If the B-1 proposals included the use of SLBMs, they could be carried out today using retired B-1Bs (or B-1A prototypes, if any are still extant and flyable) and surplus Polaris A-3 (JSTARS), Poseidon C-3, and/or Trident C-4 hardware. They would make good air-launched SLVs, and if necessary a spin-stabilized solid propellant upper stage could be added (as in the Polaris A-3 based JSTARS vehicle) to give them larger orbital payload capabilities.

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NAR #54895 SR

I don't get it, whats the point? The missile is designed to fly on it's own. Why carry it all that distance? The SR-71/A-12 was designed for one thing, recon. It can out fly anything.

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Besides being another possible military application for two Lockheed products (different divisions of Lockheed built the SR-71/A-12 and the Polaris missile), extending the aircraft's "reach" and ensuring an un-guessable launch point were likely considerations. Also:

While submarine-launched Polaris missiles could have flown such single-pass reconnaissance missions, having such un-armed missiles aboard would have taken away from the submarines' numbers of nuclear-armed Polaris rounds (I think they each carried a total of 16 Polaris missiles--Jeffyjeep can correct me here), and the recon launches would have betrayed the launching subs' positions to an adversary. While the vessels could keep moving during and after launching missiles, of course, ASW (Anti-Submarine Warfare) aircraft armed with nuclear depth charges could have been dispatched to the area, possibly close enough to the vessels' actual locations to take them out. In addition:

The air-launched Polaris recon missiles would not have reduced the subs' nuclear strike capabilities, and the ability of the launching aircraft to fly closer to the country of interest (especially if it were land-locked) would have increased the Polaris' "reach" overland. As well:

There is some actual intelligence-gathering experience that illustrates the utility of such an air-launched system. When India conducted a surprise series of nuclear weapons tests in 1998, they chose the time (based on calculations made by ISRO, their space agency) so that *no* U.S. reconnaissance satellites would be overhead. They also timed their preparation activities (moving equipment at night, retracing their tracks on the ground to make it appear that nothing had moved) based on the predictable nature of satellite orbits (while some spysats -can- maneuver, their limited onboard propellant reserves limit their orbit-changing options). An air-launched reconnaissance missile, being unpredictable in its overflight timing and approaching from an equally unpredictable direction (rather like a cruise missile, whose final target approach path does not indicate the direction from which it was launched), could "surprise the surprisers" if launched in response to indications (from humint [human intelligence] sources, for instance) that activities of interest are underway. Such a system could help keep tabs on what Iran and North Korea are up to in the ballistic missile and nuclear weapons "departments."

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NAR #54895 SR

I agree, it was only used for recon. But it was also intended to project a bomb delivery system. The designation was supposed to be RS-71, for recon-strike (but was renamed when LBJ inadvertently mispronounced it).

Anyway, the key here is that the term strike was a replacement for bomber. The 71 number came from the bomber sequence, which was topped out at B-70 (before they rolled it back to 1 with the B-1). The SR-71 was in the same time-frame as the XB-70, so the 71 gibes with that.

While we may have never built or used any bomb-carrying versions of the SR-71, I'm quite sure that one intent was to use it to show the Russians that we had yet another possible delivery system which they would need to develop countermeasures against.

Doug

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Indeed--they "backward-named" its role as "Strategic Reconnaissance" to match the "SR" after President Johnson got the "RS" backwards when announcing the aircraft's existence to the public.I've read about proposed versions that would have carried a single thermonuclear gravity bomb, but the aircraft seemed to have limitations similar to those of the B-70 (Mach 3+ speed, but only at high altitudes, which made it vulnerable to SAMs). Even in the early 1960s, the B-52 usage doctrine began to gravitate toward low-altitude missions (in one of his books, C.B. Colby mentioned that the B-52H with its TF-33 turbofans was particularly well-suited to low-level missions). And of course when technology advanced to the point of making TERCOM-guided cruise missiles practical, the goal was to make them fly as low as possible in order to evade detection by radar, infrared, and even visual sightings.

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NAR #54895 SR

Another negative that comes with the SLBM version of a recon system-- the fact that early warning systems would see it as indistinguishable from a nuclear first strike by SLBM's... this is something that still plagues those pushing for "global strike" capabilities via using precision guided munitions on an ICBM/SLBM launch platform... To any potential adversary, it is indistinguishable from a nuclear first strike-- there's simply NO way to know that the warhead is conventional rather than nuclear until after impact-- thus adversaries or their allies facing such an attack, even though conventional in nature, would likely respond with a nuclear counterattack.

An airborne launch system, on the other hand, would be far less threatening from this standpoint, especially if a "weaponized" version was never fielded... One additional benefit is that by controlling the launch point via how far east or west the spysat was launched, one could achieve "once around" or partial orbit surveillance of virtually any point on the globe and on VERY short notice. One drawback is, like the airborne ICBM experiments of launching Minutemans dropped out the back of planes and such-- it combines the negatives of both a bomber and a missile... this surveillance system would do much the same-- it would have some of the benefits of both a manned spy plane and an unmanned spysat, but it would also have all the drawbacks of both as well.

Ultimately it probably came down to being too much of a 'niche' product (insufficient need to justify developing it) and risks/safety concerns of launching such missiles from a manned SR-71... and certainly cost would come into play... probably not enough "bang for the buck"....

It would be a cool modification to an Estes SR-71 though... LOL

Later! OL JR

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