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iyaayas01
Feb 19, 2010

Perry'd
What do this:



this:



and this:



all have in common? You're about to find out.

Throughout the history of air warfare, there has been a continual seesaw between offense and defense, bomber and fighter. The first things of a military nature to take to the air were balloons, and later, aircraft, that were intended to observe and report back to the ground on the movements that enemy forces were making. Of course, this led the other side to develop fighter aircraft to try and shoot down said observation platforms, which led to the development of aircraft to protect the observation platforms, and then some genius (specifically, Sottotenente Giulio Gavotti during the Italo-Turkish War in 1911) figured that if he was flying over enemy formations to observe them, why didn't he take some explosives to drop on them? This was indeed a good idea, and the end result was that by the conclusion of the First World War both sides had developed "heavy" (for their time) bombers that were launching strikes against industrial targets on the home front of the enemy. (Granted, these strikes were quite ineffective, but I'm not arguing the merits of strategic bombing as a warfighting tool; it's the thought that counts here).

Fast forward to the beginning of the Second World War. At this time it is thought that the advantage lies predominantly with the bomber, because bomber aircraft (like the B-17, for example) had advanced technologically to the point where in terms of speed and altitude they were the equal, if not the better, of fighter aircraft. Their speed meant that there would be minimal warning time to scramble interceptors, and their altitude meant that those interceptors faced a long haul to get within striking range of the bomber formations. These technical limitations led to the widespread belief that the unescorted bomber would always get through, espoused chiefly by airpower advocates like Giulio Douhet, Hugh Trenchard, and Billy Mitchell, and therefore that spending money on defensive fighters was pointless, that it was better to build up the offensive bomber forces as a deterrent.

Look at this pimp motherfucker. You gonna tell him he's wrong?:



Anyone who is remotely familiar with the history of strategic bombing in WWII knows that this belief was fatally flawed, due primarily to the introduction of radar. This key invention gave the defenders advanced warning, enabling them to scramble interceptors ahead of time to be waiting for the bombers at altitude. The losses among unescorted bombing missions were steep; the 8th Air Force (the primary USAAF strategic bombing force in Europe) suffered some of the highest casualty rates of all U.S. forces. Obviously the system was more complicated than just radar and fighters, there needed to be a control center to track and plot the location, speed, bearing, and altitude of both the incoming enemy aircraft and the defending interceptors. During WWII, with piston engined bombers having cruising speeds of around 200 mph, the use of manual plotting boards such as this one was more than adequate:



However, as WWII drew to a close, a new technology began to enter use: the jet engine. This enabled much faster speeds. While the technical issue of physically intercepting the bombers was solved by the development of jet engined interceptors with similar performance, the much faster speed of jet powered bombers compressed the amount of time that defenders would have to respond; in short, the issue was not the physical intercepting the enemy bombers, it was everything prior to that was necessary to get the interceptor in a position to engage the bombers: initial detection, determining speed, range, bearing, and altitude, developing a track predicting where the enemy bombers would be next, scrambling the intercepting forces, and guiding them to the point where they were able to intercept the bombers. This time compression meant that a manual system as had been used in WWII would be overwhelmed and would inevitably let some bombers through. While this may not have been a big deal (after all, even in the darkest days of the 8th AF's raids in Germany, the majority of the bomber force got through, albeit suffering grievous losses). The second problem was the development of the atomic (and then thermonuclear) bomb. With one aircraft able to cause that amount of devastation to an entire city, a system that would let even one aircraft through was viewed as unacceptable. Finally, any system would have to defend the length of the U.S. border, going up and down both coasts and across Canada.

The threat:



Tu-4, Soviet clone of the B-29 that is an interesting story in and of itself.



Tu-16 Badger, the rough equivalent of our B-47.



Tu-95, the ubiquitous Bear, the fastest propeller powered aircraft ever built (it was only about 50 kts slower than its U.S. turbojet powered contemporary, the B-52) being escorted by an F-106 in the early '80s, probably right around when SAGE was being replaced.



Bonus picture just because I thought it was pretty slick.

So, the solution? Developing some sort of autonomous system that would use one of those new fangled computer things linked with a bunch of radar sites to control the communication and basic management, so all the controller would have to do was tell the computer which assets to attach which targets. To back up a bit, the Navy had given a contract to MIT during WWII to develop a computerized flight simulator that would enable a more realistic simulation than their current Link Trainers (picture just because they look so ridiculous):



The program was given the name Project Whirlwind. The project started off building a large analog computer, but the analog nature of the system made it impractical to control a large complex system like a flight simulator (the machine would've been huge, if it was even possible to construct in the first place), so after a member of the team saw a demonstration of ENIAC they began developing a digital machine. The machine they designed was one of the first to conduct operations in 16 bit bit-parallel mode as opposed to bit-serial mode. Additionally, the ever changing requirements demanded by a flight simulator meant that the Whirlwind couldn't run in batch mode, instead it was required to run in real time. It was the first computer to do so. I won't get further into the technical computing details, because that's not my area of expertise, but suffice to say that the Whirlwind introduced many new ideas to the world of computing technology and describing it as revolutionary would not be inappropriate.

Here's a few pictures, specifically of the memory core:





Construction of the computer began in 1948, employing 175 people, taking three years, and costing $1 million a year (in ~1950 dollars). The computer first went online in 1951, but by this point the Navy had lost interest in the project due to the length of development and its cost. However, the Air Force was beginning to develop the autonomous defense system I mentioned earlier, and the Whirlwind seemed tailormade its requirements: lots of computing power, large memory, and capable of real-time operations. The Air Force picked up development under the name Project Claude, and began linking the computer with various radars in and around New England (using that location as a test area made sense since the computer was located on MIT's campus in Cambridge).



Long range AN/FPS-3 radar

The so-called Cape Cod System was an absolute success, and provided the Air Force with the justification needed to proceed forward with a full on nationwide program. Work initially started on the Whirlwind II, but the project overwhelmed MIT's resources so the design was shelved and the program shifted to first RCA and then IBM. The new machine was called the AN/FSQ-7, which while being inspired by the Whirlwind II design was a completely new machine. While the AN/FSQ-7 was being developed by IBM, the MITRE Corporation was founded in Massachusetts in the late '50s to take over management of the entire program from MIT's Lincoln Laboratory, to include the AN/FSQ-7, the buildings, power supply, communications, and systems integration provided by Western Electric, the phone lines provided by Bell Systems, and the 500,000 lines of assembly language provided by the System Development Corporation (quite possibly the world's first software development company).

A few statistics about the AN/FSQ-7: It is the largest computer ever built, using 55,000 vacuum tubes, covering a half acre of floor space, weighing 275 tons, and using three megawatts of power.





However, the AN/FSQ-7 was only the heart of SAGE...without all the other components, it would just be a large computer operating in a vacuum. The focal point of SAGE was each SAGE center facility, a 4 story nondescript concrete blockhouse:



These centers were fed information from a variety of long, medium, and short range radar sites to ensure total coverage of the airspace at all altitudes; these sites converted the analog radar outputs into a digital signal that was then sent via modem to the SAGE center. The computers (there were two at each site for redundancy) then took the information (range and azimuth) and displayed it on a CRT screen, where controllers could interpret and act on the information using a light gun that allowed them to select a given target and order the system to display additional information about that particular target. If the controller needed altitude information about a given target, he could make a request of the radar site, where all a controller had to do was center the cue on the target and press a button; the altitude information would be sent automatically to the requesting controller back at the SAGE center.

Engaging the targets was similarly easy. The system kept the controllers advised as to the status/availability of all the defensive systems in a particular sector (more on those in a bit); all a controller needed to do was make the decision to intercept a certain target. At that point instructions would be sent to the nearest radar station via teletype at which point the local radar station would take control for the intercept, either engaging with SAMs (Surface to Air Missiles) or directing aircraft to engage. All the aircraft had to do was, if they were older, follow the radio instructions or, if they were newer, plug the SAGE directions into the aircraft's autopilot and fly a hands-off intercept, letting the computer maneuver the aircraft into firing position.

What means did SAGE have to engage targets? Since each one of these programs could (and maybe will) comprise a post of their own, I will try and be brief. First, the SAM systems:



The Nike Hercules was a development of the earlier point defense Nike Ajax system. It had a maximum range of 90 miles and an altitude limitation of 150,000 feet (it was later developed into the stillborn Nike Zeus ABM system). It engaged targets at a speed around Mach 3.65 and (like many air defense weapons of the era) was armed with a low kiloton range nuclear warhead. The Nike Hercules, like most other SAM systems, was operated by the US Army.



However, the CIM-10 Bomarc was an exception to this rule. It was, and remains, the only SAM system ever to be operated by the US Air Force. To call this missile a "SAM" is perhaps a bit of a misnomer, as it was originally given an F- designation (for "fighter,") because it really was a pilotless suicide fighter with ramjet engines. It had a range of 200 miles with a cruising speed around Mach 2.5 and was armed with a low kiloton range nuclear warhead. The Bomarc was intended to engage Soviet bomber formations while they were well offshore, thinning their numbers so the Nike Hercules systems and manned interceptors would have better odds of killing the rest.

Speaking of which, here are a few of the major interceptors that were developed during the time frame:



The F-89 was one of the first jet powered interceptors developed after WWII; you can see this lineage in its relatively conventional layout: straight winged with a high t-tail. Unfortunately, development on the aircraft was relatively protracted, which led the USAF to start a stopgap program, which led to



the F-94, which you may recognize as looking somewhat similar to the T-33 T-bird trainer. This is because the F-94 was nothing more than a T-33 with a radar, anti-aircraft rockets, and some more powerful engines.

Speaking of anti-aircraft rockets, these early interceptors were armed with 2.75'' folding fin aerial rockets (FFAR), which were similar in concept to the rockets that the Luftwaffe armed its Me 262 jets with during WWII. You pointed your aircraft at an enemy bomber and fired the rockets; there were theoretically enough rockets in a given cluster to saturate a bomber sized target. Here's a good look at what a typical nose FFAR installation on an F-94 looked like:



Three main problems with this armament: first, it required you to get very close to the enemy formation, meaning your intercept time was longer, second, you could only carry enough rockets for one (maybe two at the most) bomber sized bursts, and third (and more importantly) the FFARs were, to be blunt, absolutely lovely. There are numerous cases of a target drone flying out of control where the accompanying interceptors that were supposed to shoot it down in case just that event occurred were unable to do so because all their rockets missed. There is even a documented case of an interceptor accidentally locking on to the aircraft towing a banner during a live fire target practice sortie and cutting loose with an entire load of rockets at point blank range; the towing aircraft was completely unscathed.

The solution was to develop guided missiles (such as the AIM-9 Sidewinder and the AIM-4 Falcon) that could actually home in on a designated target. The issue now was that new aircraft would have to be designed, because the current crop of interceptors lacked both the payload to be able to haul and the avionics capacity to be able to guide these new missiles. Additionally, there were some significant advances in aerospace technology in the late '40s/early '50s that could be included in the new generation of interceptors.

The most significant family is the delta winged F-102/-106 series of jets. The F-102 started off as an absolute failure, a fighter that was supposed to travel twice the speed of sound yet was unable to go supersonic. Fortunately for it, a very smart guy by the name of Richard Whitcomb developed the area-rule concept and saved the design:



(Non area ruled on top, area ruled on bottom)

In doing so, he created the classic "coke-bottle" fuselage shape that was to define American fighters for the 1950s. However, the F-102 still faced some major issues, most of which were with its top speed (it still only topped out around Mach 1.22), its engines, and avionics capability. This led to the follow on F-102B that had so many design changes made that it became the F-106:



The F-106 boasted Mach 2+ speed and the Hughes MA-1 fire control system that enabled true hands off SAGE controlled intercepts.

As an interesting side note, the picture of the F-106 at the very top of this post is of one launching an unguided MB-2 Genie air to air rocket...that was armed with a low kiloton yield nuclear warhead. The F-89 was also capable of carrying the same rocket, while both the F-102 and the F-106 were able to employ the guided subkiloton nuclear armed AIM-26 Falcon (a development of the AIM-4 I mentioned earlier). In the cases of the F-102 and F-106 (both of which were flown by a single pilot without a backseat radar operator), arming these aircraft with nuclear weapons was the only time during the entire Cold War when the two man concept was ignored when dealing with nuclear weapons.

There are other interceptors that I could talk about, but those are the highlights and in the interests of space I will refrain from further discussion.

Since I am a military officer, no brief would be complete without a nonsensical slide featuring crude diagrams with lots of interconnected arrows that makes little sense:



I actually think this diagram does a fairly good job of showing how exactly SAGE was supposed to work.

Altogether there were 22 Sector Direction Centers (first line centers) and another 3 Control Centers (higher echelon more supervisory in nature) that were built between 1957 and 1963 (the year the system was fully operational), with another set up at CFB North Bay in Canada (it was intended to be the Canadian counterpart to the NORAD command post in Cheyenne Mountain and as such was located underground instead of in an above ground blockhouse like the other centers). The total cost of the program was around $8-12 billion (with a b) then dollars, which works out to be around $70 billion modern day...which is more than the cost of the Manhattan Project (there's some irony somewhere in there).

The real irony is that the same year as the U.S. started construction on the SAGE system, the Soviets launched this bad boy:



That is the R-7 Semyorka (NATO - SS-6 Sapwood), the world's first true ICBM. The Soviets began deployment in 1959, with between 6-8 deployed by 1963, each armed with a 2+ MT warhead. In a stroke, the SAGE system was completely obsolete. It remained in service until 1983, providing air sovereignty and enabling the identification, tracking, and intercept of Soviet flights up and down the East Coast, but it ceased to serve a truly useful purpose for the defense of the country as soon as the Soviet's began deploying ICBMs.

This is not to say that SAGE did not have a significant effect on the world, it was just not in its intended purpose. The most significant is regarding air traffic control. For all intents and purposes SAGE was just an air traffic control system that happened to intend to destroy a sizable number of the aircraft it was tracking, and it heavily influenced the FAA's later systems. Additionally, a chance encounter on a flight between an American Airlines executive and IBM programmer who worked on SAGE led to the development of the SABRE reservation system, of which IBM used much of the expertise it gained on SAGE. Then there were the technical aspects, like the first real-time CRT based user interface and the use of wide area communications via modems, not to mention all the specific achievements of the Whirlwind and AN/FSQ-7 computers.

Okay, that about does it I think. Hopefully you made it all the way through that without falling asleep, maybe you even learned something. Here's a few links in case you want to read further:

http://www.americanheritage.com/articles/magazine/it/1999/3/1999_3_56.shtml - Interview with the author of a book about the secret triumph of American engineering, from American Heritage of Invention and Technology; one of the programs he looks at in the book is SAGE. Not necessarily SAGE specific, but good reading from a systems design/engineering approach. As an aside, that magazine has some very good articles in general...it's gone a little downhill in recent years (they had an ownership crisis and a few other things) but I believe most if not all of their archives are available online. Discusses the most random things, from the introduction of the electric chair to the development of the zipper to how the aircraft carrier became the new capital vessel. Well worth looking at if you're into that sort of thing.

http://www.radomes.org/museum/equip/fsq-7.html - Webpage with a lot of technical details on the AN/FSQ-7 along with some good period pictures.

http://www.airspacemag.com/history-of-flight/thin_aluminum_line.html?c=y&page=1 - Good article from the Smithsonian's Air and Space Magazine on some of the more practical aspects of air interception during the Cold War/SAGE.

However, it's worth mentioning that while air defense was definitely a lot hotter during the Cold War, there are still fighters standing alert 24/7 and we still go up every once in a while to intercept a Bear or two:



Newest chapter in the long air defense history here at Elmendorf.

Possible topics for future discussion:

- The Tu-4, mentioned earlier in this post

- The AIM-9 Sidewinder, the first guided air to air missile (still in service today)

- The British V-Force deterrent bombers

- Weird nuclear weapons: Atomic cannon, Davy Crockett atomic recoilless rifle, the Blue Peacock chicken powered nuclear mine (no, not making that up), nuclear depth charges, ASROC, the man portable SADM warhead, etc.

- Suggestions?

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Cyrano4747
Sep 25, 2006

Yes, I know I'm old, get off my fucking lawn so I can yell at these clouds.

You are awesome, this thread is awesome. I haven't read a long-rear end post that informative in goddamned forever.

As for your next entry, the story of the Tu-4 is always hilarious and worth reading. Oh Soviet Russia, you were such scamps :allears:

Dividend Special
Jul 24, 2007

by Fistgrrl
Sup Elmendork buddy? Air Guardsman here, we're moving to your house pretty soon. February's the word.

lilspooky
Mar 21, 2006
I just read up on the Blue Peacock. How funny. Chicken powered nuclear mine! Weee! :black101:

Terrible Robot
Jul 2, 2010

FRIED CHICKEN
Slippery Tilde
I've been looking forward to this, and it doesn't disappoint. Thread delivers indeed.

Flikken
Oct 23, 2009

10,363 snaps and not a playoff win to show for it
I've actually seen some the launch sites for those old SAMs when I was stationed down at Ft. Story, Virginia. They are pretty neat.





Awesome post.

rossmum
Dec 2, 2008

Cummander ross, reporting for duty!

:gooncamp:
Holy loving poo poo, I love you. I can't wait for the V-bombers :britain: Going to see the Vulcan as a six-year-old, aviation-mad kid was loving awesome. I've loved the poo poo out of that plane ever since.

Also, perhaps a good future topic would be the supposed obsolescence of manned fighters - the loving ridiculous idea which led to the canning of a great many promising aircraft (most famously the :canada: ARROW :canada:) all across NATO nations.

gauss
Feb 9, 2001

by Reene
Sadly cannot carve out the time to read this while working just yet, but I am reading this later today. Love threads like this, thank you.

BaronW
Apr 16, 2007

Why yes, I HAVE seen uhaul.jpg
Great article! Is there a good aerospace history book with more like this?

Cyrano4747
Sep 25, 2006

Yes, I know I'm old, get off my fucking lawn so I can yell at these clouds.

All I know is that your damned computers replaced this:



<:mad:>

Look at that guy in the background there? See how loving smug he looks? It's because he gets to spend his day as an officer in the wartime RAF knee deep in some pretty decent looking chicks wearing not unattractive uniforms rather than being shot at by the Luftwaffe.

Oh, but the computers are more efficient! Oh, but they're faster at plotting intercepts! Oh but it's all automated!

gently caress your fancy light guns and tubes and transistors.

<:mad:>

Scratch Monkey
Oct 25, 2010

👰Proč bychom se netěšili🥰když nám Pán Bůh🙌🏻zdraví dá💪?
I like when the jet airplane goes zoom.

Cyrano4747 posted:

As for your next entry, the story of the Tu-4 is always hilarious and worth reading. Oh Soviet Russia, you were such scamps :allears:

The stories about what happened to some of the air crews that were interned when they landed their B-29s in the USSR? Not so hilarious.

Scratch Monkey fucked around with this message at 16:08 on Dec 15, 2010

NosmoKing
Nov 12, 2004

I have a rifle and a frying pan and I know how to use them
PANTS = FROTHY!!

As a cold war kid (I'm 41) I have an absolute fascination with all things nuclear war. I've got a decent library of books on the different weapon systems developed at the time.

Do one on the evoution of the NIKE system through the SPARTAN/SAFEGUARD series with Spartan and Sprint missiles.

Do the sexiest looking bomber of all time, the B-58.

The poo poo they were thinking about putting into service at the end of the cold war that got cancelled were mind bending. Maneuverable re-entry vehicles to goof up plotting software and potentially dodge interceptors. GPS guided ICBM warheads that could hit a minivan sized target from anywere on the planet. The Midgetman, the follow-on interceptors after the Sprint, all that jazz gives me a woody.

All the CANCELLED programs during the cold war! The air launched ICBM, the nuclear powered bomber, the nuclear powered cruise missile, the Super MIRV'd Titan II's, the 25-30 megaton warhead for the Titan II, the XB-70, and more.

Oh, how we used to spend money on cool poo poo.

Now the military R&D goes to bomb proofing trucks and APC's

Scratch Monkey
Oct 25, 2010

👰Proč bychom se netěšili🥰když nám Pán Bůh🙌🏻zdraví dá💪?

NosmoKing posted:

Do the sexiest looking bomber of all time, the B-58.

That's a weird way to spell B-1.

rossmum
Dec 2, 2008

Cummander ross, reporting for duty!

:gooncamp:

Scratch Monkey posted:

That's a weird way to spell B-1.
I could've sworn Vulcan had more letters than that.

NosmoKing
Nov 12, 2004

I have a rifle and a frying pan and I know how to use them
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
OK, 2 girlfriends & a little something on the side?

Scratch Monkey posted:

That's a weird way to spell B-1.

Can't I have 2 girlfriends?

Edit: the XB-70 is the unattainable hotty of the group. I won't even put her on the list.

NosmoKing fucked around with this message at 16:35 on Dec 15, 2010

Cyrano4747
Sep 25, 2006

Yes, I know I'm old, get off my fucking lawn so I can yell at these clouds.

NosmoKing posted:

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
OK, 2 girlfriends & a little something on the side?


Can't I have 2 girlfriends?

Edit: the XB-70 is the unattainable hotty of the group. I won't even put her on the list.

See, I'm a child of the late cold war, so nothing gives me Aerospace wood quite like the motherfucking B2.

It's big, it costs more than most countries make in a year, it's loving invisible, and it will poo poo a completely insane tonnage of whatever we want it to poo poo all over you. Only one has ever been lost, and that was due to a crash.

Each one of those things cost ONE loving BILLION DOLLARS in today's money.

It's also awesome because it's development history goes all the way back to world war loving two and it wasn't until the early 80s that they even began to develop the tech to make the dream a reality.

You want to talk about early-mid Cold War tech? Well, start with the Horten brothers in Germany and the Ho229 prototype. Then, move on up to some classic American items like the Northrop N9M, the YB-35 and the YB-49. They were in love with the performance and the low radar signature, but couldn't really achieve everything they wanted so the AF went with more traditional designs.

Until the loving B2, which was heavily influenced by those earlier attempts by Northrop.

Goddamn, I do love me some flying wings. Eat a dick you Nazi-rear end Horton brothers, we finally got it to work. :911:

NosmoKing
Nov 12, 2004

I have a rifle and a frying pan and I know how to use them

Cyrano4747 posted:

See, I'm a child of the late cold war, so nothing gives me Aerospace wood quite like the motherfucking B2.

It's big, it costs more than most countries make in a year, it's loving invisible, and it will poo poo a completely insane tonnage of whatever we want it to poo poo all over you. Only one has ever been lost, and that was due to a crash.

Each one of those things cost ONE loving BILLION DOLLARS in today's money.

It's also awesome because it's development history goes all the way back to world war loving two and it wasn't until the early 80s that they even began to develop the tech to make the dream a reality.

You want to talk about early-mid Cold War tech? Well, start with the Horten brothers in Germany and the Ho229 prototype. Then, move on up to some classic American items like the Northrop N9M, the YB-35 and the YB-49. They were in love with the performance and the low radar signature, but couldn't really achieve everything they wanted so the AF went with more traditional designs.

Until the loving B2, which was heavily influenced by those earlier attempts by Northrop.

Goddamn, I do love me some flying wings. Eat a dick you Nazi-rear end Horton brothers, we finally got it to work. :911:

I'm pretty tingly in the pants on how they took the aircrew for bombers from 10+ in the WW II and just post wwII bombers to just 2 for the B-2.

The proposed attack profiles for the older bombers (especially the B-52 and B-1) were loving end of the world poo poo. Not a whole bunch of stealth in using your under-wing mounted SRAM's to blast the poo poo out of any opposition on the ground (air defense sites, airfields, some guy who gave you the finger, whatever) and then drop megaton range gravity bombs on the DGZ's. Now, they are supposed to just sit back and fart out cruise missiles by the fistful and watch the world end from afar.

I like turtles
Aug 6, 2009

NosmoKing posted:

I'm pretty tingly in the pants on how they took the aircrew for bombers from 10+ in the WW II and just post wwII bombers to just 2 for the B-2.

The proposed attack profiles for the older bombers (especially the B-52 and B-1) were loving end of the world poo poo. Not a whole bunch of stealth in using your under-wing mounted SRAM's to blast the poo poo out of any opposition on the ground (air defense sites, airfields, some guy who gave you the finger, whatever) and then drop megaton range gravity bombs on the DGZ's. Now, they are supposed to just sit back and fart out cruise missiles by the fistful and watch the world end from afar.

Ygolonac
Nov 26, 2007

pre:
*************
CLUTCH  NIXON
*************

The Hero We Need
Hah, so *that's* what that blockhouse was. Waaaay back in the mists of time, when I was in early grade school (not more then 4th grade, I believe), we got an official USAF tour of some Distant Early Warning-type facility, chock full of monitors and guys with headphones. Years later - call it early-to-mid-'80s - I had a Civil Air Patrol encampment in the same (non-gutted) building. (Malmstrom AFB, Great Falls MT.)(Both in CAP and during the "Big Sky Day" yearly exhibitions, we also got the chance to play in the Minuteman Control Capsule Simulator. I turned the key on Armageddon something like 6-10 times...)

You *know* you have to do the B-36 - six turnin' and four burnin'. 24+ hour mission capability *without* aerial refueling.





Also requesting as high-resolution a copy of the "bonus" Tu-95 image as possible, thank you.

NosmoKing
Nov 12, 2004

I have a rifle and a frying pan and I know how to use them
END OF THE loving WORLD VIDEOS.

ICBM's from old to new

Atlas

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xwLdGSSNPuE

Titan I

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q-9pwtk0ZWU

Titan II

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MuJqCdaTS7U

Minuteman

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mrnfRfawtI0

Peacekeeper (MX)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zCSoN1tqmgU

Midgetman (cancelled)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H4rquFY8soE

Groda
Mar 17, 2005

Hair Elf

rossmum posted:

I could've sworn Vulcan had more letters than that.

The V-bombers look like Go-Bots.

Flanker
Sep 10, 2002

OPERATORS GONNA OPERATE
After a good night's sleep

rossmum posted:


Also, perhaps a good future topic would be the supposed obsolescence of manned fighters - the loving ridiculous idea which led to the canning of a great many promising aircraft (most famously the :canada: ARROW :canada:) all across NATO nations.

I love cold war stuff, but it usually ends up reminding me of Canada' insistence on marginalizing itself and over-relying on the US, which is still biting us in the rear end to this day. Thanks for nothing Diefenbaker and every subsequent PM. gently caress.

As my username will indicate, I have a raging boner for Russian/Soviet aviation. Imagine the entire lifespan of a Russian aircraft, designed, built, maintained and flown by underpaid alcoholics. Held together with chewing gum and ducktape, stored in a shed, and still somehow working. Just loving marvelous!

A Real Happy Camper
Dec 11, 2007

These children have taught me how to believe.
:canada: Fun Canadian History Fact :canada:

During the '50s and '60s, a large-scale northern sovereignty/early warning project was undertaken by the Government. Radar installations were to be built in remote northern locations to provide early warning of Soviet bombers coming over the pole. To man these remote stations, they were going to re-locate the Inuit, because they're good at dealing with the cold, right?

Usually, yes. But not the ones from places like the middle of Labrador and other not-at-all-remote (and in some cases even cold) regions, who they did end up re-locating. Don't worry, though! Their inability to deal with the climate didn't get in the way of keeping us safe from Russian bombers, because immediately after the project reached completion it was declared obsolete, as everyone was using ICBMs.

That's Dief the Chief for you. No wonder he went from one of the largest majority in Canadian history to one of the smallest minorities in one term.

Gray Stormy
Dec 19, 2006

The only thing missing from these Canadian facts is the lady who smells burnt toast.

Naramyth
Jan 22, 2009

Australia cares about cunts. Including this one.

Gray Stormy posted:

The only thing missing from these Canadian facts is the lady who smells burnt toast.

Ygolonac
Nov 26, 2007

pre:
*************
CLUTCH  NIXON
*************

The Hero We Need
And don't forget - they have have been enormous masses of metal trundling along overhead ("magnesium overcast"), but some things are bigger and more powerful yet.

Like tornados.

Ygolonac fucked around with this message at 00:09 on Dec 16, 2010

Red_October_7000
Jun 22, 2009
gently caress yes.
My dad was a weapons controller in the Air Force, so I grew up on stories of all this poo poo. The Bomarc, the B-52, the F-106, which is his favorite plane, and so on. He was around when they ditched SAGE and saved a bunch of junk off a console; he's got an ash tray (you could smoke in the dark room!) and some other little bits.

Funny story about the Bomarc -being the unmanned fighter it was, it could be directed to do things other than simply "Go kill this". If you fed it instructions for a heading change or some such, it had to respond, and the easiest way to do this was for it to carry a recorded voice of some sort (I don't think it was a synthetic voice but rather a recording) and just use the radio link. Apparently when they actually used them in testing or exercises, the controllers quite often caught themselves responding to the Bomarc's confirmations!
:awesomelon: "Bomarc 7 confirm course change heading 142"
:) "Roger Bomarc 7, ...What the gently caress am I doing?"

Can't wait for more. I have more funny second-hand stories, but will withhold until the thing they're about is mentioned.

NosmoKing
Nov 12, 2004

I have a rifle and a frying pan and I know how to use them
The last bigass ABM program the US wanted to field (not the piddly "let's stick 25 missiles in Alaska!" hit a bullet with a bullet program of today) was the Sentinel program which used the dual layer Spartan and Sprint missiles. The Spartan was the long range exoatmospheric nuclear armed (5 goddamn megatons)interceptor that had an operational ceiling in the area of 350 miles above the earth. The idea was this would intercept incoming ICBMS and ICBM buses in space.

stuff that got through was to be point intercepted by the short range Sprint missile. The Sprint ABM was farted out of the launch tube by a powder charge, then accellerated like a bitch. It reached Mach 10 in less than 5 seconds.

In the video IIRC, the incoming ICBM warhead is the reentry vehicle from a Titan II. Folks got to test lots of different spendy rockets that day.

Watch the video, especially at the end. The sprint missile fuckin' MOVED.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5vq4mWyYl2Y

B4Ctom1
Oct 5, 2003

OVERWORKED COCK
Slippery Tilde
My favorite Minuteman III video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ChhYOO1s-nY

requesting picture of Air Force truck on the tarmac wrapped around the landing gear of a parked aircraft.

Senor Science
Aug 21, 2004

MI DIOS!!! ESTA CIENCIA ES DIABOLICO!!!

iyaayas01 posted:







It's such a mind gently caress to see the F22, a state of the art 21st century jet pursuing a cold war holdover.

NosmoKing
Nov 12, 2004

I have a rifle and a frying pan and I know how to use them

Senor Science posted:

It's such a mind gently caress to see the F22, a state of the art 21st century jet pursuing a cold war holdover.

It's one of those deals where the plane is inexpensive, robust, efficient, and has a great endurance. It doesn't matter much that it was designed when my dad was a kid, it's still good for what it does now.

Still, it's pretty trippy to see the old contra-rotating prop driven plane being shadowed by a spankin' new aircraft.

I wonder what the difference in the stall speeds are between the two planes? IIRC, big and slow bombers or planes patrolling the edge of airspace would sometimes drop speed WAY back as a means of loving with fighters charged with shadowing them. The fighter simply couldn't go that slow.

Propagandalf
Dec 6, 2008

itchy itchy itchy itchy

Click here for the full 900x662 image.




Click here for the full 1502x1000 image.


Burning Beard
Nov 21, 2008

Choking on bits of fallen bread crumbs
Oh, this burning beard, I have come undone
It's just as I've feared. I have, I have come undone
Bugger dumb the last of academe

I've been tapped to teach a "World Politics" course for Spring. Rather than a bland survey, I've decided to theme it around the Cold War, yay :dance:!

I am balls deep in building the syllabus, but so far I am doing a sections on ideological origins, technology, the nuclear arms race, pop culture and the origins of the cold war. I plan to show the documentary "Atomic Cafe" at the start and finish the course with Dr. Stranglove. We will go all the way up through 1992. I'm pretty psyched about it, I hope my students will be as well.


Secret Hope: TFR all move to my school to take my course and make it awesome.

Dr. Despair
Nov 4, 2009


39 perfect posts with each roll.

I live just outside of Ellsworth AFB, so this thread is all sorts of awesome.

Not the best picture (in fact it's pretty terrible) , but I do love it when things like this happen.



I really need to get out to the local Air and Space museum and get some decent pictures, it's small but there's some interesting planes there.

Propagandalf
Dec 6, 2008

itchy itchy itchy itchy
Make sure you throw in some Film Crew's The Unearthly, MST3k's The Starfighters, and Trinity and Beyond!


Also Godzilla, that's Cold War nuclear fiction, right?

NosmoKing
Nov 12, 2004

I have a rifle and a frying pan and I know how to use them

Burning Beard posted:

I've been tapped to teach a "World Politics" course for Spring. Rather than a bland survey, I've decided to theme it around the Cold War, yay :dance:!

I am balls deep in building the syllabus, but so far I am doing a sections on ideological origins, technology, the nuclear arms race, pop culture and the origins of the cold war. I plan to show the documentary "Atomic Cafe" at the start and finish the course with Dr. Stranglove. We will go all the way up through 1992. I'm pretty psyched about it, I hope my students will be as well.


Secret Hope: TFR all move to my school to take my course and make it awesome.


The last sequence in Atomic Cafe is terrifying. It goes a loooonnnnggg way to show that the simple ideas that are proposed in the film as "countermeasures" are pointless.

I read several books that discussed the civil defense program and talked about the Eisenhower "shitload-o-shelters" plan and city evacuation plans. They were quietly abandoned when it was shown that sheltering in place in a city was simply a good way to end up with orderly corpses for the ones that weren't reduced to constituent atoms. Evacuating a city in the time it takes for a nuclear attack is a pointless exercise. That idea was quietly dropped as well.

In the early 80's when everyone was worried that Reagan was going to bring about global thermonuclear war, I asked my dad what the hell was going on and why everyone was so scared and nervous about the president's plans. I was 10 or 12 or so. Dad said, "they're scared because if the right people make the wrong decisions, in roughly one hour, everyone everywhere will be dead or dying soon".

I don't think the youth of today get the idea that we lived in a time where it was no bullshit that in 60 minutes, every city you've ever read about in the US, Europe, East Asia, and the USSR could have been green glass and char. They may have decided to blow the poo poo out of a few parts of other continents, because, gently caress YOU, we can.

shovelbum
Oct 21, 2010

Fun Shoe
Good thing Russia is our friend now and would never do anything stupid or evil!

Flikken
Oct 23, 2009

10,363 snaps and not a playoff win to show for it

shovelbum posted:

Good thing Russia is our friend now and would never do anything stupid or evil!

If you need further proof, read a Tom Clancy book!!!

thats not candy
Mar 10, 2010

Hell Gem
Awesome thread, great read!

ammo for life

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briefcasefullof
Sep 25, 2004
[This Space for Rent]

NosmoKing posted:

I wonder what the difference in the stall speeds are between the two planes? IIRC, big and slow bombers or planes patrolling the edge of airspace would sometimes drop speed WAY back as a means of loving with fighters charged with shadowing them. The fighter simply couldn't go that slow.

Reminds me of the age-old joke about a fighter tailing a bomber (a B-2 or something), and the fighter being a show-off. He keeps going on and on about how awesome his jet is and about how much the bomber sucks. Having had enough, the bomber pilot says, "I bet I can do something you can't do." "What?" A few minutes pass, and nothing about the bomber's flight seems to change. "What'd you do," the fighter asks. "We cut off 2 of our engines :clint:".


NosmoKing posted:

The last sequence in Atomic Cafe is terrifying. It goes a loooonnnnggg way to show that the simple ideas that are proposed in the film as "countermeasures" are pointless.

I read several books that discussed the civil defense program and talked about the Eisenhower "shitload-o-shelters" plan and city evacuation plans. They were quietly abandoned when it was shown that sheltering in place in a city was simply a good way to end up with orderly corpses for the ones that weren't reduced to constituent atoms. Evacuating a city in the time it takes for a nuclear attack is a pointless exercise. That idea was quietly dropped as well.

In the early 80's when everyone was worried that Reagan was going to bring about global thermonuclear war, I asked my dad what the hell was going on and why everyone was so scared and nervous about the president's plans. I was 10 or 12 or so. Dad said, "they're scared because if the right people make the wrong decisions, in roughly one hour, everyone everywhere will be dead or dying soon".

I don't think the youth of today get the idea that we lived in a time where it was no bullshit that in 60 minutes, every city you've ever read about in the US, Europe, East Asia, and the USSR could have been green glass and char. They may have decided to blow the poo poo out of a few parts of other continents, because, gently caress YOU, we can.


I grew up at the tail end of the Cold War, but in high school I read Alas, Babylon by Pat Frank. It did a good job of putting things in perspective about the effects of nuclear war, I think.

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