Weird & Wonderful Nuclear AAMs

northerndancer2000

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This is a thread on Twitter (X) showing a series of weird & wonderful ideas, mostly nuclear armed AAMs and mostly American.

since today is 1 April, it’s possible they’re an April Fool’s Day joke but I though you might enjoy them anyway.
 
Nuclear-armed AAM's existed. The USAF operated AIR-2 Genie unguided air-to-air rocket with kiloton-scale warhead, and AIM-26 Falcon guided missile with sub-kiloton warhead. Also, nuclear-armed versions of naval AIM-9 Sparrow and AIM-9 Sidewinder were at least considered.

The general idea was to use neutron radiation from warhead blast to "poison" the nuclear fuel in enemy bombs. Penetrating the plutonium/oralloy inside the bomb, external neutrons would cause a creation of a lot of short-lived isotopes, therefore significantly increasing the neutron breeding rate. If such "poisoned" bomb would attempt to detonate, if would just fizzle in low-yield explosion. So nuclear AAM's have perfect sence from 1950-1960s point of view. Even if enemy bomber would survive the blast, its atomic bombs would be rendered inoperable by neutron "poisoning".

The idea of nuclear AAM's (as well as nuclear SAM's)nfell out of favor by 1980s, because the majority of nuclear bombs by this time were of boosted fission designs. Boosted fission weapons are mostly immune to neutron poisoning. Also, low-altitude penetration of air defenses became more and more common - thus making nuclear-tipped AAM's too dangerous to use over friendly territory.
 
Even if enemy bomber would survive the blast, its atomic bombs would be rendered inoperable by neutron "poisoning".

Not to mention the bomber's crew would be rapidly dying (Very unpleasantly) from acute radiation-sickness.
 
Not to mention the bomber's crew would be rapidly dying (Very unpleasantly) from acute radiation-sickness.
Well, it was less important, since it was reasonably assumed that even dying crew would still try to reach the target. Disabling enemy bombs was more important.
 
I would suppose that the blast is enough to destroy the aircraft. The radiation thing on the enemy nuke is a welcome secondary effect. But I may be wrong.
 
Nuclear-armed AAM's existed. The USAF operated AIR-2 Genie unguided air-to-air rocket with kiloton-scale warhead, and AIM-26 Falcon guided missile with sub-kiloton warhead. Also, nuclear-armed versions of naval AIM-9 Sparrow and AIM-9 Sidewinder were at least considered.

The general idea was to use neutron radiation from warhead blast to "poison" the nuclear fuel in enemy bombs. Penetrating the plutonium/oralloy inside the bomb, external neutrons would cause a creation of a lot of short-lived isotopes, therefore significantly increasing the neutron breeding rate. If such "poisoned" bomb would attempt to detonate, if would just fizzle in low-yield explosion. So nuclear AAM's have perfect sence from 1950-1960s point of view. Even if enemy bomber would survive the blast, its atomic bombs would be rendered inoperable by neutron "poisoning".

The idea of nuclear AAM's (as well as nuclear SAM's)nfell out of favor by 1980s, because the majority of nuclear bombs by this time were of boosted fission designs. Boosted fission weapons are mostly immune to neutron poisoning. Also, low-altitude penetration of air defenses became more and more common - thus making nuclear-tipped AAM's too dangerous to use over friendly territory.
That is incorrect. Nuclear AAMs where used to break up massed bomber formations and to account for inaccuracy in guidance systems. Nuclear poisoning is used but by ABM systems. Nuclear AAMs went away when bombers stopped flying in massed formations.
 
I would suppose that the blast is enough to destroy the aircraft. The radiation thing on the enemy nuke is a welcome secondary effect. But I may be wrong.
In the thin air on high altitude, the shockwave propagate less efficiently - and neutrons more efficiently. Also, the destruction of aircraft may cause more problems, because bombs could survive it. You see, USAF generals assumed that all Soviet nukes would have dead hand setting on their fuzes (i.e. if the plane got shot down, bombs would explode on impact). And since they were thinking about multi-megaton nukes... the fallout from massive ground explosion would be extremely devastating even if bomb fell short of target. So making bombs fizzle was actually a priority.
 
In the thin air on high altitude, the shockwave propagate less efficiently - and neutrons more efficiently.

During operation Teapot shot HA (The only parachute retarded air-drop test conducted at the Nevada proving ground where the test-device was dropped in a modified Mk-5 bomb-casing with a retarding parachute added) which was a 3.2KT shot detonated at 36,620Ft. Aside from a reduced blast due to the much lower air-pressure at that altitude the test revealed a greatly enhanced neutron-flux due to the much thinner. Something else that needs to be taken into account of the bomber crew being fatally irradiated and developing acute radiation-sickness are the psychological effects as the crew knows what's happened to them and how they're going to die.
 
During operation Teapot shot HA (The only parachute retarded air-drop test conducted at the Nevada proving ground where the test-device was dropped in a modified Mk-5 bomb-casing with a retarding parachute added) which was a 3.2KT shot detonated at 36,620Ft. Aside from a reduced blast due to the much lower air-pressure at that altitude the test revealed a greatly enhanced neutron-flux due to the much thinner. Something else that needs to be taken into account of the bomber crew being fatally irradiated and developing acute radiation-sickness are the psychological effects as the crew knows what's happened to them and how they're going to die.

If you know you're going to die then you have one less a reason to flee.
 
Possibly, however acute radiation-sickness rapidly incapacitates the victim and the symptoms are extremely unpleasant.
Then there's the joys of the "zombie troops"

They're going to apparently recover, for a little bit. Gonna be really sick, lose hair in clumps. But they'll be functional for 12-24hrs after catching a lethal dose of radiation.
 
But they'll be functional for 12-24hrs after catching a lethal dose of radiation.

Something like that happened with a lot of the people who initially survived the nuclear blasts at Hiroshima and Nagasaki where initially they appeared OK or with only relatively minor injuries then starting about a day afterwards started to keel over and die or be sick for a long time (With many dying in the proceeding years from various cancers such as leukaemia).
 
The "massive formations of bombers" as target for nuclear warheads is partially true. But only partially. By 1950s, no one was seriously considering using bombers with atomic bombs in massive formations; not only such formation would be very easily detectable by radars, but also very vulnerable.

The actual reason was not MASSIVE formations but TIGHT formations. 1950s illumination radars often have troubles discriminating between several targets in tight formation. A trio of bombers in tight formation would looks like one big radar signature. There was a risk that missiles, launched against such signature, would home on empty center and just harmlessly flew through formation (especially if jamming, or chaff were used).

So come the idea of using nuclear warhead on SAM/AAM to solve the problem. Enemy planes would be forced to either risk the whole formation being destroyed by one shot - or to disperce, and became the target for conventinally-armed missiles.
 
Something like that happened with a lot of the people who initially survived the nuclear blasts at Hiroshima and Nagasaki where initially they appeared OK or with only relatively minor injuries then starting about a day afterwards started to keel over and die or be sick for a long time (With many dying in the proceeding years from various cancers such as leukaemia).
Yes, one of the things radiation poisoning does is take down your immune system for a while. Makes you super vulnerable to infections you'd normally be able to fight off.
 
I would suppose that the blast is enough to destroy the aircraft. The radiation thing on the enemy nuke is a welcome secondary effect. But I may be wrong.
The issue is what's referred to as "Salvage Fuzing". The idea being that as you enter Enemy Territory you set up your weapons so that if you get shot down or crash short of the target, the weapons still detonate. Maybe you don't get the assigned target, but you have a serious Surface Burst, and a massive fallout trail. So - something you'd like to prevent, if at all possible.
 
Salvage fusing only works if the nuclear-bomb is undamaged, the neutron-flux from a nearby nuclear explosion at high altitude will do serious damage both to the warhead's pit and its' electronics.
 
The "massive formations of bombers" as target for nuclear warheads is partially true. But only partially. By 1950s, no one was seriously considering using bombers with atomic bombs in massive formations; not only such formation would be very easily detectable by radars, but also very vulnerable.

The actual reason was not MASSIVE formations but TIGHT formations. 1950s illumination radars often have troubles discriminating between several targets in tight formation. A trio of bombers in tight formation would looks like one big radar signature. There was a risk that missiles, launched against such signature, would home on empty center and just harmlessly flew through formation (especially if jamming, or chaff were used).

So come the idea of using nuclear warhead on SAM/AAM to solve the problem. Enemy planes would be forced to either risk the whole formation being destroyed by one shot - or to disperce, and became the target for conventinally-armed missiles.
Except that getting the bombers through the GCI net (When it was manual) was best done by sending in several streams of aircraft, separated by a minute or so, through a GCI sector at the same time, saturating the ability of the Weapons Controllers to process and direct the intercepts.
This was one of the factors in the cancellation of the Avro Arrow. Against its intended Mach 2 / 50,000'+ targets, launching as the targets crossed the Mid-Canada Line, they'd achieve interceptions over Boston or Albany. Not much use for defending Canada. With SAGE, they'd at least be able to intercept before Montreal, Toronto, or Ottawa. Thing is, they could either afford the CF-105 or SAGE, and SAGE /Bomarc / F-101 or F-106 was just as effective, particularly against the Real World targets (High Subsonic) that were actually fielded.
 
Salvage fusing only works if the nuclear-bomb is undamaged, the neutron-flux from a nearby nuclear explosion at high altitude will do serious damage both to the warhead's pit and its' electronics.
Exactly. That's why the focus was on killing the weapon as the highest priority, rather than just the bomber.
 
Except that getting the bombers through the GCI net (When it was manual) was best done by sending in several streams of aircraft, separated by a minute or so, through a GCI sector at the same time, saturating the ability of the Weapons Controllers to process and direct the intercepts.
By late 1950s it wasn't manual anymore.
 
By late 1950s it wasn't manual anymore.
Which is why the Soviet bomber threat never evolved as originally expected. The prospect of Tu-95s and M-4s grinding their way South for hours after their initial detection and tracking, into the face of several thousand interceptors under positive control, and that a supersonic bomber capable of making the same run wasn't technically feasible, sent the Soviets looking in another direction, and spurred their Ballistic Missile efforts.
 
Except that getting the bombers through the GCI net (When it was manual) was best done by sending in several streams of aircraft, separated by a minute or so, through a GCI sector at the same time, saturating the ability of the Weapons Controllers to process and direct the intercepts.
This was one of the factors in the cancellation of the Avro Arrow. Against its intended Mach 2 / 50,000'+ targets, launching as the targets crossed the Mid-Canada Line, they'd achieve interceptions over Boston or Albany. Not much use for defending Canada. With SAGE, they'd at least be able to intercept before Montreal, Toronto, or Ottawa. Thing is, they could either afford the CF-105 or SAGE, and SAGE /Bomarc / F-101 or F-106 was just as effective, particularly against the Real World targets (High Subsonic) that were actually fielded.
By the mid-50's SAGE and Missile Master were online and growing systems in the US. They were interlinked and the prospect of a bomber force getting through to its target was shrinking rapidly. In the Soviet Union, Moscow had the S-25 Berkut system coming online that could effectively have shot down most of a couple hundred bomber raid trying to attack the city.

Missile Master was the US Army's control system for Nike batteries to reduce the chance these would engage the same target letting bombers slip through. The worst strategy for an attacking bomber force by the mid 50's would have been to introduce something like the RAF bomber stream. Defense systems had become sufficiently quick that that strategy would have increased the chances of being shot down. It worked in WW 2 against Germany because the air defense system, per shoot down, took on the order of 15 + minutes at a minimum to occur. That's because nightfighters had to be vectored into the target at speeds on the order of a few hundred miles per hour.
Against SAM batteries the engagement time fell to a few minutes at most, often 1 or 2. With supersonic fighters and longer ranges from target to be intercepted, even taking 15 + minutes allowed for multiple shoot downs that were far more certain than using iffy radar, manual fire controls, and cannon. Guided missiles with decent radar and automatic fire control meant the certainty of a shootdown was fairly high.
Nuclear weapons meant that bombers couldn't bunch up and try to overwhelm the defenses either. That just ensured more were shot down in a single intercept. Higher and faster didn't work against supersonic missile armed interceptors or SAMs either like it would against AA guns.
All that resulted in the demise of the "strategic" bomber.
 
By the mid-50's SAGE and Missile Master were online and growing systems in the US. They were interlinked and the prospect of a bomber force getting through to its target was shrinking rapidly. In the Soviet Union, Moscow had the S-25 Berkut system coming online that could effectively have shot down most of a couple hundred bomber raid trying to attack the city.

Missile Master was the US Army's control system for Nike batteries to reduce the chance these would engage the same target letting bombers slip through. The worst strategy for an attacking bomber force by the mid 50's would have been to introduce something like the RAF bomber stream. Defense systems had become sufficiently quick that that strategy would have increased the chances of being shot down. It worked in WW 2 against Germany because the air defense system, per shoot down, took on the order of 15 + minutes at a minimum to occur. That's because nightfighters had to be vectored into the target at speeds on the order of a few hundred miles per hour.
Against SAM batteries the engagement time fell to a few minutes at most, often 1 or 2. With supersonic fighters and longer ranges from target to be intercepted, even taking 15 + minutes allowed for multiple shoot downs that were far more certain than using iffy radar, manual fire controls, and cannon. Guided missiles with decent radar and automatic fire control meant the certainty of a shootdown was fairly high.
Nuclear weapons meant that bombers couldn't bunch up and try to overwhelm the defenses either. That just ensured more were shot down in a single intercept. Higher and faster didn't work against supersonic missile armed interceptors or SAMs either like it would against AA guns.
All that resulted in the demise of the "strategic" bomber.
No, it just raised the definitions of "higher and faster" to Blackbird levels. Which are a very challenging intercept even when you know exactly the route they're flying. Not invulnerable, of course, but B70 Valkyries would have worked pretty well as strategic bombers.
 
but B70 Valkyries would have worked pretty well as strategic bombers.

Especially in light of the fact that operational B-70s would've been equipped with a rather comprehensive and powerful ECM system made by Westinghouse IIRC.
 
No, it just raised the definitions of "higher and faster" to Blackbird levels. Which are a very challenging intercept even when you know exactly the route they're flying. Not invulnerable, of course, but B70 Valkyries would have worked pretty well as strategic bombers.
Even there, SAM development would have gone there if the plane was more prevalent and could do more than take photos...

The Soviets would have ended up with something like the V-1000

14441838997_d233a25b41_b.jpg


Which was tested as an ABM, or the Nike Zeus or even Sprint missiles the US developed.

Nike_Zeus_static_display_and_test_launch.jpg

sprint-missile-63501.png


It simply wasn't worth anyone's time to develop these systems to counter what were a mere handful of reconnaissance planes.
 
Even there, SAM development would have gone there if the plane was more prevalent and could do more than take photos...
Soviets already had a SAM capable of getting there, the SA-5. But it was so expensive that the only place SA-5s were deployed was around Moscow.
 
Soviets already had a SAM capable of getting there, the SA-5. But it was so expensive that the only place SA-5s were deployed was around Moscow.
There were well over 100 S-200 (SA-5 GAMMON) sites established in Russia. The systems that were only deployed around Moscow were their first SAM, the S-25 (SA-1 GUILD), and the Russian ABM system (1972 ABM treaty said you could protect either your capital or an ICBM field, IIRC).
 
There were well over 100 S-200 (SA-5 GAMMON) sites established in Russia. The systems that were only deployed around Moscow were their first SAM, the S-25 (SA-1 GUILD), and the Russian ABM system (1972 ABM treaty said you could protect either your capital or an ICBM field, IIRC).
Huh, did not know that.

Point still stands about the cost of the S200 system being expensive, however.
 
But it was so expensive that the only place SA-5s were deployed was around Moscow.

That was the SA-1 Guild system.

Point still stands about the cost of the S200 system being expensive, however.

They may've been expensive however they appear to have been built in large numbers, Ukraine apparently has up to 1,000 of them in storage.
 
Soviets already had a SAM capable of getting there, the SA-5. But it was so expensive that the only place SA-5s were deployed was around Moscow.
There's some confusion over the SA-5. There were two missiles that ended up with this designation. The first was the DAL that became the V-1000 and that was a semi-ABM. Then you get the S-200 that was built in large numbers. DAL (aka V-400 and then V-500) and the V-1000 never really went into full production and only a few DAL were deployed around Leningrad. The DAL was superceded by the V-750 / SA-2 Guideline. The V-1000 was the Soviet Union's first attempt at a viable ABM.

The SA-1 (aka S-25 Berkut) was a system designed to shoot down a 1000 bomber raid of the WW 2 type. It was ungodly expensive and didn't have the altitude or speed as a missile to take down an SR 71.
 
There's some confusion over the SA-5. There were two missiles that ended up with this designation. The first was the DAL that became the V-1000 and that was a semi-ABM.

I'd forgot about the two different SA-5s, IIRC in Bill Gunston's excellent 1978 "All the World's Missiles and Rockets" encyclopedia he had the SA-5 Griffon, missile below:

640px-thumbnail.jpg


That was the SA-5 mentioned.

It was ungodly expensive and didn't have the altitude or speed as a missile to take down an SR 71.

IIRC the SA-2 Guideline was basically a mobile, budget version of the SA-1.
 
And as is on the US side the OG Patriot was design with High n Fast Fliers in mind as a hold over from the Mig25 scare.

Which was partly why it wasnt a slightly bigger HAWK.

Needed that added space for fuel.

The less said bout the Navy goals, attempts and success the better for my keyboard.

To say nothing of the S300 family.

By the 70s the rocket tech was there for making a B70 or SR71 killer missile as seen by the ABM systems. Since the bomber died, the Militaries didnt have a major reason to push for that performance til the 80s. By then the cost of said performance was far cheaper to basically allowed the line systems, Patriot/Standards/S300, to have it.


Through in the fun with datalinks and computers?
 
There's some confusion over the SA-5. There were two missiles that ended up with this designation. The first was the DAL that became the V-1000 and that was a semi-ABM. Then you get the S-200 that was built in large numbers. DAL (aka V-400 and then V-500) and the V-1000 never really went into full production and only a few DAL were deployed around Leningrad. The DAL was superceded by the V-750 / SA-2 Guideline. The V-1000 was the Soviet Union's first attempt at a viable ABM.

Dal was not superseded by SA-2 Guideline, it was supposed to operate alongside the S-50 system around Leningrad (a derivative of S-25/SA-1) and then in turn the S-50 were replaced by S-75/SA-2, still operating alongside Dal. Dal was cancelled because of the cost of the terminal active-homing missiles.
 
If AAM missiles were designed like Sprint they sure would be draggy while mounted.

Ironically they never really pushed two-stage AAMs, until just of late.
 
The SA-1 (aka S-25 Berkut) was a system designed to shoot down a 1000 bomber raid of the WW 2 type. It was ungodly expensive and didn't have the altitude or speed as a missile to take down an SR 71.
S-25 Berkut was valiant (but almost futile) attempt to handle the problem of multi-channel simultaneous interceptions on early 1950s tech. To track several targets and missiles simultaneously, two fast-rotating antennas with overlapping beams were used; one tracked in azimuth, the other in elevation. Both needed to be perfectly synchronized, so each target could be scanned simultaneously in azimuth and elevation.

While it actually allowed to track multiple targets in 3D space at once - enormous sucsess for 1950s! - it have a massive disadvantage. Since both antennas needed to be perfectly synchronized, it was impossible to train them in any direction. The whole S-25 could look only in the direction it was build facing, circa 45 degrees horizontal angle. No way to turn it around to look in other direction besides completely dismantling the whole array and rebuilding it.

And thus to provide full 360 degrees cover of target - like city - two rings of missile positions were required. There were literally no other way S-25 could function properly. And such system was EXPENSIVE. Enormously expensive. While initial plans were to provide S-25 for all major cities of USSR - Moskva, Leningrad, Kiev, Minsk, Vladivostok - the resulting cost was so enormous, that even plans for Leningrad array were scrapped (there was one other problem there; since Leningrad is a coastal city, the defense array must be partially build in sea...)
 

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