page_title: Strategic Air Command
section_title: The Cold War and massive retaliation
hierarchical_section_title: Strategic Air Command / The Cold War and massive retaliation
caption_attribution_description: A U.S. Air Force LGM-25C Titan II ICBM undergoes a test launch from an underground silo. Unlike Titan I missiles, which had to be raised to the surface before launch, the Titan II’s liquid rocket engines were ignited while it was still in the silo. Therefore the silo had to be constructed with flame and exhaust ducts as shown in this photograph.
context_page_description: Strategic Air Command was both a United States Department of Defense Specified Command and a United States Air Force Major Command, responsible for Cold War command and control of two of the three components of the U.S. military's strategic nuclear strike forces, the so-called "nuclear triad", with SAC having control of land-based strategic bomber aircraft and intercontinental ballistic missiles or ICBMs.
  SAC also operated all strategic reconnaissance aircraft, all strategic airborne command post aircraft, and all USAF aerial refueling aircraft, to include those in the Air Force Reserve and Air National Guard.
  However, SAC did not operate the KB-50, WB-50 and WB-47 weather reconnaissance aircraft operated through the mid and late 1960s by the Air Weather Service, nor did SAC operate the HC-130 or MC-130 operations aircraft capable of aerial refueling helicopters that were assigned to Tactical Air Command, then Military Airlift Command, and from 1990 onward, those MC-130 aircraft operated by the Air Force Special Operations Command, or any AFRES or ANG tactical aerial refueling aircraft operationally gained by TAC, MAC or AFSOC.
context_section_description: SAC's first jet strategic bomber was the swept-wing B-47 medium bomber, which first entered service in 1951 and became operational within SAC in 1953.  The B-47 was a component of the October 1953 New Look strategy, which articulated, in part, that: "...to minimize the threat...the major purpose of air defense was not to shoot down enemy bombers—it was to allow SAC...to get into the air[--and] not be destroyed on the ground[--to allow] massive retaliation.".
  Concern of a bomber gap grew after the 1955 Soviet Aviation Day and the Soviets rejected the "Open Skies" Treaty proposed at the Geneva Summit on 21 July 1955. US bomber strength peaked with "over 2,500 bombers" after production "of over 2,000 B-47s and almost 750 B-52s" (circa 1956, 50% of SAC aircraft & 80% of SAC bombers were B-47s).
  In an effort to concurrently enhance it reconnaissance capabilities, SAC also received several RB-57D Canberra aircraft in April 1956, with the aircraft initially based at Turner AFB, Georgia. In 1957, these aircraft were forward deployed to Rhein-Main Air Base, West Germany, in order to conduct reconnaissance missions along the borders of the Soviet Union and other Warsaw Pact nations.  However, an unintended consequence of this deployment was that Hawker Hunter fighters of the Royal Air Force stationed in the United Kingdom and in continental Europe often intercepted these classified RB-57 missions as they returned to Rhein-Main AB from over the Baltic.
  Since it was designed as a medium bomber, SAC's B-47 Stratojet traded speed for range.  Because of this shorter range, and in order to better enable the B-47 fleet to reach its target sets in the Soviet Union, SAC routinely deployed its US-based B-47 wings to overseas forward operating bases in North Africa, Spain and Turkey.  This program, in effect from 1957 to 1966, was known as "Reflex" with Sixteenth Air Force (16AF), a SAC numbered air force permanently stationed in Europe, having tactical and administrative control of the forward-deployed aircraft and units.
  Beginning in 1955, SAC also moved a portion of its bomber and aerial refueling aircraft to 24-hour alert status, either on the ground or airborne.  By 1960, fully one third of SAC's bombers and aerial refueling aircraft were on 24-hour alert, with those crews and aircraft not already airborne ready to take off from designated alert sites at their respective bases within fifteen minutes.  Bomber aircraft on ground alert were armed with nuclear weapons while aerial tanker aircraft were sufficiently fueled to provide maximum combat fuel offload to the bombers.
  Concurrent with this increased alert posture and in order to better hone strategic bombing skillsets, the 1955 SAC Bombing and Navigation Competition was characterized by radar bomb scoring (RBS) runs on Amarillo, Denver, Salt Lake City, Kansas City, San Antonio and Phoenix; and the 1957 competition (nicknamed "Operation Longshot") had three targets: Atlanta, Kansas City, and St. Louis.  This use of RBS with simulated target areas utilizing mobile and fixed bomb scoring sites adjacent to major cities, industrial areas, military installations and dedicated bombing ranges throughout the United States.  This format would continue through successive SAC Bombing and Navigation Competitions through the remainder of the 1950s, 1960s, 1970s and 1980s.  Commencing in the late 1950s, in addition to representation from every SAC wing with a bombing and/or air refueling mission, later SAC competitions would also include participating bomber and aerial refueling units from the Royal Air Force's Bomber Command and (after 30 April 1968) its successor, RAF Strike Command.
caption: Titan II missile launching from Site 395-C, a test launch silo at Vandenberg AFB.
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