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iyaayas01 posted:However, this is not talking about the D-21, it is talking about the Ryan Model 147, a reconnaissance variant of the BQM-34 Firebee, a design that had a long and distinguished career stretching from before Vietnam to the 2003 invasion of Iraq. I can't remember the exact details, but there was definitely an unintentionally low-level flight like that involving one of these aircraft over Vietnam, although it wouldn't have been Mach 2 as the max speed was around 700 mph. First off, can't resist not posting in this awesome thread. Hi TFR The quote on this incident from the wiki is golden. quote:The low-level 147S flights were "exciting" by the standards of robot warfare. One suffered a malfunction in its flight-control computer and decided to fly at an altitude of 150 feet (45 m) instead of 1,500 feet (450 m) as planned. The drone made it back safely, though photo interpreters were startled to find out that the images included a picture of a power line tower, taken from underneath the power lines. The picture was posted on the unit bulletin board, with a caption provided by the commander: "The FAA frowns on this bullshit!"
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| # ¿ Apr 14, 2011 02:09 |
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| # ¿ May 20, 2013 19:50 |
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Trinity and Beyond could be one of the most amazing documentaries ever and anyone interested in the development of nuclear weapons should check it out. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JvnWXf6UZXY
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| # ¿ May 11, 2011 03:55 |
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I think the A-10 is my favorite plane because it's like the tactical equivalent of a middle finger. We care so little for your air defenses that we are going to fly this subsonic, ugly piece right at you and strafe your rear end with a gun that can be heard for miles...... ......and we're gonna stay here for a while with it.
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| # ¿ Jun 5, 2011 11:29 |
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Sunday Punch posted:If we'd built Orion we could have directly been using nuclear weapons for peaceful purposes. Instead of dismantling all those nukes after the various arms limitation agreements we could have shot them off into space and sent a hundred thousand tons to Mars or something. The flip side to "if we had built Orion" is that the USAF would have had their own on permanent alert up there, loaded with nukes pointed back down at Earth. If we built Orion today, maybe that wouldn't happen. Though with that new "secret" unmanned shuttle-type thing they have, who knows what we have up there now.
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| # ¿ Jun 23, 2011 11:54 |
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Frozen Horse posted:With that sort of thrust capacity, you don't play with orbital nuclear weapons. True MAD is bolting an Orion thruster onto a likely member of the outer Kupier Belt, riding the gravitational slingshot of one or more outer planets for more velocity and windage adjustment, and well and truly loving this gay earth. Sure, it might take decades to get here, but what's a little patience when designing a last-strike system? I'm just going off of the Dyson TED talk where he showed a concept drawing of a USAF version of Orion, loaded with nukes and sent up there as a sort of space station. It's not that they were using Orion as a huge ICBM, it had other missiles loaded into it to be fired from orbit at multiple targets. The Orion vehicle would have been a sort of ICBM carrier, like an outer space submarine. I don't even think they had thought of kinetic weapons in the early 60's like that. You're right though, that is the top of the MAD food chain. VikingSkull fucked around with this message at Jun 24, 2011 around 11:39 |
| # ¿ Jun 24, 2011 11:37 |
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SIGSEGV posted:Ok, I get it, it's really "ground first" versus "we need the air" with near to no mitigation either way. Yeah I'd like to know more about the border wars as well. That and the Chinese invasion of Vietnam.
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| # ¿ Jul 3, 2011 14:03 |
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LavistaSays posted:Are India'snukes to be considered compact? A lot of our early designs were quite cumbersome. It takes a lot of money, and r&d time to miniaturize a nuke. And even if weight isn't an issue, there are size constraints for internal stores, and ground clearance is a factor in external storage. And if your goal is to nuke your neighbor, low observability is hugely important. The Indians have Mig-29s, Su-30s, and Mirage 2000s, all capable of handling nuclear weapons. In addition, they have a few Tu-22s and the cruise missiles to go with them. From what I've read, the '74 test was the testbed, large device we'd expect, but the '98 test was the more modern, warhead sized version. The Pakistanis basically tailored their tests in '98 to simulate aircraft carried bomb/CM warhead weapons. Flikken posted:Yes but couldn't a stealth aircraft become a first strike game changer in their MAD doctorine. Especially multiple strikes on Pakistani nuclear forces to maybe bring them off of the table and eliminate the counter strike capability before the Pakastani's even know what hit them? Mumbai x1000, basically VikingSkull fucked around with this message at Jul 8, 2011 around 20:31 |
| # ¿ Jul 8, 2011 20:29 |
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NosmoKing posted:I swore there was a test in the 2000's. Pretty sure only North Korea has detonated one this century.
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| # ¿ Jul 9, 2011 01:48 |
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This has only happened twice, too. Libya and the Balkans were some pretty weird circumstances. A NATO air campaign isn't something leaders should plan an air defense network around, it's probably not going to happen to most nations. If we're talking general peacetime NATO in a normal economic environment, outside of Europe, and you do something internal, chances are NATO won't care. Even throw the Russians into this, they have interventionist foreign policy, too. Keep the shenanigans down to a low level, you don't need an air defense network. Ratchet it up a notch to the point that world opinion is focused on whatever crazy poo poo you're trying to accomplish, you may get some sanctions and the resulting interdiction mission, but I don't think most despots care about that. A thriving black market is probably one of your selling points. Did you just invade your oil rich neighbor with Western ties? Congratulations, you are now involved in both a conventional and asymmetric war with a hyperpower and 5-30 allies from the land, air, sea and space! You've lost spectacularly!
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| # ¿ Jul 12, 2011 18:07 |
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iyaayas01 posted:Although to their credit, they used their SA-11s and MANPADS to From what I've read anyway, the Russian planning in Georgia was more or less "eh, gently caress it". Seems like they just took whatever forces were local and went with it, because it's loving Georgia. I'm sure if it was a bit more thought out the Russians could have ended that in less than a week.
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| # ¿ Jul 14, 2011 17:41 |
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Hey, nuclear target chat! I live fairly close to Stewart International, which is also home to the 105th Airlift of the New York ANG. Back when I was younger it was a full fledged Air Force base, and IIRC it's the 6th longest airstrip in the nation. I think the longest is like 35,000 feet. It was a bomber base, the whole deal. When you throw in the fact that West Point is only a few minutes down the road, too, I would have been nuked multiple times over, probably with some of the bigger bombs in the Soviet arsenal. Accuracy? We don't need no stinkin' accuracy, make the bombs bigger! e- oh and at the time, one of the more important IBM factories was here too, making whatever it was IBM was selling in the 60's and 70's. That location was once their main factory, and it made the computer that faced Kasparov in chess VikingSkull fucked around with this message at Jul 24, 2011 around 12:32 |
| # ¿ Jul 24, 2011 12:28 |
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I've seen one of those before. Since I live in the greater NYC metro area, there were red circles going right up the Hudson River valley. Good stuff. Oh and I guess the longest listed runway at Stewart is just shy of 12,000 feet. I think there's a longer one that's not being included, but I can't find it anywhere.
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| # ¿ Jul 24, 2011 13:01 |
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This is always a good read, too. Theoretical nuclear exchange between the US and USSR.
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| # ¿ Jul 24, 2011 20:43 |
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Armyman25 posted:I like that they think a nuclear exchange between the US and the USSR automatically means that the rest of the world will fall into civil war just because. South Africa and China are mentioned by name, and parts of that were written shortly after Tiananmen Square and before Nelson Mandela was freed. When you shut off the largest food exporter and irradiate the large industrial sectors of the world, the least you can expect is massive food riots in parts of the third world. Look at how quickly Libya devolved from unarmed protest to armed civil war. kill me now posted:That said at the end of the article there is a somewhat positive outlook in that its not the world killing nuclear winter that some people had predicted. Nearly all of TFR's population would have been killed, but at least other places in the world would continue on. Both sides of the nuclear debate usually color the discussion with exaggerations either way. Nuclear winter probably doesn't mean the extinction of the human race, or even the end of civilization as we know it. It most likely would set our development back a few hundred years, though. VikingSkull fucked around with this message at Jul 25, 2011 around 12:50 |
| # ¿ Jul 25, 2011 12:45 |
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NosmoKing posted:I'd like to see the SIOP and see if there's a few "Aw, gently caress THAT guy" targets on the list. As long as you're tossing ten thousand warheads and more at targets in the USSR, don't you think there would be the periodic "may as well blow up that dickhead as long as we're going completely balls-out" targets as well. Pretty much any place that could be used by either side for tactical or strategic movement and supply would be targeted. The Suez and Panama canals? Gone. Do you have a major port, dam, or highway and rail systems? It's getting nuked. Airfield of, say, 10,000 feet? Bye bye. At the height of the Cold War, most of the world had either willingly or unwillingly been included in one side or the other.
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| # ¿ Jul 25, 2011 14:18 |
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Armyman25 posted:Sounds like a good argument for reducing the amount of nukes in the world. Thankfully, a lot have been destroyed since the early 90's, but there's no realistic difference between 5,000 and 50,000.
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| # ¿ Jul 25, 2011 14:29 |
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goddamned bearings are gonna be the death of us all, every time there's a bombing, it's a bearing factory
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| # ¿ Jul 26, 2011 00:23 |
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There would also be drastically less people for drastically less resources, and a mind boggling amount of scrap waiting to be recycled at the surface. We'd also probably have some of the records of our past surviving, hopefully allowing us to recreate something of a civilization. Even if it's only age of sail type technology, it's still civilization and promise still lies in that.
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| # ¿ Jul 26, 2011 01:16 |
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New York is a really lovely location for an invasion, anyway. The Russians would have pounded LI with nukes, sure, but the only realistic avenue they had for invading the continental US was through Siberia, over Alaska, and down through Canada. You really don't want to land your main force in the major industrialized, populated region of a nation with lax firearm laws and a population ready to use them. VikingSkull fucked around with this message at Jul 26, 2011 around 20:00 |
| # ¿ Jul 26, 2011 19:57 |
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Phanatic posted:...but I thought we were talking about New York. 30-60 minutes outside of NYC there are hicks that would scare the guys from Deliverance. e- plus all Cold War discussions take into account 1986 and the AWB, I figure. gently caress 10 round capacity 
VikingSkull fucked around with this message at Jul 26, 2011 around 20:06 |
| # ¿ Jul 26, 2011 20:02 |
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Just picture a panel fitted with a rubber gasket, then remove the gasket. The panel would be slightly loose when tightened down and cool, but it would expand to self-seal at temperature. Traditional gaskets or sealant would just burn off at mach 3, and I think the low pressure environment prevented traditional rubber fuel bladders, but I'm not sure. So you'd put the fuel in a metal tank with no gaskets, let it pour out while you took off (quickly), cranked it up to build heat in the panels and seal the tanks. then you refueled and went on your mission. e- as far as exact details on why they did this and how it was laid out, I think that's still classified VikingSkull fucked around with this message at Jul 30, 2011 around 18:25 |
| # ¿ Jul 30, 2011 18:21 |
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That is pretty cool, I never knew that. Also lol at them giving a goddamned SR-71 the shadetree mechanic treatment.
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| # ¿ Aug 1, 2011 19:57 |
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theclaw posted:University of Michigan (and the associated companies around it; ex. Environmental Research Institute of Michigan, EOTech, DHARMA Initiative) did a lot of DoD research during the Cold War. General Dynamics, NOAA and Pfizer, too. VikingSkull fucked around with this message at Aug 4, 2011 around 20:14 |
| # ¿ Aug 4, 2011 20:11 |
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The A-10 might be the most valuable airframe in the US arsenal. It is exceptionally good at what it does now, and it proved in Desert Storm that it probably would have been exceptional at what it was originally designed to do. Also, I wouldn't call it ugly looking, I'd call it scary looking. I can't imagine what it's like to be a Taliban fighter and watching one line up on my position. Unlike some of the really fast movers, chances are its targets actually see it coming before they die. The Fulda Gap would have been a bloodbath. e- also the Su-25 is no slouch, either, but it lacked proper cover in Georgia and paid for it VikingSkull fucked around with this message at Aug 13, 2011 around 16:29 |
| # ¿ Aug 13, 2011 16:27 |
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Yeah, it wouldn't have been a one-sided bloodbath..... Thank god that poo poo didn't happen, because that whole area would still be lightly glowing glass. I doubt the A-10's and the Soviet air defense network would have had long to engage each other before one commander or another started lobbing tactical nukes around.
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| # ¿ Aug 13, 2011 17:23 |
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Sjurygg posted:Tacnukes aren't the individual commander's to dispose of as fit, they remain tactical assets in the sense that their use must be sanctioned. Obviously a guy wouldn't go rogue and start launching on his own (we hoped), but there's a reason why the US and USSR never had a shooting war....because one side or the other would have resorted to allowing nukes to be used. I meant it in the loosest way possible, taking for granted that higher-ups would eventually give the order. The Soviets really had a thing for them, too, so I don't doubt a conflict in Europe would have resulted in their use within a short period after the initiation of hostilities.
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| # ¿ Aug 13, 2011 23:43 |
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Blind Rasputin posted:So after reading this thread, and basically being really drat glad nothing boiled over into a nuclear shoot out during the cold war, are there any good resources on how to actually survive in a city that is being nuked? It can't be impossible, right? There was some talk a number of pages back about how some civil engineering study found that all the, "hide in the basement" ideas of the '50s and '60s wouldn't really protect you, but they must have had some thoughts on what can be done to increase the chances of survival. I know getting 30 miles out of the city is a great idea, but really when you are a civilian and you maybe got 20 minutes to think about it there has got to be something you can do in the city to survive. Seconding Threads. It's a horrifying movie. Blast protection might work if one bomb goes off. Moscow probably would have received dozens within a 30 mile radius. Think about it.
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| # ¿ Aug 17, 2011 20:40 |
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NosmoKing posted:More accurate now. I figured it was that high, just wasn't sure. I always chuckled when it's mentioned that the Soviets had better civil defense than the US, like herding them deep underground in a train station was somehow a better survival prospect. The first 24 hours, sure, but I don't want to be around after that.
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| # ¿ Aug 18, 2011 03:33 |
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Most scenarios I've ever read about usually have the time from Fulda Gap to strategic nukes at a week or less, with the tactical to strategic switch taking about 36 hours. There's so many variables, though, it's hard to tell.
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| # ¿ Aug 20, 2011 19:54 |
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monkeytennis posted:That's just about the most metal thing I have ever seen. I thought I knew a bit about C-5's due to living so close to a base of them, but jesus loving christ was I wrong.
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| # ¿ Aug 21, 2011 10:48 |
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Propagandalf posted:I'm sorry. Don't be, they are amazing aircraft. They are transferring them out in favor of C-17's and I am bummed about it. The noise goes past annoying and becomes awesome. I've seen them for 30 years now and I still stop to watch when they go over. e- if you've never seen one do a combat drop in person you're missing out
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| # ¿ Aug 22, 2011 12:31 |
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The WWIII series by Ian Slater is loving hilarious.
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| # ¿ Aug 23, 2011 17:12 |
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daskrolator posted:If the nuclear triad is cut to a diad in the name of austerity, which of the three systems is the most costly relative the capabilities they provide? It also depends on what they can be used for. Subs and bombers get dual value because we can use them for conventional things as well, ICBM's not so much.
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| # ¿ Aug 23, 2011 20:36 |
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daskrolator posted:Speaking of small scale tactics, check out this article about israel during the 2nd intifada. It's about re-intepretating the battlespace in urban combat, namely not looking at alleys, doorways and windows as paths of maneuver but instead constraints to maneuver. Or to put it another way viewing conventional urban constraints such as walls, gates, ceilings as a means of maneuvering by blowing holes through them. The Soviets used this to great effect in Stalingrad. e- it's also how I play Men of War 
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| # ¿ Aug 24, 2011 21:11 |
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Saint Celestine posted:there's no way anyone is going to find a couple of subs in the ocean. Depends on what Navy is looking, but yeah you probably won't kill them all.
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| # ¿ Aug 25, 2011 00:04 |
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Oxford Comma posted:If NATO doctrine was to drop nukes on the masses of Soviet tanks rolling thru the Fulda Gap, how did the U.S.S.R. plan to counter this? Was it to just push a whole fuckload of tanks through and accept whatever losses happened, or did they have another idea. Drop bigger nukes on the airbases, radar and military installations in western Europe.
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| # ¿ Aug 25, 2011 23:18 |
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Boomerjinks posted:Whoaaaah. Dark Star. You have some heavy-duty reference chops! I need to show that movie to my buds. I saw Dark Star back when network stations still showed late-late movies, and I was wasted. I hadn't even acknowledged to myself that it was real, so thank you for validating that I'm not crazy. The movie is pretty hilarious.
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| # ¿ Sep 16, 2011 22:49 |
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The flow chart of the Vulcan raid is nuts. Anyone have that on hand? Also if the Royal Navy was knocked out of action, I think it would have been a no brainer to assume that the US would have stepped out of the behind the scenes support and committed naval assets to the fight. I might be way off base thinking that, but I doubt the US would have let the Argentinians achieve a victory over our closest ally. That might have had some serious effects on our own interests in the region.
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| # ¿ Oct 12, 2011 23:04 |
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I had never heard of the Texas Towers until now, and nothing about it surprises me. That's a great write-up of them, though. God the military is stupid sometimes.
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| # ¿ Nov 3, 2011 23:17 |
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| # ¿ May 20, 2013 19:50 |
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The WWIII series by Ian Slater are the worst, and therefor best, WWIII books out. Holy gently caress are they ridiculous.
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| # ¿ Nov 6, 2011 14:04 |
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