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Strategic Air Command
World War II proved what the proponents of air power had been championing for the previous two decades — the great value of strategic forces in bombing an enemy’s industrial complex and of tactical forces in controlling the skies above a battlefield. As a result, the Strategic and Tactical Air Commands were created on Mar. 21, 1946, establishing the offensive composition of the US Air Force (USAF) that existed for more than 40 years.
At first, SAC and TAC had to rely heavily upon WWII airplanes. There were not sufficient funds to re-equip the Air Force completely, and much of what little money gradually became available was used to buy new planes for SAC. It was believed that a strong strategic air arm would deter a possible aggressor from attacking the United States for fear of massive retaliation with nuclear weapons.
The Air Force continued to operate on a most austere basis into 1950; however, with the advent of the Korean Conflict, more money was made available to the Air Force and it began to expand rapidly.
SAC was one of the major considerations of the expanding Air Force. In order to have bases as close as possible to a potential enemy, it began acquiring facilities around the world and by the late 1950s, it had bases in England, North Africa, Spain, Guam, Newfoundland, Labrador and Greenland to which its units rotated periodically from the United States.
Under plans in existence in 1948, it was not possible to load an atom bomb into a B-29, fly it across the United States and deliver it to a forward base.
Air assault on Russia
But, as explained in the bookazine Convair B-36 Peacemaker, partially assembled bombs could be moved up in that way and that involved a forward-deployed assembly team to take the parts and put them together. As late as April 1950 a classified briefing identified the need for 8.000ft (2,438m) long runways for a B-29 or B-50 to take off carrying an atomic bomb and there were very few places in the world where they were available.
Planners envisaged 147 bombs dropped on 70 cities with the first hits on D+9. B-29s and B-50s from the UK, Cairo, and Okinawa would carry out the initial atomic attacks and follow through with conventional raids while the B-36s would fly from Alaska. The size and scale of the initial air assault on Russia was now far larger than proposed in earlier war plans, the first wave of a four-phase attack targeting 26 centres of industrial weapons production with 220 bombs on 104 urban centres.
B-29 and B-50 bombers would reach their targets by means of mid-air refuelling with KB-29 tankers. The delivery of atomic bombs would call for 300 bombers covering 6,000 sorties in the initial phase. The B-50s were assigned to hit 51% of targets, the B-29s hitting 35%, the remaining 14% addressed by the then new B-36. The atomic attacks were to be concentrated in the opening days of a war breaking out with the majority of all missions completed in the first 30 days. The B-29s and B-50s would fly out of the UK and this initial phase would last three months with heavy concentration of electronic countermeasures.
SAC loss ratio
Integrating Russian air defence elements as known in 1949, the Weapons Systems Evaluation Group assessed the survival of a daylight attack force consisting of 223 B-29s and B-50s carrying 32 atom bombs concluding that 35 aircraft would be shot down by enemy fighters, two to artillery, five due to technical issues and 14 turning back for various reasons. In all, 24 atom bomb-carriers would reach their assigned targets, three would be shot down, five lost for operational reasons and three completely missing their targets. This produced an aircraft loss rate of 19% and an ordnance delivery rate of 75% on target. The projected loss ratio was twice the average experienced by the Eighth Air Force in World War Two.
For night raids, assuming 96 B-29s and B-50s carrying 32 atom bombs, seven would be shot down by fighters, two brought down by anti-aircraft fire, and two to operational failures. Three bombs would fail to get delivered as planned, four aircraft would be lost due to technical issues and two bombs would miss their planned targets. In this case, losses would be 12% with a 92% bomb-dropping success. But in both cases the loss rates would be totally unacceptable and the attrition rate so high that none of the overall obiectives could have been met. SAC would have run out of aircraft, crews, and an ability to sustain the offensive.
Convair B-36 Peacemaker is published by Key Publishing and is available to order here.
Photo credit: U.S. Air Force
