Path: utzoo!utgpu!attcan!uunet!ginosko!ctrsol!sdsu!usc!polyslo!decwrl!amdcad!military
From: jeffm@uokmax.UUCP (Jeff Medcalf)
Newsgroups: sci.military
Subject: Re: infrared and interceptors
Message-ID: <26728@amdcad.AMD.COM>
Date: 12 Aug 89 07:36:43 GMT
References: <26689@amdcad.AMD.COM>
Sender: cdr@amdcad.AMD.COM
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Approved: military@amdcad.amd.com



From: jeffm@uokmax.UUCP (Jeff Medcalf)
>From: welty@lewis.crd.ge.com (Richard Welty)
>
>From: Mary Shafer 
>=From: henry@zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer)
>
>=Are "nuclear anitaircraft weapons" antiaircraft weapons that use
>=nuclear devices or are they antiaircraft weapons used against aircraft
>=carrying nuclear devices?
>
>the latter

Wrong.  They are the former.  For example, Nike Zeus was (and is, in some
countries (Britain, I think)) a nuclear-tipped surface-to-air missile.

[Technically, they're the former; tactically, they're the latter, 
I suspect. --CDR]

>they got obsoleted before our time; but there were a few nuclear
>tipped AAMs; my recollection is that there was an F-101 variant
>specialized to carry such a missle (perhaps named ``Genie''?)

AIR-2A Genie.  It was simply a rocket with a blast radius of 1.5 miles (?)
which was fired in the direction of the target.  I think it was command fused.
The F-102 and F-106 could carry one each in addition to two Falcon missiles.
The F-101 never carried, to my knowledge, the AIR-2.  BTW, F-101?  Maybe I am
thinking of the CF-101.  Is there a difference between the Voodoo and the CF101?

>=Using a nuclear device to shoot down an aircraft sounds like a really
>=bad idea.  Consider the EMP effect on your own systems, for one thing.
>
>this was rather before people comprehended the consequences of
>EMP.

Also, the devices are small and meant to be used outside of "useful" air space,
for example, over Northern Canada :-).  Besides, EMP is better than loss of a
city.

>=Of course, practicality, feasibility, and useability are not
>=necessarily among the criteria used to select weapon systems.  :-)
>
>right; this was not a rational weapon system, which was part
>of why it was abandoned.  too bad they ever built it in the
>first place, but at least they figured it out.  of course, it
>
>richard

No, it was rational.  The entire system was almost humanless.  SAGE computers
directed the aircraft and SAM's.  The humans simply OKd the use of the weapons
and the system did the rest.  In fact, F-102's or F-106's (I forget which) can
perform their mission without a pilot on board.  In any event, if the weapons
were used over the Arctic Ocean, then the problem of EMP was nil.  In any event,
the problem of fallout is low, since the bursts were too high to pick up dirt.