The term V bomber was used for the Royal Air Force (RAF) aircraft during the 1950s and 1960s that comprised the United Kingdom's strategic nuclear strike force known officially as the V-force or Bomber Command Main Force. The bombers, whose names all started with the letter "V" and which were known collectively as the V-class, were the Vickers Valiant (first flew 1951, entered service 1955), Avro Vulcan (first flew 1952, in service 1956) and Handley Page Victor (first flew 1952, in service 1958). The V-Bomber force reached its peak in June 1964, with 50 Valiants, 70 Vulcans and 39 Victors in service.
For long range operations, tanker variants of each were developed. When it became clear that Soviet missiles could successfully bring down high flying aircraft, the V bomber force changed to low-level attack methods. As a result the Valiants were removed from service after problems with fatigue in their wings became apparent; a planned low level variant of the Valiant did not progress beyond the prototype.
The V bombers were to carry the GAM-87 Skybolt, an air-launched ballistic missile, to update their strike potential as new innovations in the Cold War made their early style of operation less viable; however Skybolt was cancelled by the US and the Royal Navy became Britain's main provider of the nuclear deterrent, using UGM-27 Polaris intercontinental ballistic missiles from nuclear submarines in the 1970s. While the V bombers no longer held precedence in Britain's nuclear strategic planning, superseded by aircraft such as the SEPECAT Jaguar and Panavia Tornado, which carried smaller tactical nuclear weapons, the Avro Vulcan would be perhaps best remembered for its conventional long range bombing raids during the 1982 Falklands War. The Valiants had been used during the Suez Crisis as conventional bombers. Victors had been deployed to the far East as a deterrence during the Indonesia–Malaysia confrontation but not used on missions. Usage of all V bombers as weapons platforms, nuclear or conventional, ended in 1982.
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RAF Bomber Command ended the Second World War with a policy of using heavy four-piston-engined bombers for massed raids and remained committed to this policy in the immediate post-war period. The RAF adopted the Avro Lincoln, an updated version of the Lancaster, as their standard bomber for this purpose. However, there were elements within the RAF and the government that sought to adopt the new nuclear weaponry and advances in aviation technology to introduce more potent and effective means of conducting warfare. In November 1944, the UK Chiefs of Staff had requested a report from Sir Henry Tizard on potential future means of warfare. Reporting without knowledge of the Allied effort to produce an atomic bomb, the Manhattan Project, in July 1945 the Tizard Committee urged the encouragement of large-scale atomic energy research. It foresaw the devastating effects of atomic weapons and envisaged high-flying jet bombers cruising at 500 mph (800 km/h) at 40,000 ft (12,000 m). It was thought that potential aggressors may be deterred by the knowledge that Britain would retaliate with atomic weapons if attacked.[1]
Even at the time there were those who could see that guided missiles would eventually make such aircraft vulnerable, but development of such missiles was proving difficult, and fast and high-flying bombers were likely to serve for years before there was a need for something better. Massed bombers were unnecessary if a single bomber could destroy an entire city or military installation with a nuclear weapon. It would have to be a large bomber, since the first generation of nuclear weapons were big and heavy. Such a large and advanced bomber would be expensive on a unit basis, but would also be produced in much smaller quantities. The arrival of the Cold War also emphasised to British military planners the need to modernise UK forces.[2] Furthermore, the United Kingdom's uncertain military relationship with the United States, particularly in the immediate postwar years when American isolationism made a short-lived comeback, led the UK to decide it needed its own strategic nuclear strike force.
After considering various specifications for such an advanced jet bomber in late 1946, the Air Ministry issued a request in January 1947 for an advanced jet bomber that would be at least the equal of anything the U.S. or the USSR had. The request followed the guidelines of the earlier Specification B.35/46, which proposed a "medium-range bomber landplane, capable of carrying one 10,000 pound (4,535 kg) bomb to a target 1,500 nautical miles (2,775 km) from a base which may be anywhere in the world." The request also indicated that the fully loaded weight should not exceed 100,000 pounds (45,400 kg), though this would be adjusted upward in practice; that the bomber have a cruise speed of 500 knots (925 km/h); and that it have a service ceiling of 50,000 feet (15,200 m). The RAF's then-current jet bomber the English Electric Canberra, introduced in May 1951, could only have reached the Soviet border and had a capacity of 6,000 lb (2,720 kg).
This request went to most of the United Kingdom's major aircraft manufacturers. Handley Page and Avro came up with very advanced designs for the bomber competition, which would become the Victor and the Vulcan respectively, and the Air Staff decided to award contracts to both companies, as a form of insurance. While the Vickers-Armstrong submission had been rejected as too conservative, Vickers lobbied the Air Ministry and made changes to meet their concerns, and managed to sell the Vickers Valiant design on the basis that it would be available much sooner than the competition, and would be useful as a "stopgap" until the more advanced bombers were available.
As an insurance measure against both radical designs failing, Short Brothers received a contract for the prototype SA.4 to the earlier less-stringent Specification B.14/46. In April 1948, Vickers, after some considerable lobbying, also received authority to proceed with the Type 660, later named as "Valiant". Though not able to reach the full B.35/46 Specification, being more conventional it would be available sooner. Around it was written the new Specification B.9/48. Ultimately the Short design, known as the "Sperrin", was cancelled and only two prototypes were built; the Valiant went into production as the first V-bomber.[3]
The Valiant entered service in 1955, the Vulcan in 1956 and the Victor in April 1958, with the first Valiant squadron, No. 138 Squadron RAF forming at RAF Gaydon in 1955, and the first Vulcan squadron, No. 83, at RAF Waddington in May 1957.[4][5] The first operational Victor squadron was No. 10 Squadron RAF[6] The Valiant arrived in service first, equipped with nuclear weapons supplied by the U.S. under Project E that supplemented the British Blue Danube and later Red Beard. The American weapons supplied under Project E were of course not ever available for the RAF to use as part of the UK's national nuclear deterrent. Only British-owned weapons could be used for that purpose. Although often referred-to as part of the V-force, the Valiants were actually assigned to SACEUR as part of the TBF (Tactical Bomber Force), although remaining nominally part of Bomber Command. The Vulcan and Victor were armed with British-built bombs Blue Danube, Red Beard, Violet Club the Interim Megaton Weapon and Yellow Sun[7] of both versions, the Mk1 and Mk.2. Despite the technical obstacles of the British nuclear arm, the V-Bombers still constituted an effective military force. A white paper produced by the Royal Air Force for the British government in 1961 claimed that the RAF's nuclear force was capable of destroying key Soviet cities such as Moscow and Kiev before bomber aircraft from the United States' Strategic Air Command had entered Soviet airspace, "taking into account Bomber Command’s ability to be on target in the first wave several hours in advance of the main SAC force operating from bases in the United States.".[8] Throughout the early stages of the Cold War, NATO relied on the Royal Air Force to threaten key cities in European Russia. The RAF concluded that the V-Bomber force was capable of killing eight million Soviet citizens and wounding another eight million before American bombers reached their targets. At the time they entered service all three V bombers were capable of altitudes that put them effectively out of reach of the then contemporary gun-armed Soviet interceptors such as the MiG 15, MiG 17, and later MiG 19.
All of the V-bombers would see active service at least once albeit with conventional bombs; the Valiant in the Suez Crisis in 1956,[9] the Victor in the Indonesia-Malaysia confrontation of 1962-66,[10] and the Vulcan in the Falklands War long after the strategic nuclear role had been passed over to the Royal Navy.[11] The Valiant was the only one to drop[12] a nuclear device, as part of British tests.
The development of effective anti-aircraft missiles made the deterrent threat delivered from bombers flying at high altitudes increasingly threadbare. After the cancellation of the Blue Streak missile program and the cancellation of the American Skybolt and with the Blue Steel missile already in service, six squadrons of Vulcan B2s were re-assigned to the low-level (200 ft and lower) penetration role and were re-equipped with the WE.177B strategic laydown bomb from 1966 until being replaced in the strategic role in 1969 by the Polaris missile launched from nuclear submarines of the Royal Navy. The WE.177 equipped Vulcans were supplemented by the two Victor squadrons equipped with Blue Steel (modified for low-level launch) that continued to serve in the strategic delivery role until 1968 ended. In the low-level role, which had originally been intended to be performed by the cancelled BAC TSR-2, the V Force were considered by Air Staff planners to be largely immune from interception, the Soviet air defences being assessed as having no significant interception capability below 1,500 ft, any remaining threat coming from the SA-3 low-level surface-to-air missile, flight planners taking care to route aircraft around SA-3 sites that were known. As a result of this individual aircraft were calculated by operation planners to have a 90-95% chance of successfully delivering their weapon on the assigned targets. Although subsequently relieved of their role as the deliverer of the UK strategic nuclear deterrent, the Vulcan squadrons continued to serve with the same WE.177B weapon in a low-level penetration role assigned to SACEUR for use in a tactical role in Europe. Six squadrons of Vulcans were still assigned this role with the WE.177 weapon in 1981. The last four remaining squadrons were about to disband in 1982 when called upon to assist in the Falklands.[13][14]
The Valiant was removed from service as a nuclear bomber first; taking on roles as a tanker, low level attack and photo-reconnaissance. Fatigue problems due to the transfer to low-level operations meant they were removed from service completely by 1965. Victors were converted to replace the Valiant tankers. The Vulcan alone of the threesome, retained a nuclear delivery role until the end of their planned service life scheduled for 1982. The short extension as tankers until 1984 was an unexpected extension to meet operational emergencies.
In addition to the roles they were designed for, all three V-Bombers served as air-to-air refuelling tankers at one time or another; the Valiant was the RAF's first large scale tanker. As a means of replacing the loss of the Valiant, Victor B.1s were converted into the AAR role. When the Victor was withdrawn from service as a bomber, a number of B.2s were then converted into tankers. Finally, due to delays in the entry into service of the TriStar, six Vulcan B.2s were converted into tankers, and served from 1982 to 1984.
Upon entering all service all three V bombers were initially painted in an overall silver finish, with the prominent under-nose H2S radomes on the Valiant and Vulcan left in black, however, this silver finish was later changed to one of anti-flash white, the RAF roundels being adjusted in shade, and made more paler, to minimise the absorption of energy from the flash of detonating nuclear weapons. This finish remained in use until the change of role to a low-level one, whereupon the scheme was altered to a disruptive pattern of grey/green upper surfaces, with light grey under surfaces. After reports from the Red Flag exercises in Nevada in the late 1970s that the light grey under surfaces became highly visible against the ground when the aircraft banked steeply at the low altitudes it was assigned to, the disruptive pattern was later continued to include the under surfaces as well on all Vulcans.
A number of V-bombers of the three different types are preserved and open to the public at various locations.
On February 8, 2007, the Royal Air Force Museum Cosford opened the National Cold War Exhibition at RAF Cosford in Shropshire to tell the story of the cold war. This exhibition brought together static displays of all three types of V-bomber in one location for the first time. The museum's director general, Dr Michael Fopp, stated the goal was "people will leave feeling better informed about what happened in the second half of the 20th Century."[18]
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