Medium range bombers

uk 75

uk 75

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This cropped up in the thread about the F104 and deserves its own thread.

Medium bombers served in all the major air forces at the beginning of the 1960s.

The USAF had a massive force of B47s which were being withdrawn as the B52 entered service. But it also had the B58 Hustler which had superaonic performance but with limited range and colossal cost.

The Soviet Union had the Tu16 Badger which covered both land targets in Europe and China as well as carrying anti ship missiles to hit US carriers. It developed the Tu22 Blinder as a replacement. This plane was even supplied in small numbers to Iraq and Libya. In a developed form as the Tu22M Backfire it scared the West in the 70s.

Britain and France had medium bombers. The Valiant like the B47 was due to leave service but the Vulcan and Victor received the Blue Steel stand off bomb and were then expected to stay in service with free fall bombs. In the event the Vulcan served in this role until 1983 while the Victors rerroled as tankers.

France introduced its Mirage IV which served throughout the remainder of the Cold War.

Britain had hoped to deploy TSR2 replacing Valiants in the late 1960s and briefly planned to use the F111K to replace Vulcans and Canberras East of Suez.

Fast forward to the present day.
The B52H remains in service as the USAF big stick while Russian Tu95 Bears have found a new lease of death firing missiles at Ukraine.
Russia also uses its Backfires in this role.
Meanwhile China's Tu16 lookalike is still shipping missiles to threaten US carriers.
Despite the close ties between Russia and China no later Russian bombers have found their way East.

The B58 Hustler gave way to the FB111A which needed forward bases to operate against the Soviet Union. I must admit to being puzzled as to where and how these aircraft with their SRAMs would have been deployed. Presumably from USAF bases in UK and Spain.

The alternate history scope for these medium bombers is considerable.
 
I have always wondered (and been sceptical) about the description of "medium" bomber in the postwar context.
Whether range or weight.

For example, the Tu-22M compared to the Mirage IV mentioned above...
The Tu-22M has an empty and maximum weight of well over 3 times that of the Mirage IV.
Well over 3 times the engine thrust.
It's maximum payload is approaching the weight of the maximum weight of the entire Mirage IV with bombload.
It had double the range of the Mirage IV...
And they saw service concurrently for a quarter of a century..
The Victor too, compared to the Mirage IV, was multiple times bigger, with multiple times the range and payload.
 
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I'd be tempted to lump Mirage IV in with the Vautour, Canberra and TSR.2 as light bombers - the last of that particular genre before they became 'smaller' airframes of twin-engined fighter size reliant on external weapons carriage. This super-fighter-bomber became the AFVG, Tornado, Su-24, Su-34, F-111 and F-15E group.

Note: I'm not referring to a classical fighter-bomber (fighter with dumb bombs) or a multi-role fighter (fighter equipped for both air-air and air-ground roles) but a fighter airframe that is primarily equipped as bomber (but could become a/be adapted from a fighter - ADV, F-15, Su-27).
 
It Is interesting to see how the USAF takes its two pure (not a pound for ground?) fighters (F16 and F15) and gives them serious ground attack and strike roles. The USN and Marines lead the way with the F/A 18.

France and Britain both use their new 1970s combat aircraft (Mirage 2000 and Tornado) in both air defence and strike roles. Rafael and Typhoon (somewhat reluctantly in the case of the latter) do the same.
Currently the US and major allies are deploying the single seater F35 in both roles. The US is also building the B21 long range bomber.
A smaller version of the B21 to replace F15E and F18E and fill the gap some see as being left by the F111 and A6. may emerge to counter Chinese airpower.
China so far has deployed a stealth fighter but has no serious strike aircraft. It never got Su24, Su25 or Su27 from Russia.
This may change if China decides to back Putin with arms supplies.
 
Hmmmm... I'd argue that the Tornado wasn't a straight role swap. There was a lot of work put in to the ADV producing a lot of differnces. I've never heard of an F3 with air-ground ordnance apart from ALARM. I don't recall ever seeing a photo of that.

Chris
 
The F111 offers the closest Western counterpart to the Blinder/Backfire. The FB111H might have been ordered instead of the B1 by the USAF and possibly even by the RAF equipped with ALCM as an alternative to Trident.
France did provide its Mirage IV with the ASMP nuclear missile which also equipped the Mirage 2000N and eventually Rafael.
When TSR2 and F111K ger the chop the 48 Vulcan B2 take their place throughout the 1970s.
Perhaps if Germany had cancelled Tornado the RAF might have been forced to finally spend some money on improving the B2 and perhaps give it ALCM into the 80s.
The USAF also helped replace the lost 50 UK F111s by adding another F111 equipped Wing at Lakenheath to the one at Heyford. And there were the 2 sqn two Wings of FB111A Stateside.
 
uk 75 said:
It Is interesting to see how the USAF takes its two pure (not a pound for ground?) fighters (F16 and F15) and gives them serious ground attack and strike roles. The USN and Marines lead the way with the F/A 18.
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Due to the rise of avionics and guided-weapon technology. Once you give a fighter INS you have a much more accurate flight profile, once you have a multi-mode radar you can effectively do two jobs, then if you have an LGB or ASM with pinpoint accuracy the bomber boys can only dream of you have a platform that is just as potent. And these weapons often initially required external carriage for acquisition so bomb bays became a waste of airframe space.

And let's not forget the Tu-22M was lugging some chunky ASMs about - the AS-4 'Kitchen' was probably bigger than my kitchen!!

You could argue that in theory the rise of internal weapons stowage for stealth should have lead to the resurgence of the bigger bomber airframe but none of the A-12/FB-22 type projects have come to pass and the B-2 was truncated. The USA and China are probably the only nations with the need to combine range and stealth into one package and the money to actually bring them to fruition give their relatively small production runs.

CJGibson said:
Hmmmm... I'd argue that the Tornado wasn't a straight role swap. There was a lot of work put in to the ADV producing a lot of differnces. I've never heard of an F3 with air-ground ordnance apart from ALARM. I don't recall ever seeing a photo of that.
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Though in theory if you gave the IDS a decent multi-mode radar it could perform the fighter role to an extent - as long as max fuel and four conformal Sparrow (ahem Skyflash) carriage wasn't important to you.

You could argue the same for the Su-30 versus the Su-34. Very similar in capability and yet the Su-34 has an armoured plated cockpit big enough to nap in, pee in and eat in.
 
uk 75 said:
It Is interesting to see how the USAF takes its two pure (not a pound for ground?) fighters (F16 and F15) and gives them serious ground attack and strike roles. The USN and Marines lead the way with the F/A 18.

France and Britain both use their new 1970s combat aircraft (Mirage 2000 and Tornado) in both air defence and strike roles. Rafael and Typhoon (somewhat reluctantly in the case of the latter) do the same.
Currently the US and major allies are deploying the single seater F35 in both roles. The US is also building the B21 long range bomber.
A smaller version of the B21 to replace F15E and F18E and fill the gap some see as being left by the F111 and A6. may emerge to counter Chinese airpower.
China so far has deployed a stealth fighter but has no serious strike aircraft. It never got Su24, Su25 or Su27 from Russia.
This may change if China decides to back Putin with arms supplies.
Click to expand...
I would call JH-7A and J-16 rather serious strike aircraft, with the former being (roughly) comparable to a Tornado IDS/ECR and the latter a Chinese counterpart of F-15E(X). There is also reportedly a Chinese stealth strike aircraft under development, but little is known of it currently. However, it does seem that China is uninterested in a dedicated CAS aircraft (the Q-5 really has not received a direct successor) or a heavily specialised strike Flanker à la Su-34.
 
uk 75 said:
It Is interesting to see how the USAF takes its two pure (not a pound for ground?) fighters (F16 and F15) and gives them serious ground attack and strike roles. The USN and Marines lead the way with the F/A 18.

France and Britain both use their new 1970s combat aircraft (Mirage 2000 and Tornado) in both air defence and strike roles. Rafael and Typhoon (somewhat reluctantly in the case of the latter) do the same.
Currently the US and major allies are deploying the single seater F35 in both roles. The US is also building the B21 long range bomber.
A smaller version of the B21 to replace F15E and F18E and fill the gap some see as being left by the F111 and A6. may emerge to counter Chinese airpower.
China so far has deployed a stealth fighter but has no serious strike aircraft. It never got Su24, Su25 or Su27 from Russia.
This may change if China decides to back Putin with arms supplies.
Click to expand...
F-16 was multirole from the get go. avf16_1_02.jpg
 
Accordingly, was the Buccaneer a medium bomber?
In the same rough ballpark as a Mirage IV (or Lancaster in fact) regarding maximum takeoff weight, could fly as far as a Lancaster, further than the Mirage IV, and could tote a useful bombload in an internal bomb bay.

I'm not sure the term medium bomber was useful after WW2.
I think we can say there were intercontinental bombers, in-theatre bombers of various sizes, and strike aircraft.

On the last point of a strike aircraft as an example:
The Su-24 is physically longer than a Lancaster, a lot heavier, much faster, but has quite a bit less range.
 
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In all honesty the answer is that the need for a bomber in that range band kinda disappeared:

- On the one hand, light bombers had grown in size and capability to be able to take over the tactical missions previously reserved for medium bombers. The air raids on Rabaul, for example, conducted with medium bombers in WW2, would by the 1960s have been a job for light bombers like the F-111.

- On the other hand, their job in strategic missions had been squeezed out. Partially by mid-range nuclear powers like Britain increasingly offloading their deterrent onto submarines and other non-bomber platforms, reducing the need for a full strategic platform, and the big boys increasingly skipping forward basing and just building full-on intercontinental bombers.

The primary exception was the Soviet Union, who had a different set of requirements from the Western aircraft builders. For one, maritime strike; their medium bombers needed their size for standoff range and also to carry the gigantic early antiship missiles. Miniaturization hasn't quite obviated the need for maritime strike aircraft in this size range. China still uses the H-6 for the job, just with more missiles per plan. For another, they had need to strike Western Europe from the USSR, whilst reserving their intercontinental bombers for deterrence purposes. Hence, a medium bomber actually made sense for them for conventional bombing runs.
 
CV12Hornet said:
- On the one hand, light bombers had grown in size and capability to be able to take over the tactical missions previously reserved for medium bombers. The air raids on Rabaul, for example, conducted with medium bombers in WW2, would by the 1960s have been a job for light bombers like the F-111.
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When looking at such things, it's worth remembering that the B-29, when introduced, was not merely a 'heavy bomber' but a 'very heavy bomber', and the B-36 was referred to as a 'super heavy bomber' during development.

By the time they retired, they were considered to be 'medium' and 'heavy' bombers respectively. I think I've seen the B-17/24 types referred to as 'light' bombers in the late 1940s/early 1950s, but I'm not sure.
 
To approach the question from the other end of the spectrum, are there any *pure* fighter aircraft in active service around the globe that have no air to ground capability at all, irrespective of how dumb or smart the associated ordnance might be? I can't think of any example, but I'd love to be proven wrong.
 
The initial version of the MiG-31BM had the ability to work on ground targets. The Russian Air Force did not support this direction.
There are only two options left: interceptors and the Dagger/Ishim carrier
 
If the B-21 has half the bomb capacity of a B-2, I'd say it's a medium bomber, despite the range being comparable to the B-2.
 

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