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Awesome info, thanks 
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Jul 13, 2012 21:39
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VikingSkull posted:Awesome info, thanks The US apparently traded a lot of info on thermonuclear weapons development to the UK in exchange for the recipe for VX. Wikipedia tells me that the british codename for VX was "purple possum", all their doomsday weapons seem to have very colourful codenames.
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Jul 13, 2012 21:56
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British nuclear stand-off missile called "Blue Steel" , now I just think of ZoolanderAlso: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rainbow_Codes
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Jul 13, 2012 21:59
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DesperateDan posted:I can strongly recommend "The Secret State" by Peter Hennessy for a look at the UK's preparations (or lack thereof) for nuclear war during the cold war, it's really quite chilling. Interesting! I can see some parallels with Canada in the cold war, in that we were developing our oun technology (in this case, interceptors for Soviet bombers) that was abandoned in favor of American technology that, uh, didn't really work. Also, I gotta echo that the Victor still looks amazing and futuristic to me, even though it was made in the 1950s.
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Jul 13, 2012 22:27
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Despite the arguments to the contrary, though, there's not really anything hugely solid behind the Americans deliberately setting out to destroy the Arrow - gently caress, they helped provide crucial systems for it. The TSR.2 is a bit of a different story, because at the very least the Americans pimping the F-111 out drove off the potential customers that could have kept the project going. Small arms are where there certainly was direct US intervention - .280 and the EM-2, and then the adoption of the M14 over the FAL - and it set everyone back a long way. In the end, though, both were victims of short-sighted domestic politicians who basically killed their nations' abilities to design and build entirely indigenous equipment at the cutting edge of technology. Looking through the list of amazing projects cancelled either in favour of American counterparts, or as a result of political decisions, during the Cold War is severely depressing... especially when you realise what impact that had on local industry. The cancellation of the Arrow basically killed the Canadian military aviation industry, and the TSR.2 drat near had the same effect over in the UK. Whether you believe their capabilities were exaggerated by their almost mythical status or not, they were important projects that would have seen Canada and Britain able to independently build their power, and losing them meant losing that totally. rossmum fucked around with this message at 22:44 on Jul 13, 2012 |
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Jul 13, 2012 22:40
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I saw the Vulcan doing it's thing this afternoon. Much more fun than doing work.
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Jul 13, 2012 22:41
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the V-bombers are awesome but we all know what the coolest Cold War nuclear bomber is
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Jul 13, 2012 22:51
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atomicthumbs posted:the V-bombers are awesome but we all know what the coolest Cold War nuclear bomber is Wrong. 
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Jul 13, 2012 23:18
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atomicthumbs posted:the V-bombers are awesome but we all know what the coolest Cold War nuclear bomber is
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Jul 13, 2012 23:27
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DesperateDan posted:By the early 60's the UK was developing it's own MRBM system, "blue streak" as part of the space program, but political pressure (and rumoured bribes) led to the eventual cancellation of the UK's own space efforts (the only nation to develop a native and working satellite launch system then abandon it To be fair, Blue Streak wasn't well suited as a deterrent weapon. Since it required a lengthy liquid fueling process before launch it couldn't be deployed quickly in response to an enemy strike, and could only be sure of getting off the pad in a first strike situation - something the British government was very much not interested in. It would also cost the government over 500 million 1960 pounds just to complete the initial roll-out with associated silos. Its role as a satellite launcher was more promising but it was doomed to failure as soon as it was tied to the disastrous Europa Launcher program. Britain wanted to use Blue Streak as their road to space independent of the US or USSR, but they ran into the same lack of funds that prevented them from deploying it as an IRBM. France happened to be pursuing their own rocketry program (in conjunction with de Gaulle's nuclear program) and were interested in partnering with the Brits. However, the French engineers saw no particular technological interest in collaborating with the British *except* if the UK supplied them with knowledge of Blue Streak’s inertia guidance system and its nose cone reentry system - coincidentally the two bits that would let them perfect their own IRBM. The UK was understandably not comfortable with this arrangement - not only was the idea of a nuclear IRBM-equipped Charles de Gaulle worrying on its own, but the Blue Streak program had received under-the-table help from Washington on their guidance and reentry systems with the very clear understanding that they were *not* to share it with anyone.  Blue Streak on the test stand So in order to break the impasse a new plan was made - France and the UK decided to bring in the fledgling European Economic Committee (EEC) and turn the independent launcher program into a project of pan-European cooperation. Under this new 'Europa Launcher' program, the work would be divvied up between the partner nations and assembled into a single launch system. The UK's proven Blue Streak would serve as the first stage, France would supply the 'Coralie' second stage and Germany the 'Astris' third stage. Italy would create the test satellite, the Netherlands and Belgium would design and build the telecommunications and tracking systems, and Australia (as a Commonwealth nation) would provide the Woomera launch site that had been previously used for British rocketry experiments.  Successful Blue Streak test at Woomera, Australia - just about the only successful part of the Europa program In 1965 the US launched Intelsat-1 'Early Bird', the world's first geosynchronous telecommunications satellite, ushering in a new milestone in the dawn of the Telecommunications Age. Space was rapidly being recognized as the new commercial frontier, and the ability to place commsats in geosynchronous orbit was vital. Europa had originally been envisioned as a low-earth orbit launcher, but now France was convinced that they needed to leapfrog straight to geosynchronous capability and started pushing through major design changes to the program. In addition, there was very poor coordination between the various national development teams, who in most cases were trying to shoe-horn their previous independent rocket designs into a frankenstein rocket with predictable results. Germany and Italy felt their aerospace industries weren't getting a big enough share of the design work, while the Dutch and Belgians clamored for financial help for their cash-strapped development teams. Britain - who had come into the program with the only actual, working component - ended up shouldering a bigger and bigger chunk of the development costs. By the end they were paying almost 40% of the program's budget, while the geosynchronous design changes and related complications had caused cost overruns to the tune of hundreds of millions of pounds. As icing on the cake, part of the British agreement to participate in the program was acceptance for their entry into the EEC - which the French ended up vetoing.  Europa program 'Cora' test rocket of combined French 'Coralie' second and German 'Astris' third stages. Of the three launches, two ended in failure. The Europa rocket itself had a pretty ignominious record. While the first two flights of the Blue Streak with dummy upper stages were successful, each subsequent test ended with explosions and separation failures. Predictably, most of the problems were traced to interface issues between the stages, although the relative inexperience of the German, Italian and smaller states in the field of rocketry contributed to some of the early failures (virtually ever German even remotely involved in rocketry had been snatched up by the US and USSR after the war, they were effectively starting their aerospace industry over from scratch). The UK received a great deal of pressure from the US to stay in the program, however, as Washington saw it as a key building block towards building a united Western Europe as well as a great way to keep an eye on the French. Britain only decided to stay in after their contribution was negotiated down to 28%, but by that point the program was on its last legs.  The 'geosynchronous' Europa II with strap-on solid fuel boosters The final launch attempt of the 'geosynchronous' Europa II in 1971 exploded over the French Guiana coast two and a half minutes into flight due to an electrical malfunction. By this point the US was already starting development of the Space Shuttle, which was predicted to bring launch costs down by an order of magnitude, rendering Europa obsolete. In the aftermath Britain decides to put space on the backburner and bows out of the launch vehicle business, while Germany decided to go with a winner and cooperate with the US on Skylab. France, of course, finally manages to learn from the numerous failures and political mismanagement; their second attempt at (French-led) European space cooperation results in the formation of ESA and the development of the highly successful Ariane launch family (which was coincidentally helped out by the failures of the Shuttle to drive down launch costs, not to mention the launch freeze imposed by the Challenger disaster right as Ariane was being introduced). There was also another unintended side effect of the Europa program: the long, plodding development of a commercial launch vehicle siphoned up a great deal of limited European (particularly French) resources - money, expertise, industry - that would have most likely been used on national nuclear programs (both bombs and rockets) instead. While France and the UK did get their own bombs, I've seen some credit the Europa program as having a significant non-proliferation effect during the 60s and 70s by keeping the French from concentrating more fully on ICBMs.  Portion of Blue Streak wreckage in Australian outback near Woomera fakeedit - This post somehow went a lot further than I originally intended 
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Jul 14, 2012 00:23
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) and it was announced that the UK would pursue the US's "Skybolt" system for use with british warheads, which in turn was cancelled due to poor test performance and the emergence of SLBMs, which led to the UK purchasing the Polaris system after quite major political arguments (the UK had intended to put almost all of the deterrent force on Skybolts and wanted to have the same deterrent as the US, some US politicians wanted to keep the knowledge US only).
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Craptacular makes a good point. Just look at that motherfucker. Sleek as hell, stupidly fast and powerful, just absurd. It screams "Yeah, you can see me on radar. Yeah, I'm headed right for you. No, there's not a loving thing you can do about it." Meanwhile, this guy is some kind of dystopian nightmare plane seemingly cobbled from spare parts for the sole purpose of destroying worlds. 
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Jul 14, 2012 01:24
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mlmp08 posted:Craptacular makes a good point. If that's the same photo series I think it is it has a rather unfortunate ending...
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Jul 14, 2012 01:40
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The Valkyrie didn't run on jet fuel, it ran on lesser planes.
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Jul 14, 2012 01:48
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I don't think I ever fully believed that the XB-70 was ever real. I mean look at that crazy thing. drat.
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Jul 14, 2012 01:52
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No love for the Hustler? I like this goofy fucker too:  I guess in general I really love the ultra-futuristic look of Cold War-era Soviet bombers. SyHopeful fucked around with this message at 02:03 on Jul 14, 2012 |
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Jul 14, 2012 02:00
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I love all these bombers that have come and gone. Meanwhile the B52 soldiers on.
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Jul 14, 2012 02:09
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priznat posted:I don't think I ever fully believed that the XB-70 was ever real. I mean look at that crazy thing. drat. Somehow seeing one in person doesn't make it seem more real. 
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Jul 14, 2012 02:09
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Any of you guys remember Top Gun for the NES? I was sorely disappointed to learn the Tu-160 did not come with rear end in a top hat missile launchers.  Still pretty cool.
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Jul 14, 2012 02:12
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Craptacular posted:Wrong. Correct answer SyHopeful posted:No love for the Hustler? Also correct answers. Oxford Comma posted:I love all these bombers that have come and gone. Meanwhile the B52 soldiers on. The youngest B-52 still operational (1040) will turn 50 in October.
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Jul 14, 2012 03:25
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That is awesome. Can the airframe on those really stay intact much longer? Edit: The article says the B52 will be retired 30 years from now. Holy poo poo.
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Jul 14, 2012 05:49
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If we're talking about the Cold War we can't ignore the Wings of Freedom. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NRd-yMT_5NE
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Jul 14, 2012 06:37
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Armyman25 posted:If we're talking about the Cold War we can't ignore the Wings of Freedom. Nor can we ignore the 41 for Freedom (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/41_for_Freedom). Pretty much every Cold War submarine named after someone badass meant serious business.
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Jul 14, 2012 06:55
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Oxford Comma posted:That is awesome. Can the airframe on those really stay intact much longer?
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Jul 14, 2012 06:58
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rossmum posted:With proper care you can keep a plane flying for a hell of a long time. Helicopters are even easier to maintain, since there aren't wing spars to worry about - several British Chinooks which were operating over Afghanistan were Falklands veterans and are not planned for retirement any time soon. This doesn't keep everyone from freaking out about the CH-124 Sea Kings every chance they get.. "OMG THEY ARE ALMOST 50 YEARS OLD!" But yeah that poo poo's old.
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Jul 14, 2012 07:01
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Oxford Comma posted:That is awesome. Can the airframe on those really stay intact much longer? Keep in mind, this is a lot like the dudes that are driving around in restored 1912 Model Ts or whatever. It looks like a Model T, but almost every component has been replaced at some point. I'm not just talking about upgraded avionics or whatever on the BUFF, even basic structural materials have probably been replaced at some point...when these things go to depot they go through nuts to bolts and replace anything that is worn out/corroded/past service life/etc. That's in addition to the various SLEPs/other upgrade programs that have been conducted at various points in its service life.
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Jul 14, 2012 07:03
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mlmp08 posted:Somehow seeing one in person doesn't make it seem more real. I was just about to post this. You walk into the experimental aircraft section and the disparity between the XB-70 and everything else in that exhibit is positively mind-boggling. I really didn't even perceive the plane itself until I was almost ready to leave, it just felt like a giant Mach 3 building that the other planes were stored under.
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Jul 14, 2012 07:36
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mlmp08 posted:Somehow seeing one in person doesn't make it seem more real. There is so much concentrated insanity in that picture.
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Jul 14, 2012 07:44
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Terrifying Effigies, that was an incredible read.
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Jul 14, 2012 08:14
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iyaayas01 posted:Keep in mind, this is a lot like the dudes that are driving around in restored 1912 Model Ts or whatever. It looks like a Model T, but almost every component has been replaced at some point. I'm not just talking about upgraded avionics or whatever on the BUFF, even basic structural materials have probably been replaced at some point...when these things go to depot they go through nuts to bolts and replace anything that is worn out/corroded/past service life/etc. That's in addition to the various SLEPs/other upgrade programs that have been conducted at various points in its service life. So are the actual airframes themselves replaced as well?
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Jul 14, 2012 16:04
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Oxford Comma posted:So are the actual airframes themselves replaced as well? This is my grandfather's axe. I replaced the handle 4 times, and the head twice. Officially, a restored ship is still the same ship, as long as you keep the keel. So the Cutty Sark that burned to the waterline, then got rebuilt is still the Cutty Sark. With airplanes it is even better, pretty much as long as the brass serial number plate is transferred, it is the same airplane. (You can, of course, replace the serial number tag during routine mx) Slo-Tek fucked around with this message at 16:58 on Jul 14, 2012 |
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Jul 14, 2012 16:54
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iyaayas01 posted:Keep in mind, this is a lot like the dudes that are driving around in restored 1912 Model Ts or whatever. It looks like a Model T, but almost every component has been replaced at some point. I'm not just talking about upgraded avionics or whatever on the BUFF, even basic structural materials have probably been replaced at some point...when these things go to depot they go through nuts to bolts and replace anything that is worn out/corroded/past service life/etc. That's in addition to the various SLEPs/other upgrade programs that have been conducted at various points in its service life. The ultimate limit-life on the B-52s that will eventually kill them is the upper wing surface, which is about 35,000 hours, once they reach that it's too expensive to do anything other than turn them into beer cans. And given the rate of accumulation on each airframe, yeah, they're still good for a few decades.
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Jul 14, 2012 16:58
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mlmp08 posted:Somehow seeing one in person doesn't make it seem more real. What the gently caress is that on the right? Some sort of manned B2/Predator lovechild?
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Jul 14, 2012 17:01
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2ndclasscitizen posted:What the gently caress is that on the right? Some sort of manned B2/Predator lovechild? Tacit Blue
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Jul 14, 2012 17:03
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So I was right the first time.
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Jul 14, 2012 17:07
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mlmp08 posted:Somehow seeing one in person doesn't make it seem more real. What's that Nasa prop plane right below it?
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Jul 14, 2012 17:09
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Beardless posted:What's that Nasa prop plane right below it? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LTV_XC-142
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Jul 14, 2012 17:12
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2ndclasscitizen posted:So I was right the first time. Uh, it was built in 1982.
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Jul 14, 2012 17:17
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Slo-Tek posted:This is my grandfather's axe. I replaced the handle 4 times, and the head twice. I thought there were certain internal components of the airframe that couldn't be replaced and were still original. I have no way to back this up, just my laymans assumption. So pretty much every piece of a B52 can/has been replaced?
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Jul 14, 2012 17:17
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Smiling Jack posted:Uh, it was built in 1982. I believe that was also the year PAVE-AUBERGINE resulted in the development of sarcasm.
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Jul 14, 2012 17:19
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2ndclasscitizen posted:I believe that was also the year PAVE-AUBERGINE resulted in the development of sarcasm. 
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Jul 14, 2012 17:39
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