Page 59 - AirForces - Monthly (February 2020)
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“Air-launched nuclear
weapons tend to be
cheaper because they
can be fired from shorter
1: A pair of RAF Tornado GR1s from No IX (Bomber)
Squadron – a unit that the author commanded ranges and don’t have to
– taxies to the runway at Canadian Forces Base contend with the technical
Baden-Soellingen, West Germany, during Tactical
Air Meet ’88, a biennial Central European live-firing difficulty of a sub-
exercise. Only three months after arriving at RAF
Brüggen, Bagwell was on nuclear QRA duty. US DoD surface launch or higher
2: The resurgence of Russian military power has
included considerable e orts to upgrade strike trajectories.”
systems – both nuclear and conventional – in land,
sea and air domains. This pair of MiG-31Ks each colleagues of that era spent many 24-hour
carries an example of the Kinzhal air-launched periods holding nuclear alert on as many as
ballistic missile – a hypersonic weapon with a three bases in both the UK and Germany.
range of at least 1,240 miles (2,000km) and an
optional nuclear warhead. Piotr Butowski 3: Crews At its peak, the RAF held immediate quick
from the 5th Aircraft Maintenance Squadron load readiness alert (QRA) for roughly the same
AGM-86B Air-Launched Cruise Missile training number of targets in a single launch as a
rounds onto a B-52H at Minot Air Force Base, North UK Vanguard-class submarine does today.
Dakota in 2014. With the recent withdrawal of the
Conventional Air-Launched Cruise Missile, the The RAF had three versions of the WE177
nuclear-armed AGM-86B is the last of this family nuclear bomb, which had yields up to 450
of weapons in use. USAF/Tech Sgt Aaron D Allmon kilotons (nearly 30 times more powerful than
II 4: An F-111 banks to the right to reveal a pair of the Hiroshima bomb and more than four
B83 thermonuclear bombs – one below the wing
and the other in the fuselage payload bay. In this times as powerful as a Trident warhead).
case, these were dummy stores for testing. The All that came to an end when the UK opted
B83 remains in service today, but since the B-52 to place all its nuclear ‘eggs’ in one basket,
no longer delivers nuclear gravity bombs, the Cold through the Trident missile launched from
War-era weapon is now the preserve of the B-2
stealth bomber. US DoD the Vanguard-class submarine, using one of
2
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56-58 Bagwell AFM Feb2020.indd 57
