Military tactics ( that were never developed or employed )

The RAF Nimrod 2 fleet regularly flew with a pair of Sidewinder AIM 9L on the outboard pylon during the cold war from 1982 onwards.
If I remember corretly, they started doing it during the Falklands War, because of the possibility of meeting an Argentine patrol plane, while the Nimrods were flying out of Ascension Island.
 
With the invention of AI which can be combined with radar, strategic bombers like the B-52 can have 2-3 autocannon turrets capable of shooting down SAMs?
AI is not an I win button in all circumstances, gun laying is one of them ( AI is good at pattern matching not intercept geometry ). In any case the idea is not to give your position away which means no active sensors. Its one of the problems of a lot of 5th Generation fighters also have, to have maximum effect they need the active sensors be mounted on something else ( AWAC for instance ) which does not use stealth and networking.
 
Given how much combat is conducted in cities during 20 th century , I’m not sure why there were no dedicated Urban warfare specialists units. We have arctic , alpine , jungle warfare etc units
What would these units look like at a squad, platoon , company and higher level ?
How will their weapons be different or specialized

IIRC two of Israel’s infantry brigades are urban warfare specialists.
 
IIRC two of Israel’s infantry brigades are urban warfare specialists.
It's something the British Army has trained for continuously since WW2. The issue is that urban areas differ from Northern to Southern Europe and different again in Africa or South America etc with different construction methods, housing layouts etc.

Israel I suspect has a more limited range of housing types and layouts.
 
^^^ to borrow shamelessly from above

Soviet interception tactics in Cold War employ ramming as a regular tactic to bring down aircraft
What modifications can be made to interceptors to make ramming more palatable & effective? Maybe an automatic ejection of the pilot seconds before impact or at impact?
 
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The Royal Navy's Grand Fleet and German High Seas Fleet close on each other at Jutland and go to ramming speed.

...& battleships launching torpedos.

IIRC the only ramming done by a 'battleship' in the 20th Century was the HMS Dreadnaught doing so on a German submarine during WWII. The U boat skipper made a poor move in attempting to launch a periscope depth torpedo attack from inside a Brit fleet formation. Depth control must have off as the submarine was spotted just below surface and the Dreadnought was able to overrun the boat with a easy course change.

This does not include the many accidental rammings by BB during training and combat ops.
 
Marine air unit VMS-3 had been assigned to the Virgin Islands in 1934, & remained patrolling the approaches to the Caribbean into 1944. Eventually this small unit grew into wing size scattered at stations across the Eastern US Seaboard and Caribbean/Gulf of Mexico. In mid 1944 it had a brief bit of excitement when Marine Air Group 51 at Cherry Point NC was alerted to start training with "rockets". It was to be sent on ultra short notice to the UK where it would attack V1 launch sites with the Tiny Tim air to ground rocket. Four squadrons were in the Group giving it a total of 125 F4U aircraft . Training had started when on 11 July the Group was ordered to transfer to the UK with 60 aircraft. The balance of the Group were to be prepared to follow at a later date.

Nineteen days later the orders were canceled and soon Operation DANNY was canceled. In short the Group was to start attacks on V1 launch sites in Belgium, using the 11.75 Inch Tiny Tim rocket. One problem was the Tiny Tim was not combat worthy at this point. it accuracy not reaching specifications. Another was that Army Chief of Staff Marshal opposed mixing USMC units with Army in the ETO. Assuming these two problems had not intervened, the a jumped up USMC squadron, and eventually multi squadron air group would have been stunting around Europe attacking with the TT mega rocket.
 
Standard amphibious warfare doctrine has the first waves of a beach assault land at high tide. This places the initial ssualt wave close as practical to any beach defenses and minimizes the breadth of open sand to cross to the first covered ground.


In January 1044 Allied intelligence discovered the German intent to heavily fortify the French beaches. previous in 1942-43 the Germans had concentrated their coastal defenses around the ports. Rural beaches were manned only by observation or outposts with some sandbags and a bit of barbed wire. In January Hitler took in Rommels report on the coastal defenses and Rommels recommendation for a heavy fortified beach defense.

As soon as Hilters orders went out to execute Rommels recommendations the French underground reported construction starting and air reconnaissance photos showed the first beach obstacles being emplaced. This of course concerned the Allied leaders, from Montys 21st Army Group staff doing the actual assault planning, to the US and Royal Navies who had to get the Armies to the water line. Everyone began testing methods for clearing the German obstacles. Saturating the obstacles with aircraft bombing on reproductions proved unproductive. Even large numbers of heavy bombs failed to clear lanes through the test sites. The bombardment by heavy cruiser and battleship cannon also failed to clear the test obstacles. The USN even tried ending torpedos into the surf to blow lanes to th high tide line. Which failed. Eventually the decision was made to land at low tide, thus avoiding the obstacles entirely with the boats. The Germans did not place a significant number of barricades beyond the low tide line. boat lanes through he barrier were to be made by engineers landing in the first assault waves. These teams were, while underwire to hand place explosives of the barricades while under fire. Ultimately that worked, tho many teams suffered severe casualties.


One idea suggested but not followed up on, was to turn barges or long pontoon like structures into mega size Bangalore torpedos. Barges loaded with many tons of explosives would be pushed into the obstacle belt, at high tide, then detonated as the boats doing the pushing back off. This was dropped as impractical. It was assumed enemy fire would detonated the kamikaze barges before they were beached. What was unknown at the time is the German defenders had a standing order not to fire on the first wave of landing craft until they reached the far edge of the obstacle belt.

Assuming the US Navy had been crazy enough to try this stunt I have to wonder what the beach defenders would have thought when packages of 20, 40, or 80 tons of explosives started going off 200 or 300 meters from their bunkers :O
 
USSR develops the nuclear armed air to air missile, carried on the Tu-128 and su-15 giving them all aspect interception capabilities
 
USSR develops the nuclear armed air to air missile, carried on the Tu-128 and su-15 giving them all aspect interception capabilities
For "all aspect" you need proper guidance and fire control, not a big bang. The air-air nukes were used by the USAF (don't think the USSR had any) precisely because of the lack of proper systems. Once the USAF had those they removed air-air nukes from the arsenal. Also, I'm not sure how the political masters of the USSR would feel about putting nukes on a plane that had the speed and range to run away (the fear of pilot defection was a thing at the time).
 
Considering Towed Gliders were a thing that could carry significant payloads, how about towed glider bombs (you would need to figure out how to aim them though).
Isn't Russia using those in Ukraine? They are not "towed", but dropped from fighter jets, but it's the same principle
 
...& battleships launching torpedos.

IIRC the only ramming done by a 'battleship' in the 20th Century was the HMS Dreadnaught doing so on a German submarine during WWII. The U boat skipper made a poor move in attempting to launch a periscope depth torpedo attack from inside a Brit fleet formation. Depth control must have off as the submarine was spotted just below surface and the Dreadnought was able to overrun the boat with a easy course change.

This does not include the many accidental rammings by BB during training and combat ops.
The record for which is probably the Battle of May Island?
Two submarines lost, and four more, and a light cruiser, damaged.
 
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