Path: utzoo!utgpu!watmath!att!cbnews!military From: shafer@drynix (Mary Shafer) Newsgroups: sci.military Subject: Re: infrared and interceptors Message-ID: <8893@cbnews.ATT.COM> Date: 9 Aug 89 03:58:12 GMT Sender: military@cbnews.ATT.COM Lines: 36 Approved: military@att.att.com From: Mary Shafer From: henry@zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer) >(Oh, okay, a brief comment on why that happened... Escort fighters are >less necessary now that bombers attack individually rather than in >formation -- a response to nuclear antiaircraft weapons, among other ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ >things -- and are less practical over intercontinental ranges. Intruder >missions classically involved going in at night and lurking around an >enemy airfield waiting for targets; modern radar and other sensors have >made this unhealthy.) Are "nuclear anitaircraft weapons" antiaircraft weapons that use nuclear devices or are they antiaircraft weapons used against aircraft carrying nuclear devices? Did I miss some strange and wonderful weapon system? Using a nuclear device to shoot down an aircraft sounds like a really bad idea. Consider the EMP effect on your own systems, for one thing. Also, it's hard to be the first user of a nuclear device, even as a preemptive event. These would be tactical weapons and I can't imagine that control would be surrendered to the field, which would be necessary if such a weapons were to be successful. Of course, practicality, feasibility, and useability are not necessarily among the criteria used to select weapon systems. :-) -- M F Shafer shafer@elxsi.dfrf.nasa.gov NASA Ames Research Center arpa!elxsi.dfrf.nasa.gov!shafer Dryden Flight Research Facility Of course I don't speak for NASA