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."

Comments

Re:offtopic

[soliaus]

Yes, thank you, I did. Now, if you would.. please READ THE SUBJECT. Americans enjoy something known as humor. Thats all I have to say, dont want to start a war. Wait...

Re:Fallout

[RighteousFunby]

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 inital gama-ray burst, the areas would be relatively safe to occupy. The only casualties would be the people who were incenerated, those who were unprotected from the gama-ray burst, and those that were burned too badly from direct exposure.

Of course, that could just be government BS.

Nuff said.

Re:Physics

[Troed]

Now, we can drop a conventional bomb or 4 right through a specific window

Out of how many tries?

Last summer the US General Accounting Office (GAO), an investigating body of the US Congress published a report which went a long way in destroying the myth of "smart" bombs. According to this report the accuracy rate of laser-guided bombs dropped by the F-117 stealth fighters was as low as 41%. The Pentagon had claimed an accuracy rate of 80%!! According to the same report, on the first night of the Gulf War in 1991, the "F-117 missed 40% of their air defence targets". The Pentagon insisted in keeping classified the real figures for Tomahawks cruise missiles' success rate, but GAO's report states that the figure was "less than generally perceived". The report also overturns the Pentagon's famous "one target, one bomb" for its laser-guided bombs, suggesting that it took between four and ten bombs to attack targets such as bridges. As the bombing started on December 16th an admission of the inaccuracy of "smart" bombs came from the General Sir Charles Guthrie, UK's Chief of Defence Staff who assured journalists that "weapons which were 50% accurate during the Gulf War have now been honed to 90% accuracy". The problem is that we were already assured in 1991 that the weapons were 99% accurate if not more!! By one irony of history in the very first night of the current round of bombardments one of these "intelligent" missiles went out 25 miles and landed in the Iranian city of Khorramshah.

Don't believe US propaganda.

Re:A *very* interesting topic, but ...

[snarkasaurus]

Point being, this is just one little thing done by the American military, the totality of which resulted in you living in a free country in Europe.

Without these guys training for these incredibly dangerous missions, you'd be speaking Russian. As would we all.

The USA is again at war, for much the same reason. So you can type away on Slashdot and not have to worry about nukes/bugs/chemicals released by some Islamist lunatic in your town. A thankless task, it seems to me.

Get the point yet?

Re:offtopic

[Moofie]

OK, so the soldiers were guarding the office of a ministry that actually had something valuable, rather than a bunch of nice furniture?

Sounds like they were doing their job.

Yes the war is about oil. No it is not about the US owning the oil. It is about the US ensuring that a stable, relatively non-belligerent foreign power controls the oil, so that the US can buy it, bringing wealth and prosperity to the people of said foreign power.

I defy you to defend your claim that the United States is an imperialist nation. That's just a stupid contention.