The Cuban Missile Crisis: How many hits does North America take?

[Mynock]

My best guess is that we can write off the R-7s completely: even if they were in a fueled-state, just calibrating the gyroscopes for a launch took far too many hours. For the R-16s, I'd reasonably guess they'd be able to get almost everything away. US ICBMs were mostly targeted against air defense sites to "clear the way" for the bombers, so even the three hours for the soft-sites could beat them. Failure rates were about a quarter, so that's around 27 hits from the ICBMs. For the number of bombers there is a potential complication that the nuclear OOB missed: the number of bombers that can reach the CONUS is not necessarily the same as the number of bombers that can reach North American targets. In 1956, the Soviets had around ~200 Tu-16s with air-air refueling capabilities that could let them strike targets in Canada or Alaska and make it back and that number probably was up a bit by 1962. The US/Canadian interceptor will have to tangle with both. That could up the number of leakers. Still, I would put a upper limit of no more than 25% of the bombers making it through, though that number could very well turn out to be zero. Same story for what SLBMs the Soviets have at the time.

Interesting. So that gives 25-30 as a lower limit for CONUS as you say. Going with 200-odd bombers that gives an upper limit of some 75-80 for North America as a whole.

We don't have that much concrete information. A discussion between Nikita Khrushchev and the British ambassador around the time of the second Berlin crisis had the former ask the latter how many warheads it would take to knock out Britain. The ambassador remarked "About a half-dozen, I imagine." At which point Khrushchev commented that the Soviet General Staff had allocated "several score of thermonuclear missiles" and then made a quip about how odd it is that the STAVKA accorded the British with more staying power than the British themselves. It's naturally hard to tell how much of that was a serious revelation on the number of MRBM/IRBMs aimed at Britain and how much of it was Khrushchev being Khrushchev. Supposedly the historian Peter Hennessey discovered that Liverpool had five megatons worth of weapons aimed at it around this time - which would correspond to as few as 5 or as many as 16 missiles, depending on the yield setting per missile - but I've never seen where he got that from.

Some 550 nuclear missiles, if Britain gets even a quarter of that it'll screw the country never mind the bombers. In 1972 the British government drew up a list of some 106 targets, the Soviets might well get all of them. Of course some of those 550 missiles would presumably be aiming east, not sure what was in or around the Pacific region.

Someone already posted the 1962 SIOP, which included China. Although I do recall that there was a variant of the plan in which a "hold" against China could be implemented. Anyone's guess which one SAC would default too.

I find this section of the linked information to be particularly relevant:

"The Marine Corp commandant was concerned that the SIOP provides for the 'attack of a single list of Sino-Soviet countries' and makes no 'distinction' between Communist countries that were at war with the United States and those that were not."

Mr Commandant's concerns are exactly my own. Nuking a country that isn't at outright war with you just because they share your declared enemy's ideology and have certain alliances in place with your declared enemy is pretty damned nuts if you ask me. It would be akin to the North Vietnamese and/or Viet Cong launching an attack on British military installations in 1969 just because Britain was a U.S. ally.

SOIP-62 treated the whole communist world (including China) as one bloc and provided very little flexibility. SIOP-63, which was in operation during the crisis, allowed much more flexibility. However, I don't think it would be out of character for the times and for the people running SAC for China to be hit for no other reason than being red.

 

[Blue cat]

Ukraine was pretty important to the overall strength of the USSR as a whole so I believe its sort wishful thinking to expect it to get away less damaged then, say, Poland or Belarus or someplace. After the RSFSR its getting hit the most (according to target maps I've seen before).

Yeah I am doubtful the US would have been deliberately not targeting portions of the USSR due the the local population(s) not being Russian in 1962.

Later in the Cold War I recall reading an account of an interview with a U.S. official who wouldn’t rule out such tactics but I am doubtful this would have been a thing in 1962.

 

[GrahamB]

SOIP-62 treated the whole communist world (including China) as one bloc and provided very little flexibility. SIOP-63, which was in operation during the crisis, allowed much more flexibility.

I was under the impression SIOP-63 was approved-but-not-fully-implemented at the time, so the US might default to -62 if it came to it.

---

I'll just toss this idea into the ring: How many warheads the Soviets can deploy is going to depend dramatically on the conditions for when things go hot. Ages ago I had an idea for an "America Shoots First" CMC, where Le May is let off the leash over one of the many false-alarms (full -62 with all the bells and whistles) and the results looked likely to be laughably one-sided in favour of the Americans/NATO. I didn't post it because there seemed to be real pushback at the time against any nuclear war thread that wasn't misery porn.

I'll also posit that the reliability of Soviet warheads is likely far lower than most people estimate. I recall reading that there was a series of American warheads, the mainstay of the bomber force, that had something like a 50%-75% failure rate for the fuses thanks to an idiot design oversight in the fuses (bad rust-proofing, I think). I would not be surprised if Soviet warheads had similar failure rates.

So yeah, I voted for N.America to face around 10 detonations in most scenarios, although given the sometimes laughable accuracy of early Soviet missiles, half of them may only wipe out farmland.

 

[Mynock]

I was under the impression SIOP-63 was approved-but-not-fully-implemented at the time, so the US might default to -62 if it came to it.

I was under the impression SIOP-63 was in place by the Cuban Missile Crisis but I might be wrong. Either way if memory serves the top brass of the SAC had a remarkable amount of de facto autonomy which could lead to the crisis spiralling out of control.

I'll just toss this idea into the ring: How many warheads the Soviets can deploy is going to depend dramatically on the conditions for when things go hot. Ages ago I had an idea for an "America Shoots First" CMC, where Le May is let off the leash over one of the many false-alarms (full -62 with all the bells and whistles) and the results looked likely to be laughably one-sided in favour of the Americans/NATO. I didn't post it because there seemed to be real pushback at the time against any nuclear war thread that wasn't misery porn.

I'll also posit that the reliability of Soviet warheads is likely far lower than most people estimate. I recall reading that there was a series of American warheads, the mainstay of the bomber force, that had something like a 50%-75% failure rate for the fuses thanks to an idiot design oversight in the fuses (bad rust-proofing, I think). I would not be surprised if Soviet warheads had similar failure rates.

So yeah, I voted for N.America to face around 10 detonations in most scenarios, although given the sometimes laughable accuracy of early Soviet missiles, half of them may only wipe out farmland.

I have no idea as to reliability rates of Soviet (or indeed American) weaponry, that is part of the reason I made this thread in the first place. There is a reactionary tendency I have witnessed to conflate the absolute mutual devastation of a 1980s nuclear war with a 1960s nuclear war which is a very different animal, and I do think there is a scenario in a US first strike where the Soviets roll all 1s with missiles being wiped out and breaking down with the few weapons they do get through missing their targets completely but that seems near ASB.

 

[Insane Ranter]

Why on earth would America want to do that?

Employment of the "If we are gonna burn then everyone is gonna burn too!!!" mind set?

 

[jsb]

So yeah, I voted for N.America to face around 10 detonations in most scenarios, although given the sometimes laughable accuracy of early Soviet missiles, half of them may only wipe out farmland.

and I do think there is a scenario in a US first strike where the Soviets roll all 1s with missiles being wiped out and breaking down with the few weapons they do get through missing their targets completely but that seems near ASB.

The serious issue with low reliability missile that has maybe not been raised is that USSR will need to target more than one at major targets to ensure they are destroyed and thus significantly cut the number of targets it can hit of it can hit as it will only get one go, so can't plan for a follow strike after assessment of if the first strike worked. Add the accuracy of the missile, and they might end up using say three on major targets like SAC main HQ or Pentagon to ensure destruction? The force of 40 ICBM rapidly then runs out if you start to do that, down to only 14 target etc? They need to balance how much they want to ensure destruction v spreading damage but risking targets surviving and that will depend on how they judge the reliability of the missile and what they want to do pure damage or minimise damage to USSR or help bombers acting?

 

[Blue cat]

I was under the impression SIOP-63 was in place by the Cuban Missile Crisis but I might be wrong. Either way if memory serves the top brass of the SAC had a remarkable amount of de facto autonomy which could lead to the crisis spiralling out of control.

I have no idea as to reliability rates of Soviet (or indeed American) weaponry, that is part of the reason I made this thread in the first place. There is a reactionary tendency I have witnessed to conflate the absolute mutual devastation of a 1980s nuclear war with a 1960s nuclear war which is a very different animal, and I do think there is a scenario in a US first strike where the Soviets roll all 1s with missiles being wiped out and breaking down with the few weapons they do get through missing their targets completely but that seems near ASB.

This... do you not get very different results depending on who shots first and how far in advance of each other? We are not talking about later hardened systems that will easily allow for a second strike especially on the soviet side so if USA (or SAC commanders as soon as the fighting starts) decided to go hard early with no warning then it might lead to a very one-sided outcome far more so than if USSR fires first in response to action on Cuba after preparing its forces.

I suppose in theory (perhaps with some benefit of hindsight ?) one might be able to outline how the US might have been able pull off a first strike that eliminated most (although most likely not all) of the ability of the USSR to plausibly strike the continental USA. (I suppose one could look at the number of ICBM’s the US had, along with the number of air borne alert air craft that could plausibly have been available vs the number of Soviet ICBM sites and long range bomber bases and go from there..) Various other Forward based US forces might also have been able to be included as well.


The thing is it isn’t clear to me if the US even had the necessary target data at the time to plan such an attack and the level of confidence the US had in the data they did have is a question mark. I also have significant doubts that this was something the US would have done for a variety of reasons.

 

[Blue cat]

The serious issue with low reliability missile that has maybe not been raised is that USSR will need to target more than one at major targets to ensure they are destroyed and thus significantly cut the number of targets it can hit of it can hit as it will only get one go, so can't plan for a follow strike after assessment of if the first strike worked. Add the accuracy of the missile, and they might end up using say three on major targets like SAC main HQ or Pentagon to ensure destruction? The force of 40 ICBM rapidly then runs out if you start to do that, down to only 14 target etc? They need to balance how much they want to ensure destruction v spreading damage but risking targets surviving and that will depend on how they judge the reliability of the missile and what they want to do pure damage or minimise damage to USSR or help bombers acting?

Yeah I suspect the Soviet planners likely had some debates about how to target their early ICBM’s. (Ie Targeting SAC bases vs NORAD facilities (to help clear a path for Soviet Bombers) comes to mind.)

 

[RamscoopRaider]

I also have significant doubts that this was something the US would have done for a variety of reasons.

It's not so much would the US do it as would Thomas Powers or John Anderson do it, being the head of SAC and CNO respectively. Eisenhower left them a lot of predelegated authority over nuclear release that was not revoked by JFK until after the Cuban Missile Crisis.

Thomas Powers was one of the inspirations for the Movie Dr. Strangelove and John Anderson was not that much better. People who knew them had serious concerns that they would react and react hard and not wait for orders from JFK if the balloon went up

 

[kessock]

It totally depends on who shoots first. If it's the Americans it is possible to receive no damage but probable that targets in Alaska get hit. If it's the USSR, minimum of high single digits to several dozen. A couple of years ago i went on a bit of a research binge about this out of pure curiosity over quite a few months; here is a small portion what I have found:

For the US:
- B-52s were concentrated in 37 Squadrons consisting of 15 aircraft per squadron. 33 Squadrons were initially assigned to 1/8 Airborne Chrome Dome alert consisting of 2 sorties per day with a 24 hour mission. 4 B-52H Squadrons were undergoing Quick Clip fuel tank modifications and were not initially assigned but as they became available were added until by 05 Nov there were 75 bombers assigned to airborne alert. All other B-52s available in the squadrons were put on ground alert with a planned wheels up response time of 15 minutes; excepting unplanned maintenance issues of course. B-47s on REFLEX missions were on ground alert at overseas and CONUS bases. Other B-47 squadrons in North America not assigned to REFLEX were dedicated to follow up strikes.

- On 27 Oct, there were 65 of 67 planned B-52 Bombers on Chrome Dome missions with a schedule of 28 flying the Northern and 36 flying Southern Routes along with 2 aircraft on Thule guard. Each was equipped with 4 Mk 28 or 2 Mk 36 weapons. The G and H versions also carried a total of 22 GAM-77 Hound Dogs.

- 113 Atlas, 54 Titan 1, and up to 4 Minuteman were available at various missile bases and Vandenberg on 27 Oct. Response time from receipt of launch message to lift off varied from 3-5 for the Minuteman to 7 to 12 for the Atlas and Titan. 112 SLBM were available in 7 SSBNs in the Atlantic and Med with 8 Regulus missiles available in the Pacific.

-There were also the Thor, Jupiter, alert Fighter Bombers and CVs in various areas that I won't go into.

For the Soviets, which was a lot harder to get info on:

- 6 SS-6 (R-7) were available in two bases on the launch pads with warheads mated. Approximately a 6 hour response time with a fueled standby time of about 3 hours.

- 32 to 36 SS-7 (R-16) at 25 launch bases. I found the hard number of the bases but not how many missiles were available during the crisis. These are the generally agreed numbers I found. The bases were soft sites with 2 launch pads about 1000ft apart with a central launch control site between them. Under normal circumstances the missiles were stored in soft buildings besides the pads with the warheads in storage under KGB control nearby. For response time it took about 3 hours to mate, erect and launch the missile from a cold start. If the missile was mated with its warhead and erected, this was reduced to 1 hour. If also fueled, 15 minutes. I have seen the fueled standby as both 3 days and 30 days. Regardless; if the missile was fueled and not launched, it would have to return to the factory for full refurbishment due to the red fuming nitric acid used as an oxidizer. I'm am assuming they were mated and erected during this time but not fueled. NO missiles were in silos, though a test program was underway for this.

- About 60 M-4 Mya bombers and 100 Tu-95 Bear bombers, with about 35 of them set up as a KH-20 Kangaroo missile carriers. They were all located at 5 airbases and from what I have read none were dispersed or put on alert though I have not seen any documentation on this. As typical, the bombs were under KGB control. Response time in hours. Several hundred Tu-16 Badgers with Alaska well in range of them.

- They had approximately 500+ R-5M, R-12 and R-14 located at around 125 soft missile bases with a normal 4 launch pad configuration in similar circumstances as the R-16. A handful of R-12 were silo based. No idea of the alert status.

- Very little information on 5 Zulu V (1/2 x R-11) and 23 Golf Class SSBs (3 x R-11/R-13) and 4 Hotel Class SSBNs (3 x R-13/R-21) available and their patrols. Normally they were only detected in the European area and rarely. Few on patrol. Nothing like the USN.


The biggest issue for the Soviets is that they had NO missile warning system. They had just started a research program and the first radars were operational in the mid/late 60s. Any attack by the Americans would be a bolt out of the blue. Any US attack could have been launched within minutes of the order but I can see a planned attack set up over a few hours. For the Soviets if the C&C is disrupted then any response will be weak and uncoordinated. The military controls the platform and the KGB controls the warhead with instructions coming down individual chains of command and an extreme top down command situation.

 

[GrahamB]

It totally depends on who shoots first...[snip]

This completely aligns with what I remember from prior research: in either 'America shoots first' or 'both shoot at the same time' scenarios, by the time Soviet bases get the order to prep and launch the Americans are already over Soviet territory. The difference in response times are in orders or magnitude until well after the CMC.

I'll never forget a book I read at my university library on Soviet army readiness (one of those arcane tomes by an expert with a plain red felt cover and unnecessarily long title that's only published for institutions, the sort you learn are goldmines for research papers) and it was damning of the Soviets' actual Operational Readiness. There's a phrase that goes something like "always assume the [opposing army] is at least as competent and motivated as you are" to avoid underestimating an opponent, but the Soviets' readiness figures were consistently only at 50-75% of what NATO's minimums were. America vastly overestimated Soviet capabilities, especially in the early Cold War. They only really caught up in the 80s, by which time Raegan scared them so much they bankrupted themselves trying to catch up.

I hate that I don't remember the author but that book's coloured my whole conception of the Cold War ever since.

 

[ObssesedNuker]

Dubious sources and claims aside, we know the reliability of Soviet weapons: about 25% failure rates. Speculations of lower reliabilities remain completely unsubstantiated: the Soviet testing regime in the 50s was no less rigorous than the American one and sorted through. Soviet operational readiness varied throughout the Cold War and during the crisis was reported by Soviet sources - like Strategic Rocket Forces Lt. Col. Sergei Karlov’s notes on ICBM deployments during the Crisis - as being maximal, so speculations that the Soviets could be caught on the ground do not seem sound.

Early warheads used a more "blunt body" reentry shape than modern warheads, (think Mercury or Vostok capsule shapes instead of the more 'pointy' modern versions ) so slowed down much more than modern warheads do.

You can see the RV on the R-16 - and other early, single-warhead missiles - at the top there. It doesn't look any less blunt than - for example - a W-88.

Now the R-7, on the other hand, that was pretty blunty.

By comparison, the Atlas (left) and Titan I (right) RVs, which is where the bulk of the blunt-nose RV problem was discovered on the American side:

 

[Blue cat]

Dubious sources and claims aside, we know the reliability of Soviet weapons: about 25% failure rates. Speculations of lower reliabilities remain completely unsubstantiated: the Soviet testing regime in the 50s was no less rigorous than the American one and sorted through. Soviet operational readiness varied throughout the Cold War and during the crisis was reported by Soviet sources - - as being maximal, so speculations that the Soviets could be caught on the ground do not seem sound.



You can see the warhead on the R-16 at the top there. It doesn't look any less blunt than - for example - a W-88.

View attachment 865620

Now the R-7, on the other hand, that warhead was pretty blunty.

View attachment 865619

My understanding is the re entry speed of re entry vehicles at various portions of their flight depends on a number of factors including their Ballistic Coefficient (often referred to as the Beta in this context.)

My understanding is early ICBM designers were focusing on devising a re entry vehicle that would survive re entry (when launched on plausible trajectories) as priority number one, then provide an acceptable level of accuracy.

All that being said I doubt early ICBM’s were significantly vulnerable to SAM systems from the same era (even if the missiles themselves and their nuclear war heads might been more likely to be able to intercept early ICBM’s if they had access to later radars and computers.)

Cheers

 

[ObssesedNuker]

My understanding is the re entry speed of re entry vehicles at various portions of their flight depends on a number of factors including their Ballistic Coefficient (often referred to as the Beta in this context.)

Yeah, and the Ballistic Co-Efficient number is at least partly determined by the shape. That said, it isn't the only factor, so I went poking around and found this on page 2.

"A b value between 100 and 500 is representative of the early ICBM highly blunted sphere-cone-cylinder-flare geometry*, while a b value of 1000 to 5000 is representative of the slightly blunted slender sphere-cone geometry used in modern ICBM re-entry vehicles."

Some cross-referencing, and it looks like the Ballistic Co-Efficient of the R-16s RV's were between these two values: of the two main RVs deployed, the ballistic co-efficients were 700 and 850. That would suggest that the R-16s RV would still experience some significant slowdown, but probably not so badly as to drop down into the subsonic range like those earlier blunt-nose warheads.

*The comparison they did on page 13/14 is pretty "wat"-worthy though. They compare the R-7s first warhead (first produced in the late-1950s) with that of the Mk-12A (first produced at the start of the 1970s) and then hold that up as some kinda difference in warhead design between the two countries. That's like comparing the M2 tank with a T-44 and holding that up as a differing philosophies in tank design.

 

[Blue cat]

Yeah, and the Ballistic Co-Efficient number is at least partly determined by the shape. That said, it isn't the only factor, so I went poking around and found this on page 2.

"A b value between 100 and 500 is representative of the early ICBM highly blunted sphere-cone-cylinder-flare geometry, while a b value of 1000 to 5000 is representative of the slightly blunted slender sphere-cone geometry used in modern ICBM re-entry vehicles."

Some cross-referencing, and it looks like the Ballistic Co-Efficient of the R-16s RV's were between these two values: of the two main RVs deployed, the ballistic co-efficients were 700 and 850. That would suggest that the R-16s RV would still experience some significant slowdown, but probably not so badly as to drop down into the subsonic range like those earlier blunt-nose warheads.

That sounds reasonable..

 

[Blue cat]

Dubious sources and claims aside, we know the reliability of Soviet weapons: about 25% failure rates. Speculations of lower reliabilities remain completely unsubstantiated: the Soviet testing regime in the 50s was no less rigorous than the American one and sorted through. Soviet operational readiness varied throughout the Cold War and during the crisis was reported by Soviet sources - like Strategic Rocket Forces Lt. Col. Sergei Karlov’s notes on ICBM deployments during the Crisis - as being maximal, so speculations that the Soviets could be caught on the ground do not seem sound.

The lack of a missile launch early warning system in 1962 (other than perhaps agents on the ground who could visibly see ICBM's and perhaps other forms of weapons being launched,) seems a significant handicap to me.

(The US keeping bombers on air borne alert well away from the "lower 48" air space likely complicated things for the Soviets as well.)

See:

https://scienceandglobalsecurity.org/archive/sgs10podvig.pdf

It seems development of such systems by the Soviets didn't start until the early 1960's.

I'm also doubtful that agent reports (assuming there were any agents on the ground to send them..) could have been transmitted, received, filtered assessed, passed on to others etc in time to be useful (even if the Soviets could have launched weapons before ICBM war heads arrived ?)

Cheers.

Edit to add, I suppose one could speculate how well Soviet SAM's might have done against early US ICBM RV's in this time frame and if the the US and the Soviets fully appreciated some of the issues involved (ie the likely black out affect from nuclear explosions vis a vis at least some radars, the vulnerability of nuclelar weapons to near by nuclear explosion's etc..) I suspect the Soviets would have been at a dis advantage by not having radar systems in 1962 that were designed to detect (let alone track) ICBM's and their re entry vehicles.

 

[ObssesedNuker]

The lack of a missile launch early warning system in 1962 (other than perhaps agents on the ground who could visibly see ICBM's and perhaps other forms of weapons being launched,) seems a significant handicap to me.

(The US keeping bombers on air borne alert well away from the "lower 48" air space likely complicated things for the Soviets as well.)

See:

https://scienceandglobalsecurity.org/archive/sgs10podvig.pdf

It seems development of such systems by the Soviets didn't start until the early 1960's.

I'm also doubtful that agent reports (assuming there were any agents on the ground to send them..) could have been transmitted, recevied, filtered assessed, passed on to others etc in time to be useful (even if the Soviets could have launched weapons before ICBM war heads arrived ?)

Cheers.

You're assuming that the US would use its ICBMs against the Soviet ICBM fields and other such "time sensitive" targets. But my read of SAC targeting priorities in the early-60s is that they would be used to blast holes in the air defense network so the bombers would have an easier time getting through. LeMay said as much in 1957 and I can't find substantial evidence that this had changed by the early-60s.

 

[Blue cat]

You're assuming that the US would use its ICBMs against the Soviet ICBM fields and other such "time sensitive" targets. But my read of SAC targeting priorities in the early-60s is that they would be used to blast holes in the air defense network so the bombers would have an easier time getting through. LeMay said as much in 1957 and I can't find substantial evidence that this had changed by the early-60s.

I don't disagree with what you have written but one could plausibly argue the US had that capability (at least vis a vis targets they had target data for) even if they may not have had the intention to use certain assets in that manner.

I think one could also plausibly argue that a US plan to use missiles for defense suppression (and possibly against known C3I sites ?) while expecting bombers on air borne alert to actually carry out reasonably prompt counterforce strikes (perhaps against a subset of key targets ?) in a hypothetical early 1960's strike might well have made a great deal of sense. Presumably the planners had their reasons. I won't speculate further at this point.

Cheers

 

[ObssesedNuker]

I don't disagree with what you have written but one could plausibly argue the US had that capability (at least vis a vis targets they had target data for) even if they may not have had the intention to use certain assets in that manner.

I think one could also plausibly argue that a US plan to use missiles for defense suppression (and possibly against known C3I sites ?) while expecting bombers on air borne alert to actually carry out reasonably prompt counterforce strikes in a hypothetical early 1960's strike might well have made a great deal of sense. Presumably the planners had their reasons. I won't speculate further at this point.

Cheers

Yeah, that's a fair point. Can't say for sure how well it would work and I'd reason that even the hardsites could be fired off before the airborne bombers get to them. Getting rather speculative at that point though.

 

[Mynock]

Dubious sources and claims aside, we know the reliability of Soviet weapons: about 25% failure rates. Speculations of lower reliabilities remain completely unsubstantiated: the Soviet testing regime in the 50s was no less rigorous than the American one and sorted through.

So of some 38-42 missiles we can say about a fourth don't work. That's around 10 missiles that can be written off. From what happens to come up earlier in the thread the US wouldn't be intercepting them. So its some 30ish missiles hitting the US. If it is correct that the US wouldn't target ICBM sites with missiles of their own and the missiles could get off before bombers arrive that gives 30ish missiles. Taking 30ish as an upper bound seems reasonable for ICBM strikes, though this would not necessarily mean 30 distinct strikes. I may have mis-interpreted this but I think I've gotten it more or less right.

Now we need only consider the bombers.