Quote:
Originally Posted by PetersCreek
Well, if it was a smaller tactical nuke...why the bomber? I've witnessed many an "elephant walk" of F-4Es taxiing for takeoff on a tactical nuke delivery exercise. I don't see why F-15s couldn't carry one to destroy a single target. Less resource intensive, don't ya think?
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Notice that they didn't say "bombers"; they said "fighter-bombers". I was confuzzled by that at first, but then remembered that that was an old phrase for what are now called "attack" planes: designed for hitting ground targets like a bomber, but smaller, faster, and more maneuverable, like a fighter. The dedicatd "attack" class of plane was new once, in a world that already had fighters and bombers in it, so they described it in terms of what they were familiar with. The modern American attack plane is the A-10, named "Thunderbolt" or "Warthog". It's about the size of compact light fighters like F-16, F-18 (versions A-D), and F-35. The Arabic source probably just didn't know that such planes are now called "attack" planes in English. (They might still be called the equivalent of "fighter-bomber" in Arabic.)
I'm still not sure why there'd be only one such bomb apiece for multiple planes, though.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Jim
Why planes? Isn't this what cruise missiles are designed to do?
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Most cruise missiles are not configured to carry nuclear warheads. Israel might not have any that are. I'm not even sure the USA does either; they might not exist at all.