In article Rwxyb.533404$pl3.92056@pd7tw3no,
"Ed Majden" wrote:

"Chad Irby"
You should remember that with small fission warheads at high
altitudes, there is very little fallout, and practically zero
compared to even a single megaton-level ground strike.

What makes you think that these would have been high level blasts???

Because the Soviets never had anything that could make it all the way to
the US at low level. And with the size of warhead we're talking about
for most of these, you'd only need to be a couple of thousand feet up to
eliminate fallout from a ground burst.

Tactics with the B52 was a ground hugger to avoid SAMS and radar detection.

....but stayed at higher altitudes until they got in close. Not to
mention the B-52 had a *lot* more range at low level, and a lot of top
speed over the Bears of the period. Any Russian planes coming in over
Canada could not have been running low and still plan on making it to
the US.

Incinerating a Bear full of nuclear warheads would have created a severe
nuclear fall out problem!

Not as much as you'd think. Even at close range, you wouldn't
"incinerate" a plane. You'd need a fairly dead-on hit to vaporize even
one. Small nukes have small fireballs. Any Soviet planes hit by one of
these would prettybe blown out of the sky, but the effects would be no
worse than getting shot down in the first place.

Not to mention that they planned on using the same size of warhead over
most of the continental US for air defense..

U.S. Bomarc sites were near the Canada/U.S. border and most intercepts
would have taken place over Canada..

But there were US interceptor planes all over, and the Genie air-to-air
missile was in the inventory (we built over a thousand of them), with a
1.5 kiloton warhead. It was unguided, too, and only had a 6 mile range,
which made for some interesting attack plans.

Then there was the Nike-Hercules SAM, with a "switchable" warhead of
between 2 and 40 kilotons. I know of at least one near Dallas, and
that's nowhere *near* Canada.

--
cirby at cfl.rr.com

Remember: Objects in rearview mirror may be hallucinations.
Slam on brakes accordingly.