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Aerospace Documents Collection Point


LostCosmonaut

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I doubt it, if I'm remembering correctly they were fairly crude gun-type devices.

At least officially. There is speculation that the Israelis provided lots of help to enable us to assemble a boosted implosion device relatively quickly if needed. This is, I think, a somewhat romantic view of what was more of a tag-along tech-sharing relationship.

 

Buccaneers and Canberras were the intended delivery vehicles, with surface-to-surface missiles to be developed later.

Yup. There was officially a space program, which was unofficially understood to be a ballistic missile development program, all of which was actually a big bluff (because you'd need proper ICBMs for deterrence value anyway). The bombers were always going to be the 'real' delivery vehicle.

 

Overall, the consensus is that the main purpose of the nuclear program was to provide a credible threat of proliferation and, in extremis, an underground test or two for use as a bargaining tool.

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Could the Mirage carry SA's nuke? 

Interestingly, I heard a very credible rumour that we recently sold the last of our mirage III bits (along with a lot of technical support) to Pakistan for use in ROSE followup.

 

Apparently the birds are meant for a one-way trip, armed with a single nuke apeice.

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