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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."
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.
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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
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.
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."
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.
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.)
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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.
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
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.
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.
The idea was the Neutron bomb could take out concentrated tank formations. Thus, it would force Soviet battle planners to adopt a more dispersed order of battle for armor. Since the Soviets had a big lopsided numerical advantage in armor that was a good thing for the US and NATO. For the most part, the Soviets propaganda machine was able to enlist the Left in the Western world to oppose neutron weapons, spinning it as neutron weapons were to kill inhabitants of cities. In the only bit of good the French did for NATO, they developed or claimed to develop neutron bombs. So, the Soviets would still have to plan for them, even after the US said they would not build them anymore.
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
Why wouldn't the manuver be survivable? The various models of the B61 had adjustable (Dial-a-Yield).
mod 3: 0.3 1.5 60 170 kilotons
mod 4: 0.3 1.5 10 45 kilotons
mod 7: 10 - 340 kilotons
mod 10: 0.3 5 10 80 kilotons
mod 11: 0.3 - 340 kilotons
For a 20 kiloton weapon, severe damage to wood frame houses goes to about 1.4 miles from ground zero. And that distance increases very roughly as the cube root of the yield...for a monster 20 MEGATON bomb, it's 16 miles.
So if you're delivering a 80 kiloton yield, you'd want to be maybe more than 2.5 miles away, which I would hope your F-111 could do in a short time.