AIRPOWER/Cold War - Its literally the first two lines of their hymn

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NosmoKing: Nov 12, 2004; I have a rifle and a frying pan and I know how to use them

Sunday Punch posted:

If I recall correctly the devlopment of monocoque construction techniques for rockets some US ICBMs used was a significant technological advance at the time, as using the body of the vehicle as a structural element allows a significant weight saving over a separate chassis structure supporting the skin and components on the rocket. You see the same principle on a lot of cars built today. ICBMs like Atlas resembled steel balloons kept in shape only by their own pressurised fuel. I think Wernher von Braun derisively referred to Atlas as "the Blimp". Unfortunately, while monocoque construction makes the rockets relatively lightweight and quite strong, it also makes them very vulnerable to anything that pierces the skin and vents the tank, causing the skin to crumple catastrophically.

The other reason that boost phase is the best time to try and shoot down a rocket is that it's a lot easier to track a relatively slow-moving object throwing out extremely hot, IR emitting exhaust than it is to track it after the vehicle drops the booster stage and goes ballistic, at which point it's traveling at multiple kilometers a second and is a lot harder to see. And you definitely want to hit it before it deploys MIRVs/decoys because then you have a whole bunch of separate targets instead of just one.

I discussed the Atlas at some length several pages back. To my understanding, the "stainless steel balloon" design was an effort to scrape away every last little bit of extra weight from the design they could. The rocket motors of the time for the Atlas weren't all that powerful and miniaturization of electronics as well as warhead components were pretty primative. You had a lot of weight to move and any increase in weight for the airframe was less stuff you could loft. IIRC, the initial design requirements were the ability to place a warhead within 1 mile of the intended target with a 5500 mile range.

The first series of warheads were heat sink blunt body warheads rather than sleek ablative warheads. They decellerated reasonably rapidly and had a big metal (copper?) heat sink on the reentry side. The nearly flat face caused a standing wave in front of the reentry vehicle, keeping most of the heat away from the surface of the warhead. The remaining heat was absorbed by the heat sink and it didn't heat the warhead components up past tolerable (to the components) levels until the warhead was at KABOOM level.

I think the later Atlas warheads on the later Atlas variants ended up being ablative shielded. I know the Titan warheads were.

Edit: when I get some time tonight, I'll see if I can compile some AA system videos as well as some ATGM videos. Blowing up tanks is always fun to watch. Almost as much fun as watching SPAAG's rip off a zillion shots at a passing drone.

# ¿ Feb 10, 2011 21:38

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# ¿ May 13, 2024 12:56

NosmoKing: Nov 12, 2004; I have a rifle and a frying pan and I know how to use them

SyHopeful posted:

40 mm Bofors are the tits!!!

The 40 mm is big enough that even in the 60's, they could put in lots of neat stuff like proximity fusing. The US had good luck with the 40mm all the way back through WWII and before. It's a classic design.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sDJ4UgvGj6c

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YVt7dq-magE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EzXThJXRdbI

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EvwCMd4q2AI

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E5iL1EkSkRs

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9dkbgIi7UCU

gently caress it, a mish-mash of lots of Russian anti air assets with bad techno.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oBXgpTt_JB8

# ¿ Feb 11, 2011 02:18

NosmoKing: Nov 12, 2004; I have a rifle and a frying pan and I know how to use them

And poo poo, who don't like some anti-armor missiles?

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

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nRK8DFfbYt0

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lJhWTJcYzws

# ¿ Feb 11, 2011 03:34

NosmoKing: Nov 12, 2004; I have a rifle and a frying pan and I know how to use them

Smiling Jack posted:

edit: anti-armor? Don't even get me started on the loving Dragon, goddamn

What's wrong with a heavy, bulky, flinch inducing, monopod supported, slow to reach the target, active command, won't penetrate the armor on a MBT with any reliability anti-armor weapon?

# ¿ Feb 11, 2011 04:18

NosmoKing: Nov 12, 2004; I have a rifle and a frying pan and I know how to use them

Doesn't that family of planes have an "aim-able" cannon as well? I seem to recall that they could aim the gun in a small arc/cone rather than have to aim the entire aircraft the whole time. Allowed for better gun kills.

Perhaps tonight I'll get off my butt and do a write-up and video clip fest of the Nike air defense system.

# ¿ Feb 15, 2011 18:00

NosmoKing: Nov 12, 2004; I have a rifle and a frying pan and I know how to use them

I still think the F-111 and other swing-wing aircraft look cool as hell.

# ¿ Feb 26, 2011 14:29

NosmoKing: Nov 12, 2004; I have a rifle and a frying pan and I know how to use them

Sunday Punch posted:

Emirati F-16Es (and F)

It's kind of funny how cumulative upgrade programs slowly encrust more and more antennae, CFTs, sensors and other various paraphernalia onto the relatively sleek and simple original design like high-tech barnacles. Compare to the YF-16 prototype:

Click here for the full 1280x652 image.

Kind of makes me wonder what the F-35 or F-22 will look like in 30 years. Probably have beam director turrets for air-to-air laser weapons and vents for an active-stealth plasma sheath or some other crazy poo poo. Or they won't because manned aircraft will be obsoleted by UCAVs before that point

They've been building aircraft that can FAR exceed the limits of the human body in terms of G's while turning for some time now. Just need to get some smart AI or a kid who's good with a video game controller and you can whip around in 20 G turns and poo poo.

# ¿ Feb 28, 2011 17:15

NosmoKing: Nov 12, 2004; I have a rifle and a frying pan and I know how to use them

Sunday Punch posted:

Couple of pieces of promotional F-111 art

I know the Vark was originally intended to be capable of operating from unprepared runways, but I don't think that really panned out in practice. Click for full images.

Oh, the F-111 was supposed to be a "do everything" aircraft. Interceptor, bomber, precision bomber, nuclear strike aircraft, ECM aircraft, defense suppression aircraft, CARRIER borne aircraft for the navy...

After much poo poo, it got to be a precision bomber, nuclear strike aircraft, and ECM platform. The other poo poo got taken by more purpose built aircraft. Sorry Robert.

# ¿ Mar 1, 2011 14:16

NosmoKing: Nov 12, 2004; I have a rifle and a frying pan and I know how to use them

slidebite posted:

It just dawned on me I had this ashtray. Totally forgot where I picked it up but I got it several years ago. Obviously made during the original B1 program.. so mid 70s I guess?

Seeing as Carter killed the high altitude mach 2+ version, yep I'd say mid to early 70's.

Plus, that art looks TOTALLY early 70's

# ¿ Mar 1, 2011 20:45

NosmoKing: Nov 12, 2004; I have a rifle and a frying pan and I know how to use them

Ygolonac posted:

Parasite aircraft have a long history.

PUT THE SPURS TO 'ER, CHUCK!

Edit:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cE2t6Sg_H74

I loving love this movie.

NosmoKing fucked around with this message at 15:19 on Mar 8, 2011

# ¿ Mar 7, 2011 16:48

NosmoKing: Nov 12, 2004; I have a rifle and a frying pan and I know how to use them

Cyrano4747 posted:

Wouldn't mounting external stores on it like that effectively gently caress its low-profile radar signature straight to hell, though? I mean, what's the point in having a next-gen stealth fighter if you're just going to load a bunch of last-gen weapons on hardpoints on the outside and gently caress up its radar profile?

Wouldn't it be way more effective to just keep using dedicated ground attack aircraft based around current airframes like the F-15 with large external stores?

Time to invest in stealth/low-profile weapons and external stores.

Duh.

# ¿ Mar 8, 2011 17:25

NosmoKing: Nov 12, 2004; I have a rifle and a frying pan and I know how to use them

A teeny bit of continental air defense SAM info from the good old days.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IiiXxC9n8xE

Back in the cold war, the US decided that having a SAM system all over the drat place was a good idea. Many cities and military installations had at least one if not several different SAM batteries around it. The missiles were stored in underground magazines and raised above ground to launch. The guidance and control area was some distance away from the launching site. The missile was command guided from the complex on the ground to the intercept point.

After the Ajax started to get a bit long in the tooth, the army said, "storable liquid rocket motors SUX BALLZ! Plus, we can't strap a nuke on this teeny little bitch! Gimme bigger missile!

Thus, the Nike Hercules was born. Strap 4 Nike Ajax boosters together, stick a much larger solid fueled booster on it, and put a nuclear weapon in there too, why not?

This vid is a slide-show, but the images are quite nice.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TBv8P31i3dE

Authoritative voiced announcer narrates Nike Hercules intercept.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kpHE9O8ckno

A bit of an overview of the Hercules system by some goofy NJ guys.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TOFfdq5m5V0

Folks quickly shifted away from fleets of bombers as the means of attacking a country and the ICBM came into being. The follow on missile to the Hercules was the Nike Zeus.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hqgdlU6VJZE

The Zeus evolved into the last continental wide proposed ABM system with the Spartan long range exoatmospheric interceptor and the Sprint as the close-in mop-up missile.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ACme4UG0tpg

# ¿ Mar 9, 2011 13:46

NosmoKing: Nov 12, 2004; I have a rifle and a frying pan and I know how to use them

Sunday Punch posted:

But if Sprint isn't fast enough for you, there's always HIBEX. Designed as a last-ditch ABM missile, it was intended to intercept an RV at less than 6km altitude. At that point the incoming RV is moving at around 3km a second, so HIBEX was designed to launch in under a quarter of a second and accelerate at 400G to intercept in under 2 seconds.

HIBEX

Don't forget kids, for a high yield warhead, under 6km is getting close to airburst height. They were trying to hit the warhead teeny bits of a second prior to it detonating (by detonating a smaller nuke near it).

# ¿ Mar 9, 2011 15:49

NosmoKing: Nov 12, 2004; I have a rifle and a frying pan and I know how to use them

McNally posted:

My understanding is that the flying boom delivers more fuel, faster. Which is great when, say, the entire Air Force chain of command is basically nothing but heavy bomber guys who think that the B-52 is the most important thing ever.

What's even better is that most of the early fighters capable of air-to-air refueling used the probe and drogue method.

And the F-105 was able to do both.

I thought it was because air force pilots were bottoms and love it when you stick it in.

Maybe I was wrong.

As for detonating nukes over Canada, the Spartan MIGHT have been blowded up over the sweet land of beavers and maple leafs, but it would have been exoatmospheric.

The point defense missles would have been blown up over the US soil as they had such short range.

I wonder if Canada was on the "gently caress YOU TOO!" list for Russia. Anyone know? Did they say "piss on it, we're going to hit every major military and civilian center in the US, may as well blow the poo poo out of Toronto as well!"

# ¿ Mar 9, 2011 19:08

NosmoKing: Nov 12, 2004; I have a rifle and a frying pan and I know how to use them

mlmp08 posted:

That must have been a loving tiny footprint. We're talking extreme point defense here.

IIRC, these were "DON'T DIG MY SILOS OUT OF THE GROUND!!!" styled defense weapons.

They were designed to be sited right next to (or inside of) ICBM fields.

# ¿ Mar 10, 2011 04:13

NosmoKing: Nov 12, 2004; I have a rifle and a frying pan and I know how to use them

MA-Horus posted:

Old-school interceptors were kinda like muscle-cars. Point in a straight line and loving boogie. I think the Arrow would have done it better then all of them.

http://www.alexstoll.com/AircraftOfTheMonth/7-01.html

http://area51specialprojects.com/yf-12.html

The LRIX project was pretty sweet and pretty much exactly the "point in straight line, hit GO!" style interceptors. They were designed around the missile that became the AIM-54 Phoenix.

Yes, that is a weaponized version of the SR-71 blackbird.

Edit: Oh, and the GAR-9 missile was initially designed with a 200 kT nuclear warhead in mind.

Kablooie!

NosmoKing fucked around with this message at 19:15 on Mar 11, 2011

# ¿ Mar 11, 2011 18:25

NosmoKing: Nov 12, 2004; I have a rifle and a frying pan and I know how to use them

iyaayas01 posted:

Point of order...the YF-12 was actually a development of the A-12 Oxcart program, the predecessor to the SR-71 (although they look similar, the A-12 and SR-71 were two different albeit related aircraft). The YF-12 basically turned into the white side of the Oxcart program...it was publicly announced to provide a plausible excuse when people saw a weird looking aircraft. "Nope, not doing anything weird out in the desert with reconnaissance aircraft or anything, just building a couple of high speed interceptors."

But the interceptors had essentially the same performance and design as the recon variant. Pull off the radome and remove the little under engine nacelle fins from the YF-12 and you've pretty much got the SR-71.

The YF-12 fired several of the GAR-9 missiles and scored a hit with each of them with the exception of a missile that had a power failure.

I liked the last launch where they shot a missile from 76,000+ feet and hit a target drone moving along at 500 feet.

That's some "shoot down" capability.

# ¿ Mar 11, 2011 21:35

NosmoKing: Nov 12, 2004; I have a rifle and a frying pan and I know how to use them

priznat posted:

I think you're right, I remember seeing something about how the engines installed were not real ones or something, but when they moved it indoors they were going to put some F-1s they had lying around on it. Literally, there was an F-1 engine just sitting outside near the Saturn V.

Pic of the installation now (not my pic):

There's the cold war, right there.

"You can orbit a sattelite? Pfff, Get them Germans we captured after the war to land a guy on the loving MOON with the BIGGEST ROCKET EVER BUILT.

A goddamn skyscraper of a rocket. Yep, that'll show 'em our wieners ain't small..."

# ¿ Mar 31, 2011 02:06

NosmoKing: Nov 12, 2004; I have a rifle and a frying pan and I know how to use them

Sunday Punch posted:

Oh we're talking space rockets now? It makes me a little sad that I'll never be able to see a Saturn V launch . I can only imagine that it's quite the experience. This video has some nice footage.

The S-IVB upper stages of the earlier Apollo missions are still floating around up there in Solar orbits, from Apollo 13 on they crashed them into the moon. In 2002 the Apollo 12 S-IVB stage came back to say hello, Earth briefly captured it for a few orbits. We should see it again in another 20 years or so.

Wouldn't want to forget the Soviet contender for the lunar prize:

Unlike the Saturn, it's hard to find good, clear photos of the N1. Also unlike the Saturn V, the N1 blew up every time it left the launch pad (also sometimes before it left the launch pad).

Saturn V/N1 size comparison.

The Soviet mission profile for the lunar landing was for the 'direct assent' mode, in which the entire vehicle takes off from Earth, lands on the moon, takes off again and returns to the Earth. By contrast the US went with the Lunar Orbit Rendezvous mode, which requires a less powerful vehicle as you don't need to land the whole stack then boost it back into lunar orbit. So the Soviet N1 had 5 stages compared to the Saturn's 3, and had a greater liftoff thrust. Still, due to the requirements of the direct assent mode there was only enough payload available to carry a single cosmonaut to the moon and back.

The huge F1 engine was pretty critical in the success of the US lunar missions. No one knew if it was possible to build rocket engines that large and powerful, and initially the F1 suffered badly from combustion instability problems. Eventually it was made to work right and the F1 became one of the safer and more reliable liquid fuel rocket designs. The other critical technology that gave the US an advantage over the Soviets was the use of cryogenic fuels in the upper stages. Liquid Hydrogen is difficult to work with because it's even more deeply cryogenic than LOX and requires extensive insulation, plus its very low density means you need huge tanks to store it. Huge means heavy which is a bad thing for spacecraft. But the advantage of using LH₂ is that you can get very high specific impulse (amount of thrust for a given mass of propellant) due to its low molecular weight and you can regeneratively cool the rocket nozzle which allows hotter combustion temperatures and higher exhaust velocities. All this means the Saturn can carry more payload with less weight than the N1 due to using LH₂/LOX in its upper stages.

So, lacking large engine designs, the N1 has to use a hugely complex system of 30 rocket engines in the first stage alone, which makes for a plumbing nightmare. And the lack of cryogenic fuel storage technology means the N1 carries less payload than the Saturn despite being larger and having more thrust. Maybe if Korolyov had lived a few years longer he could have made it work, it would have been nice to have at least one successful launch.

I could talk about rockets all day . If you guys are interested and it's not too offtopic, I could do a post about the USA's nuclear thermal rocket programme, which is something of a favourite subject of mine. We could have gone to Mars with this bastard:

Look at you.

Look at your faggy nozzle/expansion bell.

REAL interplanetary engines don't use that poo poo.

REAL interplanetary engines use externally pulsed propulsion.

Where is my Orion spaceship...

Fuckin' Kennedy and his limited test ban bullshit.

# ¿ Mar 31, 2011 23:37

NosmoKing: Nov 12, 2004; I have a rifle and a frying pan and I know how to use them

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vA_SAUYV4so

Yeah, gonna orbit the earth alone atop a 90 foot tall stainless steel balloon jammed to the top with explosive propellants.

Be right back.

# ¿ Apr 2, 2011 21:24

NosmoKing: Nov 12, 2004; I have a rifle and a frying pan and I know how to use them

Sunday Punch posted:

Orion was pretty amazing. It's one of those special propulsion systems I mentioned earlier that has both high specific impulse and very high thrust. If anyone wants to know more about it I recommend George Dyson's book Project Orion: The Atomic Spaceship 1957-1965, it's excellent. Can you imagine riding something with this acceleration profile though?

That's got to be pretty unpleasant.

Pew pew! This sketch of the Orion battleship cracks me up. It's like someone slapped a 'secret' security classification on the doodles in my high school notebook.

When it comes to terrifyingly powerful spacecraft propulsion systems, the Nuclear Salt Water Rocket is possibly even more incredible than Orion.

Basically, you fill a bunch of pipes with an aqueous solution of uranium salts and coat them with boron carbide (neutron damper) to prevent a premature runaway fission reaction. All the pipes empty into a cylindrical plenum that terminates in a rocket nozzle. A critical mass of dissolved uranium forms in the plenum and begins to furiously react. The energy release vaporises the water and carries the still-reacting urnaium out the exhaust nozzle. Hopefully, a steady state condition of a moving detonating fluid is established in the plenum and the massive neutron flux is concentrated downstream.

Basically it's like a continuously detonating Orion-type drive using water as the propellant. It's also pretty much a flying nuclear holocaust machine so using it for Earth lift-off would be a hard sell to green groups. Still, it's so powerful that it could potentially be used for interstellar missions. Riding our way to the stars on a continuously exploding atomic bomb is pretty

The Dyson book is pretty drat awesome as is his TED talk (and associated proof of concept videos).

Some of the significantly smaller Orion designs were sketched out to be the upper stages of the Saturn V and the potential planned follow on BIGGER saturn (the name name escapes me) rocket. The idea being that you wouldn't have to detonate any nukes at ground level, but would be detonating them in orbit. They were WAY more spartan spacecraft than the office building sized ground launched Orions, but they were an option for Mars missions for sure and a WAY fast trip to the moon for building the lunar cities that WE WERE SUPPOSED TO HAVE BY NOW GOD drat IT!!!

loving Popular Science continues to lie to me.

That's it, the NOVA spacecraft was the follow on to the Saturn!
http://beyondapollo.blogspot.com/2011/01/sts-flight-assignments-1977.html

Popular Science/Venture Brothers/Johnny Quest styled 60's ideas that were proposed up to and including test bed items being produced (like the nuclear rocket and others).

NosmoKing fucked around with this message at 15:04 on Apr 3, 2011

# ¿ Apr 3, 2011 14:57

NosmoKing: Nov 12, 2004; I have a rifle and a frying pan and I know how to use them

slidebite posted:

I have yet to bring myself to watch that on Netflix.

From the trailer, it looks like he thwarts all escape attempts and ends up sewing them together and chanting Yes! YES!!! over them in a spooky accent.

Eh, there have been far worse horror movies.

# ¿ Apr 7, 2011 02:28

NosmoKing: Nov 12, 2004; I have a rifle and a frying pan and I know how to use them

Cyrano4747 posted:

You'll also notice that a couple of them look loving HORRIFIED.

Getting incinerated during re-entry makes for a teeny casket.

# ¿ Apr 12, 2011 22:46

NosmoKing: Nov 12, 2004; I have a rifle and a frying pan and I know how to use them

Sunday Punch posted:

^^^There's some pretty cool stuff in there, thanks!

What if the N1 hadn't been such a colossal failure? What if the Russkies had beaten the US to the moon?

Would have been awfully lonely up there, the LK lander only had room for a single cosmonaut.

One frikin' dude alone making the entire trip, complete with multiple spacewalks to get to and from his lander and command module?

That's pretty ballsy.

Doing it in Soviet era "JUST GET IT DONE!!" style equipment and engineering, that's loving crazy.

Had the N1 been slightly less lovely, they could have stranded a half a dozen cosmonauts on the moon before they got one back alive.

It might be good for when the aliens show up to have the dessicated mummy of a human in a space suit on the moon next to his lovely lunar lander that wouldn't ascend.

# ¿ Apr 16, 2011 13:29

NosmoKing: Nov 12, 2004; I have a rifle and a frying pan and I know how to use them

mlmp08 posted:

Making helicopters just a bit more "stealthy" could pay off in a serious way if you will be well masked much of the time, but know there will be short windows where you are exposed. Even if you aren't out of detection range or undetectable, if you are able to increase detection time, fool radars that discriminate (by making them think you are too small a target to be a helo), or be completely discarded as clutter due to smaller RCS footprint, you can take a lot of risk out of the short periods where you may be exposed.

A normal helo may be sporadically detected between masking terrain, which frequently can make helo's impossible or hard to engage, but alerts the hell out air defenses and potentially ground forces if they can figure out where you are going. One that is less observable could, in the best case, not show up in these brief non-masked periods, or could show up as clutter or a spurious track or a questionable track and not alert people in the way that an obviously dropped real helicopter would.

edit: regardless, the idea of a helicopter being able to fly across open plains at modern air defenses without being detected is not so realistic.

What about the drat NOISE of an approaching helicopter?

Them dang things is loud.

# ¿ May 6, 2011 00:08

NosmoKing: Nov 12, 2004; I have a rifle and a frying pan and I know how to use them

iyaayas01 posted:

True, but how many of them are pointed at Afghanistan? I don't know, but if I had to wager I'd bet that the bulk of their air defense attention is directed towards India.

Back to ending the goddamn world.

The Soviets built the Dead Hand system.

If they got a signal that there was a nuclear detonation on USSR territory, the (wonderfully reliable) soviet computer system called Moscow. If there was no answer from Da Kremlin, it was assumed that Moscow was a puddle of green glass.

Then they launched everything they had in one fell shitfit of nuclear destruction.

Oh, goodie.

Last I heard, it's still running.

Sleep tight, kiddies...

# ¿ May 6, 2011 02:49

NosmoKing: Nov 12, 2004; I have a rifle and a frying pan and I know how to use them

SopWATh posted:

I've seen that house gif as a video probably 100 times.

The images that still astound me are the expanding fireball of the initial detonation. It's like a glimpse into the most amazing and terrifying thing ever made by humans.

That's because they ARE the most amazing and terrifying things ever made by humans! Harnessing elemental forces of the universe, tranforming matter directly into energy, creating new elements, and loving DESTROYING EVERYTHING IT TOUCHES!

There are several videos similar to the house video available. These weapon effects tests were set significantly beyond the reach of the actual physical fireball. Note that the radiant heat from detonation lights the loving entire house on fire on the side that's facing the explosion.

There's a video out there from the Grable shot (the 280 meter atomic cannon) where there are pigs outside in a pen, doing piggy things, right at the moment of detonation. The goddamn pigs LIGHT ON FIRE from the radiant heat of the fireball.

There were two coffee table books that I saw in a bookstore many years ago that had wonderfully pretty images of nuclear weapons. These were your typical coffee table book style very high resolution images of glamor shots of US nuclear weapons and missiles, going all the way back to fat man and little boy. Stuff mounted on aircraft, stuff on pads, stuff in silos, all kinds of nukes.

The other book was "100 suns", which is 100 images gleaned from hunting through gubmint archives of nuke tests and picking the 100 most neato looking ones.

Couldn't justify the price, but they're worth getting from the library.

# ¿ May 8, 2011 15:11

NosmoKing: Nov 12, 2004; I have a rifle and a frying pan and I know how to use them

VikingSkull posted:

Trinity and Beyond could be one of the most amazing documentaries ever and anyone interested in the development of nuclear weapons should check it out.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JvnWXf6UZXY

Reflections of a Nuclear Weaponeer by Frank Shelton is an amazing book. Frank is the nuclear weapon designer who is talking about weapon effects and design in much of Trinity and Beyond.

It's out of print and stupid expensive on the used market (like a thousand dollars), but I got a copy from the library extension service and it's worth the read. A bit dry in parts, but if you were at all engaged when Frank was talking on the video, it's worth the read.

# ¿ May 17, 2011 20:03

NosmoKing: Nov 12, 2004; I have a rifle and a frying pan and I know how to use them

B4Ctom1 posted:

bomb dropping mishaps
http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=959_1305530249

This is why separation testing is really, really important.

# ¿ May 18, 2011 15:40

NosmoKing: Nov 12, 2004; I have a rifle and a frying pan and I know how to use them

Colonel K posted:

Sort of, except that I think all the bomber crews were commissioned officers. I believe it was rather a sore point with them, as pilots and co-pilots hated the idea of having to go back to their friends and crewmembers families and break the news.

It was found that if the aircraft went into a spin, the force was generally too much for it to be possible for the rear 4 to escape. They tried to help this by fitting swivel seats with a co2 inflatable cushion to push them upright in the right direction. However if you made a mistake with them you could end up with your legs being trapped.

I'm lead do believe that some pilots and co-pilots put their pins in to disable the ejection seats on low level ops. on the basis of "we're all in it together"

I liked the B-58, XB-70, and FB-111 "encapsulated ejection systems". Don't fart the seat out, eject the whole freakin' cockpit (or in the case of the B-58, a little capsule that make you look like a pillbug coming down under a parachute).

# ¿ May 31, 2011 12:49

NosmoKing: Nov 12, 2004; I have a rifle and a frying pan and I know how to use them

iyaayas01 posted:

Those are all high speed aircraft (particularly the Hustler and Valkyrie), intended to operate for extended periods of time at speeds well above the speed of sound, at very high altitude (again, more so in the case of the Hustler and especially Valkyrie).

Three times the speed of sound + and 70,000 feet + was for sure a high speed, high altitude mission profile.

So happy I got to see the lone remaining XB-70 in person. It's pretty drat awesome.

# ¿ May 31, 2011 14:37

NosmoKing: Nov 12, 2004; I have a rifle and a frying pan and I know how to use them

Slo-Tek posted:

Some years ago I got to listen to Scott Crossfield do a talk about his time as the Chief Test Engineer for the X-15 program.

During the initial specification, there was heated argument about an ejection pod system. Crossfield's argument was "If we can build an ejection pod system that is safe and reliable for mach 3 ejections, why don't we just leave the airplane at home and fly the pod? Because if you eject during the boost phase, you're going to be flying the mission anyway, with or without the aircraft".

So, the X-15 ended up with no ejection system at all, and on a couple occasions the pilot had to sit in his crash-landed burning aircraft and wait for the emergency crews to arrive to put the fire out and then pry open the canopy.

The other really entertaining story out of the X-15 program was the pressure suits. Early on in the program, they were flying with olive green U-2 style pressure suits. Comfortable and effective. But conventional looking. Then Scotty saw an article in LOOK magazine with artists conceptions of what Future Mercury Space Men would be wearing. All bubble helmets and so on. In a life and death battle for funding, he was sure that congress would take a look at their 50's suits and think that was the past, and put the money in the future. So he went to David Clark, and had him sew up some silver lame' coveralls to zip on over top of the old pressure suits. Made them look good n' Buck Rodgers. Told anybody who asked that they were for "thermal performance"

The Mercury astronauts also flew in shiny silver suits...for "thermal performance".

The X-15 was supposed to end in orbital (well, at least "around the entire world" atmospheric skipping) flights. The program got cut short prior to that happening.

Nothing wrong with shiny outfits that simply are there too look all Buck Rodgers. People wanted Buck Rodgers.

# ¿ May 31, 2011 16:07

NosmoKing: Nov 12, 2004; I have a rifle and a frying pan and I know how to use them

The XB70 was supposed to be armed with (among other things) the Skybolt air launched ballistic missile.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kJYtST7zIW8

It was even to be sold to the Brits.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NEVdMgvUkaM

It got cancelled, but a smaller, shorter range, and more adaptable nuclear missile with multiple mission profiles was adopted, the SRAM.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GZuV5Ah0uMI

The Air Force still hadn't tired of the idea of an intercontinental ballistic missile being dropped from an aircraft, so they said gently caress IT! and stuck a Minuteman ICBM in the back of a C5, attached a drogue chute, and proceeded to play "hold my beer and watch this".

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=It7SQ546xRk

# ¿ May 31, 2011 17:21

NosmoKing: Nov 12, 2004; I have a rifle and a frying pan and I know how to use them

Sunday Punch posted:

I think we should consider forgetting this whole 'paint' thing and go back to finishing aircraft in glorious, gleaming bare aluminium.

This thing could not be sexier if it had boobs.

# ¿ Jun 7, 2011 22:48

NosmoKing: Nov 12, 2004; I have a rifle and a frying pan and I know how to use them

Sunday Punch posted:

I mean B-29s that were stripped of guns and gun crews, to carry more bombs and increase range. I think they were used for low-level night missions rather than to fly higher, the B-29 could already pretty much fly too high and fast for Japanese fighters to catch.

An atomic fireball in the ~20 kiloton range a few milliseconds after detonation. You can see the shockwave reflecting off the ground, it's pretty neat.

If you set this up right, you limit the fireball contact with the ground and reduce the amount of fallout slightly. Also, the constructive interference of the two waves stacking on each other at the edge of that shockwave leads to more 'splodin of buildings and stuff.

# ¿ Jun 17, 2011 17:33

NosmoKing: Nov 12, 2004; I have a rifle and a frying pan and I know how to use them

VikingSkull posted:

The Indians have Mig-29s, Su-30s, and Mirage 2000s, all capable of handling nuclear weapons. In addition, they have a few Tu-22s and the cruise missiles to go with them. From what I've read, the '74 test was the testbed, large device we'd expect, but the '98 test was the more modern, warhead sized version.

The Pakistanis basically tailored their tests in '98 to simulate aircraft carried bomb/CM warhead weapons.

Mumbai x1000, basically

I swore there was a test in the 2000's.

No??

# ¿ Jul 9, 2011 01:33

NosmoKing: Nov 12, 2004; I have a rifle and a frying pan and I know how to use them

iyaayas01 posted:

Back then, these systems weren't necessarily always in place; it depended on the aircraft. For example, the B-52 did not have a system installed originally: the crew depended on either a verbal bailout command or an "eject" light to initiate the sequence. Each crew member was responsible for ejecting themselves.

The B-52 IIRC had DOWNWARD ejecting seats for some (two??) of the positions.

Hope you ain't doing that "down in the weeds" flying when you have to bail out...

# ¿ Jul 22, 2011 16:09

NosmoKing: Nov 12, 2004; I have a rifle and a frying pan and I know how to use them

wkarma posted:

Let me save you some time.

http://goo.gl/Pfyv7 <--kmz download

http://goo.gl/Tb2h9 <--gmaps

So, looks like The Day After was completely accurate in portraying Minuteman silos right across the street from family farms!

Holy poo poo!

# ¿ Jul 22, 2011 16:13

NosmoKing: Nov 12, 2004; I have a rifle and a frying pan and I know how to use them

VikingSkull posted:

Hey, nuclear target chat!

I live fairly close to Stewart International, which is also home to the 105th Airlift of the New York ANG. Back when I was younger it was a full fledged Air Force base, and IIRC it's the 6th longest airstrip in the nation. I think the longest is like 35,000 feet. It was a bomber base, the whole deal.

When you throw in the fact that West Point is only a few minutes down the road, too, I would have been nuked multiple times over, probably with some of the bigger bombs in the Soviet arsenal.

Accuracy? We don't need no stinkin' accuracy, make the bombs bigger!

e- oh and at the time, one of the more important IBM factories was here too, making whatever it was IBM was selling in the 60's and 70's. That location was once their main factory, and it made the computer that faced Kasparov in chess

There's a bike shop (of all odd places to find it) here in WI that has a civil defense target map of the Twin Cities area in MN. It shows the estimated DGZ's and damage areas for the metro and surrounding area.

I'll see if it's still there and get a picture of it if I can.

Anyone know of an online source where a bunch of these things are compiled??

# ¿ Jul 24, 2011 13:36

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# ¿ May 13, 2024 12:56

NosmoKing: Nov 12, 2004; I have a rifle and a frying pan and I know how to use them

VikingSkull posted:

South Africa and China are mentioned by name, and parts of that were written shortly after Tiananmen Square and before Nelson Mandela was freed.

When you shut off the largest food exporter and irradiate the large industrial sectors of the world, the least you can expect is massive food riots in parts of the third world. Look at how quickly Libya devolved from unarmed protest to armed civil war.

Both sides of the nuclear debate usually color the discussion with exaggerations either way. Nuclear winter probably doesn't mean the extinction of the human race, or even the end of civilization as we know it. It most likely would set our development back a few hundred years, though.

I'd like to see the SIOP and see if there's a few "Aw, gently caress THAT guy" targets on the list. As long as you're tossing ten thousand warheads and more at targets in the USSR, don't you think there would be the periodic "may as well blow up that dickhead as long as we're going completely balls-out" targets as well.

Toss Lybia, Iraq, Iran, North Korea, and any other "this guy has always been a pain in my rear end" targets on the list of places to remove from the surface of the earth as well as long as you're ending the world.

# ¿ Jul 25, 2011 15:02

The Something Awful Forums > Archives > Comedy Goldmine > The Goodmine > AIRPOWER/Cold War - Its literally the first two lines of their hymn

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