When I was a kid, Bergstrom was a SAC base and a bunch of my pals dads were B-52 crew. Dads being away on alert or TDY was part of life as was the world living at the brink of Armageddon. Thankfully, we never had to use the "big stick."

"We were crewdogs." is an excellent series of books written by several generations of BUFF crew members about living with the B-52. I have them on Kindle but they may also be in hard copy.

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Bet my SD could run all year on the fuel expended in that 10 minute video...

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On some nights I still believe that a car with the fuel gauge on empty can run about fifty more miles if you have the right music very loud on the radio. - HST

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What it would take for a Russian ICBM to travel and land, which if I remember correctly would take 20 minutes from launch detection in Russia to impact in the US. So figure by the time NORAD cut the orders you had maybe 15 minutes.

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Probably from single B-52 take off.

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I thought that the later B-52s were armed with long-range nuclear air-to-ground missiles and would loiter over Alaska or Greenland waiting to approach the Soviet coast and dump their loads. We weren't talking about US to Moscow flights at 500 mph, but rather the airborne equivalent of a boomer sub that stood on station, ready to ruin the Russians' (and our) day.

That was Operation Chrome Dome and just one part of MAD.

But only a limited number of strategic bombers can be kept in the air all the time. The Russians would shoot down a lot of bombers but not all of them, and even one B52 with a full nuclear compliment can wipe out a city. Plus that's where the B1 came in, they could penetrate Soviet airspace.

The idea was that if the Russians launched we would use the window that it would take to get as many assets operation as possible for a return strike. Every SAC B52 would be in the air heading for targets in the Soviet Union, every land based missile such as the Minute Men would launch, and the boomers that my dad was stationed on would approach the surface for a launch. While at the same time our hunter killer subs would be trying like hell to kill the Russian hunter killers before they could sink our boomers. The Russians constantly tried to follow us and we followed them.

Within about 30 minutes civilization as we know it would have ended. Also remember NATO would launch as a result and every piece of conventional equipment on both sides would move in Europe, so Europe would be reduced to a fire ball that would have made 1945 look like a quite year.

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Morbid question: but if nukes started popping off 15 minutes after takeoff or less (is that even enough time for a B-52 to climb to cruising altitude?), how many would be knocked out of the air by shockwaves or have their crews vomiting their guts from rad poisoning? Thank G-d we never found out.

ATG Missles? They were flying on station with dumb bombs long before airborne missles. General Buck Turgidson told me so in 1964.

At the height of the cold war we had the b52s in the air 24/7 ready to fly to their targets in the soviet union on a moments notice. When one batch landed another took their place.

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..I also have a 427 Cobra replica with an aluminum chassis.

Ya mean Major "King Kong?"
Major Kong from Dr. Strangelove - YouTube

Is there really a chance that plane can get through??
General "Buck" Turgidson gets excited - YouTube

In all it's history, the worst days for the B52 were probably the first three of Linebacker II in Dec. 1972. The Hanoi Bombings

The first three missions of the operation were flown as planned by SAC on three consecutive nights beginning on 18 December. On the first night 129 bombers were launched, 87 of them from Guam.[27][37] 39 support aircraft of the Seventh Air Force, the Navy's Task Force 77, and the Marine Corps supported the bombers by providing F-4 fighter escorts, F-105 Wild Weasel SAM-suppression missions, Air Force EB-66 and Navy EA-6 radar-jamming aircraft, chaff drops, KC-135 refueling capability, and search and rescue aircraft; the skies were dominated by American airpower to ensure the safety of the aircraft involved in the operation.[38] One B-52 bomber pilot flying out of Guam recalled "We took off one airplane a minute out of Guam for hours. Just on time takeoff after on time takeoff.
The targets of the first wave of bombers were the North Vietnamese airfields at Kep, Phuc Yen, and Hoa Lac and a warehouse complex at Yen Vien while the second and third waves struck targets around Hanoi itself. Three aircraft were shot down by the 68 SAMs launched by North Vietnamese batteries,[1] two B-52G's from Andersen and a B-52D from U-Tapao.[40] Two D models from Andersen with heavy battle damage managed to limp into U-Tapao for repairs.[41] Only one of the three downed crews could be rescued.[40] That same evening, an Air Force F-111 Aardvark was shot down while on a mission to bomb the broadcasting facilities of Radio Hanoi.[42]



....On the second night, 93 sorties were flown by the bombers. Their targets included the Kinh No Railroad and storage area, the Thai Nguyen thermal power plant, and the Yen Vien complex. Although 20 SAMs were launched and a number of the bombers were damaged,[1] none were lost on the mission. SAC expected that the third (and supposedly last) night of the operation would proceed just as well as the previous one.

..........The targets of the 99 bombers sent in on 20 December included the Yen Vien Railroad yards, the Ai Mo warehouse complex, the Thai Nguyen power plant, a transhipment point at Bac Giang, the Kinh No Railroad complex, and the Hanoi petroleum products storage area–all in or near Hanoi. The combination of repetitive tactics, degraded EW systems, and limited jamming capability, however, led to dire consequences when, as the official Air Force history of the campaign has stated, "all hell broke loose."[44]

The repetitious nature of the previous evening's strike profiles had allowed North Vietnamese air defense forces to anticipate strike patterns and to salvo 34 missiles into the target area.[1] Four B-52Gs and three B-52Ds were lost in the first and third waves of the mission.[1] A fourth D model, returning to Thailand, crashed in Laos. Only two of the eight downed crews were recovered by search and rescue aircraft.[
Operation Linebacker II - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

I had a similar thought with different math. I bet my car would run all year on the amount it took for only one of those planes to taxi out and just get far enough to clear the ground.

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I thought you were talking about these B52's B-52's - Love Shack - YouTube BTW is that a SEL they are driving?

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How many B-52's could you fly on 15 minutes worth of a carrier battle group's energy expenditure? How many Priuses?

Open book test.

As some else who rode boomers for a good part of my youth, we were designed as a second and third strike capability. You are VERY correct about us watching them watching us watching them. I too am very glad we never had to find out whose subs were better. I am guessing ours, but I might be in knowledge of other info

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