Heads Up Vulcans Victors and Cuba

[Windy Militant]

Discovery Knowledge UK 21:00BST Reveals how UK bombers stood by to take part in the bombing of the Soviet Union at the height of the Cold War and the Cuban Missile Crisis.
Don't ask I haven't seen it yet either!

[Sir George Cayley]

I seem to recall they weren't used:ok:

Sir George Cayley

[Tankertrashnav]

But the Victors would have got there firstest with the mostest :ok:

[ValiantXD818]

Maybe the Victor would have got there first, BUT never with the Mostest! The Valiant was armed with two weapons per aircraft not ONE as was the Victor!

Victor first yes; best Never!

I well recall that period, as I had never before seen all of Marham's Valiants nuclear armed before! This was all three Bomber Squadrons in the region of 24 aircraft! The weapons used were all thermo nuclear devices of variable yield, a capability which was never available with either Yellow Sun or Blue Steel weapons!

Yellow Sun yield circa 1 Mt One off carried
Blue Steel yield circa 1 Mt One off carried
Mk 28 yield variable Fm 70 Kt to 1.4Mt TWO off carried

[alisoncc]

Got it all wrong. It was the Vulcan that made the difference.

[Tankertrashnav]

Interesting, 818, certainly didnt know that about carrying two! I think the Victor had the biggest conventional bomb load, but thats not quite relevant in this case.

Cant imagine what the procedures for delivering two weapons would be - two fairly adjacent targets?

[alisoncc]

TTN wrote:
Cant imagine what the procedures for delivering two weapons would be - two fairly adjacent targets?

A bit like suicide bombers. One was to get their attention, the second for those who came to look. :ok:

[ValiantXD818]

I didn't get it all wrong at all..............there were only two Vulcan Sqns declared Nuclear capable at that time! Check it out!

[ValiantXD818]

You guys may think that this was all a lot of baloney and over reaction, but I can reassure you all, that at the time it was NO JOKE. None of us ever thought that Kruschev of all people, would ever have backed down, but he had the balls to, thank God! Kennedy was over reacting to something that the US had been building for many years and that was the complete encirclement of the USSR [as was]. We in Europe and the Russians too would have had very little warning of anything incoming. When the Russians did the same to the Americans [Cuban missile sites] then things took on a different light and they [the Americans] didn't like it one little bit. Most of us thought that we would actually GO at that time and just sat around waiting for the OFF!

[alisoncc]

You guys may think that this was all a lot of baloney and over reaction, but I can reassure you all, that at the time it was NO JOKE

I would suggest that very few of us here thought it was baloney, with most having taken it very seriously, me included. There have been quite a few threads where "Mickey's" and "Mickey Finns" get a mention. :(

De-icing our B2's at 3.00 in the morning in January at a Yorkshire airfield was not a lot of fun.

[ian16th]

XD818,

Slightly off thread, I was on 214 Sqdn at Marham from Jan 59 but would you believe that after all of the Micky Finn's and such, I was posted from 214 Sqdn to Akrotiri arriving on the 14th Oct '62 so I just missed all of the fun. :ugh: