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From: jtchew@csa2.lbl.gov (JOSEPH T CHEW)
Newsgroups: sci.military
Subject: Re: Old B-52s & FOG-M
Summary: Times got it backwards
Message-ID: <1991Feb4.045600.11312@cbnews.att.com>
Date: 4 Feb 91 04:56:00 GMT
References: <1991Jan27.101024.23174@cbnews.att.com>
Sender: military@cbnews.att.com (William B. Thacker)
Organization: Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory, Berkeley CA
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From: jtchew@csa2.lbl.gov (JOSEPH T CHEW)

>The NY TIMES reported that the current B-52s can only carry half the
>bombload of Vietnam era B-52s (~50 compared to ~100). Where are these
>older model B-52s? Are they destroyed or merely mothballed? NYT claimed
>that the room was taken over by 'computers that increased bombing
>accuracy,' something that I find hard to believe.

I think the Times may have gotten it backwards.  Initial experience with
nuclear-strike B-52s used for conventional bombing in Vietnam resulted 
in a retrofit called "Big Belly."  This was performed on B-52Ds, which at
the time weren't all that old.

In the 70s, when it came time to upgrade SAC's nuke bombers for their new
mission profile (nape of the earth rather than high altitude), the new
avionics and so forth were put on the B-52Gs and Hs, presumably because
they were newer, lower-time airframes. 

As far as I know, the Ds were pressed into emergency service as scorpion
habitat rather than destroyed.  I don't know, and presumably wouldn't be
told, whether any effort is underway to rehabilitate them for the Persian
Gulf war.

For further reading:  "SAC," Bill Yenne (Presidio Press, 1985)

--Joe
"Just another personal opinion from the People's Republic of Berkeley"