When Vulcans nuked the USA - twice...

[Weaver]

Good video from Mark Felton about the exercises in 1960 and 1961 in which RAF Vulcans successfully penetrated America's air defences, causing such embarrassment that the information was classified until 1997.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Wx6npt421c

Many years ago I read a book called The Penetrators by Hank Searls. Written in 1965, it was a dramatic fictional novel, in which a maverick RAF pilot organises a three-aircraft Vulcan mock-attack on the USA in order to prove a point about the value of bombers over ICBMs. Written in 1965, it seems likely it was inspired by these real life incidents, so it seems that the Pentagon's information blackout wasn't as effective as they thought. Searls had served as a naval officer, so it's possible he may have had contacts.

[PR19_Kit]

Yes indeed 'The Penetrators' is one of my all time best reads.

My copy is pretty well knackered it's been read so many times, but it's been by my bedside for decades! 

[Joe C-P]

Best take care looking that title up online... 

JoeP

[Weaver]

Something I forgot: The Penetrators was originally published under Searls' pen name of Anthony Gray: you might see an old copy with that name on it.

JoeP: just did a test, and funnily enough, the search results are not that different whether you have Safe Search on or off...

[PR19_Kit]

Something I forgot: The Penetrators was originally published under Searls' pen name of Anthony Gray: might you see an old copy with that name on it.

My copy is under the 'Anthony Gray' name, yes.

[jcf]

I wonder how many times the USAF and USN 'nuked' the UK?

[PR19_Kit]

I wonder how many times the USAF and USN 'nuked' the UK?

That wouldn't have been a good idea, lots of them were already here! At Fairford, Brize Norton, Upper Heyford, Croughton, Lakenheath, Mildenhall, Scunthorpe, Elvington and Bruntingthorpe, to name but a few.

[Weaver]

I wonder how many times the USAF and USN 'nuked' the UK?

Probably lots of times, but it wouldn't have meant as much because after some point in the late '50s/early '60s, nobody was seriously trying to defend the whole of UK airspace against all attacks. All the RAF was supposed to do was defend the V-bomber bases long enough for them to get off the ground and on their way to Russia. With the UK being so small and so densely packed, less than a dozen decent-sized nukes dropped literally anywhere is game over for most of the population within the next year. A defence would have to be near 100% perfect to be worth having at all, and no defence in history has ever come close to that standard. Certainly nothing the UK could afford in 1960.

[rickshaw]

According to one UK Government report all that was needed to render the UK "uninhabitable" was 12 H-bombs dropped off the western shores of the island.  Fall out would do the rest.  Unfortunate but apparently true.   

Downunder, we are all so far apart that you would need many times that number - not that the fUSSR would bother.  When I was doing Nuclear Strategy as a course as part of the Masters, we had Des Ball, who was notable for having published extensively on US bases in Australia come and give us a guest seminar.   When he was asked if Australia was a nuclear target he look at the ceiling for a moment and said, "No, the USSR wouldn't want to waste any nukes on us, except perhaps for Pine Gap."   All Australian capital cities are far, far apart and the major regional centres are just as badly placed.  All too far apart to make it worth nuking them.   

[Weaver]

According to one UK Government report all that was needed to render the UK "uninhabitable" was 12 H-bombs dropped off the western shores of the island.  Fall out would do the rest.  Unfortunate but apparently true.   

It was 10 actually - Strath Report, 1955. Presumably they'd have had to be ground-burst on land to generate the fallout.

There's a dummy WE.177 in the Imperial War Museum in Manchester (40 miles from the west coast). Behind it is an effects chart showing what would happen if it detonated right there, in the museum. From memory, the first four or five zones are basically variations on 'everybody dies', just on different timescales and with different levels of physical destruction. The fallout pattern reaches right across to the east coast and is still killing 50% of the population when it gets there. And that's 'just' a WE.177 - 450 kt at most. The Soviet Union's first H-bomb had a yield of 3 mt...

[NARSES2]

There's a dummy WE.177 in the Imperial War Museum in Manchester

You hope 

[Weaver]

There's a dummy WE.177 in the Imperial War Museum in Manchester

You hope 

I'm about 4 miles outside the 1 psi blast radius, so as long as I'm not looking at Salford (and why would you?) and the wind isn't blowing my way, I'll be okay for a few months at least.

We'd all better hope it's a dummy, because they've also got the arming keys and instructions on how to use them there. You know those tubular keys that were all the rage on cycle/motorbike locks until someone proved you could pick them with a BiC pen barrel? Yep, same keys...

[McColm]

Oddly enough we played 'paper ' war games with similar scenarios when I was a member of the Royal Auxiliary Air Force 1986-1997. It amazed me with what reserve  aircraft the UK had at it's disposal,  both at home and the overseas territories.
We had to write the word 'Exercise ' on the signals we sent over the network,  at the top and down the bottom.  Occasionally the odd one would get out,  the response times of the Russians was quite amazing.

[zenrat]

Here you go.  Have a play with this.

https://nuclearsecrecy.com/nukemap/

Closest preset to a WE.177 is a W-88 (Trident D5 warhead) at 455 kt.  Centring a ground detonation on Salford has fallout of 10 rads per hour at Whitby on the East Coast.

[Weaver]

Here you go.  Have a play with this.

https://nuclearsecrecy.com/nukemap/

Closest preset to a WE.177 is a W-88 (Trident D5 warhead) at 455 kt.  Centring a ground detonation on Salford has fallout of 10 rads per hour at Whitby on the East Coast.

That's what I've been using to double-check my memory.