Word: sac
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...high-altitude guard posts, they constitute a brand-new weapon in the U.S. arsenal. They are the airborne answer to the threat of Soviet Russia's growing missile force, the minimum strike-back punch that the U.S. can deliver even if the Soviets should devastate all the 100 SAC bases and their grounded planes. The constantly flying Daily Dozen give the U.S. a defense that, as SAC Chief Thomas Power says, "never has been attempted in the military history of the world before...
With considerable secrecy, SAC's airborne alert has been flying for more than a year, patrolling the skies in unbroken guard while many a defense critic was orating that the U.S. is unprepared for Russian missile attack. First flights were made out of Loring Air Force Base in Maine. Since then, the alert has flown 6,000 sorties, with no alert bomber landed until another has relieved it on station. The duty is now rotated so that each of SACs twelve B-52 wings has one aircraft on patrol at all times...
Chin-ups & Blivits. Like all other SAC operations, the airborne alert routine is fenced by narrow restrictions and standardized procedures. Briefing is held a week prior to scheduled takeoff. On take-off day, other crews run through the three-hour preflight checks on the alert bomber to lessen the fatigue of the crew going on duty. Take-offs are scheduled for around 10 a.m. to allow for a full night's sleep. (The crewmen's physical condition is attested by the fact that they must be able to run a reasonably fast 250-yd. dash and perform five...
...Strategic Target Planning board, which is responsible for assigning hot war targets to the various services according to capability, is under heavy fire from a diehard Navy clique in the Pentagon. Reason: the director of the targeting board is an Air Force officer, SAC General Thomas Power, who, to the diehards' way of thinking, ought not to have much to say about the war missions of the Navy's cherished Polaris missile submarines. The Navy critics are not mollified by the fact that a vice admiral is Power's deputy...
...consequences of either limited retaliation or all all-out strike. The first, according to the Soviet note, would bring devastation to each country where it was applied, and hence would likely be rejected by the countries themselves; the second would elicit all-out retailiation by Russia's ICBM and "SAC" forces against vulnerable U. S. bases and cities. Really, the Soviet note concludes, the only sensible course for the President would be acquiescence...