When the UK nuclearized the US twice. Operation Skyshield and the Avro Vulcan
The United Kingdom managed to bomb the United States of America twice, even arriving in New York. Fortunately, these were only simulated attacks, but the two exercises were so shocking to the US aviation and defense that they remained secret, indeed were absolutely denied, until 1996.
In 1960 the USA decided to organize a large exercise with a lot of blocking the commercial flight over all the States, to test their formidable air defenses. The operation was called Skyshield 1 . The attack was to be conducted from both north and south to assess the efficiency of US missile defense, and carried by B52 Stratofortress and B47 Stratojet. The exercise was also joined by 8 British Avro Vulcan aircraft, 4 which would have attacked from the north, starting from Canada, and 4 from the south, starting from Bermuda. The US air defense intercepted and shot down the stars and stripes rather easily, but of 8 Vulcans, 4 came out unscathed and took one of them to hit an American city.
The following year the NORAD, the strategic command, wanted to repeat the exercise, with the participation of a greater number of aircraft, the closure of commercial traffic, and always 8 British aircraft, 4 from the south and 4 from the north, which took part to the event. The command thought that the event of the previous year was random, but this time too, 7 out of 8 aircraft overcame the US anti-aircraft defenses and one even landed near New York, simulating a successful attack. the NORAD had been slaughtered again!
How had the British done it? The Avro Vulcan was a very modern aircraft at that time, capable of flying at a higher altitude than US bombers, nearly 20,000 feet, with superior maneuverability and much more sophisticated electronic warfare equipment than the US. In both fortifications three planes opened the way to the fourth with electronic countermeasures, allowing it to strike undisturbed.
The setback for NORAD was enormous: not only were the defenses not impenetrable, but it was an English plane that won. The setback was such that the result was kept secret, indeed denied, until 1996. In the meantime, in 1984 the Vulcan was out of service, having acted for the last time in the Falklands war in 1992.
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The article When the UK nuked the US twice. The Skyshield operation and the Avro Vulcan comes from ScenariEconomici.it .
This is a machine translation of a post published on Scenari Economici at the URL https://scenarieconomici.it/quando-il-regno-unito-nuclearizzo-per-due-volte-gli-usa-loperazione-skyshield-e-lavro-vulcan/ on Fri, 18 Sep 2020 21:03:54 +0000.