Page 60 - AirForces - Monthly (February 2020)

Commander’s Update Briefing

Below: A front view of four B61 nuclear freefall bombs
on a bomb cart, prior to loading on board a B-52. The
B61 remains in USAF service as a standard tactical
nuclear weapon and is also made available to NA TO
allies in Europe under the ‘dual-key’ arrangement. In
this way, US-owned bombs are available for wartime
carriage by tactical jets from Belgium, Germany, Italy,
the Netherlands and Turkey. US DoD Above: An unarmed AGM-86B Air-Launched Cruise Missile is released from a B-52H over the Utah Test and
Training Range during a Nuclear Weapons System Evaluation Program sortie in September 2014. Conducted by the
2nd Bomb Wing, Barksdale Air Force Base, Louisiana, the launch was part of an end-to-end operational evaluation
of the ability to take an ALCM from storage, load it aboard an aircraft, execute a simulated combat mission tasking
and successfully deliver the weapon from the aircraft to its final target. USAF/Staff Sgt Roidan Carlson Below: A Russian
Aerospace Forces Tu-160 seen from the cockpit of an RAF Typhoon scrambled from RAF Lossiemouth, Scotland, to
monitor two of the long-range bombers approaching UK airspace. The ‘Blackjack’ is one of few modern bombers
to have been fielded with exclusively nuclear armament – although work is under way to integrate conventional
stores, including the Kh-555 and,
reportedly, UPAB-1500 glide bomb.
Crown Copyright

four subs to maintain a constant deterrent at as well as nuclear strike missions. This Threat
sea under the name Operation Relentless. means that, for a very modest outlay of a The greater numbers, and potentially
Today, within the Western world, French and few aircraft ancillary systems, the majority of ambiguous posture, of a dual-use nuclear
US air arms still maintain an airborne nuclear conventional attack aircraft can be nuclear aircraft fleet makes a potential foe’s risk
launch capability to provide added flexibility. capable – suddenly you have hundreds of calculation extremely challenging. Nuclear
In the case of the USAF, this is supported by launch platforms, as opposed to just one deterrent theory places great store on the ability
land-based silos for ground-based missiles. submarine with a finite number of warheads. of protagonists to ‘outgun’ or out-threaten an
So what is the argument to support the This means you could choose to place none, opponent. That calculation is easy when you
continued use of an airborne nuclear capability? one or all of them at nuclear readiness and know an enemy’s capability is on a single launch
Survivability make your deterrent posture scaleable. Perhaps platform with a finite arsenal, but becomes
The UK emphasises that the relative just as importantly, an air-launched attack far more complex and unpredictable with the
invulnerability of the continuous submarine can be recalled right up until the point of multiple scenarios an air capability would pose.
patrol is vital to maintain the minimum deterrent release, rather than the potentially irreversible Moreover, this is a threat that can be escalated
posture and, by implication, dismisses other act of a sea- or land-launched weapon. or de-escalated as the situation warrants.
options as being more vulnerable. However, this Lower cost There is always strong debate in the UK
can be countered by the use of multiple aircraft, The flexibility of dual use means that a nuclear about the renewal of the deterrent under the
dispersed, hardened and employing multiple capability comes at only the additional cost of Dreadnought programme. Often, that debate
launch locations. Moreover, it is also about the the supporting nuclear arsenal. Moreover, air- ends up in an all-or-nothing argument, with
vulnerability of the weapon in flight, as well as launched nuclear weapons tend to be cheaper the minimum number of four submarines cited.
the launch platform. Airborne-delivered weapons because they can be fired from shorter ranges However, I hope that this article demonstrates
would have to be intercepted on multiple attack and don’t have to contend with the technical that the utility of an airborne launch is not dead,
axes and the short weapon time of flight and difficulty of a sub-surface launch or higher and that with the emergence of hypersonic,
low exposure profile would give little or no time trajectories. Indeed, the WE177 weapons were longer-range, airborne-launched missiles,
to intercept the weapon itself. And, of course, unguided and relied solely on gravity as their I believe it could well make a comeback. AFM
one submarine is a single point of failure. propulsion. Today, air-launched cruise (and
Flexibility/redundancy soon hypersonic) weapons can be readily NEXT MONTH:
Nuclear strike aircraft are usually dual use: modified to carry a nuclear payload and this Public-private partnerships
they can carry out conventional missions is a game-changer for airborne options.

Left: The USAF has four B61 variants in its stockpile: the Mod 3, 4, 7 and 10. Now, as part of life extension and tail kit upgrades, the service will replace all four weapons
with the latest B61-12, providing better accuracy and a substantial reduction in yield. The Air Force Nuclear Weapons Center received formal approval to enter the
production phase for the guided tail-kit assembly in October 2018. Here, an F-15E conducts a flight test of the B61-12’s new tail kit at the Tonopah Test Range, Nevada.
US DoD Right: An F-16A of the 313th Tactical Fighter Squadron from Hahn Air Base, West Germany, drops a BDU-38 nuclear simulator while participating in a bombing
practice exercise over the Spanish-American Bardenas bombing range during the latter years of the Cold War. The BDU-38 is a parachute-retarded recoverable bomb
unit designed to mimic the B61 tactical nuclear weapon. US DoD

58 // February 2020 #383 www.Key.Aero

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