Re: [GZG] Tanker Pods

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R. Blair wrote:
> I think [the Soviets'] aircraft bomb attachment points might have been
compatible but I cannot remember. 
If you mean comperatible with Western aircraft, then ISTR that they 
weren't. This is not to say that it wasn't done, or indeed the other way

around as well (one of my favourite aircraft has always been the 
Pakistan Air Force's Shenyang F-6; where else in the world -- when they 
first entered service, anyway; these days, what with refits, etc.... -- 
could you find a Chinese-built copy of a Russian fighter toting American

AAMs and with a British ejection seat? :-D ), but it required a lot of 
work. Part of the difference between East and West bombs, IIRC, was 
metric /vs/ Imperial/US Customary weights and measures.

> I thought this was odd at the time so rather suspect it is wrong but
if ancient stocks of Korean War (and older) bombs could be used in
Vietnam (nearly casing the loss of a fission powered carrier) the
standard connectors must be pretty old. I think the Black Buck raid on
the Falklands used elderly bombs as well that turned out not to be so
obsolete after all.
>   
Bombs tend not to become obsolete, especially when all that is needed to

make them into a new superwonderweapon is a couple of fins and a 
guidance package, as was shown in Vietnam when laser- and 
optically-guided bombs first appeared. Take one standard bomb, fit 
movable fins, a seeker head and some electronics and you have a bomb 
that can take down the Paul Doumer because it can actually hit it in the

right place. And let us not forget the GBU-28 "bunker buster", /alias/ a

length of old gun barrel(?) revamped in much the same way into a 
penetration weapon /a la/ Tallboy and Grand Slam, only smaller. Lovely 
bit of improvisation there.

Phil