# Nuclear capable prop planes?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nuclear-capable-prop-planes/339286
**Category:** Factual Questions
**Created:** [January 10, 2006, 6:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nuclear-capable-prop-planes/339286 "2006-01-10T06:49:21Z")
**Posts on this page:** 19
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Ranchoth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ranchoth)
#### Post date: [January 10, 2006, 6:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nuclear-capable-prop-planes/339286/1 "2006-01-10T06:49:21Z")
That is, I was just wondering…how many propeller-driver aircraft are/were/were meant to be able to deliver nuclear weapons in combat? (Turboprops count, too.)
So far, just off the top of my head, I can think of the—
B-29
Tu-4 (The Soviet copy of the B-29.)
B-36
Tu-95
…And the A-1 Skyraider. (No kidding!) Plus, I imagine a number of helicopters could carry nuclear depth charges, though I don’t know specific models.
Am I missing any others?
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### Author:  [@Declan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Declan)
#### Post date: [January 10, 2006, 7:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nuclear-capable-prop-planes/339286/2 "2006-01-10T07:35:05Z")
> [@Ranchoth](#):
>
> Am I missing any others?
I am thinking probably the P3 orion , and its predecessor the P2 , the French Atlantique and the RAF Shakelton , which was an upgraded version of the lancaster bomber. The time frame also helps cause earlier nukes required massive bombbays , while the later generation nukes could be carried by any aircraft with the airspeed to get away from the burst.
Declan
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### Author:  [@Pushkin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pushkin)
#### Post date: [January 10, 2006, 10:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nuclear-capable-prop-planes/339286/3 "2006-01-10T10:17:36Z")
Lancaster bombers were upgraded to carry massive conventional bombs for the RAF, perhaps they could have carried nuclear weapons too?
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### Author:  [@Tevildo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tevildo)
#### Post date: [January 10, 2006, 11:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nuclear-capable-prop-planes/339286/4 "2006-01-10T11:21:37Z")
> [@Declan](#):
>
> I am thinking probably the P3 orion , and its predecessor the P2 , the French Atlantique and the RAF Shakelton , which was an upgraded version of the lancaster bomber. The time frame also helps cause earlier nukes required massive bombbays , while the later generation nukes could be carried by any aircraft with the airspeed to get away from the burst.
The Shakelton, although developed from the Lancaster, was never actually used as a bomber, just as an anti-submarine and reconnaisance platform. Its immediate predecessor, the [Lincoln](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avro_Lincoln), was the RAF’s main bomber just after the war, but I don’t think that it ever carried a nuclear payload.
The RAF used American B-29’s for its nuclear bomber force until the introduction of the jet-propelled Valiant and Canberra bombers.
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### Author:  [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)
#### Post date: [January 10, 2006, 2:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nuclear-capable-prop-planes/339286/5 "2006-01-10T14:03:52Z")
The B-50, essentially an upgraded B-29.
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### Author:  [@bonzer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bonzer)
#### Post date: [January 10, 2006, 2:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nuclear-capable-prop-planes/339286/6 "2006-01-10T14:33:08Z")
A Lancaster certainly could have carried one and in late 1943 Norman Ramsey, then a senior figure in the Ordnance Division at Los Alamos and charged with finding a suitable plane, actually recommended that it was a better option than the B-29. General Leslie Groves - no Anglophile at the best of times - overruled him.
Offhand, I’m fairly sure that all the UK’s airdrop tests used jets.
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### Author:  [@Hoodoo\_Ulove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hoodoo_Ulove)
#### Post date: [January 10, 2006, 2:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nuclear-capable-prop-planes/339286/7 "2006-01-10T14:42:01Z")
A Piper Cub would be fine for [this](http://www.nationalterroralert.com/images/nuclear_suitcase_bomb_nuke.gif).
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### Author:  [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)
#### Post date: [January 10, 2006, 2:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nuclear-capable-prop-planes/339286/8 "2006-01-10T14:53:03Z")
> [@Ranchoth](#):
>
> …And the A-1 Skyraider.
My dad was Combat Aircrew in an AD-4N (AEW) Skyraider during the Korean War. He used to say that a Skyraider had ‘the instantaneous firepower of a light cruiser’.
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### Author:  [@Dorjan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dorjan)
#### Post date: [January 10, 2006, 3:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nuclear-capable-prop-planes/339286/9 "2006-01-10T15:32:00Z")
If you let the 4 turbojets slide, the [B-36 Peacemaker](http://www.cowtown.net/proweb/b36net/) was a mainstay of the SAC for a time. Six turnin and four burnin!
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### Author:  [@Dorjan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dorjan)
#### Post date: [January 10, 2006, 3:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nuclear-capable-prop-planes/339286/10 "2006-01-10T15:33:16Z")
Argh, the OP had the B-36 listed already. I completely missed it. Sorry!
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### Author:  [@Pushkin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pushkin)
#### Post date: [January 10, 2006, 3:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nuclear-capable-prop-planes/339286/11 "2006-01-10T15:50:00Z")
> [@bonzer](#):
>
> A Lancaster certainly could have carried one and in late 1943 Norman Ramsey, then a senior figure in the Ordnance Division at Los Alamos and charged with finding a suitable plane, actually recommended that it was a better option than the B-29. General Leslie Groves - no Anglophile at the best of times - overruled him
I heard the reason given was the internal stucture of the Lancaster, but then the special’s for carrying Grand Slam bombs had the fuselage altered so the bomb sat more or less open to the elements so it might have worked.
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### Author:  [@audit1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/audit1)
#### Post date: [January 10, 2006, 3:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nuclear-capable-prop-planes/339286/12 "2006-01-10T15:55:04Z")
The North American AJ Savage, twin enginer, carrier based.
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### Author:  [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)
#### Post date: [January 10, 2006, 4:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nuclear-capable-prop-planes/339286/13 "2006-01-10T16:12:36Z")
> [@Pushkin](#):
>
> I heard the reason given was the internal stucture of the Lancaster, but then the special’s for carrying Grand Slam bombs had the fuselage altered so the bomb sat more or less open to the elements so it might have worked.
My understanding was that USAAF copied the Grand Slam rack used in the Lanc for the A-bomb attacks. The bombs did fit inside the B-29 with the doors closed. The Lanc also might not have had the range to reach the Home Islands from Tinian.
I’ve read elsewhere that on V-J Day the RAF Dam Busters squadron (the 517th, right?) was within 2 weeks of deploying to the Pacific (maybe Okinawa?) to soften up Kyushu for Operation Olympic, though, so maybe the standard Lancaster could do it.
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### Author:  [@Capt.Ridley\_s\_Shooting\_Party](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Capt.Ridley_s_Shooting_Party)
#### Post date: [January 10, 2006, 5:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nuclear-capable-prop-planes/339286/14 "2006-01-10T17:35:40Z")
617 Squadron.
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### Author:  [@bonzer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bonzer)
#### Post date: [January 11, 2006, 1:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nuclear-capable-prop-planes/339286/15 "2006-01-11T01:04:30Z")
> [@Pushkin](#):
>
> I heard the reason given was the internal stucture of the Lancaster, but then the special’s for carrying Grand Slam bombs had the fuselage altered so the bomb sat more or less open to the elements so it might have worked.
Groves’s own postwar account of the decision (in his _Now It Can Be Told_, 1962; Da Capo, 1988, p254) strictly passes the buck to Hap Arnold, saying that he refused to use Lancasters. But he also makes clear that he agreed with that opinion, that he’d “hoped and expected” this when he consulted Arnold on the matter and that their reasoning was entirely nationalistic rather than technical.
It’s however worth adding that, in time, Ramsey changed his mind and so there’s a 1945 report where he agreed that opting for the B-29 in 1943 had been the correct decision after all.
> [@ElvisL1ves](#):
>
> My understanding was that USAAF copied the Grand Slam rack used in the Lanc for the A-bomb attacks. The bombs did fit inside the B-29 with the doors closed.
In _Ruin From The Air_ (1977; Scarborough, 1990, p55), Thomas and Witts agree that the B-29s involved were modified so that the bombs were suspended from a “hook” based on that used for the Grand Slams inside Lancasters. Apparently, the liason with the British over the design was Kermit Beahan, later to become most famous as the bombardier who dropped the Fat Man on Nagasaki.
> [@](#):
>
> The Lanc also might not have had the range to reach the Home Islands from Tinian.
A reasonable point, though Ramsey, Groves and Arnold had only the vaguest notion in 1943 of what would be the eventual requirements. They barely had adequate estimates of the expected size of the weapon (and weren’t envisaging a shape like a Fat Man at that stage at all).
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### Author:  [@drbuzz0](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drbuzz0)
#### Post date: [January 11, 2006, 2:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nuclear-capable-prop-planes/339286/16 "2006-01-11T02:43:13Z")
As far as prop planes which were meant to carry nuclear bombs…
Are you limiting this to production bombers?
Or do you include prototypical or evaluation bombers that never went into full production, such as planes with the XB or YB designation.
If you include those, you would get a bunch more.
Also
You should add the B-50 to the list, because I know they dropped some nukes for tests, although I don’t know if it was ever intended to be used for nuclear combat.
I don’t know if you’d want to include it with the B-29 though, because they were both basically the same plane only with modifications for higher altitudes and I think the B-50 had a different tail.
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### Author:  [@Ranchoth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ranchoth)
#### Post date: [January 11, 2006, 4:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nuclear-capable-prop-planes/339286/17 "2006-01-11T04:59:59Z")
> [@drbuzz0](#):
>
> As far as prop planes which were meant to carry nuclear bombs…
>
> Are you limiting this to production bombers?
>
> Or do you include prototypical or evaluation bombers that never went into full production, such as planes with the XB or YB designation.
I’m focusing more on production aircraft, but ones that got to the prototype stage get an “honorable mention,” I suppose.
BTW—thanks for the info so far, y’all! (I HAD wondered about the possibility of Lancs carrying nukes.)
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### Author:  [@Robot\_Arm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Robot_Arm)
#### Post date: [January 11, 2006, 7:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nuclear-capable-prop-planes/339286/18 "2006-01-11T07:27:12Z")
> [@Ranchoth](#):
>
> I’m focusing more on production aircraft, but ones that got to the prototype stage get an “honorable mention,” I suppose.
In that case, the [XB-47D](http://www.wpafb.af.mil/museum/research/bombers/b4/b4-21.htm)
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### Author:  [@audit1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/audit1)
#### Post date: [January 11, 2006, 3:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nuclear-capable-prop-planes/339286/19 "2006-01-11T15:29:50Z")
Was the Consolidated B-32 Dominator ever considered?