2003 @04:11AM (#5767942)
    I have heard of "lobbing" before. If you know the speed of the plane and the angle of the climb, it should be easy to calculate the distance of the "lob". The problem is that it is difficult to repeat the exact conditions repeatedly. One lob might be 7 miles, then next might be 7.5 miles.

    I know some of you don't think that a few thousand feet would matter for a nuke, but most smaller tactical nukes are used to take out a specific target. The yeild can be as low as a few hundred kilotons or as high as a few megatons. Missing a deep bunker by a few hundred meters with a low-yeild nuke would mean a lot of collateral damage with almost no effect on the target.

    If you are interested in reading more about tactical mukes, do a google for B-61. These are what the Air Force uses today. Or would have/will use(d) in the proper situation. I think the original design purpose was to drop on formations of Soviet tanks in the event they mobilized on Western Europe.

    • Re:Physics (Score:5, Informative)

      by Moofie ( 22272 ) <lee@ringofsat u r n.com> on Sunday April 20, 2003 @04:19AM (#5767957) Homepage
      Well, the guys who actually did it said that their bombs normally fell within 300ft of their targets.

      Airspeed indicators can be pretty accurate.

    • Re:Physics (Score:5, Informative)

      by PD ( 9577 ) <slashdotlinux@pdrap.org> on Sunday April 20, 2003 @04:24AM (#5767968) Homepage Journal
      You've got the cart before the horse. This maneuver was never considered for the small nukes, because they didn't exist. And why were the nukes so big way back then? Two reasons. It was harder to make small nukes. The backpack nuke was really hard to make compared to a multi-megaton monster. The other reason is that with inaccurate delivery systems you need big nukes to destroy a target if you miss it by 3 or 4 miles.

      As the accuracy of missile systems crept up, the size of the nuke required went down. Now, we can drop a conventional bomb or 4 right through a specific window, so there's hardly any targets that cannot be destroyed by a conventional bomb.

      Nukes are basically obsolete as battlefield weapons.
      • Now, we can drop a conventional bomb or 4 right through a specific window,

        Yeah, except that's nonsense. In the NATO invasion of Kosovo and the bombing of the rest of Serbia, a huge number of bombs were not on target. Even if the accuracy rate were 90% (which it's definitely not) given that 10's of thousands of bombs are being dropped, that's still 1000's of bombs off target.
        And the accuracy hasn't improved much since the late 90's because plenty of bombs missed their targets and hit civillian areas in Ba
        • Actually, it's likely that most of what hit civilian areas in Baghdad was Iraqi anti-aircraft. They were spewing an incredible amout of stuff into the air, and it all had to come down somewhere. That's not to say that a few US munitions didn't go off target, they probably did. It's just that there was plenty of other stuff coming down as well..

    • Ah, the old cold war joke (Score:5, Funny)

      by Galvatron ( 115029 ) on Sunday April 20, 2003 @04:46AM (#5767996)
      Q: What's the difference between a tactical and a strategic nuclear weapon?
      A: It's a tactical nuke if it lands in Germany.

      Seriously though, as others alluded to, by the time we had small tactical nukes, we also had better delivery systems, obsoleting the whole "lobbing" technique. The article suggests that this strategy was doctrine during the 1950's.

    • I know some of you don't think that a few thousand feet would matter for a nuke, but most smaller tactical nukes are used to take out a specific target. The yeild can be as low as a few hundred kilotons or as high as a few megatons. Missing a deep bunker by a few hundred meters with a low-yeild nuke would mean a lot of collateral damage with almost no effect on the target.

      Tactical Nukes? HUH? I thought we decided 50 years ago that they were SO brutal and ugly, that no nation would use them. That the hu

  • It probably wasn't that bad of an idea (Score:5, Interesting)

    by The Evil Couch ( 621105 ) on Sunday April 20, 2003 @04:11AM (#5767944) Homepage
    Get people so concentrated on doing a specific complicated series of maneuvers to unleash their payload that they don't even have time to worry about the fact that they're probably not going to make it back alive.

    For a combat tactic that would likely be an end of the world situation anyways, you might as well get people focused on other things.
    • For a combat tactic that would likely be an end of the world situation anyways...

      I doubt it. I don't think we had enough nukes in the 1950's to end the world. That's exactly why these sorts of plans were thought up, because it was still entirely feasible to "win" a nuclear war. Sure, there'd be some ecological contamination, but since most of the ordinance would likely be dropped on Eastern Europe, most of the fallout would probably end up over Russia, leaving most of the world (Western Europe, Africa,

      • I can't remember when we (the US) adopted this tactic, but all of our nukes are intended to detonate at altitude. The theory is that the blast will cover more area anyway, and will be less likely to be deflected by large buildings or goegraphic features.

        Anyway, after studying this tactic, we found that the fallout was reduced. Building better nukes further reduced the fallout. I don't know if it is just crap or what, but I have heard that a limited exchange would result in almost no fallout. After the

        • Re:Fallout (Score:5, Interesting)

          by ender81b ( 520454 ) <wdinger@@@gmail...com> on Sunday April 20, 2003 @05:24AM (#5768066) Homepage Journal
          but all of our nukes are intended to detonate at altitude.

          not true at all. The US maintains both Air and ground burst nuclear weapons for a variety of reasons. Air Burst are useful for taking out alot of crap over a wide area. However they are not very effective at taking out hardened targets (bunkers, missle silos, etc) so the us still maintains a large arsenal of groundburst weapons for this reason.

          While nuclear weapons can be delivered "clean" they also make "dirty" bombs for the exact opposite purpose. The US, and the russians, used to maintain a large inventory of nukes designed to poison crop fields. Detonate 40-50 airburst over Nebraska,Iowa, and Kansas and watch the breadbasket of the US go to hell due to the fallout from these "dirty" nukes.

          Also, nuetron bombs might be what you are thinking of. These weapons have almost no blast or fireball. Instead they are designed to simply put out a large amount of short term radiation, essentially killing everything around them but leaving the cities, etc free of damage and radiation. IIRC these weapons are banned by both sides.
        • With a properly designed air burst, the shockwave will bounce off the ground and combine with the primary shockwave, producing a stronger shockwave than would be produced by a ground burst, enhancing the blast damage.

          Modern nuclear bombs are fitted with very effective parachutes that allow the plane to reach a safe distance before detonation. The weapon can be programmed for "laydown" fuzing, where the weapon detonates after a preset delay from the time of ground impact.

    • Re:It probably wasn't that bad of an idea (Score:5, Interesting)

      by WegianWarrior ( 649800 ) on Sunday April 20, 2003 @04:57AM (#5768031) Journal

      Get people so concentrated on doing a specific complicated series of maneuvers to unleash their payload that they don't even have time to worry about the fact that they're probably not going to make it back alive.

      That, and it allowed you to have a standoff-distance of about 7 miles - or about 11 km for us who prefer metrics - from your target. Back in the days before advanced SAMs, you know, when they used guns to plink aircraft out of the sky, that could be the difference between getting your bomb on target and beeing shot down before you got that far. So it all makes sence to me, in so far any use of nukes makes sence at all.

  • Think about now. (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Martigan80 ( 305400 )
    O.k. this was the 50's version of a suicide bomber, with one hell of a payload. Now think about his.
    This was done in the 50's; now that we have better technology what do you think the military can do now? We have not seen anything yet, even with the current war in Iraq. Now that the public is more involved the lives of military personnel are not so easily thrown away. Yet this leaves ample room for everyone to see what the military still can do but doesn't tell you for your own benefit.

  • Google's cache (Score:4, Informative)

    by Niten ( 201835 ) on Sunday April 20, 2003 @04:38AM (#5767987)

    Judging by the time it took me to load up the page at this hour of the morning, we may be needing this later on:

    Google's Cache of the Front Page [216.239.37.100]

    And here are some quick links to the other parts of this page on the Google cache:

    The other parts of this page did not appear to have a Google cache at the time of this writing... with luck we won't need them.

    • The other parts of this page did not appear to have a Google cache at the time of this writing... with luck we won't need them.
      Do you know something about the next few hours that the rest of us don't?

  • Maybe I'm missing something... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by bazmonkey ( 555276 ) on Sunday April 20, 2003 @04:40AM (#5767988)
    ...but how hard could it be to determine if the airplane would survive?

    First off, the assumptions may have been wrong...

    The goofy loop put about seven miles between them and a Mark 7 nuclear device at detonation.

    So you take a Skyraider, blow up a Mark 7 about seven miles away, and look at what happens. I realize that the shock of the explosion would be somewhat less because you're traveling with it, but still, it would give you a reasonable idea, right? You could even measure the force of the shock wave as it progresses and position the plane at a point that best expresses what the shock *should* be.

    I'm sure I'm missing something; the US military isn't that stupid... I think.
    • It was just a polite way of saying you're playing russian roulette with a six-shooter and there are 6 bullets in the gun. We're assuming you'll live if you happen to hit a dud.

      -

    • Re:Maybe I'm missing something... (Score:5, Interesting)

      by The Bungi ( 221687 ) <thebungi@gmail.com> on Sunday April 20, 2003 @05:38AM (#5768084) Homepage
      The key factor here is the precision with which the roll-and-pickle maneuver is executed. Even a minimal degree or airspeed variation could bonk it, resulting in either the bomb going past the target point ("precision bombs" were but a dream in that time, obviously) or falling short. The former is no big deal, at least for the pilot's well being and chances of having offspring that didn't drool excessively.

      The latter could be painful.

      There are a lot of examples of this type of thing during the early years of nuclear weapons planning. During the Cuban missile crisis, for example, jet pilots that were on alert out of Florida and southern air bases were tasked with patrolling for Soviet bombers. But there weren't enough of them, so the pilots were expected to use their planes as missiles against large formations of "Badger" and "Bear" nuke-carrying behemots fielded by the USSR.

    • Why take the risk of proving beyond any reasonable doubt that it was a suicide mission for sure?

      If test works: all is well, continue with current plns.
      If test fails: oops. Continue with current plans.

    • Re:Maybe I'm missing something... (Score:5, Informative)

      by Mainframes ROCK! ( 644130 ) <<watfiv> <at> <gmail.com>> on Sunday April 20, 2003 @07:17AM (#5768207) Homepage
      The Mark 7 [enviroweb.org] had a variable yield from 8 to 61 KT [enviroweb.org]. If you do the math [enviroweb.org] you will see even with the highest 61 KT yield, at 7 miles from ground zero the blast overpressure is low (less than .5 psi) -- an airplane could easily survive. Also at that distance the flash is not intense enough to cause burns.
    • I'm sure I'm missing something; the US military isn't that stupid... I think.

      Oh, but they are. Two words for you: friendly fire.

    • Re:Maybe I'm missing something... (Score:5, Informative)

      by georgewilliamherbert ( 211790 ) on Sunday April 20, 2003 @02:12PM (#5769414)
      So you take a Skyraider, blow up a Mark 7 about seven miles away, and look at what happens. I realize that the shock of the explosion would be somewhat less because you're traveling with it, but still, it would give you a reasonable idea, right? You could even measure the force of the shock wave as it progresses and position the plane at a point that best expresses what the shock *should* be.

      See: High Energy Weapons Archive All US Bombs list [membrane.com] Mk-7 bomb had maximum yield of 61 kilotons.

      From: Nuclear Weapons FAQ Sect 5: Effects of Nuclear Weapons [membrane.com] the formula for blast damage (the most significant at these ranges and yields) for a bomb is: These many different effects make it difficult to provide a simple rule of thumb for assessing the magnitude of harm produced by different blast intensities. A general guide is given below: 1 psi Window glass shatters Light injuries from fragments occur. 3 psi Residential structures collapse. Serious injuries are common, fatalities may occur. 5 psi Most buildings collapse. Injuries are universal, fatalities are widespread. 10 psi Reinforced concrete buildings are severely damaged or demolished. Most people are killed. 20 psi Heavily built concrete buildings are severely damaged or demolished. Fatalities approach 100%. Suitable scaling constants for the equation r_blast = Y^0.33 * constant_bl are: constant_bl_1_psi = 2.2 constant_bl_3_psi = 1.0 constant_bl_5_psi = 0.71 constant_bl_10_psi = 0.45 constant_bl_20_psi = 0.28 where Y is in kilotons and range is in km.

      So, given the known yeild (61 kt) then the formula is:

      r_blast = (61)^0.33 * constant_bl

      r_blast = 3.9 * constant_bl

      The 1 PSI overpressure range is 2.2 * 3.9 = 8.6 km. The planes were 11 km away at detonation, so they would experience under 1 PSI of overpressure. They would survive just fine.

      All the Suicide Planes talk is ignorance. People should read references like the Nuclear Weapons FAQ. [membrane.com]

  • I did this maneuver (Score:5, Interesting)

    by teamhasnoi ( 554944 ) <teamhasnoi AT yahoo DOT com> on Sunday April 20, 2003 @04:47AM (#5767998) Journal
    in a really old sidescroller (xt) game called Sopwith. So much fun to do a loop and let the bomb go as you got to the top. You would crash if you hit the top of the screen (iirc), but the bomb would just shoot up in a big arc and come down later. (There were dangers involved even then...)

    I'm sure you can find it on some shareware site, and I'm almost sure you can run it if you're reading this.

  • The reason behind (Score:5, Funny)

    by buyo-kun ( 664999 ) on Sunday April 20, 2003 @04:52AM (#5768016)
    This was obviously an ingenius way for the Navy to cut down on idiots in America.

    Admiral 1: Ok, theres far more idiots in the US then is acceptable, Suggestions people.

    Admiral 2: Education!

    Admiral 3: Social Reform!

    Admiral 4: Put them on a Plane with a big Bomb on it and tell them to denonate it! Then we can watch them spin around, it'll be great fun!

    Admiral 1-3: *Claps*
    • Hm, when I read the article, I instantly thought about suicide-bombers, and compared with the old japanese ones in their special vehicles, and with the modern palestinian and al-quaidian ones...
      The conclusion? There are evil people in governments everywhere, and stupid (religious) people among the people everywhere...
      • Yes, it may well have been suicidal. However, as some of the pilots pointed out -- they didn't really expect to come back, but if they were ever ordered to hit their targets, it was probably pretty much the end of the world anyway. The carrier they were leaving wouldn't exist, etc.

  • Hmmm... (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Black Parrot ( 19622 )


    This is the same country that is now so indignant about the Iraqis using suicide bombers to defend against an invader, right?

    • <i><blockquote>
      It's sure starting to look like Syria is queued up for the next liberation.
      </blockquote></i>

      <p>Nah, they don't have large enough oil reserves to make it worth the public relations problems.</p>

    • If the aircraft were masquerading as innocent civilian aircraft in the middle of vast amounts of innocent civilian air traffic (which strikes me as unlikely in a war zone), you MIGHT have a point. Since it wouldn't, you don't.

  • Other Smart Ideas... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by ColaMan ( 37550 ) on Sunday April 20, 2003 @05:12AM (#5768047) Journal
    This reminds me of the

    Nuclear armed Jeep. [thoughtviper.com]
    Basically, a standard Jeep with 40 kiloton nuke with a launcher that only carried the nuke one an a half miles. What the hell were they thinking?!? Might as well have just driven on up to the enemy and said, "here, hold this for a minute, willya?"

    Wouldn't want to be the poor sap assigned to that jeep.
    • The warhead of the "jeep" weapon was no larger than ten or twenty tons, not 40 kilotons.

      The web page says 40 tons, but that's a high estimate.

    • Re:Other Smart Ideas... (Score:5, Informative)

      by reverseengineer ( 580922 ) on Sunday April 20, 2003 @05:37AM (#5768081)
      I'd like to point out that the Davy Crockett (Best. Weapon. Ever.) which is referenced in my slightly later post (you beat me by 6 minutes) does not fire a 40 kiloton nuclear warhead, it fires a roughly 40 ton nuclear warhead, a difference of three orders of magnitude. The Hiroshima device is estimated at about 15 kilotons; these are about 0.04 kilotons. These are the smallest nuclear warheads ever created, with an explosive power between 2-4 times that of the ANFO bomb that was used to destroy the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City. The equivalent of 40 tons of TNT is still enough to cause a gigantic explosion, of course, and gives you some sort of idea of the incredible devastation caused by a strategic thermonuclear warhead in the megaton range.
      • The equivalent of 40 tons of TNT is still enough to cause a gigantic explosion, of course, and gives you some sort of idea of the incredible devastation caused by a strategic thermonuclear warhead in the megaton range.

        A megaton device does cause an incredible amount of devastation compared to a 40 ton device, but not as much as you might expect. First, a large part of the energy is spread across a volume of air so the radius of destruction scales according to somewhere between a square and cubic root of t

    • Re:Other Smart Ideas... (Score:5, Funny)

      by Alsee ( 515537 ) on Sunday April 20, 2003 @06:29AM (#5768148) Homepage
      Nuclear armed Jeep.

      I can just imagine a nuclear hand grenade. Pull pin, throw.

      Hell, I'd issue TWO nuclear hand grenades to each infantry man. You know, just in case he needs a second one :)

      -
    • Uh, no.
      The M388 warhead had a selectable yield from 10 to 250 _tons_.
      Here's [guntruck.com] some more info....
      Also, take a look at another neat Cold-war toy: The 280mm Atomic Cannon.... [enviroweb.org]

  • Those Wacky 50s (Score:5, Informative)

    by reverseengineer ( 580922 ) on Sunday April 20, 2003 @05:18AM (#5768056)
    Yeah, this is from a very interesting time in the history of military strategy- that period from 1949 to the invention of the ICBM in the late 1950s. In 1949, the Soviets demonstrated that they had entered the Nuclear Age (with a little help from spies), thus ending America's window to conduct "atomic bomb diplomacy"- if you have a weapon that can destroy an entire city, and no one else has one, or any sort of effective countermeasure, you can get pretty far with extortion.

    When the Soviets got the Bomb, of course, the Cold War started in earnest, and so plans had to be drawn up to fight the most colossal and devastating war in human history (hot on the heels of that previous most colossal and devastating war in human history where the Soviet happened to be our allies). It was of course feared that in this upcoming war, the Soviets would have a tremendous advantage in conventional forces, and waves of Soviet tanks would roll across Europe. Thus, our rapidly growing stockpile of atomic bombs would become an important asset. The major question was how these weapons would be delivered. The Air Force of course responded by building a fleet of long range strategic bombers, and the Navy a fleet of submarines that could launch nuclear missiles; these measures, however, took years to set up, leading to a variety of interesting stopgap measures. This includes the lovely "idiot loop" maneuver explained here of course, as well as the Army's approaches, which included a 280mm cannon that fired atomic artillery shells, and what is perhaps the most unbelievable weapon in military history (and that includes the insane ideas the Nazis had at the end of WWII like the Me-162), the Davy Crockett. [brook.edu] Why yes, that is a nuclear warhead being fired out of a recoilless rifle barrel.

    Like I said, these were stopgap measures, born out of desperation. Of course, this period pretty much entered its twilight with the development of the thermonuclear "Super" device, and was utterly swept away with the advent of the ICBM and SLBM to carry it. It became clear that there was no longer any place for tactics on a nuclear battlefield- with thousands of ballistic missiles on each side, most of civilization would be vapor before conventional troops got loaded into the transport plane. Also, the long term effects of radiation were becoming known- how does the traditional idea of territorial control work if in order to gain territory, you have to nuke it? Anyway, some of the ideas that came up in this short period were pretty crazy, but they're pretty much par for the course in military history- whenever a new technology hits the battlefield, strategists go nuts trying to either combat against it, or work it into their plans- compare this period in history, where a weapon of incredible power threatened to make conventional forces obsolete, to a period like the introduction of firearms to the medieval battlefield, or the introduction of the ironclad in naval battles- the old weapons and strategies quickly beome obsolete, and military planners become willing to try absolutely anything to gain the upper hand.

    • Re:Those Wacky 50s (Score:3, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Well, you might think the idea of tactical use of nukes is pretty crazy, but (speaking of goofy loops), your prez and the nuttas in the Pentagon don't. They are asking Congre$$ to authorise the spending of billions on developing new tactical nuclear weapons and are likely to break the test ban treaty too.
    • and that includes the insane ideas the Nazis had at the end of WWII like the Me-162

      The Me-162 was no insane idea (beside the fact that everything prologing the war would have been an insane idea). The Me-162 was ready for production in 1942 and (by far) the best and most advanced fighter plane used in WWII.

      If the Me-162 would have become available in huge numbers during 1943 (which was possible), it would probably have reversed the allied aerial superiority above germany.

      The real insane part was inst

      • Its engines had an average life of 10 hours, that's 2-3 missions. They were hard to manufacture at all, let alone in quality and quantity.

        It had short range, the jet engines of the day were very inefficient and gobbled fuel like crazy. This would have made their fuel supply problems worse.

        All jet engines have slow acceleration, the early ones even more so. An Me-262 in landing pattern was a sitting duck. More sitting ducks = more losses, and at low altitude, fewer survivors.

        The allies had jet planes,
        • Of course, like all jets, it was short range and couldn't have escorted bombers to Berlin.

          I think, that this is one of the important points. Up to the battle of Britain, the germans used the Me-110 as bomber escort. It had a pretty decent range, but it was no match for a Spitfire. The Me-109 was on equal footing to the Spitfire, but range limitations gave it little standing power in british airspace.

          A proper counter-strategy was to disable the airfields in southern england and therefor force the english

      • Both my and mseeger's mea culpas, we both read Me-262, the jet fighter, whereas reverseengineer said Me-162, which I believe was the rocket boosted glider, which was expected to glide thru a bomber formation on its way back down, firing a few rockets, and the pilots was supposed to bail out before the Me-162 crashed. Yes, that was a goofy waste of resources.
    • Even crazier on the site you reference is the nuclear land mine [brook.edu]. I'd hate to be the poor guy who stepped on that one...
  • of a cruise missile minus navigation, plus pilot.

  • actually, this manuever is still in use today (Score:5, Interesting)

    by StandardDeviant ( 122674 ) on Sunday April 20, 2003 @06:42AM (#5768163) Homepage Journal
    It's what the F-16 has to use in order to deliver weapons of this class (probably F/A-18 as well). The standard F-16 has to have physical (bomb attachment point strengthening, etc.) and avionics upgrades to handle it, but in the end it's basically just a faster, more accurate (ooh! software! ;)) version of the 50's manuever. (I googled looking for a link to back this up, but came up dry, probably just not using good enough queries... One bit of unintentional humor was noting the top text ad for "F-16 nuclear delivery", namely "Find a delivery service! Anywhere in the world! www.somedeliverycompany.com" or some such... Heh, I don't think that's what they had in mind...)

    IIRC, back in the mid-80's (i think), there was a big stink between Pakistan and India caused by Pakistan obtaining some of these nuclear capable F-16s. Of course, at that time it was only suspected that Pakistan had The Bomb, but when your neighbor buys a shotgun you don't have to see the shells to get a little nervous. (When is there not a big stink between Pakistan and India? Anyway, that *particular* big stink was over Pakistan's nuke-capable fighters.)

    • Eh, not really. (Score:5, Interesting)

      by MtViewGuy ( 197597 ) on Sunday April 20, 2003 @09:01AM (#5768355)
      I don't think the Low-Altitude Bombing System (LABS) manuever is practiced nowadays.

      Mostly because the airplane that delivered the bomb has to make a sharp popup manuever to do this, and that makes the plane extremely vulnerable to ground AA fire and to other fighters. With the advent of parachutes to slow down the bomb drop rate and delayed-action detonation circuits (both of which were developed for the B28, B43, B57, B61 and B83 bombs due to the fact bombers dropped the bombs at very low altitude at high speed), LABS manuevers are fortunately not necessary nowadays.

      By the way, one other thing--the weight of modern nuclear bombs are surprisingly low. The variable yield (10 to 250 kT) B61 bomb weighs only about 700 pounds; the 1 MT B83 bomb only weigh just under 1000 pounds! Given that the F-16C and F-18C/E models regularly carry 2,000 lb. iron bombs on a regular basis, the only modification necessary for the F-16C and F-18C/E to carry nuclear bombs is the extra control avionics needed to arm the bomb itself.

    • Of course, at that time it was only suspected that Pakistan had The Bomb

      That's why the current situation on the subcontinent is so dangerous. Until both sides have enough nukes that an exchange would annihilate both countries, there'll be the temptation to think a nuclear war can be "won". It's one of the great ironies of the nuclear world that India and Pakistan will both be safer places to live when the two traditional enemies have enough firepower to destroy all of Asia.


      • It's one of the great ironies of the nuclear world that India and Pakistan will both be safer places to live when the two traditional enemies have enough firepower to destroy all of Asia.
        Mutual Assured Destruction does NOT mean that someone might throw their hands up in the air and say "who cares - unleash the nukes" just to spite.

        NO NUKES means that NO ONE can do this - it becomes impossible, not improbable.

        Therefore, anyone NOT interested in dying in a nuclear war must have a No Nukes opinion, if not
    • Lofting is a standard maneuver, and it is not restricted to just nuclear weapons. It's used whenever the pilot wants to add some sort of stand-off capability to a non-stand-off weapon, and requires only that the aircraft have a CCRP (continuously calculated release point) bombing mode (which includes all current U.S. fighter and bomber aircraft). Again, it has nothing to do specifically with nukes.

      Here's how it's done; the pilot waits until the horizontal line on the CCRP vertical line blinks, indicating
  • (with less success of course). But I was watching Discovery Wings (yes, I have that Digital) and they showed them trying to do something similar with a B-47 Stratojet (if I remember correctly). Needless to say they had some trouble trying to flip a 133000 lbs. bomber.

  • Good stuff (Score:3, Insightful)

    by dnoyeb ( 547705 ) on Sunday April 20, 2003 @09:29AM (#5768415) Homepage Journal
    That was certainly worthly of post here at slashdot. News for the military history nerd. I think that would make an excellent story for the history channel. The poster should contact them about it. it was very interesting.

    Those military guys have personality too.

  • Didn't Even Have the Peril Sensitive Glasses! (Score:3, Funny)

    by nutznboltz ( 473437 ) on Sunday April 20, 2003 @10:15AM (#5768505) Homepage Journal
    "We didn't have goggles that went opaque until the 1960s. Shut one eye and then open it after the flash was the idea."--Ron Pickett, Phoenix, Arizona

  • Suicide bombers (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Anarchofascist ( 4820 ) on Sunday April 20, 2003 @10:18AM (#5768520) Homepage Journal
    What a cool article about American suicide bombers! I love suicide bombers. There's something so daring, heroic and tragic about them, don't you think?

    What a great guy. He sure must have a lot of guts to be prepared to strap himself into a weapon of mass destruction and hurtle himself at the enemy like that, knowing that he was unlikely to come back alive. How dashing! How adventurous!

    To bad there aren't enough people like that in the world today, willing to throw their lives away for a cause they believe in.

    Yes, I know, there will always be the lefty naysayers who will complain about "thousands of innocent civilians dead" but this is wartime! You have to expect civilians to be killed (and sometimes even targetted) by suicide troops in the struggle for a greater glory.

    [Note for our American readers: Please don your sarcasm-glasses, switch on your ironometers and re-read this post]

    You're not targeting Sevastopol but the military airfield on the mainland beyond, to take out the MiG-15s that would otherwise intercept the big bombers of the Strategic Air Command.

    Ah that's alright then. It's a military target. He's going to kill the soldiers who would try to prevent our boys from murdering millions of civilians.

    • Re:Suicide bombers (Score:4, Insightful)

      by nochops ( 522181 ) on Sunday April 20, 2003 @10:56AM (#5768627)
      Damn...where's my mod points when I need them? I couldn't have said it better myself. This really should be modded up, so some people can see how hipocritical and silly the sound.

      • Re:Suicide bombers (Score:4, Interesting)

        by Jerf ( 17166 ) on Sunday April 20, 2003 @09:39PM (#5771059) Journal
        It's only hypocritical if you falsely assume that everybody today would condone these actions. I don't condone them, whether my ancestors are doing them or living people.

        I'd also point out that both the United States and the Soviet Union never did these things, in stark contrast to certain people today who show every sign of being willing to do them, if only they had the weapons. (I always try to remember to credit the USSR as well for not blowing up the world, especially as it became increasingly clear they were losing.)

        It's only "hypocrisy" if you deliberately take a naive view of the current world situation to score dubious rhetorical points, and it's the continuing predilection of the left for this sort of rhetorical dishonesty that is further and further marginalizing them, thank goodness.

    • Re:Suicide bombers (A perspective view) (Score:4, Insightful)

      by ronmon ( 95471 ) on Sunday April 20, 2003 @11:41AM (#5768796)
      First, you must take into account the mindset of the era. It was considered to be a real possibility that nukes would be flying around in abundance and WWII was fresh in the minds of most everyone. Having been born in the year that this article covers, I am old enough to remember the Cuban missile crisis and doing 'duck and cover' drills (what a joke) in elementary school.

      Western culture in general and American culture in particular doesn't encourage suicide bombers or kamikazes. The main point being that they had a chance, however slim, to survive. The pilots were well aware of this fact according to their personal accounts. Closing one eye, painting the tail white and the lob maneuver itself were all designed to increase the likleyhood of the pilot coming home.

      It seems pretty ridiculous now, but back then it was looked upon as a last ditch 'all or nothing' gamble.

  • Don't forget the Thuds! (Score:4, Informative)

    by scatter_gather ( 649698 ) on Sunday April 20, 2003 @10:25AM (#5768545)
    Prop planes were hardly the only aircraft that tossed bombs to deploy them. The F-105 Thunderchief, nicknamed the "Thud", was designed to be a fighter/BOMBER delivering nuclear payloads. I was an air force grunt that worked on them in the Viet Nam era and watched a training video showing the aircraft in the strategic (nuclear) mission. It had a fire control computer that was known as the "toss bomb computer" and calculated climb angle, release point, etc. The idea was the same, run in low to the ground at mach 1.2 (the aircraft had a very low radar cross section from the front) and do a half loop and release the bomb in the arc and keep going to roll out back the way you came. Cross your fingers and hold on to your ass. Here is a picture of the delivery.

    over-the-shoulder [aol.com]
  • From the article:

    "Then you found an easily recognized landmark to serve as your Initial Point, which today will be Pokrovskiy cathedral in the center of Sevastopol. ... When the onion tops of Pokrovskiy cathedral flash under the port wingtip, you press the pickle button..."

    Here's a photo of that cathedral, it's the top one on the page:

    Pokrovsky cathedral [vbelous.net]

  • Oral History (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Graspee_Leemoor ( 302316 ) on Sunday April 20, 2003 @10:59AM (#5768633) Homepage Journal
    The emails from pilots were very interesting, I thought; It made me remember all the "oral history" stuff with WW1 and WW2 veterans speaking of their experiences, and I realized how important it was for future generations that we almost constantly interview people about stuff and write it all down before their memories go.

    Or this too anal an attitude on my part? It's like I write a diary entry every day but I hardly ever re-read old diary entries.

    graspee

  • Canadians Practiced Nuke Lobbing Also (Score:5, Interesting)

    by frank249 ( 100528 ) on Sunday April 20, 2003 @11:02AM (#5768649)
    Our political masters tend to portray the Canadian Armed Forces as only peace keepers but the worst kept secret is our nuclear heritage. We had nuclear tipped Genie, Honest John and BOMARC missiles and from 1961 to 1984 Canadian Pilots based in Germany also practiced for the nuclear strike role with their CF-104 Star Fighter [rcafmuseum.on.ca]. Known as the 'missile with a man in it' or the 'widow maker' it was very fast -Mach 2.2 - but not very manuverable. 37 Canadian pilots died while practicing low level flying. A friend of mine described how they were briefed on how to use safe corridors to get to the target but the route for the return trip was up to them. Needless to say he figured if he ever had to do it for real, it was going to be a one way fight. He said that there was curtains in the cockpit to block the flash. The starfighter was fast enough to out run the blast but he said once you climbed above tree top level the missiles would probally get you.

    I was in the Army in Germany in the 70's and we practiced snowballs or bugging out to get our vehicles as far away from the base as fast as possible before the Russian nukes or chemical strike hit. It is hard to descibe but when you heard those sirens going off at 3 in the morning, you never knew if it was a drill or the real thing. Thank God that no one ever 'pushed the button' for real.
  • It'll make playing Warbirds a much quicker game with realistic nuclear detonations.

  • French were to bomb Russia with no return possible (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Submarine ( 12319 ) on Sunday April 20, 2003 @03:34PM (#5769728) Homepage
    I remember reading that in the early days of the French nuclear forces, French pilots were to fly on to Moscow and other major cities and drop their bombs, but they did not have enough fuel to come back. They had to parachute over Finland at the extreme limit of their fuel. It was most likely a suicide mission.

    (Interestingly, those forces were developed partly because the French government thought that in case of a Soviet attack over Western Europe backed with a nuclear threat over the US, the US government would not react for fear of retaliation.)

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