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Technically, I was under the impression that (on paper at least) SAC's job was strategic bombing of either conventional and nuclear (once nukes became small enough for all bombers to carry, it was effectively a nuke force, but...)Vietnam was a conventional war, SAC was a nuclear strike force. Sort of out of their element a little, they had to do some relearning, something no military establishment seems too good at.
I wasn't talking about safely maintaining the nukes. That makes logical sense.When you're carrying nuclear weapons, you can't afford to have a causal attitude toward safety
That's the problem -- everything was almost scripted.You wouldn't have to be present during many of their alerts, and witness their minimum interval take offs to see that they weren't overly concerned about safety.
Though they could be quite anal on following SOPs exactly, no excuses accepted .
I learn something every day on this forum, I knew the RAF used fighters to bomb insurgents in the Malay Emergency, but wasn't aware they used bombers as big as the Lincoln also. I wasn't trying to belittle the RAF.
True, but the range of tactics the crews were proficient in seemed rather limited.You should realize to get a SAC base's alert bombers and tankers off the ground in a minimum time and not have a debacle requires a lot of practice, or a script.
Hey... I'm not dumping on the crews: I'm criticizing the policy.I think you're putting the fault for SAC's less than successful use in the Vietnam war on the wrong people.
The crews, like most every other military in the world, followed the orders of those appointed to command them.
Really? I would have thought that would have been solely the USN or US Army's responsibility...Keep in mind there was a lot more to SAC than bombers or missiles. While I was in from 1978 - 1982 our weapons storage areas often held Army nukes and even Navy nukes.
Yeah, I remember somebody making a comment about a 25 year service life.Warheads had a shelf life so they were often removed and replaced with newer or refurbished weapons.
Makes enough sense.SAC took operational and day to day security very seriously, at least while I was in, no one team or group was ever allowed access to a weapon on their own. Usually at least two separate groups were required to authenticate to gain access. No Lone Zones were enforced at gunpoint and warnings were not, officially, given. (I learned how to communicate a great deal in a forced cough or clearing of my throat.) Prominent Use of Deadly Force Authorized signs were everywhere.
I considered that to be a criticism of the crews.True, but the range of tactics the crews were proficient in seemed rather limited.
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Only because they weren't trained right. That's a policy matter...I considered that to be a criticism of the crews.
They seemed to use a fairly narrow range of maneuvers from what I remember reading. The Avro Vulcan crews seemed to better mix it up, though I could be wrong about range of maneuvers.What tactics were they not proficient in ?