A Nuclear Yom Kippur War

Apochrypal, certainly. On the other hand, Israel's A4 Skyhawks had enough range to reach Moscow, by buddy refuelling if necessary.

so crasy it sound it work :eek:

the 20 Jericho missile has only 500-750 km range.
only to hit Damascus, Aleppo, and Cairo.

but to hit Moscow with 2 Skyrader is the question:
Israel have A-4 with "buddy" self air-to-air refueling system in 1973 ?

alternative
Mirage IIICJ, but range is 2400 km. so need midair refueling
was the IAF Boeing 707 equipt with refuel system in 1973 ?
 
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Kaptin Kurk

Banned
I'd imagine Moscow would have enough alert fighters and detection resources to prevent a hanful of fighters from reaching it. It is interesting to have a nuclear war scenario that doesn't involve Castro though, I have to say. :p
 
Israel I don't think in 1973 had city busters. They had smaller bombs designed for tactical use, the idea being to vaporize an army. In 1973 that could been how the Israelis greet the Egyptians.

I don't think the Soviets or Americans would have gotten into the war. The Soviets were just selling guns to the Arabs, unless the Israelis attacked the USSR or its interests I don't see them getting into it. The Americans are no different. The oil embargo just about convinced the Brits to invade Saudi Arabia, but I don't think that either the USSR or USA ever even went to Defcon 3 status.
The US went to Defcon 4. On 24 Oct the 82nd Airborne's ready battalion was in the air, with the rest of its brigade on the tarmac at Pope AFB NC. The other two brigades were in lock down in their barracks with all personnel on leave ordered to report back to Bragg. About 2 pm Eastern time the division stood down from this alert.
This was in response to the USSR's threat to send forces to Egypt.
Were we close to WW III? You figure it out. I for one believe this is as close to Armageddon as we came during the Cold War.
I say this because it now appears that the USSR did not have the ability to hit the US at the time of the Cuban Crisis. This is not to say that Western Europe would not have "glown in the dark" but the World could have limped on.
 

The Sandman

Banned
Israel's weapons in 1973 were surely more powerful than the 'tactical' weapons on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Actually, I've often thought that Hiroshima and Nagasaki were poor examples of what would happen to a modern city were it to be nuked. Remember, the primary building material in those cities was wood, which is presumably more susceptible to the fireball than stone or metal would be. Also, didn't the geography (of Hiroshima, at least) have the effect of magnifying the blast?
 
Apochrypal, certainly. On the other hand, Israel's A4 Skyhawks had enough range to reach Moscow, by buddy refuelling if necessary.

A-4s are not meant as long-range strikers, and the Israelis aren't suicidal. If the Soviets hit first, Israel wouldn't have had the ability to hit back as you gotta believe the IAF base of command at Beersheba would be early on the hit list. Even if they did try it, the Russian SA-6s woulda probably got the Skyhawks before the bomb was dropped. A Mirage IIICJ (which the Israelis had IIRC) could do it as mentioned if it decided to go for a neutral nation after the nuking, but there woulda been tons of MiG-25s in the area to stop that and the Russians woulda easily been able to stop the planes from reaching Moscow.

Besides, again I ask, would the Soviets go to a full-blown war over their backing of the Arabs? I don't think so. There was no point besides losing face. Same story for the Americans. Back either side, but war between the US and USSR? You'd have to have a huge breakdown in communication to have that happen.
 

CalBear

Moderator
Donor
Monthly Donor
Had the October War gone nuclear it would almost certainly led to a U.S./Soviet exchange. Of all the proxy wars of the Cold War it turns out that 1973 WAS the closest call. Both the U.S. and, especially, the Soviets misjudged how far the other was ready to go in supporting their Client.

The Soviets had been engaging in direct air-to-air combat with the Israeli for several years before the October War (something that was know to both the Israeli AND U.S. intelligence services) and expected the '73 conflict to go as 1967 had, with the U.S. on the sidelines. The United States, for its part, was not expecting the Soviets to make threats of direct intervention, even (perhaps especially) after U.S. aircraft had established an airbridge providing resupply of the Israelis from Reforager sites in Europe.

As has been noted, the U.S. actually had airborne forces IN THE AIR before the Soviets blinked. The U.S. had also moved 6th Fleet units into the Eastern Med, once there the CBG's became part of the SIOP, and the results of any attack by the Soviets on SIOP elements does not bear considering.

In short, forget about the Israeli Skyhawks, worry about the ICBMs.
 
A-4s are not meant as long-range strikers, and the Israelis aren't suicidal. If the Soviets hit first, Israel wouldn't have had the ability to hit back as you gotta believe the IAF base of command at Beersheba would be early on the hit list. Even if they did try it, the Russian SA-6s woulda probably got the Skyhawks before the bomb was dropped. A Mirage IIICJ (which the Israelis had IIRC) could do it as mentioned if it decided to go for a neutral nation after the nuking, but there woulda been tons of MiG-25s in the area to stop that and the Russians woulda easily been able to stop the planes from reaching Moscow.

Well, I wasn't talking about feasibility and consequences but rather what would be available. OP mentioned a suitcase bomb which is, I believe, still outside realms of possibility. But back to the issue, if it's a nuclear mission, for starters there's no real consideration about where to land. Mirage III had less range and IIRC, no buddy refuelling capability. As for MiG-25's, they were not exactly known as look-down-shoot-down fighters.

By the way, there's an excellent US Navy film on A-4 Skyhawk nuclear strike mission from 1959 at:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jMEA2_Caa94

On classified film it specifies 2200 nm round trip for a nuclear strike mission with a HI-LO-HI mission, the LO leg at 40ft. When return flight is cancelled, the range increases.
 
I think it's interesting that the world nearly fund itself engaged in nuclear war in two separate octobers 11 years apart.
 
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