The SAAF Forum

I also think nukes can be negated with a good germ warfare program.

Good point Eugene.

I still think having a so called "Big Stick" can come in handy. Don't declare your capability. Just keep them guessing and have a kind of reserve trump card.

SOUTH AFRICA AND THE NUCLEAR OPTION
By Marcus Duvenhage

.... The second and more conventional delivery platform would have been the air launched option. According to newspaper reports the bombs were designed for airborne delivery, were 1.5m long, 70cm wide and aerodynamically shaped. Each bomb weighed approximately a ton and had an explosive force of between 14 and 18 kilotons, roughly equal to the bombs that were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. By implication this meant that the bombs would have been dropped by conventional fixed wing aircraft. The SAAF possessed three types of aircraft at the end of the 1980's that were capable of fulfilling this role. The French Mirage F1 AZ, fighter-bomber, the Buccaneer S MK.50 and the Canberra B(1) 12. The last two aircraft being "light" bombers of British design and manufacture. Whereas the Mirage F1 had a limited range, the other two aircraft had sufficient unrefueled range to strike at targets in Angola, Zambia, Zimbabwe and Tanzania. The Mirage and Buccaneer could be refueled in flight while the Canberra did not possess this capability. It is interesting to note that the SAAF acquired five Boeings 707 tanker, transport, and electronic warfare aircraft from Bedeck Industries of Israel in the middle 1980's. These tanker aircraft were seen as force multipliers by the SAAF, enabling the Mirage F1 AZ's and the Buccaneers to increase their operational ranges. This enabled them to attack countries as far afield as central and northern Africa.

Of the three aircraft mentioned the most likely candidate for the first nuclear attack would have been the Buccaneer. The Buccaneer had a two-man crew, two engines, could be refueled in the air and had excellent navigation equipment. An indication of its nuclear attack capability can be found in the fact that a Buccaneer dropped the first H2 "Smart"-Bomb to be used operationally by the SAAF during an attack on the Cuito bridge in Southern Angola on 12 December 1987. Unfortunately the H2, TV guided weapon failed to destroy its target but a second attack on 3 January 1988 proved more successful. Further evidence supporting the Buccaneer can be found with the last surviving "airworthy" Buccaneer 422, which today is on display at the South African Museum for Military History in Saxonwold, Johannesburg. This particular aircraft is reported to have undergone a major overhaul costing many millions of Rand (said to be 13m) in about 1987-89. One may speculate whether this "major overhaul" was to prepare it for the delivery of the first nuclear bomb?

During 1987-1988 only five Buccaneers remained airworthy with the SAAF. The aircraft finally being withdrawn from service in 1990. According to a leading overseas aviation publication that the Buccaneers had the ability to carry the British WE 177 nuclear bomb in its rotating bomb bay. It must be born in mind that part of the training program and operational conversion course undertaken by SAAF, Buccaneer pilots who went across to the UK in the 1960's was the delivery of a nuclear weapon.

The first fully “qualified” gun-type device that ARMSCOR built could be delivered by a modified Buccaneer bomber equipped with a rotary bomb bay used in Australian drop tests of British nuclear weapons. Subsequent nuclear warheads were built for use in air-to-surface weapons (that is, a TV-guided glide bomb). These warheads could be carried on either the Buccaneer bombers or on one of the Air Force’s Mirage fighterbombers. According to official accounts, ARMSCOR had built three more deliverable devices, and the highly enhanced uranium core and the components for South Africa’s seventh device had been manufactured by the time the program was shut down at the end of 1989. As nuclear warheads came on line, they were increasingly viewed as “a force concept multiplier . . . a special payload for conventional delivery systems.” This shifting perspective prompted further work on developing a nuclear-tipped payload that could be used for the SADF surface-to-surface missile using the launch rocket of its reconnaissance satellite.

I am also glad that RSA never used the H Bombs

The Buccaneer bulged bomb bay door modification must have been done during the late 70's.

Israel owns many thermo-nukes (perhaps as many as China) and the means to deliver them over a wide area. Maybe anywhere in the world looking at their satellite capabilities. Has had nukes since 1973. Has it brought any advantage?