Alternate Cold War bombers

What are the various different types of craft that never made it off the drawing board on both sides of the Cold War, and how effective could they had been? And where there any shelved craft that could have some effect had they been put into production? And to what extent could bomber technology extend to for both sides?
 
One possibility is the B-70 Valkyrie, a supersonic US bomber from the mid 60s. It was canceled after an in-flight accident easily prevented, though admittedly the huge price tag had it on many chop lists already.

You could have them in production in time for the tail end of Rolling Thunder...definitely in time for Linebacker. They might suffer far fewer casualties from SAMs or fighters than the B-52s...at least until if/when the Soviets passed high-altitude SAMs to the NVA.
 
Britain had the Short Sperrin which was a less-advanced aircraft (straight-winged) developed in parallel with the V-bombers as an "insurance" against the V-bomber development programme failing. 2 prototypes were built in the early 1950s, and used as engine testbeds.

On a completely different note, the Avro 730 was the British equivalent of the Valkyrie- a Mach 3 bomber/reconnaissance aircraft cancelled in the infamous 1957 Defence White Paper. Imagine those being used for Black Buck!
 
One possibility is the B-70 Valkyrie, a supersonic US bomber from the mid 60s. It was canceled after an in-flight accident easily prevented, though admittedly the huge price tag had it on many chop lists already.

You could have them in production in time for the tail end of Rolling Thunder...definitely in time for Linebacker. They might suffer far fewer casualties from SAMs or fighters than the B-52s...at least until if/when the Soviets passed high-altitude SAMs to the NVA.
The fact that the Soviets had high altitude SAMs was the main reason that the B-70 was cancelled, not because of the accident. The accident occurred after cancellation. The B-70's design led it to being incapable of low level penetration, which was the attack profile preferrede The cost was another reason, as was the development of reliable ICBMs.
 
Supposedly the poms' considered developing supersonic versions of the both the Handley-Page Victor (link) and the Vickers Valiant (link):
avvictor_8.png
avval_7.png
 
One thing that always interest me was the idea of Soviet stealth. Of course you would need either earlier interest by the Russians or longer Cold War.
 
One thing that always interest me was the idea of Soviet stealth. Of course you would need either earlier interest by the Russians or longer Cold War.

Hmm. Do any aeronautics experts here have any comments regarding this? How successful could the Sovs be in making their own version of the B2, or would circumstances would be necessary?
 

CalBear

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Hmm. Do any aeronautics experts here have any comments regarding this? How successful could the Sovs be in making their own version of the B2, or would circumstances would be necessary?


The Soviets could, eventually, have gotten to the B-2 level of stealth, even past it, however, they were two generations behind the U.S. AND lacked both the computers and manufacturing techniques to catch up in a reasonable time. It also lacked the money needed to produce the aircraft or even the very special factories and ground facilities to handle the aircraft after it was eventually completed. FAR more importantly, the USSR didn't have the need.

As a weapon system the B-2 is absolutely spectacular, giving incredible to the United States. It is also completely unnecessary. It is very handy, since it allows the U.S. to smack an opponent with low chance of aircraft loss, but is that really a NECESSARY capacity. In any real engagement between the U.S. and USSR by the time the B-2 arrived all it would be doing was bouncing the rubble (now, an engagement with the PRC is somewhat different) so in a truly strategic sense it is redundant system. It is very nice to have when dealing with the bad actors out there (the DPRK, and potentially Syria and Iran are good examples), but the U.S. could perform 95% of the B-2 mission with B-1B and cruise missiles against any potential opponent. Who would the USSR (or now Russia) need that sort of capacity to engage that would not escalate rather quickly to unpleasant events?

The B-2 was, in the end, a true political weapon. It cost the U.S. $30 billion dollars to create the capacity, it would have cost the USSR $500 billion to try to counteract it. The USSR, thanks to traitors like the Walkers, KNEW what the B-2 was capable of (in far greater detail than the U.S. was letting leak), knew they couldn't hope to match up without destroying the country's already teetering economy, and at that point made a decision to ratchet down and try to save most of what they had rather than go with Plan B and start WW III before it was too late.

History has shown that the "save as much as possible" savings wasn't a whole lot, but it was better than pushing the economy to the point where the people figured that had NOTHING left to lose and replayed November of 1917 revolution with the members of the Supreme Soviet in the Tsar's starring role.


BTW: The B-70, or any other hypersonic bomber is more or less useless in a conventional role, especially before the invention GPS guided munitions. If you can't hit something from 40,000 feet and 450 MPH, how much worse would it be from 75K and 2,000 MPH. For that matter, imagine the spacing of a 20 bomb stick dropped from that altitude. First one would land in Saigon and the last one would hit somewhere in China.

Of course, that assumes that the $700 MILLION (in 1960 dollars:eek::eek::eek:, makes the B-2 look cheaper than a Honda) bomber isn't plucked from the sky by an SA-2.
 
Does the F-12 count as a bomber? I know it was developed as an interceptor, but it would have been nuclear capable...
 

CalBear

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Here's an interesting question: What if the B2 was never built?

There would be more dead SAM crews in countries where the U.S. decided it wanted to make a point.

The really interesting thing is that the Soviets didn't wait until the B-2 was in service. Just the reality of the F-117 and the promise of the B-2 was, apparently enough to act as the last straw
 
What are the various different types of craft that never made it off the drawing board on both sides of the Cold War, and how effective could they had been? And where there any shelved craft that could have some effect had they been put into production? And to what extent could bomber technology extend to for both sides?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supersonic_Low_Altitude_Missile


http://www.designation-systems.net/dusrm/app4/slam.html

Range 180,000 km ; cruising speed mach 4. After dropping up to 26 warheads, it could continue to destroy enemy territory just by overflying it (spewing horrific amounts of fallout from the unshielded 600 megawatt nuclear engine; and destroying all non-hardended buildings with its shockwave).

:eek:++
 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supersonic_Low_Altitude_Missile


http://www.designation-systems.net/dusrm/app4/slam.html

Range 180,000 km ; cruising speed mach 4. After dropping up to 26 warheads, it could continue to destroy enemy territory just by overflying it (spewing horrific amounts of fallout from the unshielded 600 megawatt nuclear engine; and destroying all non-hardended buildings with its shockwave).

:eek:++

If I was ever made an evil dictator of country I would definitely have that in my arsenal. It's too cool.:cool:
 
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