Bombers, Rotordynes and a fistful of Buccaneers

[Bernard Woolley]

Poping off nukes against recce flight in peacetime would not be considered 'good form'. In wartime SAC would practise DEAD with weapons like the Hound Dog and later the SRAM.

I'll see what I can find. There are drawings of it in Project Cancelled, the bombers volume of British Secret Projects and a few books on the Vulcans and V bombers.

EDIT: Found these two pics of the design from above.

In the book Defence Under Thatcher it does mention that in the early '80s the government did study the possibility to procuring a stand-off missile for the remaining Vulcans. I'll dig the book out and see exactly what it says.

 

[Mote]

The emphasis being on "nuclear". You don't use nukes to shoot down recon flights. Is that right, Jan? Can you name a good sight with pics of the Vulcan B.3 on them?

The point being that one variant of the SA-2 had a potential capability against the SR-71, it thus standing to reason that a much superior missile has a conventional kill capability.

 

[Bernard Woolley]

I was just wondering if to borrow from another thread we put Nixon in the White House might things be different with Skybolt? Robert McNamara was very much against the missile and the manned bomber, so took the decision to cancel it in favour of Minuteman and Polaris.
Now at the time the USN deployed the Polaris A-1 it had less than 50% reliability. The A-2 version had a better reliability rate of 63-65% while the A-3 was better yet at 82%.

That is all well and good, but the W47 Ys Mod.2 warhead used by the that made up 3/4th of the available W47 stockpile used by the Polaris system had a dud rate of 75%, so overall the entire warhead stockpile worked 50% of the time.
Effectively until the Mod.3 warhead was deployed in '67 if the missile worked the chances were the warhead wouldn't.

Why do I chronicle this story? Well the reason given for the cancellation of the GAM-87 Skybolt was that it was unreliable and suffering from developmental problems. However the US Navy was quite willing to deploy and operate a highly unreliable system for something like seven years.
A different SECDEF who preferred bombers to SSBNs might have kept Skybolt going and killed Polaris.

 

[Bernard Woolley]

The point being that one variant of the SA-2 had a potential capability against the SR-71, it thus standing to reason that a much superior missile has a conventional kill capability.

So how come SR-71s weren't shot down on the ocasions they faced SA-5s? Were the North Koreans and Libyans just being nice?

 

[Nik]

Rotodynes...

IIRC, the prototype Rotodyne's tip noise was greatly enhanced by the rotors' duct acting like an organ pipe cum siren. Both that and the jet noise were solved just too late for the politicians...

Like the P1154's 'fore-burner' issues were solved (*) too late for that project.

(* I used to know the guy who headed up the team that did it ...)

 

[Riain]

So how come SR-71s weren't shot down on the ocasions they faced SA-5s? Were the North Koreans and Libyans just being nice?

The Soviets were well known for developing an export version of everything, I'd suggest that the export version of the SA5 would have been marginal against the SR71. However if the SR71 had started overflying well into Soviet territory, like the U2 did, then one would have been bought down.

As for SR71 numbers, over 30 were built but operational numbers stablised at about 12 by the 70s, with the rest cycled through deep maintenence and reserve.

 

[Bernard Woolley]

I have read in a couple of books on the SR-71 that the Soviets did try and shoot them down with both Mig-25s and 31s. They never got close.

 

[NothingNow]

I have read in a couple of books on the SR-71 that the Soviets did try and shoot them down with both Mig-25s and 31s. They never got close.

Strangely enough the only people to ever get a missile lock were the Swedes, with the JA 37 Viggen, proving exactly how Badass those little Saab jets are.

 

[Winston Smith]

Missile lock does not mean they could shoot it down. Espically with the weapons a Viggen could carry.

 

[Winston Smith]

Why is that the MOD commits such monumental cock ups? I really don't understand how, for example, they managed to blow so much money on Nimrod AEW.3, and it still didn't work. Or the Sentinel R.1, in and out of service in a flash. Or the T45s, which are ever so slightly under armed. Or... BTW, those pics are suberb.

 

[NothingNow]

Missile lock does not mean they could shoot it down. Espically with the weapons a Viggen could carry.

True, but it's closer than anyone else got.

 

[KillerT]

Duncan Sandys 1957 and Denis Healey 1966-between em these two destroyed UK forces (along with our national debt I should add)....

Regarding bombers:
Avro 730 anyone?
Also with regards to Vulcan there were even more advanced plans than proposed B3 variant-Phase 6 springs to mind.

Rotordyne-yup huge shame that one-would have totally outclassed the Chinook. We also dropped a SAM system at the same time in favour of the US Mauler system which then got axed. Just looking at what certain companies were up to at the time (ie Lockheed) is amazing-bribing virtually every government official in Europe so they'd buy Starfighter and so on-we had no chance.

 

[Bernard Woolley]

I don't think bombers could ever outpace missiles. The missiles are just too fast in comparison to planes - too difficult to shoot down. Mostly because there's no need for a pilot.

You'd have to handwave away missiles entirely.

A plane in the class of the B-70 would go too fast to be effectively engaged by any SAM around today because it would either outrun the missile, or fly through the engagement envelope of the system before the battery could fire.

If by missiles you mean ballistic missiles, then they are not difficult at all to shoot down (slaps oneself on back of wrist for bringing this up again). ALCMs, OTOH, like the AGM-129 are harder to shoot down.

 

[KillerT]

its only until relatively recently (ie the past 10 years) that missiles have started to have the relaibility and functionality that Duncan Sandys believed was in place -or due to be in place when he published the 57 paper. Prior to that best thing would be a good aircraft with an excellent pilot.

 

[Riain]

SAMs were on the verge of reaching B70 heights and speeds, that's why it was cancelled and the B58 left service in 1969. That SAMs don't regularly do it is because that niche has been left empty by chioce.

One thing I learned the other day was that the British were going to deploy a simple ABM system based on the Bloodhound, but cancelled it in 1962.

 

[Bernard Woolley]

One thing I learned the other day was that the British were going to deploy a simple ABM system based on the Bloodhound, but cancelled it in 1962.

Indeed we did, it was called Violet Friend. See: http://www.skomer.u-net.com/projects/start.htm.
We weren't able to affoard it.

I think we're just going to have to agree to disagree on the other stuff.

 

[Winston Smith]

In the long term, do you think it would have been better to buy the F8 Crusader and smallish aircraft carriers (more Foch then CVA-01) then to buy Phantom? I can imagine the Crusader with the Sea Harrier FRS.1 radar.

 

[Mote]

SAMs were on the verge of reaching B70 heights and speeds, that's why it was cancelled and the B58 left service in 1969. That SAMs don't regularly do it is because that niche has been left empty by chioce

Backing up the point that, even if there is an inability amongst current missiles to adequately engage such a target (one wonders what point to the Mach 3+ AQM-37 target drone then), there were five different air to air and surface to air missiles that underwent development by the USN alone capable of reaching sufficient heights and speeds (defined as at least 60,000 feet and Mach 3+ although one notes that that one can be sub-Mach 3 in a head-on engagement such as a ship or point defense battery is likely to face) during the 1960s. These are Typhon, CROW, TARSAM-ER, TARSAM-MR, and IRR-SAM. For the British, Blue Envoy, RP.25, possibly Bloodhound III, and possibly Sea Dart.

 

[Just Leo]

My understanding of the difficulty in intercepting the SR-71 is that the relatively small radar signature rendered missile defenses into tail-chase mode, where they were not sufficiently ranged to catch up. The B-70 air intakes offered considerable radar return and offered the ability to launch missiles in a timely fashion on a collision course intercept, negating much of the speed advantage.

 

[Bernard Woolley]

To catch a target a missile needs to be going significantly faster to catch it. Even a Mach.5 missile is going to run out of fuel when chasing a Mach.3 target because it doesn't have enough of an overtake speed.

The Sea Dart GWS 30 Mod 0 of the '60s has a top speed of Mach 2.0+ and a range of 40nm, which means it hasn't a hope of hitting a Mach.3+ target. The Bloodhound Mk.II could do Mach 2.7 and there are no confirmed performance figures for the Mk.III, though it is known that it would have been faster and have a range of 75 miles.