RousseauX
Donor
dropshot underestimated the power and number of available nuclear weapons by 1956-57BTW the Dropshot plan stated 200-300 nucs not 2400!!!!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Dropshot
dropshot underestimated the power and number of available nuclear weapons by 1956-57BTW the Dropshot plan stated 200-300 nucs not 2400!!!!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Dropshot
If the nazis had the same # of nukes the US had by 1957 they would have won Barbarossa no questionYou lot are coming off sounding like the social Darwinism of Douhet and all the other idiot air-war enthusiast. The soviet people suffered far more hardship under the Nazi war and endured in spite of an impossible situation.
OK how on earth are they going to locate all these targets with a few U-2 over flights, when thousands of over flights on the Nazi over several years failed to locate most of the Nazi factories and their connected "ring" sites. Soviets were very good at deception and spying so they will probably know about this attack with enough time to disperse the strategic & tactical forces as well as the most important parts of there arsenal.
If you have read any CIA top secret Intel on the soviets during this time it comes off sounding comical ....all Soviet post war weapons are knock off of Nazi wunderwaffen on post war models.
Doesn't generate much confidence.
There were only >100 B-52 in 1957 [57 @ end of 56 & 181 @ 1957= 57+181/2= 119 ] There operational range was 3900nm @ max load. That's NYC to Berlin which means its over the pole .
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_B-52_Stratofortress
The large number of AMERICAN NUCS is likely the growth of small tactical nucs...maybe even artillery nucs
The original POST is about the plan so why don't you stay with that?
For the soviets or American bombers?OK lets look at soviet defense.
SAM-2 hundreds were deployed around Russia reaching 600 sites by the early 1960s . Each site should at-least be a battery of 6 missiles that demonstrated a 5-6% shoot down rate over Vietnam years later. After several years of ECM suppression battles this rate dropped to ~2% hit rate.
That should account for ~ 28 bombers shot down with many more damage and out of the mission. In WW-II it looked like many more bombers were damager than shot down, but once hit they usually had to be scrapped. I wonder what happened to the jets damage over 'NAM.
SAM-1 [S-25] Reportedly 56 sites were deployed around Moscow with each site able to launch 2 missiles to each of 10 targets from 1-18km with 30m burst radius and nucs in the 1960s.
So going on SAM 2 in NAM , that's another 63 bombers shot down and many more damaged....if all sites are operational by time DROPSHOT is started.
SAM-3 deployed in 1961 around MOSCOW after SAM-1 deployment did quite well over the years claim 25-35 aircraft hit although many were damage.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S-25_Berkut
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S-75_Dvina
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S-125_Neva/Pechora
That's 60-90 bombers shot down in the first strike by SAM alone...not looking so good.
[54]Based on Soviet archival data, 335 Soviet MiG-15s are known to have been admitted as lost by the Soviets over Korea.[51] Chinese claims of their losses amount to 224 MiG-15s over Korea.[52] North Korean losses are not known, but according to North Korean defectors their air force lost around 100 MiG-15s during the war.[53] Thus a total of 659 MiG-15s are admitted as being lost, all but a handful to F-86 Sabres, while USAF claims of their losses amount to 78 F-86 Sabres,[54] for a probable kill ratio of around 6:1 in favor of the F-86 Sabre. Overall UN losses to MiG-15s are credited as 78 F-86 Sabres and 75 aircraft of other types
A total of 44 MiG-15s achieved victories[clarification needed] in that mission on 12 April 1951 when they intercepted a large formation of 48 B-29 Superfortresses, 18 F-86 Sabres, 54 F-84 Thunderjets and 24 F-80 Shooting Stars heading towards the bridge linking North Korea and Red China over the Yalu river in Uiju. When the ensuing battle was finished, the experienced Soviet fliers had shot down or damaged beyond repair 10 B-29As, one F-86A and three F-80Cs for the loss of only one MiG.[13]
U.S. strategic bombers returned the week of 22–27 October to neutralize the North Korean aerodromes of Namsi, Taechon and Saamchan, taking further losses to the MiG-15. On 23 October 1951, 56 MiG-15bis intercepted nine Superfortresses escorted by 34 F-86s and 55 F-84Es. In spite of their numerical inferiority, the Soviet airmen shot down or damaged beyond repair eight B-29As and two F-84Es, losing only one MiG in return and leading Americans to call that day "Black Tuesday".[24]
The figures given by the Soviet sources indicate that the MiG-15s of the 64th IAK (the fighter corps that included all the divisions that rotated through the conflict) made 60,450 daylight combat sorties and 2,779 night ones and engaged the enemy in 1,683 daylight aerial battles and 107 at night, claiming to have shot down 1,097 UN aircraft over Korea, including 647 F-86s, 185 F-84s, 118 F-80s, 28 F-51s, 11 F-94s, 65 B-29s, 26 Gloster Meteors and 17 aircraft of different types
- 16 December 1950: An RB-29 of USAF was downed over Primore (Sea of Japan) by two MiG-15 pilots, Captain Stepan A. Bajaev and 1st Lieutenant N. Kotov.
- 19 November 1951: MiG-15bis pilot 1st Lieutenant A. A. Kalugin forced a USAF C-47 that had penetrated Hungarian airspace to land at the airbase at Pápa.
- 13 June 1952: Two naval MiG-15s, flown by Captain Oleg Piotrovich Fedotov and 1st Lieutenant Ivan Petrovich Proskurin, shot down an RB-29A near Valentin Bay, over the Sea of Japan. All 12 crew members perished (their bodies were not recovered).
- 13 June 1952, Catalina affair: A Soviet MiG-15 flown by Captain Osinskiy shot down a Douglas DC-3 reconnaissance plane of the Swedish Air Force piloted by Alvar Almeberg near Ventspils over the Baltic Sea. Its three crew members perished. One of the two Swedish military Catalina flying boats that conducted subsequent search and rescue for the downed DC-3 was also shot down by a MiG-15, though with no loss of life.
- 7 August 1952: Two MiG-15 pilots, 1st Lieutenants Zeryakov and Lesnov, shot down a USAF RB-29 over the Kurile islands. The entire crew of nine died (the remains of one, Captain John R. Durnham, were returned to the United States in 1993).
- 18 November 1952: Four MiG-15bis engaged four F9F-2 Panther off the aircraft carrier USS Princeton (CV-37) near Vladivostok. One MiG-15 pilot, Captain Dmitriy Belyakov, managed to seriously damage Lieutenant Junior Grade David M. Rowlands's F9F-2, but seconds later he and 1st Lieutenant Vandalov were downed by Elmer Royce Williams and John Davidson Middleton. Neither Soviet pilot was found.
- 10 March 1953, Air battle over Merklín: Two MiG-15bis of the Czechoslovak Air Force intercepted two F-84Gs over Czechoslovak airspace. Lieutenant Jaroslav Šrámek shot down one of them; the F-84 crashed in Bavarian territory. The US pilot bailed out safely.
- 12 March 1953: Seven airmen were killed when the Royal Air Force Avro Lincoln they were flying in was shot down by a Soviet Air Force MiG-15 in the Berlin air corridor, near Boizenburg, 51 kilometres (32 mi) northeast of Lüneburg.
- 29 July 1953: Two MiG-15bis intercepted an RB-50G near Gamov, in the Sea of Japan, and instructed it to land at their home base. The RB-50 gunners opened fire and hit the MiG of 1st Lieutenant Aleksandr D. Rybakov. Rybakov and his wingman 1st Lieutenant Yuriy M. Yablonskiy then shot down the RB-50. One of the crew members (John E. Roche) was rescued alive, and three corpses were recovered. The remaining 13 crew members became missing-in-action.
- 17 April 1955: MiG-15 pilots Korotkov and Sazhin shot down an RB-47E north of the Kamchatka peninsula. All three crew members perished.
- 27 June 1955: El Al Flight 402 was shot down by two Bulgarian MiG-15 aircraft after penetrating Bulgarian airspace. All 58 passengers and crew perished in the attack.[62
Given the historically pooor accuracy of bombers and reconnaissance , the real question should be will it hit the center of the CEP...NO, so it may well land in the outer ring [more than 1 CEP AWAY] will the blast radius be sufficient still to even reach the target?
...
If the yanks are dumb enough to waste their precious few nukes on the hundreds and hundreds of regiments, they will definitely lose Europe and world. .....
ooh right that's what they seem to do these days...![]()
The large number of AMERICAN NUCS is likely the growth of small tactical nucs...maybe even artillery nucs
The original POST is about the plan so why don't you stay with that?
That's 60-90 bombers shot down in the first strike by SAM alone...not looking so good.
The problem is that a lot of the shoot downs will be on bombers after they drop, with WWII conventional bombs that's fine and would be unsupportable but not with nuclear bombers.This is not looking good for DROPSHOT if 100 MIGS can shoot down 18 bombers and 6 escorting jets for the loss of only 2 MIGS
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S-25_Berkut
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S-75_Dvina
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S-125_Neva/Pechora
That's 60-90 bombers shot down in the first strike by SAM alone...not looking so good.
So that's 63229 sortie = 1790 battles only one interception for every 35 MIG sortie.
This is not looking good for DROPSHOT if 100 MIGS can shoot down 18 bombers and 6 escorting jets for the loss of only 2 MIGS
Best possible Soviet performance would involve it intercepting enough US bombers to avoid any fatal losses to it's military-industrial base and logistical network. That would allow it to overrun Western Europe... only to then lose in the long run as the US builds enough ICBMs to rain nuclear destruction down on the Soviets anyways.