V-Bombers: Britain’s Nuclear Frontline in the Cold War

Summary

This is the story of a British deterrent. Much has been written about the V-bombers—the Valiant, Victor, and Vulcan—but virtually nothing has been said about their strategic nuclear strike role. How would Britain's small force of subsonic bombers have retaliated following a Soviet attack, and would they have succeeded?

This book is the product of seven years of research by Dr. Tony Redding. It includes fresh material on V-Force weapons, war mission, targeting, vulnerabilities, and tactics for attacking targets within Soviet Russia. Over seventy V-Force aircrew and ground crew were interviewed and over 300 operational research reports and other official documents reviewed. The author demonstrates how the V-bombers retained a unilateral capacity to destroy a small number of the very largest cities in the Soviet Union until the handover of the strategic nuclear deterrent to the Polaris submarines. This core retaliatory threat, centered on the destruction of Moscow and Leningrad, was judged severe enough to undermine Russia's position in relation to the US. In short, a few British V-bombers had the destructive capacity to destabilize the balance between the superpowers. The book concludes that, within the first few hours, a small force of surviving V-bombers could have unleashed the explosive power of all Allied bombs dropped on Germany in six years of war.