Did you know that B52 once had multiple countermeasure dispensing rockets in rocket pods?

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dayburner@reddit

Imagine a B-52 doing a low pass to fire 70mm rockets at a target.

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Don138@reddit

I forget if it was the Pe-2 or Tu-2 that they loaded the bomb bay with a bunch of PPSHs for strafing.

Imagine filling the bomb bays of a B-52 with 100 hydra pods.

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mrsmithers240@reddit

Make them the new smart hydra upgrade!

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masteroffdesaster@reddit

I love how in the cold war they just went "I have an idea for a weapon/defensive mechanism." "great, here's X million dollars/rubels/whatever, make it work"

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nicerob2011@reddit

The Cold War equivalent of handing r/NonCredibleDefense a blank check and saying, "Here, go nuts"

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WangMagic@reddit

Here's my proposal for a F/B-52 conversion package.

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mrsmithers240@reddit

It hides in the bomber formations, but it’s bomb bays are filled with aim9s!

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AshleyAshes1984@reddit

Air Force: "So it fires counter measures?"

NCD: "What? No, it's a Mk 4 Mighty Mouse rocket launcher."

Air Force: "Why does it need FFARs???"

NCD: "Strafing runs."

Air Force: "It's a B-52!"

NCD: "Strafing runs! >=3"

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nicerob2011@reddit

True. But I could see them doing this as a warmup before the full-on plane sex started

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Met a guy in 1983 who was a friend of my older brother. He was working on a program for the B52. He made the comment back then that the B52 would never die because there is so much room for countermeasures. He said that every time there is a tech advance, we just make a box that blocks it and wire into the wing somewhere.

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Informal_Solution984@reddit

A few B 52s got shot down in Vietnam..not sure how many. But the NVA released footage of the downing.

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masteroffdesaster@reddit

and now the B-52 will likely see 100 years in service. seriously impressive

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Double_Distribution8@reddit

What about the nuclear powered AI drone swarms though?

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masteroffdesaster@reddit

NCD is leaking

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Elsa_Versailles@reddit

No red tape, little to no oversight. Just plain brute force engineering

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Strict_Lettuce3233@reddit

Fly’s slow enough though

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Bushelsoflaughs@reddit

No

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Phil-X-603@reddit

Ohhh so that's what the little pods are for.

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Any_Tumbleweed667@reddit (OP)

The ones used right now are probably electronic warfare stuff. Those one got retired.

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NebulaTrick4830@reddit

Did you know the 747 had a spare engine mount in board #2

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BiggyShake@reddit

I believe this was used for ferrying engines only, and they could not actually run during flight.

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MajorDakka@reddit

You could slap some warp nacelles on the B52 and it wouldn't look out of place dropping nukes on the Romulans.

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Nice_Classroom_6459@reddit

it wouldn't look out of place dropping nukes on the Romulans

Watches Star Trek, but doesn't understand it... ;)

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MajorDakka@reddit

I know a lot of people hate Enterprise (the show), but nuking Romulans is canon Earth Romulan War

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forgottensudo@reddit

Thank you for further crossing the streams.

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OhioForever10@reddit

IIRC the Romulans still use nukes in Balance of Terror too.

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GeraintLlanfrechfa@reddit

Make it so.

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XenoRyet@reddit

L. Ron Hubbard has entered the chat.

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snonsig@reddit

https://imgur.com/a/ezKSa2h

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Agreeable-Spot-7376@reddit

Likely will still be in service long after first contact.

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NullNeptune0@reddit

We're closer to April 5th 2063 than we are to April 15th 1952

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General174512@reddit

Thats actually pretty cool, but probably not very practical, especially with radar-guided missiles.

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WesternBlueRanger@reddit

It was meant to counter enemy radar-guided missiles by dropping chaff to confuse the radars.

The system was replaced in the 1970's with ECM suite that could actually jam or disrupt the radar.

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General174512@reddit

I'm sure using chaffs are better than jamming the radar right?

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WesternBlueRanger@reddit

Chaff realistically only works for a short period; eventually, due to wind, the chaff will disperse, leading to being targeted again.

With more modern radar, they can likely pick out the aircraft hiding in the chaff; many modern radar types have the ability to determine aircraft type based on the rotating return of engine fan blades (check out NCTR), so separating chaff from a live target with substantially different kinematics shouldn't be technically challenging.

It's still used as a last ditch defence against radar guided systems because it is cheap and lightweight.

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mkosmo@reddit

Part of chaff's role is to blind the radar to the actual target since radar can't see through things the RF can't penetrate.

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HSydness@reddit

It's not like the B-52 lacks in the jamming department...

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Crazy__Donkey@reddit

actually <

🤣

We live in a different world now

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Common-Charity9128@reddit

Wait. So… Technically they were CAS eligible

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APG322@reddit

They’ve always been CAS eligible

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Bakomusha@reddit

The mountings are now used as hardpoints for cruise missiles.

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Clickclickdoh@reddit

Nope.

On the B-52, munitions are carried inboard od the engines. These were mounted between the engines.

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Bakomusha@reddit

I just dug up an old book I got. I was mistaking the sniper pods for the missiles my bad.

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wil9212@reddit

Source?

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WarBirbs@reddit

You, just now lol

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Eremenkism@reddit

Chaff rockets were a staple of Cold War electronic warfare on both sides. The idea was to have a flight lob them and create chaff corridors for the attackers to fly through on the way to target.

Another cool one is thecountermeasures loadout belt for the GSh-23 cannon, used specifically for rear gunner stations of strategic bombers. The idea was to just dump obnoxious amounts of chaff or flares between the missile and the plane when engaged from the rear quarter.

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Potential_Wish4943@reddit

In the game war thunder this is actually a valid tactic lol. I spent a lot of time flying the Mitsubishi T2 Trainer and F1 strike aircraft. Good/capable all around except that it doesnt have flares/countermeasures. So you'd use a pylon to equip Zuni 5 inch FFAR rockets, and when a missile was coming at you, launch those and hope the missile gets confused by your rocket instead :)

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Derp800@reddit

I'm still shocked they had tail gunners for so long.

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Duct_TapeOrWD40@reddit

More shocking they were still effective.

"During the Vietnam War, B-52D tail gunners were credited with shooting down two MiG-21 "Fishbeds...."

Source: Wikipedia

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