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Nuke-Lobbing
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."
When you're calling 1950 letters "emails", it's time to leave the computer.
Nowadays they use T-Shirt cannons.
Speaking at Defcon 12 - Credit Card Networks Revisted: Pen
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.
"The question of whether a computer can think is no more interesting than that of whether a submarine can swim" -EWD
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
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- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
So data is measured as a percentage of the information contained in the Library of Congress and bomb yield is rated as a number of Oklahoma City Federal Building truck bombs.
Other measuring sticks from the world of current events: information content of an official statement by number of words is measured in Rumsfeld poems, Jingoism can be measured in "freedom fries", and the likelihood of a simple task being screwed will henceforth be measured in dimpled chads.
[Set Cain on fire and steal his lute.]
'Close enough only counts with horseshoes and hand-grenades...'
And apparently when 'lobbing' thermonuclear weaponry!
Informatus Technologicus
Ok, This is really getting to be enough! How the F#$* does an article on aviation history turn onto another misinformed lefty screed on "All that is wrong with America"? I thought Slashdot was "News for Nerds", not the Berkely channel!