Michael 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
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