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From: medin@ucbvax.ARPA (Milo Medin)
Newsgroups: net.aviation
Subject: Re: Re: More on B-1 vs B-52
Message-ID: <2514@ucbvax.ARPA>
Date: Sat, 13-Oct-84 16:49:46 EDT
Article-I.D.: ucbvax.2514
Posted: Sat Oct 13 16:49:46 1984
Date-Received: Sun, 14-Oct-84 08:34:25 EDT
References: <3220@rabbit.UUCP>
Organization: University of California at Berkeley
Lines: 30


Come on now, SLBM's taking 15 minutes to hit?  No way.  If you
fly them the usual way, we are talking 8-10 minutes. The closer to
the coast you are, the shorter the flight time, and guess where
most of our bomber bases are?  Also, the Russians have been
testing their SLBM's in something called 'depressed trajectory mode'.
Now here, the missile doesnt go way up and fall down, but it 'bores'
through the atmosphere.  In case case, we are talking flight times
in terms of 2-4 minutes, with sacrifices in range.  Roger Speed,
in his book, 'Strategic Weapons of the 80's' makes a good point about
just how vulerable our bomber force is.  Read it.  Now, a B-52, 
which is part of the alert force (ie is armed) and the crew given
a bit of warning, can be ready for takeoff in about 10 minutes.
But, you have to get the whole wing airborne (another 3 minutes
assuming ~15 second seperation and NO mechanical failures in getting
to full thrust), but, and this is important, you have to get 
far enough away from the base so that you arent destroyed by
the blast wave or thermal pulse.  That probably takes about 3 minutes
too.  So you still lose.  As for keeping some planes in the air
continuously, (the airborne alert force), that program was cancelled
during the Carter administration because it was putting too many
hours on the airframe (maintainance was eating you alive) and it
was using too much fuel.  So today, we have no aircraft on airborne
alert, and only 1/3 of the B-52 force (all of which are counted
under SALT, but thats another story) are even armed at a given
time.  So it all goes back to what I said before, kiss the B-52's
goodbye.


					Milo