Would the successful creation of nuclear powered bombers in the 1950s have had any meaningful impact on the Cold War?

Question

As far as I am aware nuclear powered bombers were the first attempt by the USSR and USA (either unintentional or not) at enhanced nuclear deterrence. Intending to place a nuclear reactor in a plane armed with nuclear bombs aloft for weeks at a time, serving as an every ready nuclear option (compared to the slower conventional bombers of the time).

Due to failure to contain the nuclear radiation of the reactor, the introduction of the more practical ICBMs and nuclear submarines, and other issues - such a vehicle was never successfully made or utilized.

However, if this series of nuclear weapons had been successfully deployed - would it have changed the course of the Cold War in any meaningful way?

Is there any reason to believe the side to first develop this technology would have had any notable advantage? Would civilian life be any different with nuclear powered bombers flying overhead?

Or perhaps would it have just accelerated the introduction of existing concepts like mutually assured destruction?

Answer 1

I think it would accelerate the understanding of mutual assured destruction. Essentially, a nuclear-powered bomber has advantages similar to a nuclear-powered submarine-it can stay operational longer.

Assuming nuclear bombers were invented, then Operation Chrome Dome would have had nuclear bombers flying around country borders. And since mechanical wear, as well as safety standards weren't a very well understood concept at the time, some of these bombers would inevitably drop out of the sky. The result being a large swath of contaminated ground somewhere along the flight path. People and leaders will know these are not attacks, but only after a while. In the meantime the political situation would be very tense.

After a few more cases of such similar incidents, the countries developing the planes would sit down and talk about how stupid it was to play this Russian Roulette using an easily triggered revolver. So they would do something more sensible, like stopping production of this kind of bomber cruise.

Answer 2

It May Have Ended the Cold War a bit Sooner

... or maybe longer: see comments, but I find that much less likely.

I mostly agree with the other answers in that it would not have provided a tactical advantage, but there are other ways this weapon platform may have impacted the Cold War in a meaningful way. The American strategy to winning the Cold War was to spend more than the Soviets could afford to spend and then dare the Soviets to keep up if they wanted to save face in front of the rest of the world. In this effort, the US launched some pretty silly projects like the space shuttle program knowing that they were hugely massive wastes of money. But what America knew was that they could bear wasteful spending more than the Soviets could; so, every RnD pissing match they could challenge the Soviets to was an automatic win for America.

Nuclear Powered Bombers would yield no actual tactical advantage to speak of, but if America announced they had a new squadron of stupidly over priced nuclear powered bombers, then the Soviets would of course have to build their own squadron if they wanted to maintain their political power in the international community. The best case scenario for the Soviets is that this would be an extra major cost to bear slowing their recovery following the severe devastation they suffered during WWII.

Furthermore, since we are talking 1950s, if the USA got the Cold War into full swing sooner, then the Khrushchev Thaw may have never happened. A big part of how the USSR recovered from WWII was by becoming a less strict society and opening up trade and good relations with the USA and other Western Powers in the years following the war. So, if the Soviets had seen the USA as a major threat right away, then the Stalinists would have had a political advantage against the Khrushchevists. Without the Khrushchev Thaw the political situation in the USSR could have quickly boiled over into a total economic collapse or civil war before the USSR even had time to fully recover from WWII.

Answer 3

Chrome dome was carried out using conventionally powered bombers flying airborne alert duty in various places around the world. After several accidents involving loss of aircraft and weapons, but no nuclear detonations, an alternative ground alert was used to replace it. Bomber with weapons and fuel loaded where positioned near runways with crews in bunkers next to them. They could launch within minutes of being alerted that an attack was in progress. The key component often over looked was an early warning system that could detect an incoming attack in time to launch them. This concept remained operational until the 1990's.

The USA did add a nuclear reactor to a B-36 bomber to see if it could be done. The reactor did not power the aircraft, it was just a test to see if it could be done and if the shielding was adequate. It fly 47 missions demonstrating it could be done, but the project was canceled.

Having a true nuclear powered aircraft would not have changed much if any of the cold war. Ground alerts were far more feasible requiring much less maintenance and there was much less chance of an accident.

Answer 4

The main problem with bombers was that they were pretty easy to take down with appropriate countermeasures, and building enough of them to saturate the enemy's defenses was too costly.

My feeling is that this problem will be present also with nuclear bombers.

This will likely result in a quicker rush to develop rocketry and ICBM, which are harder to counter in a defensive scenario. It would also push significantly the development of radars and air defenses, in order to enable better tracking of the enemy.

Answer 5

There would be no difference in the military strategy of deterrence. One effective deterrence weapon is very much like another...as long as they work and war is actually deterred.

The inevitable aircraft crashes due to weather, pilot error, etc., would be rather more severe and much more expensive to clean up. This suggests placement of the servicing airfields in more remote locations, perhaps earlier development of automatic takeoff/landing systems, and earlier development of microcontrollers and sensors for those automatic systems. In turn, this suggests somewhat earlier development of microcomputers.

Answer 6

I doubt it would have made any fundamental difference.

If, all things considered, the nuclear bombers proved to be no more effective than conventional bombers, then pretty much by definition it would make no difference at all. Which I think is pretty much what happened in practice. At least as far as either side got in developing such planes, there were big disadvantages that outweighed the advantage of longer range, so that while there were some experiments no practical models were ever developed.

If someone had managed to build such a plane and it was clearly superior, presumably that would mean that it would give that side an edge in a nuclear exchange. But even if it was a very big edge, would it have been enough to make it worth that side's while to launch a preemptive strike with such planes? Presumably their own nation would still suffer devastating losses from the counter-attack. To be able to say, "We lost 50 million people but you're side lost 100 million! Ha ha, we won!" isn't much to celebrate over.

Oh, need I point out that nuclear powered bombers would not reduce civilian casualties on your own side, just increase casualties on the other side. Maybe, possibly, if they were patrolling right on the border and took action very fast, they could knock out a few airbases before the enemy knew what was happening and got their planes in the air, but I doubt that would be a big factor.

Answer 7

It wouldn't have made very much difference once anti-aircraft missiles reached a certain point of competence. The missile strategy would have evolved a bit differently, probably batteries on coastal and offshore islands, with a greater standoff range, because obviously, you want the debris to land somewhere else.

But that's merely rocket science.

Alternatively, until missiles advanced that far, (to the Powers Incident level) there may have been the development of missile equipped nuclear powered fighters (about the size of the bombers), with the range and capability to track the other team's bombers for months, as happened undersea with hunter-killer submarines. A bomber infringing on your territory would be universally understood to be an act of war, as would taking down the fighter tailing it. (With some de-conflicting mechanism for genuine emergencies such as ditching a plane or serious medical issues on board)

Answer 8

Nope

Both the Soviet and the American empires needed an enemy that could provide an excuse to suppress dissent at home and in their respective client states. The cold war had political roots not military. So any adjustment in the military balance would have had no effect. Keep in mind that the military balance never existed. The USA have always been overwhelmingly superior in technology and weapons production capacity. Generals and politicians always claimed the opposite just to justify their actions. Adding another element to the military situation could not tip the scale.

However such superiority was never used to put an end to the war, the war ended when the Soviet empire collapsed on itself with no influence from the outside.