You know it occurs to me that had Green Cheese gone ahead, this is the ideal basis for a rocket boosted stand off nuclear delivery system.....
Sort of pre-empting the rocket boosted WE.177 concept of decades later.
And the Buccaneer was designed around carriage of it.....internally!
In fact had that existed, it rather shifts the game further to the Buccaneer's favour. Less need to fly over the target....
Less need for supersonic burst to escape the bomb's blast.
It would also keep the V-Force relevent and provide an alternative to Blue Steel.
In fact thanks to the increasing improvements in rocket fuel, and reduction in nuclear bomb size from Red Beard to WE.177. This just gets better. Longer ranged faster etc...
Even the guidance can be improved....more accurate.
Irony of ironies this could feed back to ship and ground launched nukes as well. An alternative to Blue Slug in the Anti-ship role and Blue Water in the surface-to-surface role...
Suddenly this all looks affordable, do-able and the Buccaneer becomes the ideal platform for it.
