AN INTERCEPTION AT CHRISTMAS: Early 1950s Fighters Battle A Bison To Save Seattle
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- Опубликовано: 21 дек 2023
- The 1950s saw the introduction of a number of innovative purebred, all weather bomber interceptors. These aircraft remain fascinating for their technical ambition and are rightly celebrated.
But bringing these aircraft into service took much longer than their buyers expected and their suppliers promised.
Faced with a deterrent gap, air forces commissioned interim interceptors based on existing day fighters. For a decade thousands of these largely forgotten aircraft sat on alert in the hope that their presence would make any nuclear attacker think twice before striking.
A while back I ran a poll asking which one of these planes you’d choose to go up in if the balloon went up in the early 50s. Your answer was clear. Sabre Dog. In this (slightly tongue in cheek) video, I run a simulated intercept to see what the objectively best choice would be.
This one is my attempt at a Christmas special, so although I hope you'll find it factually accurate it's played a little for fun so please forgive the obvious flaws in the scenario.
Links to my deep dives on each of the aircraft:
DeHavilland Vampire NF: • VAMPIRE NIGHT FIGHTERS...
Armstrong Whitworth Meteor NF: • QUEEN OF THE SKY: Mete...
F-86D Sabre Dog: • DOGSHIP: Why Have We F...
F-94 Starfire: • STARFIRE: America's Fi...
As this year comes to an end and people inevitably make their "End of Year" lists, I'd like to nominate Not a Pound for Air to Ground for the "Best New RUclips Channels" list.
If by chance you're reading this, I just wanted to say it has been an absolute pleasure watching your videos every Friday. There is a glut of awful military and aviation channels churning out terrible videos with inaccurate information on RUclips. it is rare when a new channel pops up in my recommendations that is even decent. It is very rare when that channel produces excellent videos. And it is rarer still when that channel does so regularly!
So, whatever the name is of the person who has created this channel and presented it to us in his now familiar English accent, I want to salute you and acknowledge what a fantastic job you're doing. I know I'm not alone when it comes to these sentiments.
Happy Holidays and I can't wait for whatever interesting topic you tackle next video!
He's actually Ozzie...😎 But yes, this channel is GOLD!!
@@petesheppard1709 Is he Aussie? I'm so bad at accents apparently! Perhaps because it isn't exaggerated I'm too thick to pick it up! 😁
@@Jon.A.Scholt Yes! He really does sound English, though; it threw me off at first. I know of at least one other Australian RUclipsr who actually sounds English. Go figure...🤔
@@petesheppard1709 Well, whether he's English or Aussie you said it, this channel is gold. When it comes to Aussies who make military related videos, I'd put him right up there with one of my favorites, "hypohystericalhistory". If you like this type of content you've probably seen his videos. If you haven't, you should check them out.
For some reason Aussies are great at making this type of content!
@@Jon.A.Scholt Absolutely!
Great Video! I would still choose the Vampire:
1. You sit side by side with your mate, so you can share a cup of tea.
2. 40,000ft sounds very high, I'm glad it takes some time to get there.
3. I don't have to deal with all the shooting thats apparently going on out there, sounds very stressfull.
Although this was briefly alluded to in the video, it is worth noting that the Bison was not representative of the bomber threat to North America for a long time after Christmas 1953; Cochran lists only 20 Bisons in 1956, while there were hundreds of Tu-4s in 1953. The Badger was produced in large numbers much sooner, and could in fact reach Seattle without refuelling, but could not hit most CONUS targets until refuelling capability was added and a limited number of tankers were converted in around 1957. In short, the threat to North America in late 1953 was the Tu-4.
Likewise, the Mig 17P/PF would have been rare in this period; in Emergency War Plan, Maloney says that there were 9 regiments 'between 1954 and 1956,' plus 5 Yak 25 and 1 Mig-19 regiment, for a total of 15 night fighter regiments in the PVO, compared to 53 day fighter regiments. Maloney also states that the P model 'lacked the speed and altitude performance required to oppose the Stratojet,' (ditto for the Bison) as did the Yak 25 and 25M, though he doesn't go into specifics. If we accept his claims, then only a small percentage of the PVO fighter inventory - the PFs alone - would have been capable of intercepting high altitude jet bombers attacking at night in 1954.
Near the beautiful lilac city? As a prior resident of Spokane, it is many things. Beautiful is not one of them 😂 (great video as always)
Spocompton never sleeps!
Since this imaginary attack takes place in 1953, in reality the TU-4 would have been intercepted by new Avro Canada CF100s Canucks of the RCAF, an all-weather fighter/interceptor designed for exactly this scenario.
I was wondering when the Initial Operational Capability was for the CF-100. If it was serving then it would have been the champ in this game.
I did look and there were some Mark 3s in service in 1953, but I decided that I was going to keep the Canuck and Scorpion out of it on the basis that my main focus was on interims rather than purpose built aircraft.
I've been promising a Canuck video for some time and am doing my research. Maybe a re-run of the scenario and a 'race' with the Scorpion and Fishpot is required!
Thanks for the comment. Merry Christmas!
@@notapound Hmmm yes, the CF-100 omission from this scenario seemed rather glaring to me at first, until you clarified the 'interim' nature of the aircraft involved. A little biased on my part being a retired Canadian Air Force technician ;). The Mark 3 first flew October 1952 so it's conceivable at least some would be operational late 1953, I suspect at Cold Lake and/or Comox in the west. One more quibble, pronunciation of Canuck.... hehe. It's pronounced as you would the waterfowl... duck, not nook....
2:30 "Santa is going to deliver a nuclear surprise" OMG ... I did NOT expect to hear that phrase today!
Given the essentially "paper tiger" abilities of all these super interceptors until at least the late '60s, it's understandable why the Nike Hercules was developed. There's no way the fighters would have a hope of stopping the feared Soviet bomber waves, even though those were a myth themselves.
Late 60s?
No. More like late 50s ealy 60s they figured out unguided rocket armament was dumb, and time to climb and raw speed was needed.
F104 entered service in 58'
As a point interceptor? That thing would've been very good.
F105 would've made a decent interceptor, it was fast, and sidewinder capsble, and had a m61 20mm gun in it.
F101 voodoo would've been pretty good, if it had sidewinder... rather aim4 falcon 🤮😂
@@stinkyfungusby that time the Soviet Union was more and more focusing on ballistic missiles though.
@@stinkyfungusdid you even understand the video? The F-104 was a day fighter. It was not going to do night interceptions. It didn't even have a multi more radar until they developed it to sell it to NATO. The F-101 was later and came between the F-102 and 106, although t was only used as a fighter bomber and recon jet in US service. Three keys in this video were interim until the F-102 came. The F-105 was a strike fighter, a bomber. It was never intended for use as an interceptor, it wasnt equipped to be an interceptor, that's not how planes worked. Interceptor units flew interceptors, fighter bomber units flew fighter bombers. They weren't trained in interception, they weren't posted for it. At what point after the start of the nuclear Armageddon do to reassign all your long range tactical nuclear strike fighters to serve as interceptors and start training their crews as interceptor crews? The war is supposed to last days. And who is going to drop bombs on the Soviets in that case?
My Christmas present is learning that my vote for the F-94 is one of the more viable options in this thought experiment. Starfire gang rise up!
The top all-weather interceptor - the only one designed as such - of this time period was the Canadian Avro CF-100 Canuck. It fulfilled this role in Europe as well as North America.
Your attention to detail here is phenomenal. This really shows that EVERYTHING had to work exactly right. Certainly not impossible. I was in SAC in the 1980's and our training was very thorough.
Appreciate the kind comment - that is what I was aiming for... alongside a bit of Christmas fun!
Hands down, one of the best Military aviation channels there is on RUclips
One last pronunciation quibble: 'Nike' is pronounced 'Ni-KEE' 😎
Thanks for a very thoughtful video! Despite all the effort, continental air defense was a very iffy and optimistic proposition back in the day. My impression was that the preferred US response was two ships per contact, to intercept more targets yet provide redundancy. A chilling thought: Prioritizing targets, if it became evident that there were not enough interceptors...
MERRY CHRISTMAS!!
So I've been pronouncing NYE-kee incorrectly since the '50s, then? Who knew?
@@mikebrady5337 When spoken, they sound pretty close; either way, 'Nike' certainly does not rhyme with 'like'. 😎
Poor GP. Mica peak is also pronounced Mike-uh, not Mick-uh. 😂
Thanks, Pete. Merry Christmas!@@petesheppard1709
Merry Christmas to you! These pronunciation problems are going to result in many videos! Kearsarge is already scheduled... now I need to do Nike and Thule on the basis of this video!
I chose the starfire
1) the worst case is likely, therefore I’ll fly something cool
2)the blaze of glory doctrine
3)my BFF can be my WSO
Santa bomb, Santa bomb… go McChord! Go Saber Dogs! p.s. you could have chosen Paine field up by Everett. The Air National Guard and sometimes the USAF based fighters there.
Really like your videos ...the details, the subjects and your dry british humour . Love it. Also , being a dane, it was nice to see some footage of danish meteors.
Love this antique EW you cover so well. Not considered this in such detail before.
F-94C was my first choice (I had a model when I was a kid).
Despite the real possibility of a flameout from using the nose-mounted rockets, weighing that against nuclear weapons on Seattle, the crew would've had the option of twice as much firepower as the F-86D. And there was always the chance at least of restarting the engine should a flameout occur.
Good on you for calculating the time constraints on the use of gun armament in a head-on bomber interception. Given the closure rates, lack of automation, and relatively slow firing rates of the available guns, chances of success were nil. Though the FFARs were disliked and not considered trustworthy, they offered the best (if not a good) option. The MiG-17, Meteor and Vampire might've been Ok against B-29s, Bulls and posssibly B-36s, but against fast jet bombers they were pretty much useless.
Thank Heaven none of this conjecture was ever tested with the fate of humanity at stake.
A bit of obscure trivia -- in the 50s and early 60s Wonder Woman's robot/invisible plane was (very) loosely based on the F-94C!
Great comment, thank you! I also feel that FFARs get a bad press because of Palmdale, which was funny, but not representative. In Scorpion and particularly Canuck, they were a reasonable response to the tactical situation.
Good trivia about Wonder Woman - I had not picked that up!
Would you consider doing a video on the Canadian interceptor of the era, the Canuck? Another fantastic channel I highly, highly recommend called Polyus Studios that concentrates on the efforts of the Canadian Aerospace/Armed Forces during the Cold War era did a video on it but I'd love to see the "Not a Pound" treatment for it!
Aesthetically it has some similarities to th F-89 and other straight-winged, rocket armed interceptors of the era.
Again, to all of you who like this channel, I'd check him out!
Thank you for the recommendation, I will check them out.
Having promised the Canuck video on multiple occasions, I have now managed to source all the good books. Not the easiest in the UK. Because it's interesting, I want to both get it right and do it in sufficient detail, but there will be Canuck in 2024!
Thanks for the comment and the support. Happy Christmas!
Damn, I was hoping for a video on the origin of NORAD's Santa Tracker for Christmas. But this was another excellent video (as always)!
I personally would rather be in an F89J, namely the F89J on display in Great Falls, Montana.
Yeah but in an F89J you’re around 4yrs too late to stop Seattle being flattened in the scenario played out here…
I was stationed at FT. Lewis in the early 80s and McCord had F-15s for interception, nothing like watching 2 F-15s scrambling for intercept which seemed to happen a few times a week.
I went to school in DuPont at that time. I never saw any F-15s in the sky but I did see a few A-10s. First one I saw legit looked like it was stationary in flight.
Thank you for our early Christmas present. That was brilliant, as usual. 🎄👏
@Not A Pound For Air To Ground. At approx 4:10 "Thule" AFB is pronounced as "Tool-EE" AFB. It's a hard one to guess at since it is spelled nothing like the way it is pronounced. I absolutely love your detailed analysis on battles, historical or otherwise and your research is always excellent. Thank you!
Well the world-famous car roof-box manufacturer Thule is definitely pronounced Tool-ay, so maybe the narrator was correct?
@@neilturner6749 I always have pronounced it Too-lee and I’ve been selling those racks for 18 years
Was 'Tool-EE' the American pronunciation, or the actual correct form?? We Yanks do have a way of butchering words, after all. 😎
@@petesheppard1709 actual correct Greenland pronunciation. Too-Lee
warshington 😆
I'm surprised the F-89 wasn't an option in your poll
The F89 A through C models were never operationally effective due to persistent retromods and groundings. The F89D, which was the first combat-ready model, didn’t enter widespread operational service until late 1954 ie around a year later than the scenario envisioned.
@@neilturner6749 was in limited service in 1950 but then after '54 remained in service until '69 I think unlike every other plane on the list
Great details. Interesting how the bright ideas sometimes are not practical.
I was born at Fairchild AFB in 1953.
Ah, good to hear mention of the Nike program. My Dad was an officer in the Nike Ajax battery at Redmond, Washington, in the late 1950s.
Awesome content my dude, I've really enjoyed finding your channel this year! 😀
Thank you! Hope you enjoy 2024 as well - I'm excited about it!
Highly engaging narrative & a
*PERFECT closing line* 👍
Superb!!!
Very cool! Merry Christmas!
And to you!
Growing up in Tacoma, I remember the F-106's out of McChord
Love your work. Glad you’re doing your own voice work
*_"See 'ya, Commie Santa!"_*
😆😆😆
*_"Half a bottle of premium Vodka. Don't get too comfortable."_*
🤭🤭🤭
The rule of thumb holds....to be a reliably effective interceptor you need 2x target speed nominally. Even the -102 was marginal against bombers flying M0.8-0.9.
I think, according to USAF studies, a minimum of 20-25% speed advantage was needed over the bomber to make interception viable. By that measure the F-102s and F-100s just made it for high subsonic jet bombers.
This almost makes aspects of Duncan Sandys' infamous '57 white paper seem semi-reasonable. His flaw being he ignored future/pending developments.
‘Hey Johnny, what kind of Christmas surprise did Santa Claus bring you? ‘. ‘He brought me anti radiation pills, chemical gear, and best if all, a 50 Megaton Warhead I unwrapped from underneath the Christmas Tree.’
Unsurprising that the interceptors designed to defend North America work out best for defending North America.
The slower Vampire might gain some advantage in a lower closing speed and thus more time to react in the right scenario, what hurts it is its radar that lacks detection range.
I wonder about the efficiency of those rockets. During the Battle of Palmdale two f-89 fighters fired 208 rockets at a F6 Hellcat and didn't core a single hit.
An F6F Hellcat is a lot smaller of a target than a Tu-14 Bison... and in that particular engagement (the "Battle of Palmdale"), the Hellcat was flying away from the F-89s, rather than being intercepted (head-on); both of these factors would have reduced the efficacy of the FFARs from their intended engagement profile (not that the accuracy of FFARs was particularly good, but it was serviceable when fired in salvos).
In that incident the F-89s didn't have gunsights (at all), so no manual sighting option.
Of course the weak point of the F102 and F106, were their AIM 4 Falcon missiles.
...which worked pretty well in the aircraft they were designed for. Check out Bruce Gordon's channel on that (he flew F-102s and F-106s and fired live Falcons from each, I believe).
So did the Sabre Dog never get a chance to shoot? Interesting. And another solid video.
I think he implied that the pilot wouldn’t have time to both fly the plane and find the enemy on radar
I'm surprised you didn't include the Avro Canuck. 1953 means it's in service. It was a built for purpose, all-weather interceptor.
Happy to see my combat tactics/comment from that community poll were appreciated. 😂
People are probably going to be moving around a few letters in Santa's name if he starts delivering nukes for Christmas. Satan Claus instead of Santa
Unless you reeeeeeallly wanted a nuke for xmas
At 10:45 mark, pay close attention to the poor pilot scrambling to his plane in the ice; he lost his lightsaber on the way!
Just to pile on, gibbous has a hard g… 🙃 Excellent content as always!
merry Christmas NAPFAG❤
And a Merry Christmas to you!
Soviets would have had a Samovar of disgustingly strong black Chai instead of Vodka. Vodka was for after the mission
‘Shall We Play A Game?’ ‘Let Us Play Global Thermonuclear War’
F94C Starfire...two - seater with interception radar...( more capable than just pilot operated only )
Excellent. But why not the Venom NF.3 instead of the Vampire?
In fairness, I should have done that. Venom NF video coming in the New Year!
Hey, isn't that thumbnail image of the F-86Ds from the Aurora, plastic kit box art of the same?
Oh oh oh never heard of this.
Poor wee Vampire!
I didn't participate in the poll, but having seen all the relevant types' videos, I am delighted that I recognised the |Starfire as the correct choice. Maybe the Sabre Dog has a re-engagement advantage over it, but the facts about the Dogship did not inspire me to believe in it. Having lots of something doesn't make it good, right? (MiG-17?)
Your continued avoidance of hyperbole is rather refreshing. Bloody good show.
I think the idea of interceptor deterrence was the same as nuclear deterrence, in that it never relied on stopping _all_ the bombers (at least for a while until the power and number of weapons got so large that more that a couple probably meant death to everyone). They still thought a nuclear war was "winnable" at this time, all you had to do was represent a significant threat to the enemy bombers to make it seem like there was a very good chance that more of _your_ bombers would succeed than _theirs_ , and the hope was that they would hold off on launching the war until the equation was more in their favor. To that extent it's was also more about appearing to have effective interceptors than actually having them. As long a they seem pretty plausible the enemy will hesitate to fully commit.
And we say we live in a crazy time today. 🙄
The F-94 at 13:28 is named "Pilot Error" I wonder where that came from :)))
I still don't get something; this is supposed to be a "Christmas interception"? So where does Bruce Willis come into play and where is the Nakatomi Tower??
Ha! A missed opportunity for sure... sounds like a theme for Christmas 2024!
Hate to harp on your pronunciation again, but Thule AFB in Greenland is called "Toolie," not "Thool." My dad used to fly B-52s into there during Chrome Dome. Otherwise, great - I love your channel.
Thanks :). Thule apology video coming in 2024. I'm actually pretty excited for it - imagine it'll be an interesting subject!
Yea, ok. I get it now why they thought chrome dome was a good idea. Ain’t no way your interceptors were gonna save you.
Couldn't we have had the Venom NF2?
Sad to see a B-17 used for target practice
You could say that the Germans had been doing that since late 1942…
4:55: "hard to resist the obvious common ennemy" ... What do you mean?
It was a British joke about our (much loved) friends across the channel.
@@notapound That's what I feared from the perfidious Albion ...
3:28 is showing a F-106 and not as mentioned a F-102.
Bit disqualifying on MiG17.
Thanks for the comment. And yes, I actually did the fire weight calculation with it to start with. Then I read enough about its radar to realise that it was unlikely to get into a firing position without GCI. I'm planning to do an in depth video on it. Perhaps I will discover something different.
Screw Chilliwack I guess.
'Common enemy'--cuts to a French Vautour...HA! 😄
pffff the french.... nuff said nobody likes the french or is it just De Gaulle ?
@@mikepette4422 🤣
An aircraft worthy of its own video.
@@Theogenerang Indeed! The first generation French jets are a field ripe for exploration.
At around 00:58 seconds to around 01:06 seconds, is an entire chunk of what you said that has been chopped out and is missing. And we all know who chopped it out… And it isn’t you. I would really like to know what you said, and I don’t know what you said. Because someone chopped it out.
There is nothing missing at :58, you are delusional, and RUclips and Google don't go around and edit peoples videos. They can _remove_ your video if they don't like it, they can demonetize it. They can't go and arbitrarily cut out parts of audio, and it would take a small army of people to review and edit every video with offensive content to the regime. Who is paying for that? And in the end you would have a bunch of clearly edited videos that someone obviously censored.
But in this case there is nothing missing at :58. Use you brain.
On pronunciation, har, it's Kan uhk not kan ook
Too bad you can only give a vid one like.
Thank you! That is very kind!
4:00 Thule is not 'thool' .... it is 'tool-eee'
Thank you! Just when I thought I was out of the woods with 'Spokane'
"See ya commie santa" lmao
He does wear red ;)
Two things....everybody mispronounces Spokane and everybody (it seems) nukes Seattle. Heinlein did it, Niven did it, Haldeman did it. So no offense taken either way.
Can't really blame them. Although I would rather they went after Portland, I gather that was actually considered a decent city until recently.
dead @ "see ya commie santa"
vampire operators rekt
Too bad they saved seattle.
"See ya commie santa!" -NAPFATG, -2023