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B-52s Would Have Nuked Their Way Through Soviet Air Defenses With These Missiles

The AGM-69 Short Range Attack Missile was a vital but seldom discussed part of America's airborne deterrent during the last half of the Cold War.

by Tyler RogowayThe War Zone / May 24, 2019

During the Cold War, it seemed that nuclear warheads were the solution to an alarming number of tactic and strategic challenges.

Need to intercept and shoot down formations of nuclear bombers emerging from over the North Pole? Nuclear weapons.

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Need to sink a naval task force? Nuclear weapons

Need to get your bombers to their targets deep inside enemy territory without being shot down by enemy air defenses? Nuclear weapons. And in this case, Boeing's AGM-69 Short Range Attack Missile (SRAM) in particular.

Much of this was more to do with limitations of precision guidance and fine-tuned targeting capabilities than anything else. A nuclear warhead has effects that can destroy soft and some fortified targets from the shockwave alone. So, acceptable and effective accuracy could be measured in hundreds-or even thousands-of-feet and not tens-of-feet or even less as is common today.

SRAM was born in the early 1960s out of the glaring reality that even with nap-of-the-earth flying, America's bombers were increasingly vulnerable to the Soviet's ever more capable air defenses. In fact, the requirement for a nuclear-tipped missile capable of taking out enemy air defense sites that could threaten a strategic bomber on its path to its assigned target was already realized in the form of the AGM-28 Hound Dog missile.

B-52 carrying a pair of Hound Dog missiles.

This system entered service in 1960. But it was massive weighing in at over 10,000 lbs and measuring 42 feet long, drastically limiting what type of aircraft could employ it and how many an aircraft could carry at a single time. A better solution was needed for the Air Force to continue to claim its bomber arm of the nuclear triad represented a reliable deterrent.

Enter the AGM-69A SRAM. Entering service in 1972, it weighed in at around 2,200lbs and measured 14 feet in length. It was minuscule compared to the Hound Dog allowing for large quantities to be stored inside a bomber's weapons bay. Its primary mission was the destruction of enemy air defenses (DEAD) , to obliterate threatening SAM sites along a bomber's path.

But it was also to be used as a nuclear strike weapon. In this ancillary role, it could vaporize secondary targets as its mothership flew to its primary target set.

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AGM-69A SRAM

SRAM's range was roughly 50 miles. But it could reach out to nearly 100 miles under certain flight profiles. It achieved this using a dual-pulse rocket motor that made it possible for the missile to hit targets behind the launching aircraft and achieve fly-out speeds of up to Mach 3.5. It also had a basic terrain-following feature to add to its own survivability.

Guidance was provided by an onboard inertial navigation unit giving the weapon good enough accuracy with a circular error probability (CEP) of around 1,400 feet to deliver its variable yield W69 warhead that could be set from 17kt to 210kt. For comparison, the "Little Boy" nuclear bomb dropped on Hiroshima had a yield of roughly 15kt. The missile was programmed before a mission with its intended target. But it could be reprogrammed in flight as well.

B-52 loaded with SRAMs

Originally intended for the B-52G and B-52H, SRAM went on to equip the FB-111 and the B-1B. The B-52s could carry up to 20 on its external pylons and in its internal bay. The FB-111 could carry six (two internally and four externally). The B-1B could carry two dozen SRAM (eight each on its 3 internal rotary launchers).

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Eight SRAMs seen on a rotary launcher

In reality, a mix of SRAMs and nuclear bombs were to be carried depending on the mission and intended target set. SRAMs would be used by the bombers to blast their way to their primary targets or, later on, to hit strategic targets that were not air defense related at all. This secondary use was especially attractive for vaporizing targets in extremely well-defended airspace.

An inert SRAM being loaded onto an FB-111

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SRAM was really an amazing invention and one that had a real purpose. Helping to keep non-stealthy bombers viable for decades as Soviet air defenses matured.

But in 1982, the introduction of the AGM-86B nuclear-tipped variant of the Air Launched Cruise Missile (ALCM) would allow B-52s (and eventually B-1Bs) to launch nuclear strikes at long standoff ranges, placing them far from threatening air defense sites.

Then with the Cold War winding down towards the end of the decade, the need for SRAM degraded further.

In 1990, then Secretary-of-Defense Dick Cheney ordered SRAMs taken off all alert bombers. Concerns regarding the warhead's ability to withstand fires aboard aircraft had become a serious issue. The W69 warheads were not built to the same standards as later designs. A ground fire on an alert bomber that occurred years earlier could have resulted in a massive release of radiation (potentially on a larger scale than Chernobyl) from the flames compromising the shielding around the warhead's plutonium core if the winds had been blowing in a different direction.

In 1993, the aging stockpile of missiles became an even more pressing concern. Beyond the safety of their warheads, the condition of the SRAM inventory's rocket motors was called into question. A number of SRAMs were found with cracked propellant sections, likely the result of constant changes in atmospheric temperature over the years. If fired, a cracked motor would likely explode and take the aircraft with it while also scattering nuclear debris and radiation over a huge area.

This along with major reductions in defense spending and America's nuclear posture were the final nail in the coffin for SRAM. The weapons were pulled from service in 1993 and destroyed.

SRAMs being loaded into the belly of a B-52

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In the end, roughly 1,500 SRAMs were built with production ending in 1975.

Over the years, a follow-on AGM-69B SRAM was proposed including one configuration with an upgraded propulsion section and W80 warhead.

Other variants that never made it beyond the drawing board included a SRAM outfitted with an anti-radiation seeker to home in on hostile radar sites without programming a specific location into the weapon prior to launch. This weapon was far more reactionary in nature that the AGM-69A and could have effectively deal with 'pop-up' threats. But it never came to be. An air-to-air variant was also examined.

A far more robust effort began in the late 1970s to replace SRAM with an upgraded version for the B-1A bomber. When the B-1A was canceled, so was the follow-on SRAM. But once the B-1 was resurrected in B-1B form under the Reagan Administration, development for a new SRAM began again as well.

Dubbed the AGM-131A SRAM II, this weapon was largely a fresh design that featured a new and improved dual-pulse rocket motor. It was also lighter, less complex, and used a purpose-built and more modern W89 nuclear warhead as a payload.

W89 warhead and the SRAM II missile body

The program progressed up until 1991. With the fall of the Soviet Union, justifying such a weapon and its costs just wasn't possible. Especially after a number of costly delays in the weapon's development.

The B-1B would lose its nuclear mission in the same decade underscoring the logic of the decision to end the SRAM II program. In addition, cruise missiles were becoming the delivery method of choice for nuclear bombers. Te level of precision of modern air-to-ground weaponry was rapidly increasing, allowing for conventional warheads to take the place of nuclear ones for many applications.

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A tactical variant of the SRAM II was also part of the AGM-131 program. This would have equipped F-16s and F-15s that were tasked to deliver tactical nuclear bombs in Europe and the Korean Peninsula.

Fast forward to today and the SRAM concept is being reborn to a certain degree (albeit not in a nuclear fashion) with the development of standoff missiles uniquely designed to quickly blast enemy air defenses as fighters and bombers press toward their targets.

The Advanced Anti-Radiation Guided Missile-Extended Range (AARGM-ER) is now a Navy and Air Force program and will serve as the basis for the USAF's Stand-In Attack Weapon. Both of these missiles will be capable of internal storage on the F-35A and F-35C. You can bet that they will also wind up on the B-21 Raider in the coming decade.

Above all else, the big takeaway here is that USAF bombers were very much set to fight their way to their primary target sets by blasting air defense sites with nuclear weapons along the way. As such, SRAM was a very ineloquent solution to a very real problem facing America's airborne strategic deterrent before the introduction of highly capable air-launched cruise missiles.

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SRAM also serves a reminder of just how much destruction a B-52 of the latter Cold War era would have laid down in its wake. A frightening reality to contemplate indeed.

Contact the author: Tyler@thedrive.com

Reader Comments

1. mikehutchExcellent article as usual, Ty.

Having sat ALERT with a bomb bay loadout of B28's and SRAM's in the late 70s at Griffiss AFB, Rome NY, the one distinct feature about the SRAM was its white ablative coating. You had to preflight the weapons bay with every crew changeover on Thurs morning. After checking the weapons settings if you were tall enough like me, you could reach up and pass your hand along the white rubber-like coating.

The B28's were dull-finish cold hard steel. But the SRAM was a different animal. Given that the SRAM when fired would fly supersonically, the coatings purpose was to char and burn away to keep the weapon cooler inflight. The hard walnut-brown phenolic tip and control fins had a similar purpose but to survive the heat. The coating had a slight rubbery give to it. Not like a football. But not squishy either.

Then the 416 BW brought on the ALCMs, carried under the wings with their all new cockpit avionics in the early 80's. And the rest, as they say, is history.

-- Michael Hutchinson, Maj, USAF (Ret) Griffiss AFB, Rome, NY Apr1979 - Aug 1985

2. Paul BI've quipped the reason that MIRV was so relevant in the Cold War was never to "swamp" an ABM

defense but merely to make it more cost-effective against bombers. A silo represents a shit-ton of concrete and money. And the missile another huge, sunk cost besides. It's all quite expensive. It does only 2 things: Stand there to take hits and soak up a nuclear barrage and fire in anger, respectively. Bombers can do other things, besides.

Do the math on a 20 SRAM loadout @ 170-200 kilotons a piece and you see a single Grey Lady could bring 3.4-4 megatons of throw weight to a shooting war. A B-1B could bring 24 good for 4.8 megatons max. Of course, all-SRAM would be rare or not happen. But the gravity B61 bomb was 300-370 kiltons or so (only greater than an SRAM). Generically, a single heavy bomber is bringing 3 megatons to the fight, most likely.

The Soviets knew generally about the prodigious firepower able to be carried by a single B-52 which is why they were compelled to erect the greatest air defense systems in the World in terms of scope because of course we had hundreds across several types and the FB-111. The LGM-118A Peacekeeper had just under 3 megatons of throw weight as 114 of them represented a throw weight of 342 megatons:

https://www.usaf-sig.org/index.php/references/reference/114-research-material/707-history-of-strategic-air-command

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3. oobillyPure and simple. You need a whack of luck to nail a terminal warhead of an ICBM. Even today.

Targets can maneuver since the 1980's. Then add a random path generator which would preclude any prediction of future position (i.e., it's no longer a simple ballistic path).

MAD is still the only thing stopping us. Trying to fly a bomber in these days is pretty good long shot of success. Even in a B-2.

4. HAmmM3r3DAt the speeds warheads enter, they're not doing some magic super maneuvering (they don't have the

flight control surface to do it). You don't have to be at the speed of the object to intercept it. You only need to be in front of it.

Given that maneuvering envelopes are in Gs, something like an AIM-9x could out fly any inbound glide vehicle that's maneuvering. AIM-9 can do around 22G of maneuvering. A glide vehicle would be doing good to be able to pull more than 3Gs (more than likely much less).

Course changes also consume velocity. Glide vehicles maneuvering are trading speed for course changes. The SR-71 Blackbird at speed had a U-turn diameter of 90 miles and that's at Mach3.

5. oobillyNo flight surfaces? They use dimples at the speeds the attain. Here, chew on this. Now add a

random path generator...every 2 secs.... again 1980's tech. At the closing speed, predicting the position would be near impossible. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maneuverable_reentry_vehicle

6. Paul BThe purpose of maneuverable RV's is to attain high accuracy. CEP's measured in dozens of feet.

And it's the RV which maneuvers. Something which has a separation point probably outside of the atmosphere [I am not a rocket scientist so I don't know exactly when] but most likely only doing it's maneuvering in the atmosphere. Not the delivery bus in its plainly-predictable (ballistic) exoatmospheric, mid-stage of flight where most contemporary ABM systems operate. (GBI, SM-3, & THAAD, though it uniquely straddles endo/exoatmospheric engagement envelopes)

You cannot alter speed during the midcourse of flight cause then you throw away range. A delivery bus is already bereft of all the ascent rocket motor stages. Dynamically slowing down just means you're going to fall far short or accept CEP's measured in units-of-Wyoming I imagine.

But if you're forcing either to significantly maneuver, that would represent added weight (and complexity) and virtual attrition has now been imposed upon the attacker.

I'm all in favor of it because nuclear throw weight has now gone down. Victory for strategic defense \o/ less megatonnage comes our way per missile and significant cost has been imposed by those trying to beat AMB. From what I recall reading, by the late 1960's for every dollar spent on strategic defense, the Soviets would have spent a dollar to overcome it which was a wild improvement from just a decade prior. This is a fight we can still win against the Russians.

Besides which, the actual kill vehicle's on our ABM's like the GBI's EKV can maneuver and have sensors just as a hedge: https://www.globalsecurity.org/space/systems/images/gbiekv-001.jpg . Strictly

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speaking, you could just fling a piece of metal without mid-course updates through sheer computational math and save some money. But no one is really comfortable doing this.

BTW, the first (atmospheric) skin-to-skin missile intercepts were in the early 1960s with vacuum-tube computers big enough you could live in them and mechanically-scanned radars. The RVs were decidedly slow, draggy Mach ~3 intercept problems. But that's how long ago Nike proved that you could hit a bullet with a bullet.

7. oobillyBut now, they sure will account for evasive actions in midcourse.... if youre right that is ;-) Maybe

not if Raytheon can't make it work.

The big hurdle so far is decoys. But I imagine they are going for kills on everything. That's what smart minds at Raytheon want. (more $$$ for more weapons needed)

As for range, if you can attain orbit then you have all the range you need. That's why everyone freaked when North Korea was able to attain orbit.

Missile defense started right after the MARV's were first proved to work.

8. Paul B a glide vehicle would be doing good to be able to pull more than 3Gs, more than likely much less.

^ oobilly, if you're not able to maneuver so significantly off course, you're not dodging ABM with any amount of mid-course maneuverability which exist in most exoatmospheric interceptors. And note the terminology this is outside of the atmosphere, far before a re-entry vehicle [reentering what? the Earth's atmosphere of course] has enough air for any kind of maneuvering fins to do their job.

Midcourse ABM defense is hitting your warhead before it can get out of the way to begin with. You could engineer some maneuvering capability into a delivery bus [the ballistic bits completely-bereft of prior rocket stages just hurtling through space, but not yet descending through the atmosphere and, say with MIRV, before detaching individual warheads]. BUT that's going to incur weight, cost, and large technical risk

But bottom line, in the midcourse, there's only so much lateral room a completely unpowered [ballistic] object can maneuver between Launch Point A and Target Point B and still hit the target. As long as a mid-course ABM interceptor can cover that envelope, the delivery system is at-risk. A space plane/glider actually could maneuver significantly because [something like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_X-20_Dyna-Soar ] it's bringing an entire rocket engine into space and had a huge-fucking-rocket put it into LEO. It trades throw-weight for maneuverability.

The really interesting thing about any kind of 1-or-2-stage-to-orbit hypersonic glider is that they could operate at the junction of endo/exoatmospheric envelopes and be completely immune to interception from anything not capable of operating in both environments (say THAAD, and IIRC, India's anti-ballistic missiles) because a mid-course based system's actual kill vehicle is aerodynamically useless and its small divert thrusters are only effective outside the atmosphere and something purely-atmospheric relies on maneuvering fins which have no effect without air.

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And even though something like THAAD would have a technical ability to engage a real space-gliding plane, its actual engagement envelope could be rather anemically small.

Whenever the era of SSTO/TSTO planes do finally see operation, I have a feeling Hibex technology will find another use in life, as a high-altitude end-stage interceptor in ... I was about to type SAMs but rather, Surface-to-SPace missile defense. It's basically a gaudy Star Wars level of technology waiting for another useful application. [since at the moment, we've consigned point defense to more-conventional hit-to-kill missiles] X-20 / https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypersonic_Technology_Vehicle_2 ]

The way these tests happen, end, and go back into obscurity seems that we're still years/decades from workable space gliders. But with the Black Budget, who really knows?

9. oobillyOh, given the situation today, I'm not saying the old ICBM configurations will work. Not as simple

as slapping a marv in an old rocket. But my hypothetical might include thrusters of some sort.

The decoy strategy is still quite good. Do you launch 5 THAADs at one rocket thinking you'll need them? Or save them for certain targets? It's a crazy problem. Tells me that MAD is still what's saving us all.

Hehe, here is something for you to cringe and laugh at.I give you Michio Kaku. (my take... a Chinese sub showing off its VLT's, not an icbm )

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uIVG0G3J_Ig

10. AK_79Not sure why the article positions the new HARM replacements as in any way comparable to a

nuclear - fucking - tipped missile. If a USAF bomber really has to “fight their way through to its target”, a single nuke would do the job of many conventional PGMS. Considering that there is a limited number that a given airframe can carry, that’s the difference between getting through to your target with a few of these things on each bomber plus a couple of dedicated DEAD bombers in the package vs sending in dozens of dedicated SEAD/DEAD aircraft carrying conventional missiles to escort said package.

Granted their use case is limited to “hopefully never”. But they aren’t just a different league from conventional (non-nuclear) SEAD missiles. They are a different fucking sport!

11. MK346The similarity is AARGM-ER can be used to "clear a path" through defenses in the same way

SRAM did. A valuable mission for AARGM-ER may be to take out short range CIWS-type weapons guarding a long-range SAM site.

12. AerialImagingWell, yeah. It is hard to compare the 2 methods side-by-side. But understand how the Soviets

responded to our tactics with the Hound Dog and SRAMs. They dispersed their SAM envelops. And as a further measure, utilized terrain to good effect so that a single nuke may only "hard-kill" 1-to-2 SAM

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launchers. Now, a nuclear detonation of course has other effects. But terrain features can nearly mask them completely.

Also remember that while a SEAD/DEAD mission with HARMs would proceed a nuclear attack by bombers, those bombers preferred method of attack is standoff with cruise missiles. Gravity bombs would only be employed in a very limited way and only by B-2s or F-35s. So the geometry of the attack changes in a lot of ways.

13. AK_79Good point. Stealth brings a whole different dimension to the whole equation.

Also realistically, we aren’t gonna be sending HARM-equipped fighters to make corridors for nuclear strikes. Russia is too big and it would take too long in a MAD environment. By the time the corridor is open, the nuclear exchange would be done and over with and we will be stockpiling rocks and sticks for the next war. If anything, the only way I see gravity bombs actually used would be a first strike with B-2 Raiders sneaking in quietly.

But my objection to equating the SRAM with HARM (in addition to the obvious difference in blast power and radius) was in terms of the cumulative EMP and radiation effects on the Soviet radars and equipment that isn’t physically destroyed. I am sure some of their stuff is EMP-shielded. But air defense radars do not do well in the immediate aftermath of nuclear blasts. As I recall, that was one of the main downsides of nuclear-tipped ABM systems.

14. AerialImagingYep. As you may recall, my dad was an Army Artillery (later ADA) officer assigned to protect

Chicago from 1958-1962 from Soviet bombers. They didn't have their ICBMs then. But my dad was there for the transition from the conventional Nike Ajax missiles to the nuclear Nike Hercules missiles and all of the ensuing hassles that came with that.

If I am correct, the USA was actually lagging behind the Soviet Union on EMP (electromagnetic pulse) theory at the time. So Nike Hercules was deployed with little concern for those other effects. But it is just crazy that we put nukes on EVERYTHING back in those days.

15. AK_79The Soviets didn’t take radiation protection very seriously. Tthey subordinated the safety of the

soldiers to the mission. And it was always easier and cheaper (“more technologically efficient”) to skimp on protection if it got the tech out quicker. That basic philosophy was one of their offsets in their race to catch up to the U.S. Throw in the usual “I don’t give a fuck” attitude, rampant secrecy, and the arbitrary nature of Soviet military discipline and you get a lot of conscripts getting hurt. This wasn’t just nukes. It was across the board.

In my step-dad's case, he has no idea how he got dosed. But his suspicion is that since building materials and heavy metals were valuable, much of it was stolen during construction of the bases. So the buildings and silos were substandard and poorly shielded.

As an aside, talking to him and his buddies has imbued me with a lifelong healthy skepticism of the readiness of Russian nuclear forces (and any other “top secret” Russian programs). Half those missiles would never have flown. Some of the silos has straight-up water intrusion. The maintenance guys had

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to re-wire factory new electronics because they were fucked. The factories would send them out wired up in such a way as not to actually work but to return the correct signals to the remote testing equipment. They were 20km from the nearest village by dirt road and there wasn’t enough food brought in for the winters. So instead of training, the officers would go hunting. etc etc.

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