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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."
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.
I'd rather you do it wrong, than for me to have to do it at all.
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.
The World's Worst Webcomic!
"Crazy days" -- email from the Spadguys
Chapter 1: Spad idiot loops
Date: Sat, 19 Sep 1998 17:12:54 +1200
From: Norm Davis
Subject: Spad idiot loops
Chapter 2: the pickle button & other details
From: Blake Middleton
Subject: RE: instrument panel
Date: Wed, 7 Oct 1998 15:27:53 -0500
Chapter 3: "50 feet is life"
Date: Tue, 1 Dec 1998 22:19:41 -0500
From: Joe Shea
Subject: toss bomb article
This reminds me of the
Nuclear armed Jeep.
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.
You are in a twisty maze of processor lines, all alike.
There is a lot of hype here.
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.
Duh, you think? See, the difference between America and every other "imperialist" nation in the history of the WORLD is that America permits adversarial, even belligerent nations to control a vital strategic resource.
It used to be that only Noam Chomsky referred to the U.S. as an imperialist nation. And now the conventional wisdom has changed- not only are we imperialists now, but even being an imperialist power is an OK thing to be! (Sort of like how massive federal deficits are suddenly OK now too.) Things sure are changing a lot and fast. If you don't pay attention, you won't recognize the country you live in anymore. The language is changing underneath us, too. "Partisan" used to mean something about a bias for one political party or the other. Now it simply means you don't like Bush and therefore shouldn't be listened to. People who do favor Bush are never partisan.
OF COURSE the war in the middle east is about oil. More to the point, it's about protecting the supply of a strategically essential resource.
What exactly is wrong with that?
Well when you put it that way, it sounds so sensible, doesn't it? Which is why it was spoon-fed to you in that form so you could regurgitate it to us here. Something must be wrong with it though, or Bush would have simply told us the truth instead of inventing a crisis about "weapons of mass destruction".
Why can't he just tell us the truth? If there's one thing that I have really disliked about this war, it's the slick glossy marketing, the "psy ops" that are apparently designed to work on us at home instead of people in Iraq, the mounds and mounds of pure bullshit assembled to justify what is essentially an elective war, and the relentless and well orchestrated vitriol aimed at anyone who dares criticize the president during this phony crisis that he insisted on creating in the first place.
I've been trying to figure out for a long time what the motive for this war really is. The official reasons given (9/11, WMD, "he gassed his own people", bringing democracy to the nations in the region, etc.) either make no logical sense, are obvious lies, or are so outlandish that it's clear nobody in the administration takes them seriously. In fact it reminds me of the 2001 tax cut. They wanted the tax cut so badly, but couldn't offer any coherent reason for one. So they proposed the tax cut as a cureall for all sorts of problems. Inflation. Deflation. No matter what it was, the tax cut was going to fix it. The war was the same way. It's always pretty clear what the Bush administration wants, but they never indicate why they want these things. I do know two things about the true motive of the war:
I can at least understand a war designed to undermine OPEC. Why didn't Bush just flat out say it? "We want to invade a country so we can gain access to its oil fields." Spare me the bullshit about WMD, the war on terror, spreading democracy, etc. When a president lacks the political balls to announce to the world why he's starting a war, it's usually a sign that the war is a bad idea in the first place.
40-50 bombs, even of megaton size, do not produce enough fallout to render three large states uninhabitable. If they did, the health effects from the dozens of open air tests of nuclear weapons would have been much more significant and noticable in the nearby populations.
Fallout can of course be quite deadly. But these are very large areas you are talking about. When something is spread, it is diluted, and also the most radioactive isotopes will be gone in a matter of days anyway.
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.)
News for Geeks in Austin, TX
Uh. The MK-7 was a variable yield weapon with a maximum adjustable yield of 61 kilotons. 7 or even 3 miles would be more than enough to escape all of it's harmful effects.
MK-7 picture
Please understand what you are talking about the next time you post your pacifistic drivel.
Oh and by the way, why wouldn't there be a carrier to return to?
This kind of idiocy is typical when nuclear weapons are the subject. Laymen think of them as the end-all of warfare and human existence (greatly contributed to by defeatistic soviet propaganda), when in reality they are just big bombs. All the nuclear weapons in the world are not nearly enough to exterminate all human life on earth. Just see how many athmosperic nuke tests have been done over the years, and surprise, surprise: we're still here.
The High Energy Weapons Archive offers more clues for the clueless:
High Energy Weapons Archive
Maybe because the fighter was running out of fuel, having flown to the target from a carrier that was far enough from the target so that enemy fighters and bombers couldn't reach it safely?
They US Air Force did this kind of trick when bombing Japan for the first time in WW II - the mission known as The Dolittle raid. The B-25 bombers, having taken of from a carrier and not having enough fuel to return there (landing would have caused trouble, too), were supposed to land in China - which none of them succeeded to do due to bad weather. Only one crew was unfortunate to bail out/crash land over Japanese territory, other 15 made it to friendlier territories. They may as well not have been that lucky.
Hell is not other people; it is yourself. - Ludwig Wittgenstein
Even crazier on the site you reference is the nuclear land mine. I'd hate to be the poor guy who stepped on that one...
The best rationale I can find is in papers and articles from "The Project for the New American Century" a conservative defence policy think-tank.
Rumsfield, Cheney, Wolfawitz, Perle, and several others in the administration were members or wrote articles for them.
In a nutshell Iraq is meerly phase 1 in a larger plan.
Happy Fun Ball is for external use only.
are probably for the time of their inception, the most badass military aircraft ever. I don't even fantasize that those guys would have gotten out alive, but if any plane could do it it would have been the AD. They have been used for everything except personnell drops, in fact they were, I forget which configuration, the immediate predecessors of the A10 Thunderbolt, aka Warthog. I helped restore a couple that did very well in the OshKosh warbirds competition, the guy was right about how much oil spilled onto the wings and fuselage during flight. Kinda rough on the paint.
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.
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
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. 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.
Today's vices may be tomorrow's virtues.
It's silly to think that the US is imperialist.
.... wait for it, wait for it... yep you guessed it:
A million points to you friend for giving me my first belly-laugh of the day.
You bring to mind at quote that appauled me that Fleischer spat a few weeks ago something like "...those are humanitarian bombs..." when speaking of cruise missles. Terrific. And about their oil, and why the "Imperialists" are bringing Liberation and Freedom to Iraqis (nevermind WMD -- thats LAST months propaganda), while Iraqis were looting the Ministry of Education, Ministry of Interior, The Ministry of Ministries (whichever), their History Musems -- there were a half-dozen military vehicles and 100 marines outside (with barbwire etc) the
Ministry of Oil ! Safe and sound for the wonderfull Iraqis to come and Democratically Control it. REALITY: Sell it to US Oil Cos in neo-liberal grandeur... but that isnt in the script for 18 months, long enough for you to forget all this Iraqi Democracy business... oh the wonders of American arrogance, hubris, simplicity and gun-boat diplomacy - let the FREEDOM BOMBS DROP BROTHER! LIBERTY FOR EVERYONE!
This type of nuclear delivery wasn't limited to the USN Skyraiders in the 50s. As late as 1980 (and possibly later) the USAF F-111As at Mountain Home AFB, Idaho and the other models of F-111s at Cannon AFB, NM and in the U.K. practiced nuclear deliveries of two types.
Each type was executed with a 4G pullup some 5 NM short of the target (at 540 KGS IIRC). In both cases, the bomb released at about 45 degrees nose high during the pullup. The toss/loft ended with a 135-degree bank turning split-S type of egress manuver and the LADD (Low Altitude Drogue Delivery) had a roll inverted after bomb release, a pull down to low altitude (200 feet) and straight out egress over the target. The loft delivery was for a "slick" bomb; the LADD for a "retarded" (one with a drogue chute).
What made them exciting was doing them at night using the TFR (Terrain Following Radar) for ingress and egress! The pullup, roll, and pulldown were done manually of course.
Never occurred to us that these manuvers weren't survivable. Of course, F-111 airspeeds were half an order of magnitude faster than the Skyraider but the bomb was a B-61 with considerably more yield.
Actually the JDAM is just much more reliable than an LGB, but less accurate...at least that's what they said in a CENTCOM briefing--when they tried to nail saddam at the restaurant, they used 4 LBGs with an accuracy of +- 10 feet instead of GPS bombs with accuracy of +- 40 feet.
So, the LGBs have improved with time as well.
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.)
The 262 had a MTBF of about 10 hours. But the point was not to let the engine fail. They really only lasted about 5 hours between overhauls - and the overhauls usually were an entire core change. The entire rotating turbine assembly would be shot from the heat.
If tits were wings it'd be flying around.
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.