Hypersonic Bomber in Lieu of XB-70

[rickshaw]

Rickshaw

1. If it was used as a deterrent, would it be able to last from 1965 to 1975?
2. Could it have successfully lead to an end of the Cold War?
3. If it got hot, could it successfully get through?

Let's assume Mach 8 capability, altitude 100,000 - 170,000 feet, range 6,000 to 11,500 nm, able to pull 7g subsonic, 3.5 hypersonic

Kendra/Robynn, did you understand anything of what I wrote?   The answers to your questions are there.

1.  No.
2.  No.
3.  To where?  In what role?   It more than likely could have as a nuclear bomber.   As a boost phase counter-ICBM weapon you and they would be dreaming, as we say downunder.

[rickshaw]

Your supersonic bomber would have, at the time of it's introduction not been able to be kept secret.  The reality is that an aircraft of the size and capability as such an beast could not be kept secret.

How did SLAM stay secret?

Who said it did, to the Soviets?

It is far easier to hide such programs from your own population than it is from your enemies.  Your enemies aren't constrained by laws which are designed to prevent the disclosure of secure information.  They were actively seeking them out.  Despite even the greatest efforts to secure such information, it will invariably leak out that something is going on, even in wartime.  I refer you to R.V.Jones book, "The Secret War".  Even in active wartime, it was possible to discover that one's enemies were working on something even if it wasn't found out exactly what.   Creating a "black hole" where information is contained in itself can mean through careful analysis that you figure out where something is being developed, even if you can't find out what it is necessarily.  The example of Atomic weapons research is a good one.  Both sides were sure the other was working on it because by taking "back bearings" it was obvious that information on nuclear research had disappeared from the Scientific journals.

In the case of SLAM, the Soviets would have been targeting the aeronautical companies.  They'd have more than likely heard of the development of something new, something big and something very, very nasty for use against them.  They might have even ferreted sufficient information to realise how bad it was and that it was nuclear powered.

Until someone goes and looks at the Soviet Archives and finds out exactly what they did and didn't know, you cannot claim with any certainty that they were ignorant of SLAM.

[zenrat]

January saw the 50th Anniversary of the release of Dr Strangelove.

[rickshaw]

January saw the 50th Anniversary of the release of Dr Strangelove.

I always found it interesting that both Strangelove and Fail Safe were drawn from the same novel.   Of the two, I always thought Strangelove the more effective at showing the dangers of the Cold War.   Obviously it was one of the finest pieces of satire in movie history. 

[jcf]

January saw the 50th Anniversary of the release of Dr Strangelove.

I always found it interesting that both Strangelove and Fail Safe were drawn from the same novel.   Of the two, I always thought Strangelove the more effective at showing the dangers of the Cold War.   Obviously it was one of the finest pieces of satire in movie history. 

They weren't, Red Alert aka Two Hours to Doom (UK) from 1958 and Fail-Safe of 1962 are two different works with
a similar premise but different scenarios. The author of the former sued the authors of the latter for plagiarism,
the case was settled out of court.

[KJ_Lesnick]

Rickshaw

1. I've never heard anything about the Russians developing a counter for it even after the Cold War ended

2. I've known for quite a lot of time that most of efforts aimed at secrecy seem to be better at keeping information hidden from the civilian population than the enemy military.  In fact in some cases I do not know why we bother (i.e. when we know they know)

3. An information black-hole might allow your enemy to figure out what you're doing, but it doesn't always necessarily determine what you're doing exactly: While I'm at it, did they know about the US Aerospaceplane program (1958-63) and the Lenticular ReEntry vehicle

4. Regarding SLAM: I assume it was kept under high secrecy because of both its destructive nature and it's nuclear power... correct?

[rickshaw]

Rickshaw

1. I've never heard anything about the Russians developing a counter for it even after the Cold War ended

Really?  What was the MiG25 for?  What was the SA-5 SAM for?   Why was the XB-70 abandoned?

2. I've known for quite a lot of time that most of efforts aimed at secrecy seem to be better at keeping information hidden from the civilian population than the enemy military.  In fact in some cases I do not know why we bother (i.e. when we know they know)

Sometimes it is better to be seen to be doing something rather than being seen to do nothing.  The counter-intelligence community in the Cold War was founded on paranoid suspicions and mistaken beliefs.  Have a read up on James Jesus Angleton to see what happens when you actually start to believe in them.

3. An information black-hole might allow your enemy to figure out what you're doing, but it doesn't always necessarily determine what you're doing exactly: While I'm at it, did they know about the US Aerospaceplane program (1958-63) and the Lenticular ReEntry vehicle

Consult the Sovietologists.  They could more than likely tell you.  I have no idea but again, I suspect they did.

4. Regarding SLAM: I assume it was kept under high secrecy because of both its destructive nature and it's nuclear power... correct?

There were considerable moral objections to creating what was, essentially a doomsday machine, which would be as deadly to your own side as to the enemy.   Spewing radioactivity all over the world does not endear you to your own population, nor the populations of your allies (over which it will travel) or that of neutrals (over which it may travel).  Nor does it tell your enemy how peaceful your intentions supposedly are.

[jcf]

 ... or as Gahan Wilson put it:

[KJ_Lesnick]

Rickshaw

Really?  What was the MiG25 for?  What was the SA-5 SAM for?

That was for the XB-70; not the SLAM/Pluto...

Sometimes it is better to be seen to be doing something rather than being seen to do nothing.  The counter-intelligence community in the Cold War was founded on paranoid suspicions and mistaken beliefs.

So you'd use decoying actions to screw your enemy up more than just hiding data?

Consult the Sovietologists.  They could more than likely tell you.

You mean people who studied the history of the Soviet Union? 

I have no idea but again, I suspect they did.

How come they didn't try and build a spaceplane?  Admittedly they had FOBS instead of the LRV which was basically equally horrible.

There were considerable moral objections to creating what was, essentially a doomsday machine, which would be as deadly to your own side as to the enemy.

So this was to keep it secret from policy makers in the United States as well as the population of the United States?  Wouldn't a hypersonic design be built for the same purposes (officially deterrence, actually annihilation)

Nor does it tell your enemy how peaceful your intentions supposedly are.

Our intentions were supposedly peaceful LOL

[rickshaw]

Rickshaw

Really?  What was the MiG25 for?  What was the SA-5 SAM for?

That was for the XB-70; not the SLAM/Pluto...

Funny, I thought we were still talking about the XB-70 and it's supposed replacement.  Let check the title of the thread?  Yep, thats what it says...

Sometimes it is better to be seen to be doing something rather than being seen to do nothing.  The counter-intelligence community in the Cold War was founded on paranoid suspicions and mistaken beliefs.

So you'd use decoying actions to screw your enemy up more than just hiding data?

Ideally you would do both.  Hide the data and produce sufficient "noise" with a false programme to hide the hole, so as to mislead your enemy.

Look at how the UK hide Ultra/Magic from the Germans.  They didn't want them to know their codes had been cracked, so they felt it was more important to hide that knowledge, to the point that they allowed Coventry to be bombed, rather than evacuate it and reveal to the Germans they somehow knew what the target was.   Another similar situation was that of Constance Babington Smith - credited with "discovering" the V-1 on aerial photos for decades, in fact she was just the cover story.  By the time the RAF brought back aerial photos of V-1s under test at Pennemunde they already knew of their existence from other sources, including Ultra and hid that from the public by giving her the credit.

The US OTOH often took what the British considered foolish risks with such precious information.  The revenge assassination of the architect of the attack on Pearl Harbor by intercepting and shooting down Admiral Yamamoto is perhaps the most famous example.

Consult the Sovietologists.  They could more than likely tell you.

You mean people who studied the history of the Soviet Union? 

Who else would fit that description?

I have no idea but again, I suspect they did.

How come they didn't try and build a spaceplane?  Admittedly they had FOBS instead of the LRV which was basically equally horrible.

They didn't have the technology and didn't see the point, when as you point out they had FOBs and felt the ICBM could do the job just as well.

There were considerable moral objections to creating what was, essentially a doomsday machine, which would be as deadly to your own side as to the enemy.

So this was to keep it secret from policy makers in the United States as well as the population of the United States?  Wouldn't a hypersonic design be built for the same purposes (officially deterrence, actually annihilation)

Falls apart as soon as someone starts looking at those nuclear engines and starts asking why this system hasn't been tested...

Nor does it tell your enemy how peaceful your intentions supposedly are.

Our intentions were supposedly peaceful LOL

You may have known that but how were your intentions portrayed and perhaps even more importantly, perceived from the other side?   The US was often belligerent towards the fUSSR.  Sometimes it had reason to do so.  The fUSSR was equally belligerent.  However, it quickly became an argument which was moving in every decreasing circles until the end point was war.   Each side felt that they had to "talk to tough" to the other, primarily because of domestic political considerations.   Hawkish Americans and Russians felt that the only way to deter their opponents was not only to build more nuclear warheads but also the means to deliver them and to try and appear credible and appear willing to use them was to threaten each other.  This in turn would make the other side react in similar terms.

As far as I am aware, Reagan was the only US President who was perceptive enough to realise that all his tough talk was actually making things worse rather than better with the fUSSR and that was why when Gorbachev came to power, his rhetoric becomes a great deal less strident.  He wrote about it in his diaries as well, so we can actually see what he was thinking at the time.  Just as he was only one it appears to have actually thought about the real consequences of nuclear war (and we can thank the movie "The Day After for that, because he admitted that it had opened his eyes to what was likely to happen.  Which has always made me wonder what he thought nuclear war was going to be like?  A Hollywood version of WWII?)

The problem was for both the White House and the Kremlin, the real peaceful intentions of both sides had been subsumed under a long history of fist shaking and cries of, "we will bury you," and, "bombing starts today."    My theory is that whereas most of the Politburo had survived WWII, it had left them and the Russian population pretty well scared and they understood the consequences of war, which is why they invariably shied away from it during crises, whereas most of the US administrations and population had never see their cities bombed to rubble and their countryside laid waste, so were far more ideologically prone to making what were really extreme "do or die" statements.    To verge on political comment, you can see similar attitudes amongst the various anti-anti-gun law rhetoric in the US today, IMHO.

[KJ_Lesnick]

Rickshaw

The counter-intelligence community in the Cold War was founded on paranoid suspicions and mistaken beliefs.

Just out of curiosity, can you give me an example?

Ideally you would do both.  Hide the data and produce sufficient "noise" with a false programme to hide the hole, so as to mislead your enemy.

Understood

Look at how the UK hide Ultra/Magic from the Germans.

I know of MK Ultra, but not Ultra... judging by what you say it seems to be the one that involved that Enigma cypher...

They didn't want them to know their codes had been cracked, so they felt it was more important to hide that knowledge, to the point that they allowed Coventry to be bombed, rather than evacuate it and reveal to the Germans they somehow knew what the target was.

That's always confused me... I understand one would keep the knowledge a secret, but isn't the whole idea of having the codes to predict the enemy's actions so as to counter it, and find weaknesses in the enemy to exploit? 

I could understand letting the enemy get away with a few small victories so as to win the war, but a city being bombed off the face of the earth is quite serious in terms of devastation.  Fortunately few died (a couple hundred -- I know that sounds rather horrible to say, but in WW2 millions died throughout the whole world, and a couple hundred thousand died in Europe from what I remember).

The US OTOH often took what the British considered foolish risks with such precious information.  The revenge assassination of the architect of the attack on Pearl Harbor by intercepting and shooting down Admiral Yamamoto is perhaps the most famous example.

What should we have done?  That sounded like a perfectly sound move in my opinion given the circumstances.

Who else would fit that description?

I wanted to make sure everything I was told was understood.

They didn't have the technology and didn't see the point, when as you point out they had FOBs and felt the ICBM could do the job just as well.

And the FOBS was orbital and could be sent from the south where we were undefended...

Falls apart as soon as someone starts looking at those nuclear engines and starts asking why this system hasn't been tested...

So develop the crowbar and the hypersonic vehicle; cancel the XB-70; and lift some technology from the Aerospaceplane program which was also highly secret and nobody would be the wiser. 

You may have known that but how were your intentions portrayed and perhaps even more importantly, perceived from the other side?   The US was often belligerent towards the fUSSR.  Sometimes it had reason to do so.  The fUSSR was equally belligerent.  However, it quickly became an argument which was moving in every decreasing circles until the end point was war.

I'm aware of this...

Each side felt that they had to "talk to tough" to the other, primarily because of domestic political considerations.   Hawkish Americans and Russians felt that the only way to deter their opponents was not only to build more nuclear warheads but also the means to deliver them and to try and appear credible and appear willing to use them was to threaten each other.  This in turn would make the other side react in similar terms.

Yes, and the problem with creating the appearance of willingness to use them was that some actually became truly willing to use them...

As far as I am aware, Reagan was the only US President who was perceptive enough to realise that all his tough talk was actually making things worse rather than better with the fUSSR and that was why when Gorbachev came to power, his rhetoric becomes a great deal less strident.  He wrote about it in his diaries as well, so we can actually see what he was thinking at the time.

Yeah, I remember reading about that before...

Just as he was only one it appears to have actually thought about the real consequences of nuclear war (and we can thank the movie "The Day After for that, because he admitted that it had opened his eyes to what was likely to happen.

Yeah, I remember seeing that movie...

The problem was for both the White House and the Kremlin, the real peaceful intentions of both sides had been subsumed under a long history of fist shaking and cries of, "we will bury you," and, "bombing starts today."

Uh, the last one Reagan said as a joke -- he didn't know the mike was on...

[chiglet]

Coventry got bombed heavily because of a mistake in translation. The British were given several "Knickbein" frequencies, but chose the wrong one
[Most Secret War by Dr R.V. Jones]

[rickshaw]

Rickshaw

The counter-intelligence community in the Cold War was founded on paranoid suspicions and mistaken beliefs.

Just out of curiosity, can you give me an example?

The already aforementioned James Jesus Angleton is perhaps the best example I know of.

Look at how the UK hide Ultra/Magic from the Germans.

I know of MK Ultra, but not Ultra...

Ultra was the British codename for the Bletchley Park code breaking operation.

judging by what you say it seems to be the one that involved that Enigma cypher...

Yes.

They didn't want them to know their codes had been cracked, so they felt it was more important to hide that knowledge, to the point that they allowed Coventry to be bombed, rather than evacuate it and reveal to the Germans they somehow knew what the target was.

That's always confused me... I understand one would keep the knowledge a secret, but isn't the whole idea of having the codes to predict the enemy's actions so as to counter it, and find weaknesses in the enemy to exploit? 

The danger is that if they perceive their codes have been broken because of overt and obvious counter moves, they will then change their codes and you will then lose all access to their command system.  Therefore, it has to be a very careful cat and mouse game, with there always being a plausible and obvious alternative explanation as to why you have done what you have done, so as to not arouse their suspicions and change their codes.

Another example is that of the invasion of Crete where the British commander for the first time was made aware of what the enemy's intentions were, when paraphrased Ultra intercepts were made available to him.  While that ended still in defeat, it so badly mauled the German airborne forces that they were never again used in their intended role.  Second el Alamein was another example but in that case, Montgomery was lucky enough to be receiving daily Ultra intercepts of Rommel's intentions, whereas Rommel had lost his prized SIGINT unit at Tel el Arisa (where they were literally caught bathing in the sea) which rendered him effectively blind (it's intercepts up till then of the American consul's almost daily signals to Washington and the Italian theft of the "Black Code" from the US Embassy in Rome, had allowed Rommel to be one step ahead of the British throughout the previous North African campaign).

I could understand letting the enemy get away with a few small victories so as to win the war, but a city being bombed off the face of the earth is quite serious in terms of devastation.  Fortunately few died (a couple hundred -- I know that sounds rather horrible to say, but in WW2 millions died throughout the whole world, and a couple hundred thousand died in Europe from what I remember).

Churchill was always ruthless in his pursuit of victory.  He saw that sacrificing a city was a minor defeat in the context of the whole war.   There is an apocryphal story which none-the-less rings true of Churchill after Coventry being cornered in the corridors of Westminster by several backbenchers who demanded that he immediate take revenge for Coventry by having the RAF bomb a German city.  Knowing the weakness of Bomber Command at that time, he remarked, "Why bomb one city now, when we are weak?  If we wait until we are strong, we can make Germany pay by bombing city after city, after city!"

The US OTOH often took what the British considered foolish risks with such precious information.  The revenge assassination of the architect of the attack on Pearl Harbor by intercepting and shooting down Admiral Yamamoto is perhaps the most famous example.

What should we have done?  That sounded like a perfectly sound move in my opinion given the circumstances.

The counter-argument is that by killing Yamamoto you would introduce uncertainty into your understanding of the Japanese command structure.  You have little idea about his subordinate who would replace him, because you've never seen him overall command.  There is also the danger that the Japanese would realise that their codes were broken (the likelihood of an intercept by patrolling fighters at such extreme range was highly unlikely) and they would then change them and you would lose your window on their HQ's decision making.  Keeping Yamamoto in place and reading his command signals would mean that you could use that information and you would have a known quantity who's thinking you could understand more and more as the war progressed.  Unfortunately, such subtly seems to have escaped the US commanders.

They didn't have the technology and didn't see the point, when as you point out they had FOBs and felt the ICBM could do the job just as well.

And the FOBS was orbital and could be sent from the south where we were undefended...

Falls apart as soon as someone starts looking at those nuclear engines and starts asking why this system hasn't been tested...

So develop the crowbar and the hypersonic vehicle; cancel the XB-70; and lift some technology from the Aerospaceplane program which was also highly secret and nobody would be the wiser. 

Until you field it and then the Politburo would be running around like headless chooks shouting about their vulnerability.  Exactly as they did when the Pershing II with its terminal guidance system was made operational.  Nothing frightened the Politburo more than the perceived personal danger of a decapitation strike.  Remember my remarks about the dangers of introducing new systems which increase instability in the doctrine of MAD and increase the first use urge?

Each side felt that they had to "talk to tough" to the other, primarily because of domestic political considerations.   Hawkish Americans and Russians felt that the only way to deter their opponents was not only to build more nuclear warheads but also the means to deliver them and to try and appear credible and appear willing to use them was to threaten each other.  This in turn would make the other side react in similar terms.

Yes, and the problem with creating the appearance of willingness to use them was that some actually became truly willing to use them...

Exactly and as shown in the move Fail Safe, you see laid out the arguments towards first use, the surprise attack.  Here you are proposing a system which increases the likelihood of those arguments winning.   

As my tutor in Nuclear Strategic thought always asked our class, whenever some smart alec proposed a first strike, "How many millions are you prepared to lose?"  That is what it comes down to, in the end.  What casualties are acceptable to ensure your victory over your ideological enemy?   Because your surprised, first strike is never going to destroy 100% of your enemy's strategic forces and the ones that remain that come back at you will definitely kill a large proportion of your population (and other nations' as well).   Are you willing to be Churchillian with your ruthlessness.  Which cities are you prepared to see destroyed?  New York?  Chicago?  San Francisco?  Moscow?  Leningrad?  etc.?

The problem was for both the White House and the Kremlin, the real peaceful intentions of both sides had been subsumed under a long history of fist shaking and cries of, "we will bury you," and, "bombing starts today."

Uh, the last one Reagan said as a joke -- he didn't know the mike was on...

The first rule of modern politics - Nothing is "off the record", all mikes are live, your phone is always tapped and even your wife will sell you out if the price is right.   What did I say about "perceptions"?  Reagan might have known it was a joke but the Politburo in it's paranoia believed there was an element of truth to it.  He basically handed them a propaganda victory.   If nothing else, very naive and foolish.

[wuzak]

Ideally you would do both.  Hide the data and produce sufficient "noise" with a false programme to hide the hole, so as to mislead your enemy.

Look at how the UK hide Ultra/Magic from the Germans.  They didn't want them to know their codes had been cracked, so they felt it was more important to hide that knowledge, to the point that they allowed Coventry to be bombed, rather than evacuate it and reveal to the Germans they somehow knew what the target was.   Another similar situation was that of Constance Babington Smith - credited with "discovering" the V-1 on aerial photos for decades, in fact she was just the cover story.  By the time the RAF brought back aerial photos of V-1s under test at Pennemunde they already knew of their existence from other sources, including Ultra and hid that from the public by giving her the credit.

From what I understand, the British tried not to use the Ultra decrypts unless there was another plausable explanation for the Germans as to how the Allies obtained the intelligence.

Ultra was so important that officers that were read into the program were forbidden, generally, from partcipating in operations over the Continent.

Regarding the V-1 discovery, the British had intelligence of the weapon, and ULTRA helped with a testing location (Peenemunde). But the photographic interpreters had still to find it (and the V-2) for confirmation.

[wuzak]

Misinformation played an important part in the D-day landings, as well as other facets of WW2.

There was the man who died of pneumonia, was dressed up as an RN officer and put into the sea with false documents regarding the invasion, so that he would wash up in Spain, and the information would be passed to the Germans.

Patton was babysitting a fake army in the lead up to the invasion.

Back to the V-1s, German spies fed back landing co-ordinates for the V-1s so that their aim could be adjusted. The spies had all been captured and turned, so the information they sent back was false, telling the Germans that the V-1s were over-shootng London.


Fake things were used during the Cold War too. After the Cold War ended it was discovered that many of the weapons and equipment the US had been worried about had, in fact, been fake.