From Air Force Magazine, July 2012 issue

 

[excerpt]

 

The Heyday of Nuclear Air Defense

By Christopher J. Bright

 

For a short time, the Air Force had thousands of nuclear-tipped weapons ready to defend the United States against Soviet bombers.

 

For decades, Air Force interceptors sat on strip alert, ready to defend the United States from Soviet bomber attack. Around the clock and across the country, crews were at the ready, able to take flight in minutes toward approaching Soviet aircraft, guided by a web of Air Force radar stations across North America.

It was the Army which manned most if not all of the nuclear air defense sites across America. Chances are if you lived in a major city you had an entire battalion of Nike-Hercules missiles in four to six tactical sites emplaced around you. Each bird had a 40kt warhead (IE Hiroshima) mounted at the tip ready to fire. Later, in the seventies the Army created several different missile types (Nike-Zeus, SPARTAN, and Sprint) which performed early anti-ballistic missile defense. Same concept applied as now-score a direct hit on the reentry vehicle...in this case with a nuclear detonation of your own...but still. Hard to imagine this being a usable defense strategy now with the massive electronicization of the American public (all that EMP being created at the edge of space with our own weapons would wreak absolute havoc).

 

The airforce did man several BOMARC sites which were dedicated surface to air interceptors, but they would be more akin to drones than missiles. I believe it was an act of congress which prevented the airforce from developing rocket or missile interceptors of their own. BOMARC had a turbofan propulsion system, but like the more conventional army systems was also nuclear-tipped.

Yeah, the article is largely about the USAF interceptor fleet, with toys like Falcon and Genie, though BOMARC does get a sizeable mention. (No surprise there, its from Air Force Magazine, after all. )

 

BOMARC caused quite a stir here in Canada at the time, particularly because of its link (fairly or otherwise) to the demise of the Avro Arrow.

 

If it ever got to the point of having to use the nuclear SAMs, well, 'duck and cover' wasn't going to cut it.

Very interesting, thx for posting the link.