Nuclear deterrence
The concept of nuclear deterrence is that an adversary who has attempted to deliver a sufficiently strong nuclear or non-nuclear strike capable of causing unacceptable damage to the attacked side becomes a victim of a nuclear strike himself. The fear of the consequences of this blow keeps the opponent from attacking.
Within the framework of the concept of nuclear deterrence, there are retaliatory and retaliatory-counter strikes (the first strike in any form is beyond the scope of this article).
Their main difference is that a retaliatory strike is delivered at the moment when the enemy is attacking - from establishing the very fact of an ongoing attack (triggering an early warning missile system) to detonating the first warheads of enemy missiles on the territory of the attacked country. And the recipient - after.
The problem of a retaliatory strike is that systems that warn of a missile attack or any other form of nuclear attack (there are some) can, as they say, malfunction. And there were such cases more than once. Many times, unconditional and blind adherence to the retaliatory strike algorithms, both by the Soviet and American military, could lead to an unintended start of a global nuclear war simply due to abnormal triggering of electronics. The automation of issuing a command for a retaliatory strike could lead to the same. These situations entailed some changes in the sequence of issuing a command for a retaliatory nuclear strike, which were aimed at reducing the risk of a strike by mistake.
As a result, there is a possibility that the actuation of the missile attack warning system (EWS) as a result of a real attack at some level of decision-making will be mistaken, including for psychological reasons - the cost of an error here is simply prohibitively high.
There is one more problem, which is more acute. No matter how much we believe in mutually assured destruction, the same USA today has the possibility of delivering a surprise nuclear strike faster than the command to our retaliatory strike will pass. This speed can be achieved by using ballistic missile submarines in the first strike from short (2000–3000 km) distances. Such a strike carries a huge risk for them - too much can go wrong in such complex operations, it is extremely difficult to maintain secrecy and ensure the secrecy of the strike.
But it is nevertheless possible. It's just very difficult to organize it.
At the dawn of the Cold War, the USSR also had such an opportunity.
In the event that the enemy delivers such a blow, there is a risk that the order to inflict a retaliatory strike will simply not reach the executors. And the ground forces that should have inflicted such a blow will simply be destroyed - completely or almost completely. Therefore, in addition to a retaliatory strike, a critical opportunity was and is the possibility of a retaliatory strike.
A retaliatory strike is delivered after the first strike by the enemy, this is its difference from a retaliatory strike. Therefore, the forces that inflict it must be invulnerable to the first blow. At the moment, both in Russia and in the United States, submarines armed with ballistic missiles are considered such means of a guaranteed retaliatory strike. In theory, even if the enemy's first strike is missed and all the forces capable of waging a nuclear war are lost on the ground, the submarines must survive this and attack in response. In practice, any party planning the first strike will try to ensure that the retaliatory forces are destroyed, and they, in turn, must prevent this from happening. How this requirement is met today is a separate topic. The fact is that it is.
Ensuring the combat stability of strategic submarines is the basis of nuclear deterrence for any country that has them. Simply because only they are the guarantors of retaliation. This is true for the United States, Russia, and China. India is on its way. Britain and France have generally abandoned nuclear deterrence other than submarines.
And this is where our story begins.
Unlike all other nuclear countries, the Americans were able to ensure the possibility of delivering a guaranteed retaliatory strike not only with the help of submarines, but also with the help of bombers.
It looks strange. Taking into account the fact that even a Soviet ICBM had less flight time to targets on American territory than is necessary under normal conditions for organizing the departure of a multi-engine aircraft and its withdrawal beyond the range of the damaging factors of a nuclear explosion.
The Americans, on the other hand, ensured that their bombers could launch en masse and get out of the attack of ICBMs flying to airbases faster than these missiles reached their targets.
The only ones in the world.
General LeMay and his bomber aircraft
There is still debate about what is more important in history - objective processes or the role of individuals. In the case of the tasks and capabilities of the US Air Force in the system of nuclear deterrence and the conduct of a nuclear war, there is no dispute. This is the merit of a very specific person - a general of the US Air Force (formerly an officer of the US Army Air Corps), a participant in World War II, Commander of the US Air Force Strategic Air Command, and later US Air Force Chief of Staff Curtis Emerson LeMay. His biography is available link.
LeMay was one of those people who, it is believed, can only live in war. If an analogy is needed, it was a character like the fictional Lieutenant Colonel Bill Kilgore from the movie "Apocalypse Now", the same one who commanded the landing under Wagner's "Flight of the Valkyries". LeMay was psychologically about this type, but much more ruthless and, it must be admitted, much more intelligent. The infernal bombing of Tokyo, for example, is his idea for the task. He tried to provoke a nuclear war between the USSR and the USA. Many consider him a maniac and a psycho. And this is, in general, true. The catch phrase “to bomb into the Stone Age” is his words. It is true, however, that if the United States had followed Lemay's brutal advice, it might have achieved forceful domination and victory in the Cold War by force back in the late fifties. For us, that would certainly be a bad option.
But for America it is good.
Had the United States followed LeMay's advice in Vietnam, they could have won that war. And if China and the USSR intervened in it, as the general's critics feared, then the Soviet-Chinese split, apparently, would have been overcome, and America would have received its big war with tens of millions of corpses - and, apparently, today they would not behave like that brazenly, as it is now. Or everything would have cost a local collision, with a quick brainwashing of the Americans.
Vietnamese, by the way, in any case, would have died less than it actually happened.
In general, he is a maniac, of course, a maniac, but …
Such a person usually cannot serve in peacetime within the military bureaucracy. But LeMay was lucky. The scale of the tasks that the US Air Force faced with the beginning of the Cold War turned out to be quite "military" for itself, and LeMay lingered for a long time in the highest echelons of power, having managed to build the Strategic Air Command in accordance with his views. He resigned already from the post of Chief of Staff of the Air Force in 1965 due to a conflict with the Minister (Secretary) of Defense R. McNamara, a "paramilitary" bureaucrat. But by that time everything had already been done, traditions and standards were laid, cadres were trained who continued the work of Lemey.
It is believed that aviation is extremely vulnerable to a sudden nuclear strike, and will generally not survive it. LeMay, who had an extremely negative attitude towards ballistic missiles (including for irrational reasons - he put bomber aviation and its personnel above all else, often speaking insultingly about fighter pilots, for example, that is, his personal attitude to bomber aviation played an important role), set himself the task of creating such a bomber aviation, to which this would not apply.
And he created. The absolutely unprecedented combat readiness of strategic aviation that the Americans showed during the Cold War is to a very large extent his merit.
LeMay took over the Strategic Air Command (SAC) in 1948. Already in the mid-fifties, he and his subordinates had formed a set of ideas that would form the basis for preparing bomber aviation for a war with the USSR.
First and foremost, when receiving a warning about an enemy attack, bombers must get out of the attack faster than this blow will be delivered. It was not so difficult, but in 1957 the USSR launched a satellite into space. It became clear that the appearance of intercontinental ballistic missiles among the "communists" was not far off. But the SAC decided that it does not matter - since the flight time will be measured in tens of minutes, and not in many hours, it means that it is necessary to learn how to remove the bombers from the air strike faster than the ICBM or the warhead will fly the distance from the point of detection of the early warning system to the target.
It sounds like fantasy, but they finally got it.
The second step (which later had to be canceled) was combat duty in the air with nuclear weapons on board. It was held for only a few years, and in general, it was not necessary. Therefore, let's start with him.
Combat duty in the air
The origins of Operation Chrome Dome go back to the fifties. Then the first attempts began to work off the combat duty of bombers in the air with ready-to-use nuclear bombs.
General Thomas Power was the author of the idea to keep the B-52 with nuclear bombs in the air. And the commander of the CAC LeMay, of course, supported this idea. In 1958, the SAC began a study program called Operation Headstart, which was accompanied, among other things, by 24-hour training flights. And in 1961, Operation Chromed Dome began. In it, the developments of the previous operation were implemented, but already with sufficient (and not excessive) security measures and on a much larger scale (in terms of attracting flight personnel and aircraft).
As part of the operation, the United States flew a number of bombers with thermonuclear bombs. According to American data, up to 12 vehicles could be in the air at the same time. Most often it is mentioned that in the ammunition of the aircraft there were two or four (depending on the type of bomb) thermonuclear bombs.
The time of combat duty was 24 hours, the aircraft during this time several times refueled in the air. In order for the crews to withstand the loads, the crews took amphetamine-containing drugs, which helped them to be able to perform such flights. The command knew about the consequences of using such drugs, but continued to issue them.
In addition to the combat duty itself, within the framework of the "Chromed Dome" activities were carried out with the code names "In a circle" (Round Robin jargon) to study tactical issues in the Air Force and "Hard Head" (Hard Head) to visually monitor the state of the US early warning radar in Greenland, at the Tula base. This was necessary to make sure that the USSR did not destroy the station with a surprise attack.
From time to time, bombers landed in Greenland, while violating the agreements with the Danish government on the nuclear-free status of Denmark.
In fact, the US Air Force resorted to the same methods as the Navy - strategic carriers of nuclear weapons were withdrawn to those areas in which the enemy could not get them in any way, and were there in readiness for an attack. Only instead of submarines in the ocean, there were planes in the sky. The combat stability of the bombers was ensured by the fact that they were in motion, often over the ocean. And the USSR did not have any means to get them.
There were two areas in which the bombers flew: the northern (covering the north of the United States, Canada and western Greenland) and the southern (over the Mediterranean and Adriatic seas).
The bombers went out to the initial areas, refueled in the air, were on duty for a while, then returned to the United States.
The operation lasted 7 years. Until 1968.
In the course of the Chromed Dome, bomber disasters occurred from time to time, during which nuclear bombs were lost or destroyed. There were five significant disasters, but the program was curtailed following the results of the last two.
On January 17, 1966, a bomber collided with a KS-135 tanker (a refueling bar hit the bomber's wing). The bomber's wing was blown off, the fuselage was partially destroyed, in the fall, four thermonuclear bombs fell out of the bomb bay. Details of the disaster are available on the Internet at the request "Plane crash over Palomares".
The plane crashed to the ground near the Spanish city of Palomares. Two bombs detonated the explosive of the detonators, and the radioactive contents were scattered over an area of 2 square kilometers.
This event resulted in a sixfold decrease in the number of aircraft sorties, and R. McNamara was the initiator, arguing that the main tasks of nuclear deterrence are performed by ballistic missiles. At the same time, both the OKNSH and the SAC were against the reduction of bombers on duty.
We will come back to this later.
Two years later, in 1968, another disaster occurred with radioactive contamination of the area in Greenland, which went down in history as a disaster over the Thule base. This was the end of the Chromed Dome.
But let's say two things. The first is that earlier similar catastrophes with the loss of bombs did not interrupt the operation. Before Palomares, they did not affect the intensity of flights at all.
Why is that?
Of course, political factors influenced here. It's one thing to lose a bomb over your territory without contaminating the area. The other is above someone else's. And even with infection. In addition, over a country with a nuclear-free status, which gave guarantees of non-deployment of nuclear weapons on its territory. But something else was even more important - while the number of ballistic missiles was considered insufficient, the United States considered the risks of the "Chromed Dome" quite acceptable. As well as the costs - in the form of amphetamines crippled crew members of bombers. Moreover, there were not many seriously injured.
All of this was justified for the role played by bombers in nuclear deterrence. For the guaranteed retaliation capability they provided.
However, after the termination of the "Chromed Dome" this opportunity has not disappeared anywhere.
Combat duty on the ground
Operation Chromed Dome has been completed. But the United States still sometimes resorted to air combat duty with nuclear weapons.
For example, in 1969, Nixon lifted and held 18 bombers in readiness for attack for three days. This provocation was called Operation Giant Lance. Nixon planned this as an act of intimidation of the USSR. But in the USSR they did not become intimidated. Still, in 1969, the use of only 18 bombers in the first strike could no longer impress anyone.
Regular flights of this type were no longer performed.
But this was not due to the fact that the SAK, the Air Force in general, or someone in the Pentagon became disillusioned with the use of bombers as a means of retaliation. Not at all.
It was just that by this time the desired and planned methods of withdrawing bombers from the air strike had been polished to such an extent that it became unnecessary.
By the beginning of the seventies, the practice of combat duty on the ground, which, if necessary, made it possible to remove some of the bombers from the attack of ballistic missiles, had finally taken shape. This was the result of a very long and hard work of the Strategic Air Command, which began under Lemey.
It is hard to imagine how carefully the Americans planned and prepared everything. We simply cannot afford this level of organization. At least there are simply no precedents.
Full combat readiness does not happen in any part of the Air Force. Therefore, it was practiced to allocate part of the forces on combat duty. Then a replacement was made. The aircraft were parked with suspended thermonuclear bombs and cruise or aeroballistic missiles, also with a thermonuclear warhead.
The personnel were in specially built structures, de facto representing a hostel with a developed household and entertainment infrastructure to maintain a good morale for all personnel. The living conditions at these facilities differed favorably from what was in other types of the US Armed Forces. And this was also the merit of Lemey. It was he who achieved the highest level of comfort for the flight crew in service, as well as various benefits, payments and the like.
The room was directly adjacent to the bombers' parking lot. Upon leaving it, the personnel immediately found themselves directly in front of the aircraft.
At each airbase, it was distributed which aircraft crews should get into their planes at a run, and which - in cars. For each aircraft, a separate vehicle on duty was allocated, which was supposed to deliver the crew to it. This order has not been interrupted for many decades and is still in effect. The cars were taken from the air base's fleet.
Further, it was required to ensure the fastest possible leaving the parking lot. To ensure this, there were certain design features of the B-52 bomber.
The design of the aircraft is such that the crew does not need any ladders in order to get in or out of the bomber. There is no need to remove any structures for the plane to take off. This distinguishes the B-52 from almost all bombers in the world.
It seems like a trifle. But let's take a look, for example, at the Tu-22M. And let's ask ourselves the question, how many minutes are lost during an emergency takeoff - cleaning the gangway?
And if you don't remove it, you can't take off. The B-52 does not have such a problem.
Next came the stage of starting the engines. The B-52 has two launch modes.
The first is a regular one with sequential engine start. With such a start, the 4th engine was started sequentially from an external source of electric current and air, from it the fifth (the other side). These engines were used to start the rest (the 4th started the 1st, 2nd and 3rd at the same time, the 5th started the 6th, 7th and 8th, also - at the same time). It was not a quick procedure, requiring technicians on the aircraft and equipment. Therefore, on alarm, a different triggering method was used.
The second is the so-called "cartridge-start". Or in modern American jargon - "go-cart".
The essence of the method is as follows. Each B-52 engine has a pyrostarter, similar in principle to the one that spins up the engines of cruise missiles, only reusable.
The pyrostarter consists of a gas generator, a small-sized turbine operating on the gas flow from the gas generator, and a small-sized gearbox with an uncoupling device, which drives the shaft of the bomber's turbojet engine.
The source of gases in the gas generator is a replaceable pyrotechnic element - a cartridge, a kind of cartridge the size of a mug. The energy stored in the "cartridge" is enough to rotate the shaft of the turbojet before starting it.
This is the trigger that is used during panic missions. If suddenly all the engines did not start, then the B-52 starts moving along the taxiway on some of the engines, starting the rest along the way. This is also technically provided. No equipment, ground personnel or anyone's help is required for such a launch. The launch is carried out literally by pressing a button - after the on-board electrical system has started working, the right pilot on the command "start all engines!" ("Start all engines!") Starts all the pyrostarters with the button simultaneously and puts the throttle in the desired position. In literally 15–20 seconds, the engines were started.
This is what such a start looks like. Time before starting the engines. First, the landing of the crew is shown (no ladders are needed), then the installation of the cartridge, then the launch. Dark smoke - exhaust gases in the pyrostarter. As soon as the smoke disappeared, the engines were started. Everything.
In case the bomber could return from a combat sortie against the USSR and would have to land at an alternate airfield, there was a special bracket in the niche of one of the rear landing gear pillars in which spare cartridges were transported. The installation was very simple.
After starting the engines, the aircraft moved along the taxiways to the runway. And here the most crucial moment begins - take-off with minimal intervals, known in the West as MITO - Minimum interval take-off.
What is the specificity of such a take-off? In time intervals between aircraft. Cold War SAC regulations required an approximately 15-second interval between oneself and any aircraft taking off or following ahead.
This is what it looked like in the 60s. The film is fiction, but the planes in it took off real. And at this very pace. This is not a montage.
This is an extremely dangerous maneuver - there are more than two aircraft on the runway during such a takeoff, which will no longer be able to interrupt takeoff in any emergency situation due to the gained speed. Cars take off in a smoky runway. For comparison: in the USSR Air Force, even in an emergency situation, heavy aircraft rose into the air at minute intervals, that is, 4-5 times slower than the Americans. Even without taking into account all the other delays that we also had.
Another video, only now not from the movie. Here, the intervals between bombers are less than 15 seconds.
In our country, such a takeoff as MITO heavy multi-engine aircraft simply would not be allowed due to safety conditions. At the Americans, he first became a regular in strategic aviation, then migrated to all kinds of Air Force forces, up to transport aviation.
Naturally, the tankers, who were on alert along with the bombers, also had the opportunity to launch from pyrostarters.
Another video. This, however, was already filmed after the end of the Cold War. And there are no tankers here. But there are all the stages of raising aviation on alarm - including the delivery of personnel to the planes by cars.
As you can see, if there are 20 minutes before an ICBM strike at an airbase, then some of the aircraft have time to escape from under it. Experience has shown that 20 minutes is enough to send 6–8 aircraft, of which during the Cold War two of the aircraft could have served as refuellers. However, the separate basing of bomber and refueling air wings made it possible to remove more B-52s from the blow. Bases with refuelers, but no bombers, were far less priority targets.
After takeoff, the planes had to follow to the checkpoint, where they would either be given a new target, or they would have canceled the old one assigned before departure. The lack of communication meant the need to carry out the combat mission that had been assigned to the crew in advance, on the ground. The procedure established in the SAC provided that the crew should be able to perform a meaningful combat mission even in the absence of communication. It was also a factor in ensuring the retaliation.
This system existed in the United States until 1991. And in 1992 SAC was disbanded. Now such training exists, so to speak, in a "half-disassembled" state. Emergency take-offs are practiced, but only by bombers, without the participation of tankers. There are problems with refuellers. Bomber flights are carried out without weapons. In fact, this is no longer a guaranteed retaliatory strike, which aviation can inflict under any circumstances, but simply a practice of withdrawing forces from under the strike.
Thirty-odd years without an enemy could not but affect combat readiness. But once they could. On the other hand, we would have such degradation.
In 1990, HBO released the feature film By dawn's early light. We dubbed it in the 90s with the title "At Dawn", more or less close to the original. Now he is in Russian voice acting (extremely poor, alas, but with a "new" name) available on the internet, in English (it is recommended to watch it in the original for everyone who knows this language at least a little) also have.
The film, on the one hand, contains a lot of "cranberries" from the very beginning, especially in the storyline on board a bomber flying to bomb the USSR. On the other hand, it is highly recommended to watch. And the point is not even that this is not being filmed now.
Firstly, it shows, with almost documentary accuracy, the raising of a bomber on alarm, informing the crew about whether it is a combat alarm or a training alarm (after preparing for takeoff in an airplane with running engines). It is shown that no one knows in advance whether it is a combat alarm or a training alarm; in any case, everyone is given their best at every alarm. This, by the way, is also important because if the personnel on the ground realizes that they have no more than 20 minutes to live, and they cannot run (the planes have not yet taken off), then there may be various excesses. The Americans excluded them "at the hardware level."
After takeoff, the crew refines the task using the log (table) of code signals, compares this with individual code cards and selects a card with a combat mission using them, in this case it is striking if there is no recall at the checkpoint (according to the plot, they were re-targeted to a new one target - the command bunkers of the USSR in Cherepovets).
Secondly, part of the filming took place on board real B-52s and E-4 command aircraft. For this alone, it is worth seeing, especially for those who flew the Tu-95 in those same years, it will be very interesting to compare.
A fragment of the film with the raising of bombers on alarm. At the beginning, an Air Force general from the SAC in a bunker under the Cheyenne Mountain reports to the President about an ongoing counterforce (aimed at means of retaliatory strike) strike from the USSR, then a message from the USSR arrives via teletype with an explanation of what is happening and then shows an alarm at Fairchild airbase. Some of the plans were filmed inside a real B-52. It is well shown how quickly the aircraft is ready to take off on alarm, including starting the engines. The filmmakers had very good consultants.
The fragment is only in English. The rise of aviation from 4:55.
Thirdly, the human factor is well shown in the film - random mistakes of people, psychopaths who accidentally found themselves in command positions, honest people mistakenly insisting on catastrophically wrong actions in this situation, and how all this can lead to an undesirable ending - nuclear war of destruction.
There is one more important point there.
Fail-safe or why bombers
According to the plot of the film, a group of Soviet military, who do not want to "detente" and improve relations with the United States, somehow delivers to Turkey a launcher with a medium-range ballistic missile equipped with a nuclear warhead, after which it inflicts a nuclear strike on Donetsk with its help. thus provoke a nuclear war between the USSR and the United States, and under the guise of carrying out a coup in the USSR.
In the USSR, according to the plot, a system is working at that moment, which, when signs of a nuclear war are received, gives the command to launch ICBMs automatically. A kind of "Perimeter", which does not ask anyone about anything.
If one can laugh at the provocation with Donetsk (although an attempted coup in the USSR did take place in 1991, just without armed provocations), the Americans here sucked the plot out of their fingers, then there is no need to laugh about the automatic retaliatory strike - not only do we have and there was, and is, the technical ability to automate this process, so there are also many who want to do this in the highest echelons of power, seemingly guaranteeing a retaliatory strike under any circumstances.
In the film, for all its "cranberry", it is very well shown how such a system wrong … And then how the Americans made a mistake again with the decision on the second retaliatory strike. We were terribly wrong. And what did it cost both the USSR and the USA in the end. The problem here is that such a system can go wrong without a nuclear explosion over Donetsk. And people acting in conditions of lack of information and time can make a mistake even more.
Let's move on to reality.
On November 9, 1979, the North American missile defense system NORAD displayed on the computers of the main command posts a Soviet nuclear strike by 2,200 ICBMs. The time for which the President of the United States had to decide on a retaliatory strike against the USSR was calculated, taking into account the fact that it took time for the launch command to pass. The required reaction time was no more than seven minutes, then it would be too late.
At the same time, there were no political reasons why the USSR would have fired such a volley so suddenly, intelligence also saw nothing unusual.
In such circumstances, the Americans had two options.
The first is to wait until the arrival of Soviet missiles is detected by radars. But this time was just six to seven minutes, there was a high risk that the launch of the ICBM would not be possible.
The second is to deliver a retaliatory strike with missiles with a 100% success rate.
The Americans decided to take a chance. They waited for the time that was necessary in order to be sure whether there was a real missile attack or not. After making sure that there was no attack, they canceled the alarm.
An investigation later revealed that a faulty 46-cent chip was the cause of the failure. Not a bad reason to start a global nuclear war, isn't it?
Some of the incidents that may have triggered the start of a missile exchange can be found here.
What is important in this and many other incidents? The fact that it was immediately impossible to determine exactly whether the attack was underway or not. Moreover, in a number of cases it would have been possible to determine this only when it would have been too late.
In addition, one must understand something else. There were no guarantees that the Soviet Navy would not have time to sink the American submarines - then it was a different time than now, and our fleet had a lot of submarines at sea. There were also cases of tracking American SSBNs. It was impossible to guarantee that all SSBNs, or a significant part of them, simply would not be destroyed by the time they could signal an attack. Namely, SSBNs formed the basis of the retaliatory strike potential.
What gave the Americans the confidence that a retaliatory strike, if they missed the first Soviet strike then, would still be delivered? In addition to the first-class submarines, these were bombers.
In every serious case of a false nuclear alarm, the aircraft were at the start, with crews in the cockpits, with flight missions and assigned targets, with suspended thermonuclear weapons, with refuelers. And for sure, in ten to fifteen minutes some of the cars would have come out of the blow, and given the fact that the Americans sometimes dispersed their planes, this would be a rather big part.
And the leadership of the USSR knew about it. Of course, we did not plan an attack on the United States, although they suspected us of it. But if we had planned, then the factor of bombers would seriously complicate our task of delivering a sudden and crushing strike with minimal losses.
The bombing scheme also fit well into the American political system - in the event of a successful Soviet decapitation strike, the military could not order a retaliatory strike without the appropriate sanction of the political leader. Americans have a list of presidential successors that dictates the order in which other leaders take over as president if the president (and, for example, the vice president) dies. Until such a person takes office, there is no one to give the order for a nuclear strike. Naturally, the military will be able to bypass these restrictions if they want, but they must have time to agree with each other and give all orders while the connection is still working. These are illegal actions, not stipulated by any rules, and they will meet with serious resistance in the face of uncertainty.
According to the procedure adopted in the United States, the military, in the event of the death of the political leadership, must find someone from the list of successors and consider him as the Supreme Commander. It takes time. Airborne bombers give the military this time. That is why at one time both SAC and OKNSh were opposed to canceling the "Chromed Dome". However, they then got out with phenomenally effective ground duty.
This is exactly how bomber aviation "worked" in the US Air Force's nuclear deterrent system. It gave politicians the opportunity not to be wrong. Bombers that have taken off to strike can be turned back. While they are flying, you can understand the situation. You can even negotiate a ceasefire.
But if, after all, the war really began, and it is unrealistic to stop it, then they will simply do their job. And even in this case, they provide additional capabilities - unlike missiles, they can be retargeted to another object located within the combat radius and studied by the crew of the area, if the situation requires it. In emergency cases - to any target, up to the line of use of weapons on which they can fly. They can hit several targets that are far from each other, and when some of them come back, they can be sent to strike again. Rockets can't do any of this.
This is a system to which the American phrase Fail-Safe can be applied. Failure in this case is a nuclear strike delivered by mistake. Interestingly, in 1964 an anti-war film with the same name was shot in the United States, where bombers inflicted a nuclear strike on the USSR precisely by mistake, but this was definitely extremely unlikely.
For the opponents of the United States, this is an additional incentive not to attack - after all, now the blow could have been inflicted not only by ICBMs and SLBMs, but also by surviving aircraft, of which there could be too many. They, of course, would have to break through the air defense of the USSR, which was, at first glance, extremely difficult.
This issue is worth considering too.
The probability of breaking through the air defense of the USSR
The air defense of our country is usually thought of as omnipotent. Let's just say - the country's air defense capabilities were enormous, it was a truly unique system in terms of capabilities.
However, these possibilities were finally formed only in the 80s, partially in the late 70s.
Before that, everything was not so, but rather the opposite.
In the 50s, the organization of air defense in the USSR was such that the Americans ruled in our skies as they wanted. Multiple flights of RB-47 reconnaissance aircraft in Soviet airspace remained unpunished. The number of American aircraft shot down was numbered in units, and the number of their incursions into our airspace - in the hundreds during the same period. In addition, the Soviet aviation lost dozens of people killed. At this time, it was possible to safely guarantee that any more or less massive attack by bombers on the USSR would be successful.
In the 60s, a turning point was outlined - anti-aircraft missile systems and MiG-19 interceptors began to massively enter service, from which American intelligence officers (and therefore potentially bombers) could no longer escape. That year, the Americans lost a U-2 reconnaissance missile system from air defense systems, while a MiG-19 shot down an RB-47 near the Kola Peninsula. This led to a reduction in reconnaissance flights.
But even in these years, the power of the air defense was far from sufficient. The Americans, on the other hand, were armed with hundreds of B-52s and thousands of medium B-47s; it was technically unrealistic to repulse this blow in those years.
The ability of the Americans to hit targets on the territory of the USSR was declining very slowly. But they took action in advance. Bombers of the third modification, variant "C" (English) were armed with AGM-28 Hound Dog missiles with a thermonuclear warhead and a range of more than 1000 kilometers.
Such missiles were the solution to the problem of object air defense - now there was no need to go under the fire of anti-aircraft missile systems, it was possible to hit targets from afar.
But these missiles greatly reduced the combat radius of the bomber. From that moment on, the United States began a theoretical study of the idea of a combined strike - first, some planes strike with missiles, then planes with bombs break through the "hole" in the air defense formed as a result of a massive nuclear strike.
The Hound Dog was in service until 1977. However, in 1969, a more interesting replacement was found for them - the AGM-69 compact aeroballistic missiles began to enter service, which, due to their small size and weight, could be put on bombers in large quantities.
These missiles gave the B-52 the ability to strike at Soviet air defense airfields and then break through to the target with bombs until the enemy recovered from a massive nuclear strike.
In 1981, the first modern cruise missile, the AGM-86, which also exists in the "nuclear version", began to enter service. These missiles had a range of more than 2,700 km in the version with a thermonuclear warhead, which made it possible to attack targets without putting bombers at risk. These missiles are still the "main caliber" of the B-52 in a nuclear war. But rather, they are unique, since the tasks with nuclear bombs from these aircraft have been removed since 2018, and the B-2 aircraft are the only strategic bomb carriers.
But there was also a minus. Now the scheme with the receipt of the assignment did not work even in flight - the data for the missiles had to be prepared on the ground. And this deprived aviation of its inherent flexibility - what is the point in a bomber that cannot attack any targets other than those assigned in advance? But some of the aircraft were redesigned to carry cruise missiles.
Now the strike by the B-52 looked like a cruise missile launch from a long distance, and only then “ordinary” bombers, which also had aeroballistic missiles, and bombs to complete their “work”, would fly up to the enemy who survived a massive nuclear strike. The breakthrough of a single B-52 to the target would look like a nuclear "clearing" of the path in front of the plane.
Thus, cruise missiles would be used not only to defeat targets of particular importance, but also to "soften" the Soviet air defense, and before the appearance of the S-300 and MiG-31, we simply had nothing to shoot down such missiles.
Then the air defense would have sought by strikes of thermonuclear aeroballistic missiles. And already through this scorched zone, bombers with the remaining aeroballistic missiles and bombs would go to the target.
At the same time, the Americans made tremendous efforts to ensure that this breakthrough was successful. All B-52s have been upgraded to allow them to fly at low altitudes. It affected both the fuselage and avionics. As usual, it was about heights of hundreds of meters (no more than 500). But in reality, the pilots of the SAC calmly worked at 100 meters, and above the flat sea surface - at an altitude of 20-30 meters.
The B-52s were equipped with the most powerful electronic countermeasures system in the history of aviation, which made it possible to divert both anti-aircraft missiles and radar homing missiles from the aircraft. In Vietnam, this technique showed itself from the best side - having made many thousands of aircraft sorties, the United States lost several dozen bombers. In Operation Linebreaker in 1972, when the United States undertook massive bombing of North Vietnam, the consumption of anti-aircraft missiles on the B-52 was enormous, and the losses of these aircraft were disproportionately small compared to the number of missiles spent on them.
Finally, the B-52 was simply a sturdy and tenacious machine. That would also play a role.
A characteristic feature of the B-52 in the 80s was the white coloring of the lower part of the fuselage, to reflect the light radiation of a nuclear explosion. The top was camouflaged in order to merge with the ground during low-altitude flight.
It should be admitted that a breakthrough in the Soviet air defense system with such tactical schemes was quite real, although in the 80s the Americans would have to pay a huge price for it. But it is somehow frivolous to talk about the price in a global thermonuclear war, but they would cause considerable damage.
All of the above applies to a situation where most of the American ICBMs were destroyed on the ground and did not have time to launch. In a situation where a retaliatory strike by ICBM forces was nevertheless inflicted, the task of the bombers going in the second wave would be facilitated tenfold. There would be basically no one to resist their raid.
Conclusion
The example of the US Air Force Strategic Air Command shows that it is quite realistic to create a system based on bomber aviation that can provide a nuclear retaliatory strike. Its potential will be limited, but it guarantees those capabilities that other means of waging a nuclear war do not provide.
These are the possibilities:
- assigning a goal after the start.
- recalling aircraft from a combat mission when the situation changes.
- adding strike time, allowing politicians to take measures to stop hostilities, restore control of the Armed Forces, or simply sort out the situation.
- changing a combat mission during a combat mission.
- reuse.
In order to realize all these possibilities, a huge organizational work is required, aircraft corresponding in their characteristics to the performance of such tasks, selection and the highest level of training of personnel.
We need a psychological selection that will allow us to recruit responsible people who are psychologically capable of maintaining a high level of discipline for years in conditions when the war still does not start.
And besides this, an understanding of the very nature of the aviation component of the strategic nuclear forces is required - for example, organizing a retaliatory strike only with cruise missiles is extremely ineffective, the situation may require a strike on other targets, and not on those for which there are ready-made flight missions. It is impossible to correct this deficiency in the course of a nuclear war that has already begun. The organization of a second strike in conditions when the air bases on which the aircraft were based before the war have been destroyed, along with the personnel and equipment necessary to prepare cruise missiles for use, will be almost impossible.
And if an aircraft cannot technically carry bombs or other weapons that the crew can use independently, without prior preparation of a flight mission and from anywhere, for any purpose, then it can turn into a thing in itself immediately with the beginning of the conflict. Unfortunately, we do not understand this. And the Americans understand. And the resistance that AGM-86 cruise missiles met in SAC was due precisely to these considerations.
An American bomber returning from a mission can receive fuel, a bomb, equipment that will rearrange spare cartridges (if it is a B-52), a combat order written by hand by a superior commander at an airfield that has survived an exchange of missile strikes, and fly out again to strike.
A “clean” cruise missile carrier will simply be “put on hold” if there are no missiles, or they require loading a flight mission, and the flight control center for these missiles cannot be provided by the crew itself using the aircraft equipment.
In the USSR, old missiles, the control center of which was formed on board the aircraft and loaded there - from KSR-5 to X-22, made it possible to use aviation flexibly, simply by setting tasks for the crews. Refusal from such weapons, albeit made at a new level, and the transformation of our Tu-95 and Tu-160 into "clean" carriers of cruise missiles, the flight mission for which is being prepared in advance on the ground, was a mistake. American developments demonstrate this very clearly.
All this in no way means that it is necessary to increase the share of ANSNF in the nuclear triad. In no case. And this does not mean that air-launched cruise missiles should be abandoned. But the example of the Americans should make us assess the potential of the bombers correctly. And learn how to use it.
For example, take into account such opportunities in the form of PAK DA.
So that later you do not face unpleasant surprises that could have been foreseen, but which no one had foreseen.
