The Cold War: A MILITARY History (25 page)

The AS-15 (NATO = ‘Kent’) was much smaller and generally similar in size, performance and role to the US Tomahawk; sixteen could be carried by the Tu-95 Bear-B and twelve by the Tu-160 Blackjack. It carried a 200 kT nuclear warhead and flew at high subsonic speeds over a range of some 3,000 km at a height of 200 m, with an accuracy (CEP) of 150 m.

STRATEGIC AIR POWER IN THE COLD WAR

Manned aircraft offered certain unique advantages. First, they possessed inherent flexibility, in that they could be launched on receipt of strategic warning and then be held in the air, diverted to airfields outside the threatened area, or recalled to base. The fact that men were aboard and in control meant that targets could be changed during flight, that moving targets or even targets of opportunity could be engaged, and that orders could be altered or countermanded. Also, unlike with SSBNs, there were excellent communications between the command centres and the airfields, and between the ground and the aircraft. Finally, the bomber-delivered gravity bomb was the most accurate of any nuclear delivery system.

Among their disadvantages, however, was the bombers’ vulnerability to air defences and their absolute dependence on airfields with large runways and extensive maintenance facilities. Every airfield capable of taking strategic aircraft was known to both sides throughout the Cold War, and there can be no doubt that they were primary targets for both conventional and nuclear strikes.

At the start of the Cold War all that the strategic bomber had to do was to fly high and reasonably fast to reach its target, and even if it was picked up by enemy radar there was little that the enemy could do about it. Thus, throughout the late 1940s and most of the 1950s, bombers of Strategic Air Command could quite safely overfly almost anywhere on earth, since anti-aircraft guns could not fire high enough and contemporary fighters’ ceilings were too low to threaten them. That changed, however, in the mid/late 1950s as the performance of Soviet fighters improved, and in particular when they were fitted with airborne radar, enabling them to find and track targets in the dark and in bad weather. At first, bombers sought to counter this by flying even higher and faster, but then yet better fighters and in particular the fielding of air-defence missile systems caused different solutions to be sought.

The advantages offered by bombers over missiles depended upon the aircraft getting airborne in the first place, and in the worst-case situation of an ‘out-of-the-blue’ missile attack the bombers might only receive some seventeen
minutes
’ warning in the USA (less if the missiles were launched from Yankee-class SSBNs off the US coast) and four minutes in western Europe. Western bombers were therefore placed on a high-readiness status, known as Quick Reaction Alert (QRA). In the UK’s V-force, for example, this was introduced in early 1962 and involved one aircraft in each squadron being at fifteen minutes’ notice twenty-four hours per day, 365 days per year. Bomber Command stipulated that, apart from the aircraft on QRA, 30 per cent of the available aircraft (i.e. those not on major servicing or overseas) should be ready to deploy after four hours, rising to 100 per cent after twenty hours.
¹

Bomber fleets are almost always listed by total numbers, but this is misleading and nothing like that number would have reached the target in an unexpected crisis. A proportion would always have been in deep maintenance or rebuild, while others would have been simply unserviceable at the time they were required. In addition, it was not unknown for major problems to be discovered en route to the holding position which would prevent the aircraft proceeding to its target. Finally, at least some would have been either shot down or damaged by air-defence missiles, fighters and, on low-level missions, anti-aircraft artillery.

Deployment

SAC’s bomber force was for a long period the most powerful single strategic military force in the world, with vast numbers of the most modern bombers deployed at bases across the continental United States. The first overseas protracted deployment was to the UK in July 1948, in response to the Berlin crisis (
see Chapter 32
), when three British airfields were made available to six squadrons of SAC’s B-29s, although these were not, as was reported at the time, atomic bomb carriers (which were known as ‘Silver Plate’). What was originally described as a temporary deployment rapidly became permanent, and, when the NATO Treaty was signed, the number of SAC bases in the UK increased from three to seven, then to eight, and Silver Plate B-29s arrived for the first time. Their targets at that time were in the southern USSR, their routing being over France and then along the northern Mediterranean and across the Black Sea and into the Ukraine and southern Russia. Other SAC bases were in Alaska, the Azores, Guam, Libya, Morocco, Okinawa and the Philippines, although SAC aircraft also made temporary deployments to many other friendly countries.

Targeting

For all their advantages, strategic bombers inevitably took many hours to reach their targets. This was not a serious drawback when they were the only means of attacking the enemy, but when ICBMs and SLBMs entered the nuclear plan, with their flight times of approximately thirty minutes, bombers were perforce relegated to the second wave. Their missions could
include
non-time-urgent targets or simply ‘filling in the gaps’ which malfunctioning missiles or warheads left in the missile targeting plan.

A map of planned US strategic attacks on the Soviet Union which was prepared in the early 1950s as part of Operation Dropshot shows SAC bombers attacking from bases in the continental USA, Alaska, Okinawa, Guam, Egypt, Aden and the UK. The mission was to:

initiate, as soon as possible after D-day, strategic air attacks with atomic and conventional bombs: against Soviet facilities for the assembly and delivery of weapons of mass destruction; against LOCs [lines of communication], supply bases and troop concentrations in the USSR, in satellite countries and in overrun areas, which would blunt Soviet offensives; and against petroleum, electric power and steel target systems in the USSR.
²

Tankers

One of the most significant developments was the introduction of air-to-air refuelling, which extended the bombers’ range very considerably. The Boeing KC-97E tanker entered service in the early 1950s, and the Soviets, British and French all subsequently introduced similar systems.
^fn3
The US and French air forces used a ‘flying-boom’ system, in which an operator in the tanker steered a boom into a receptacle on the upper surface of the receiving aircraft. The British, however, used a ‘probe-and-drogue’ system, in which the tanker streamed a rubber hose from a drum and the pilot of the receiving aircraft manoeuvred until the probe on his aircraft engaged in the drogue at the end of the hose. The Soviets initially used a third method on their Tu-16 Badgers, which involved connecting a hose between the wing-tips of the two aircraft, but this was later replaced by the ‘probe-and-drogue’ method.

Various aircraft were pressed into use as tankers. The US air force policy was to manufacture tanker versions of civil airliners, with the KC-97 Stratotanker being based on the Boeing Stratocruiser, the KC-135 on the Boeing 707, and the KC-10 Extender on the Douglas DC-10. The British, who came to the tanker scene a little later than the Americans, tended to convert service or civil aircraft which had been made redundant from their existing tasks. The first two (Valiant and Victor) were converted from bombers, while the latter two (VC-10 and Tristar) were converted from airliners.

One-Way Flights

Strategic bombers did not necessarily have to return to the bases from which they had been launched, and, in order to obtain the maximum range, many
nuclear
missions were planned in which the aircraft would have recovered to a distant base. Thus, for example, a bomber which took off from the continental United States might have flown over the Arctic, launched its missiles or dropped its bombs on targets in the USSR, and then carried on to land in Turkey or Pakistan.

There were, however, frequent (but never confirmed) reports that at least some missions were planned as ‘one-way’, with the best that the crew could hope for being a parachute drop into enemy territory. The respected aviation author Bill Gunston, writing about French Mirage IV bomber, states that: ‘Even with tanker support, many missions have been planned on a no-return basis …’
³
There were similar reports about RAF Canberra bombers based in Germany.

Operation Linebacker II

Although perhaps not typical of a nuclear attack, the bomber raids carried out by US forces on North Vietnam during Operation Linebacker II give an illustration of the ‘state of the art’ in the early 1970s. The USA made great use of air power throughout the Vietnam War, and particularly of its large force of B-52s, which were in the inventory for nuclear operations, but also had a very effective conventional capability. The North Vietnamese developed a very sophisticated air-defence system, using mostly Soviet radars, guns, missiles and aircraft, but with some Chinese equipment as well.

Operation Linebacker II took place when President Richard Nixon decided to use air power as a reprisal when the North Vietnamese abandoned the Paris peace talks on 13 December 1972. In the first raid, on 18 December, 121 B-52s attacked targets in and around Hanoi, supported by ECM aircraft, F-111s attacking North Vietnamese fighter bases, and F-4 Phantoms sowing chaff corridors. The North Vietnamese launched over 200 surface-to-air missiles (SAMs), fired much anti-aircraft ammunition, and flew fighter sorties, bringing down three B-52s and damaging two others. The following night no US aircraft were lost, but on 20 December six B-52s were downed. US tactics were then amended, reducing losses on the next four days, and there was then a thirty-six-hour ‘Christmas truce’ before 113 B-52s in seven waves struck targets in and around Hanoi, Haiphong and Thai Nguyen during a fifteen-minute period. The defences were overwhelmed, and only two B-52s were shot down. The operation continued for another three days, and then the North Vietnamese signified their willingness to return to the negotiating table.

During the eleven days of Linebacker II 729 B-52 missions were flown and 49,000 bombs (13,605 tonnes) were dropped on thiry-four discrete targets. Fifteen B-52s were lost and nine damaged, all to SAMs.

fn1
The first operational H-bomb, the US Mark 17, weighed 19,050 kg.

fn2
Specifications of US and Soviet strategic bombers are given in
Appendix 11
.

fn3
Specifications of various tanker aircraft are given in
Appendix 12
.

12

The Other Strategic Nuclear Powers

IN THE IMMEDIATE
post-war years, the evidence of Hiroshima and Nagasaki was clear for all to see: the most powerful weapons in the world were the new atomic bombs, and only those who possessed them would be in the ‘top league’ of strategic powers. The corollary was that a non-nuclear power would be helpless if threatened by a nuclear power. Faced by this inescapable logic, the efforts to restrict the spread of nuclear weapons has never proved successful.

THE UK

Bombers

The history of the British V-bombers is worth studying in some detail, since it shows the complex issues faced by a smaller power in obtaining a viable nuclear force, and the never-ending effort and expense in keeping it operationally viable.
^fn1

For over a century the British were the most powerful single power in the world, but at the end of the Second World War they found themselves in a very weak position. The UK was virtually bankrupt, owed vast sums to the United States, and faced a major problem in rebuilding both industry and society at home. To complicate matters, it still had major overseas commitments in continental Europe, as well as responsibilities around the world with its colonial territories. On top of all this was the looming Soviet threat and a continuing desire to remain in the ‘top league’.

It thus became inevitable that the British would develop their own atomic bomb, although their programme was seriously hindered for a while by the
refusal
of the United States to make atomic information available to the United Kingdom, under the terms of the McMahon Act. This was something which the British found especially galling as they had assisted very substantially in the US Manhattan Project. Nevertheless, after much high-level consideration, the British programme was eventually given Cabinet approval on 8 January 1947,
¹
and, after brief consideration of ballistic and cruise missiles, it was concluded that the programme must be based upon delivery by long-range manned bombers.

The UK was thus faced with setting up a very large programme. First was the work on the bomb itself, which included the full range of development activity and the construction of a wide range of facilities, including testing establishments, factories to produce the weapons, and storage sites once they had been completed. Second was the delivery system, which had been established as a manned bomber, powered by the then new turbojet engines. Third came the organization in both the government and the UK air force to operate, store, maintain and, in the ultimate, to use the weapons, which required new headquarters, procedures and communications systems.

Despite the complexity and expense, this was all achieved, and the first British atomic device was exploded on the Pacific island of Trimouille on 3 October 1952 and the first atomic bombs were delivered to the air force in November 1953. Meanwhile, technology had progressed from the atomic (A-bomb) to the thermonuclear (H-bomb) weapon, and the British development programme continued, resulting in the first British thermonuclear explosion, a bomb which was dropped from a Valiant bomber over Malden Island in the Pacific on 28 April 1958.

The British programme proceeded through a series of exotically named weapons, starting with Blue Danube, the original British A-bomb, with a 20 kT yield. This was followed by Violet Club, just five of which were produced and which served very briefly in order to give the air force a ‘megaton’ capability at the earliest opportunity. Violet Club was, however, described as a ‘rather delicate’ weapon; it had to be assembled on the bomber base itself by staff from the Atomic Warfare Research Establishment, and once assembled it could be transported only between the assembly point, the storage building and the aircraft. Doubtless all concerned were very relieved when the definitive weapon, Yellow Sun Mk 1, entered service in 1960.