In article . com,
writes:
The 1961 whale could indeed go out 2000 miles, drop an internally
carried payload of 12000 lbs and have enough fuel to return. This hop
would have to be unescorted by fighters or ECM birds.

This is a mission the navy gave up when they didn't continue
"first-day-of-war" stealth after the demise of the A-12. This kind of
mission now belongs soley to the Air Force.

I think the major change is that our CVG isn't tasked to seek out and
destroy the Soviet fleet.

Actually, Heavy Attack died with the end of the carriers' primary SIOP
mission in the '60s and the retirement of the A-3s. Although the
ostensibly heavy RA-5's retained the capability to drop nukes, the
problems with the linear bomb bay meant that they could only carry much
smaller weapons underwing.

That's not really the case - the A-5's internal bay could handle a
single Mk 27, B28, or B43 bomb, with all manner of problems that
go along with blowing off a piece of your airplane and blsating part
of its fuel system out of the back. (The bombs were part of a
bomb/tank "train". Firing the train out of the back required severing
fuel, pressure, and instrumentation lines, as well as the usual stuff
to get the bomb aremd and ready to go.
The pylons could handle B28, B43, or B57 bombs, with much better
release behavior. And you could carry 2 of them.
The RA-5 may well have been the only nuclear bomber to have had its
ability to deliver weapons improved by the elimination of the internal
bay. (Well, the F-105, maybe, as well)

By the mid '60s, though, the Powers That Be had realized that the RA-5
wa much more useful as a sensor platform. It could go places nobody
else could, and get data that nobody else could dig up.

--
Pete Stickney

Without data, all you have are opinions