Air To Air Nukes...WHAT ???

originally posted by: JIMC5499
a reply to: Ghostsdogood

I honestly don't know.

I'll let you know when I receive the login credentials.

originally posted by: JIMC5499
a reply to: yuppa

Yeah and they found out in testing that it was unreliable and emitted harmful radiation. Wiki doesn't mention that.

i suspect they never told the soldiers that would use them that either.

remember the US military thought it was a "great idea" to have men in trenches when a nuke went off then right as the mushroom cloud was still going up march them almost to (or on cant remember) ground zero

what would telling a "motivated" combat team the nuke they were carrying is "safe"

now you add russia that didnt give two fling figs how dangerous any of their nuclear weapons and nuke powered vehicles to their men.
why do you think (one example) they say how do you know if a retired sailor served on a nuclear submarine... they glow.

now add (as you know) the davy crocket system had a relatively light warhead that in reality was at least same size/weight as the SDAM and was safe... well until fired ... to the crew.

then add would russia or USA REALLY tell us how much they reduced their portable nukes?

i suspect given todays tech we have a few REAL "suitcase" safe nukes floating around.

remember it doesnt have to me a megaton hit to ruin your day.

scrounger

a reply to: Ohanka

i would argue that treaties banning US and russian tactical nuclear weapons was more a face saving way of getting rid (officially) of them

because the TRUE REALITY is there is NO SUCH THING as a LIMITED TACTICAL NUCLEAR strike.

once EITHER SIDE sets off even one, the strategic "big boys" are gonna fly.

then your SCREWED.

they dont call it Mutual Assured Destruction MAD because its a snazzy acronym

because you be MAD to use them KNOWING the outcome.

However remember this only applies to rational (yes in this case even russia was rational) nations.
some nut job doesnt care

scrounger

a reply to: cmdrkeenkid

they were thinking of putting the falcon nuclear and non on the U2 if you can believe that

Ah. So, essentially, the thought was that accuracy ceased to be an issue if one were to simply unleash literal hell across vast swathes of sky. Is that a reasonable summary?

originally posted by: ChayOphan
Ah. So, essentially, the thought was that accuracy ceased to be an issue if one were to simply unleash literal hell across vast swathes of sky. Is that a reasonable summary?

This was before accuracy became possible.

Last ditch effort to stop hundreds of nuke bombers on their way to destroying U.S. cities.

We are much better at it now, and russia has far fewer bombers.

It absolutely makes sense, especially in the context mentioned. Why wouldn't one use a 12-gauge shotgun to bring down a flock of birds if the only other available option is a vintage blunderbuss. And if the shotgun happens to be firing thermonuclear explosive shot... well, this then becomes a no-brainer.

originally posted by: ChayOphan
It absolutely makes sense, especially in the context mentioned. Why wouldn't one use a 12-gauge shotgun to bring down a flock of birds if the only other available option is a vintage blunderbuss. And if the shotgun happens to be firing thermonuclear explosive shot... well, this then becomes a no-brainer.

Exactly.

An imperfect solution to what was an impossible engineering challenge at the time.

originally posted by: Ghostsdogood

originally posted by: ChayOphan
It absolutely makes sense, especially in the context mentioned. Why wouldn't one use a 12-gauge shotgun to bring down a flock of birds if the only other available option is a vintage blunderbuss. And if the shotgun happens to be firing thermonuclear explosive shot... well, this then becomes a no-brainer.

Exactly.

An imperfect solution to what was an impossible engineering challenge at the time.

if i may add to it/ put it another way

choosing an option that kills the least amount of people / prevents the most deaths possible for an unavoidable (if it happed) situation.

scrounger

a reply to: scrounger


Even better.

a reply to: scrounger

also low yield nukes detonated at like 40-50k ft unless its in the 100's of kiloton range wont blow a blade of grass on the ground

here is one of these missiles being tested(its 2KT by the way) and here are 5 men at ground zero taping it and it was well below the 30-50k feet range that bombers would be flying at

the Nike Hercules used an even bigger warhead and was heavy on the neutrons and was made as a SAM system for city defense

a reply to: noscopebacon

true they were not being turned to a pile of ash/ shadow on the spot

but to be totally fair they did suffer from cancer and died.

but you did prove that if the unthinkable (wwIII) happened that using the nuke to stop bombers was the best option at the time.

scrounger

a reply to: scrounger

interesting factoid

the camera man didn't get a choice to be there.

he did in fact get cancer.

nuclear bombs aren't as bad as people think its when there is fall out that the real problem comes in.

if its just a high high airburst, not going to kill anyone but your favorite computer.


I used to work for one of the US's national labs, not doing anything cool just a chemical monkey

nd from time to time we would get interesting DOE related guest speakers and i even meet Brian Shul in one(he flew a SR71 and wrote a book called sleddriver if that's your kind of thing)

there is a lot of cool and very interesting history hidden by no longer(in my eyes) useful classification status's

originally posted by: noscopebacon
a reply to: scrounger

interesting factoid

the camera man didn't get a choice to be there.

he did in fact get cancer.

nuclear bombs aren't as bad as people think its when there is fall out that the real problem comes in.

if its just a high high airburst, not going to kill anyone but your favorite computer.


I used to work for one of the US's national labs, not doing anything cool just a chemical monkey

nd from time to time we would get interesting DOE related guest speakers and i even meet Brian Shul in one(he flew a SR71 and wrote a book called sleddriver if that's your kind of thing)

there is a lot of cool and very interesting history hidden by no longer(in my eyes) useful classification status's

i did hear about the camera man being "told" he was going there

talk about the REALLY WRONG DAY not to call in sick.

i love military and aviation history and one of my fav books was "the skunk works by ben richards"

would love someday to have a pint (in my case pop) and good pub food with you to hear your stories and tell a few of mine.

scrounger