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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.
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!
Speaking at Defcon 12 - Credit Card Networks Revisted: Pen
"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
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
The plane executing the goofy loop thing will not survive the complex and inacurate manouvre. The pilots probably know they're going to die. Wouldn't it be better to fly the plane itself into the target? Kind of like an uber-kamikazi?
This is the same country that is now so indignant about the Iraqis using suicide bombers to defend against an invader, right?
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
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.
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 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.
I'd rather you do it wrong, than for me to have to do it at all.
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. 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.
"FDA staff reviewers expressed concern about the number of patients who were left out of the study because they died."
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.
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.
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
of a cruise missile minus navigation, plus pilot.
Contrary to the popular belief, there indeed is no God.
Nations outside of the West have no qualms whatsoever in using nuclear force against us. For example, in 1995, the Chinese threatened to drop a nuclear bomb on Los Angeles. Please read "Chinese general told threat against U.S. unacceptable". The Chinese have proactively obtained sensitive information about our military technology and national security. They intend to undermine our society. Please read " Military secrets on sale to China" and "Spy Suspect Led an Active, Prominent Life".
Remember these famous words: "The price of freedom is eternal vigilance." Let us not forget our obligations to our fellow citizens in the West even if we are "geeks".
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
If its still in use then why didn't Jack use it in 24 a few weeks back? :)
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
Believe me it or now, I had a dream that I was on an airplane that was doing this maneuver for testing, but dropping a real bomb. I was in the back of the plane and when I saw it falling, all I could think about was, we are no way going to get far enough away.
/. first thing and see this new article...
Very strange to wake up, go to
Okay, what does it all mean?
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.
The awful Pearl Harbor devoted the second half of its footage to Doolittle's Raid.
May we never see th
(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.
What is music when you despise all sound?
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.
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.
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.
Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more, Or close the wall up with our American dead!
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
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, but since they didn't need them, they didn't push production. If the Me-262 had come out in number in 1943, the allied jet fighters would have been out in even larger number in 1944. The P-80 was a better plane than the Me-262. I think the British one was too. Of course, like all jets, it was short range and couldn't have escorted bombers to Berlin.
Infuriate left and right
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.
Infuriate left and right
Here's a photo of that cathedral, it's the top one on the page:
Pokrovsky cathedral
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.
If you read the article at all, you'd know that these guys were well aware of the likely results. They were the smartest lads in the whole Navy, of course they knew. People are not stupid, particularly military people. Contrary to the opinion of certain Left leaning doofi on /.
You'd also know that they were a bunch of gung-ho super hotdogs and figured if anyone could beat the odds it would be them.
As a general rule, you'll always find a lot more guys lined up for a super dangerous mission than you will for a suicide bomber's vest. Only zealots and lunatics will do that stuff.
As for accuracy, you'll find they were hitting inside 300 ft. Close enough for a nuke, don't you think?
These days they usually hit inside three feet from 5 miles up. Think about that for a second, eh? Which window of this building do we want broken?
It'll make playing Warbirds a much quicker game with realistic nuclear detonations.
Use your head, can't you, use your head,
You're on earth, there's no cure for that - S. Beckett
Trolling != Anti-Americanism.
Anti-Americanism != Falsehood.
War != Peace
...and once again for Americans; Communism != Fascism.
next...
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.
Owww... he looks like a monkey, so that's a pretty serious slam. :)
You aren't the only one that thinks he looks like a monkey.
Bush or Chimp
I have great faith in fools - self confidence my friends call it. - Edgar Allan Poe
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, you are welcoming the possibility of them being used.
Postmodern though is so convenient for some people. If "truth" is a hegemonic social construction, you can equate anything to anything and still be "right". Unfortunately Mr Foucault was a publish-or-perish hack and his philosophy does not survive contact with the real world. I ask you sir, what is the difference between a highly trained and motivated pilot performing in practice a mission he hopes and prays he will never be called upon to perform for real, and a suicide bomber who straps on C4 with the sole purpose of killing people he does not know but never the less hates? In truth one cannot equate them at all. There is no connection of method, motivation, or most important, results. Please note that the Iron Curtain is no more and it fell without a shot being fired, but Israel still stands despite hundreds of suicide bombers. There really is truth, it seems.
Notice this is "News for Nerds", not "News for Computer Geeks". The term "nerd" encompasses MUCH more than your standard computer-geek interests. Did you know that it was the Nerds of the 40's and 50's that developed the first Atomic Bombs? It is Nerds that developed the Space Program? Aircraft? etc?. Yes, this IS relevant... and is meant to expand your horizons and broaden your knowledge. That's what Nerd-dom is about......
oh yeah, I guess that's why yanks are pretty well universally recognized as loudmouthed arrogant a##holes
Would you be a 'yank' by any chance?
where ever they gone in the world....
Nice writing, Tex.
You have exactly 314 seconds to come up with a less retarded plot.
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.
This manuver to deliver a nuclear payload is also known as the IDIOT LOOP in the aviation community.
There are lies, damned lies, and statistics.
Well, talking politics on slashdot is a great way to brun karma, but here goes anyways.
If you are happil willing to talk about the war as a direct, unprovoked attempt to wrest away control of Iraqi oil and you approve of it in that sense from a Utilitarian perspective then you have no right to be displeased with Bush's dishonesty.
If Bush had openly said: "We are the richest and have the most military might and should therefore control whatever natural resources we want, regardless of who happens to be currently living above them" he would have brought world opinion down upon the U.S. a hundred times more strongly than it has already fallen. You wouldn't have Canada, France and ermany absaining from the war and hoping to avoid economic repercussions, you would have these countries directly imposing economic sanctions on the U.S.
Because really, once Bush has decided that he doesn't need an excuse in the form of Liberation or Terror in order to go after some tasty resources, how long will it be before he looks North and sees a tremendous supply of Gold, Uranium, Lumber and Fresh Clean Water.
If you are using Utilitarianism to justify aggression (something J.S. Mill was strongly and openly against, mind you), you are required to also use it to justify deception about that violence.
Besides, as far as I'm concerned anyway, from a utilitarian perspective the benefit of low oil prices, U.S. dollar hegemony and international power backed by resource control is much lower than the cost of living my life knowing that these benefits were paid for with innocent Iraqi blood (when I say innocent I am talking about civilians, both killed in combat and mistreated more under U.S. control than they were under Saddam).
lysergically yours
The F-84F Thunderstreak was the jet era's first fighter-bomber to carry tactical nukes, and used the same delivery method. Richard Bach's book Stranger to the Ground includes a fairly detailed description of performing the maneuver in training runs, and there's a good diagram of the procedure on the web here. Somewhat less insane than doing it in a prop-driven plane, but still, interesting times.
Yes - I meant that. It's not "trolling" as soon as you don't agree with the US taking over the world.
it's in my head
Well, you're not contributing anything but complaints now. My point is that you turn EVERYTHING into a rant about the US.
What if I turned everything into a rant about Sweden's position on whaling which I don't agree with?
Seriously, go to k5 where political comments and subjects are encouraged but please don't ruin this site and don't use it to vent your own personal angst about a country's government.
Of course, you could always realize that you're doing absolutely nothing but whine and you could ACT instead of whine on Slashdot. There's a lot more to standing up for your beliefs than posting comments online, man.
This guy is way out there
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.
Of course, remember that the reason for this was to make sure that carrier groups had a "nuclear role" - If the Air Force was the only service to carry nukes on airplanes, that could have a significant effect on the Navy's budget down the road. (The first "Polaris" submarine - The "Gearge Washington" - was launched in 1959, and commissioned in 1960. It took a few years to build a fleet of those subs - and the Navy could still point to the far greater accuracy of their Spads)
Never underestimate the effect of interservice rivalries on the missions that the various services would undertake. (And if the pilots thought the missions were suicide missions, the admirals who came up with the mission probably knew it was - but approved it because those missions would only be flown in a nuclear war where the only goal was Mutual Assured Destruction.)
You either believe in rational thought or you don't
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.)
PLEASE - tell me what our position on whaling is
If you looked harder, you'd realise that I didn't start a rant. I pointed out an error in a parent post. Go complain on someone else
it's in my head
Here's one the first hits from Google I got for Sweden whaling. Seems like your knowledge is concentrated on the US. Looking at your history, my point remains valid. All of your posts of late on Slashdot are rats against the US. You seem to have no response to my suggestion that your stop complaining online and act on something you believe in.
This guy is way out there
Yeah, I was thinking of the cultural differences between these American pilots and the Japanese kamikaze pilots of the WW2 era. The Americans had to think they had a chance to survive to take the risk. The Japanese were motivated by nationalism and religion to knowingly suicide. Of course, my viewpoint is pretty small on both sides of this, I'm probably at least slightly off base.
Bleh!
Although I don't disagree that there is a lot of hype when people start discussing nukes in general, I DO think it's a little idiotic to simply consider them 'just big bombs'.
The number of atmospheric tests which have been done to date pales in comparison to the number destructive tonnage available. Furthermore, those tests have been spread out over time, rather than having been conducted all at once.
Or does anyone really believe that a nuclear confrontation in today's world would involve one plane pitching one bomb, ala WWII?
NO ONE can do more than hypothesize about the effect of multiple, multi-megaton blasts (e.g. 'nuclear winter', etc.), and let's hope no one ever can.
Unfortunately, the more people who regard nuclear explosives as 'just big bombs', the greater the odds that we'll someday obtain empirical evidence.
If you're not living on the edge, you're just taking up space!
If you read further into the article, you'll notice that there was a good deal of talk amongst the pilots about how a) you probably won't survive the drop, no matter how much they told you you would,[1] and b) either your carrier group would be gone when you got back, or much of the rest of the world would be. [2]
This is pretty good proof that noone present was harbouring any delusions about the liklihood of survival, although plan B was always there in the slight chance that they might.
[1] In the letters to the editor, there was one story about how one pilot, in a training run with the full warhead (minus fissionable material) executed the manoevre perfectly, but the warhead only exploded about 1100 feet from his position, meaning that he would have been inside the fireball, had it not been a test.
[2] Some of the pilots made plans to land and hole up in some remote location in a nearby friendly nation for some period of time, without bothering to return to their carrier group to check if it were there or not. There were also real plans made by their superiors to land at grass strips someplace.
"No problem. I have the capacity to do infinite work so long as you don't mind that my quality approaches zero."-Dilbert
F-100 Super Sabre.
F-105 Thunderchief (this was originally designed for nuclear strike, even though that wasn't what it became famous for).
F-105. F-101 Voodoo (the toss computer was made by Mergenthaler Linotype of all people)!
B-47 Stratojet (a pretty big aircraft for this kind of maneuver).
I believe that the toss bombing idea went by the wayside when special parachutes that could retard the speed of the bomb rapidly and the use of delayed detonation systems became widely available during the early 1980's on the B57, B61 and soon B83 bombs (the older B28 and B43 bombs were already being phased out at that time).
The USAF Weapons Laboratory seriously looked at retrofitting some B61 nuclear bombs with a small solid fuel rocket motor that would essentially "fly" the bomb well away from the flight path of the bomb-carrying airplane. That way, the airplane drops the bomb, the rocket motor fires and manuevers the bomb at an angle away from the airplane; this allows the airplane to fly one direction and the bomb will fly in another direction, so the airplane will be safely away from the blast effects when the bomb goes off. I don't think the idea ever made it to production, though.
The during the late 1980's the USAF was in serious development of SRAM II missile, which would have replaced most B61 bombs; it would have been a small guided missile with the W-80 warhead from the Air-Launched Cruise Missile (ALCM) but it would have a range of up to 50 miles from the launch airplane. The end of the Cold War and changes in nuclear warfare doctrine ended that program in the early 1990's.
Ok, This is really getting to be enough! How the F#$* does an article on aviation history turn onto another misinformed lefty screed on "All that is wrong with America"? I thought Slashdot was "News for Nerds", not the Berkely channel!
Those Whacky Americans and their weapons of mass destruction! :)
Interestingly enough, there was an article on LAB maneuvers in a recent Smithsonian: Air & Space. The navy had another prop-driven plane they could use for very long-range deliver of nukeler warheads. Near the end of life for that mission, the Navy had a chance to test the maneuver with a real version of the bomb they would be dropping (instead of a practice-dummy), complete with everything except the warhead. Test results howed that with that plane, an over-the-shoulder LAB would toss the weapon about a thousand feet, in which time the plane would attain another thousand feet of separation, which was within the fireball.
Give me a break. Right wingers bitch about "All that is wrong with America" just as much, if not more, than liberals. They just complain about different stuff like: how creationism is not being taught in schools, how welfare is robbing us of our taxes, how america has become morally degregated, or how we don't have enogh guns. Besides all the posts I saw were more on the subject of "All that is wrong with thermoneuclear combat" not america per se. Show me one person that thinks that a nuke war is a good idea and ill show you a lunatic. Another problem with leberals is they dont curse enough like you republicans. When the F#$% did the Slashdot become the misinformed redneck channel.
You seem to have no response to my suggestion that your stop complaining online and act on something you believe in.
What makes you think I don't act? Rest assured - I do
it's in my head
That's like saying we can predict the weather because we have had big supercomputers crunching those numbers for decades.
:-)
:-(
Ok, so the analogy isn't perfect, but then again, what is?
The point is, models are only as good as the data which is fed into them. Somewhere along the line, some human decided what factors should be put into the model and how they should be weighted. How accurate are those assumptions?
Personally, I'd rather not use the traditional technique to perfect those models.
If you're not living on the edge, you're just taking up space!
Yes, you are right! They just are a lot more likely to do it in the appropriate forum!
And most Special Interest Groups that I've seen produce ideology that borders on completely fucking nuts. Both sides are usually wrong, it just depends on the point of view of the person who wants their wrong ideas heard most.
Didnt you say that Africans hate open source?
http://sohne.net/index.html
Listen to this interview
But of course you say they hate open source even when an African in an interview on the radio says they want it.
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
Second, the Stalinist type of dictatorship in Iraq doesn't leave room for any non-official power group (if it can be prevented - that's why secret police are so important). Idological dictatorships do, if it fits the ideology (again, Afghanistan) and certain individual/monarchy dictatorships do because they tend to be more flexible and less controlling (Saudi Arabia and Egypt are that type - the 9/11 hijackers were almost all from those two countries).
Third, terrorists are almost always concerned with their own countries. Al Quaida, for example, is aimed primarily at overthrowing the Saudi Arabia monarchy. The U.S is a target because it spends so much effort propping up that dictatorship - if the U.S had directed its efforts to democracy there instead, Al Quaida as it is now would never have existed. Similarly, Israel is only a terrorist target because of its occupation of Palestine.
Terrorists don't just wake up one day and think "Hmm, I'm opressed, I think I'll go to a large, democratic industrialized country and blow up a building. Japan fits that description...". There is a reason that the U.S is the subject of terrorism, and it's the same reason France or the U.K have been in the past - interfering in domestic affairs of other countries.
Back to the main point, Iraq didn't do the world's terrorists any good. Terrorists are random and uncontrollable - exactly opposite Saddam Hussein's desire for institutionalized power. Terrorists are a terrible tool because of that - witness Yassir Arafat's troubles at stopping them, now that they're no longer serving a purpose, and are just getting in the way.
The term "dirty" refers to any nuclear device that produces a significant amount of radioactive waste. Early (1940s/1950s) bomb designs were very ineffcient and tended to create more waste, hence they were considered "dirty".
Although your description of what takes to make a radiological weapon today is accurate, the "dirty bomb" is NOT "an overhyped weapon designed to take advantage of america's nuclear hysteria". The point of a radiological weapon is two-fold: area-denial and panic. Area-denial is a function of the radioactivity of the material involved. It could be a matter of weeks, or it could be years.
A simple search will reveal that the topic of a "dirty bomb" is a recent topic of discussion in the UK, France, Germany, Japan, Russia and a host of other countries. The concern arises from the ease in creating such a weapon and the panic it generates in most ANY population.
Come in several varieties.
(1) Missions where death is likely but neither assured, nor the aim. Taking on a mission like this, far the sake of a just cause, has traditionally been considered the paradigm of courage.
(2) Missions where death is assured, but not the aim. Japanese kamekazi missions were of this sort. Even many Japanese had their doubts about whether such missions were morally acceptable or not. To accept such a mission is to make it clear that you regard your own life as less vluable than the cause you are fighting for.
(3) Missions where death is assured and part of the aim (in order to achieve martyrdom). Islamic suicide bombing missions are of this sort. To accept a mission like this is to make it clear that you regard the destruction, as such (i.e. even when it serves no purpose), as a good thing. This sort action has typically been regarded as the paradigm of evil.