View Single Post
  #28 (permalink)  
Old 05-November-2007, 03:41 AM
Delvo Delvo is offline
Established Member
 
Join Date: Oct 2006
Posts: 2,617
Default

Quote:
Originally Posted by PetersCreek View Post
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?
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 View Post
Why planes? Isn't this what cruise missiles are designed to do?
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.

Last edited by Delvo; 05-November-2007 at 04:33 AM..
Reply With Quote