Bomber gap
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The bomber gap was the
Cold War The Cold War is a term commonly used to refer to a period of geopolitical tension between the United States and the Soviet Union and their respective allies, the Western Bloc and the Eastern Bloc. The term '' cold war'' is used because the ...
belief that the
Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen national ...
's
Long Range Aviation Long-Range Aviation ( rus, Авиация Дальнего Действия, r=Aviatsiya dal'nego deystviya, abbr. to AДД, or ADD, and literally ''Aviation of Distant Action'') is a branch of the Russian Aerospace Forces responsible for delive ...
department had gained an advantage in deploying
jet-powered Jet propulsion is the propulsion of an object in one direction, produced by ejecting a jet of fluid in the opposite direction. By Newton's third law, the moving body is propelled in the opposite direction to the jet. Reaction engines operating o ...
strategic bomber A strategic bomber is a medium- to long-range penetration bomber aircraft designed to drop large amounts of air-to-ground weaponry onto a distant target for the purposes of debilitating the enemy's capacity to wage war. Unlike tactical bombers, ...
s. Widely accepted for several years, the gap was used as a political
talking point A talking point, often used in the plural, is a pre-established message or formula used in the field of political communication, sales and commercial or advertising communication. The message is coordinated ''a priori'' to remain more or less inv ...
in the
United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...
to justify a great increase in
defense spending A military budget (or military expenditure), also known as a defense budget, is the amount of financial resources dedicated by a state to raising and maintaining an armed forces or other methods essential for defense purposes. Financing militar ...
. One result was a massive buildup of the
US Air Force The United States Air Force (USAF) is the air service branch of the United States Armed Forces, and is one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. Originally created on 1 August 1907, as a part of the United States Army Signal ...
bomber fleet, which peaked at over 2500 bombers to counter the perceived Soviet threat. Surveillance flights by the U-2 aircraft indicated that the bomber gap did not exist.


Appearance

On February 15, 1954, ''
Aviation Week ''Aviation Week & Space Technology'', often abbreviated ''Aviation Week'' or ''AW&ST'', is the flagship magazine of the Aviation Week Network. The weekly magazine is available in print and online, reporting on the aerospace, defense and aviati ...
'' published an article describing new Soviet jet bombers capable of carrying a
nuclear bomb A nuclear weapon is an explosive device that derives its destructive force from nuclear reactions, either fission (fission bomb) or a combination of fission and fusion reactions (thermonuclear bomb), producing a nuclear explosion. Both bomb ...
from their bases to the US. The aircraft was the
Myasishchev M-4 The Myasishchev M-4 ''Molot'' (russian: Молот (Hammer), USAF/DoD reporting name "Type 37", ASCC reporting name Bison) was a four-engined strategic bomber designed by Vladimir Mikhailovich Myasishchev and manufactured by the Soviet Union in ...
''Bison''. Over the next year and a half, the rumors were debated publicly in the press and soon in
Congress A congress is a formal meeting of the representatives of different countries, constituent states, organizations, trade unions, political parties, or other groups. The term originated in Late Middle English to denote an encounter (meeting of a ...
. Adding to the concerns was an infamous event in July 1955. At the
Soviet Aviation Day Russian Air Force Day (russian: День Военно-воздушных сил, Den Voyenno-vozdushnykh) is a professional military holiday of Russia celebrated on 12 August to honor the active and reserve personnel, as well as veterans of the Ru ...
demonstrations at the Tushino Airfield, ten Bison bombers were flown past the reviewing stand, flew out of sight, quickly turned around, and then flew past the stands again with eight more. That presented the illusion that there were 28 aircraft in the flyby. Western analysts, extrapolating from the illusionary 28 aircraft, judged that by 1960, the Soviets would have 800.


US Air Force raises numbers of bombers

At the time, the Air Force had just introduced its own strategic jet bomber, the
B-52 Stratofortress The Boeing B-52 Stratofortress is an American long-range, subsonic, jet-powered strategic bomber. The B-52 was designed and built by Boeing, which has continued to provide support and upgrades. It has been operated by the United States Air ...
, and the shorter-range
B-47 Stratojet The Boeing B-47 Stratojet (Boeing company designation Model 450) is a retired American long-range, six-engined, turbojet-powered strategic bomber designed to fly at high subsonic speed and at high altitude to avoid enemy interceptor aircraft ...
was still suffering from a variety of technical problems that limited its availability. Its staff started pressing for accelerated production of the B-52 but also grudgingly accepted calls for expanded air defense. The Air Force was generally critical of spending effort on defense after it had studied the results of the
World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
bombing campaigns and concluded that British Prime Minister
Stanley Baldwin Stanley Baldwin, 1st Earl Baldwin of Bewdley, (3 August 186714 December 1947) was a British Conservative Party politician who dominated the government of the United Kingdom between the world wars, serving as prime minister on three occasions, ...
's pre-war thinking on the fruitlessness of air defense was mostly correct: "
The bomber will always get through "The bomber will always get through" was a phrase used by Stanley Baldwin in a 1932 speech "A Fear for the Future" given to the British Parliament. His speech stated that contemporary bomber aircraft had the performance necessary to conduct a s ...
." Like the British, the US Air Force concluded that money would better be spent on making the offensive arm larger to deter an attack. The result was a production series consisting of thousands of aircraft. Over 2,000 B-47s and almost 750 B-52s were built to match the imagined fleet of Soviet aircraft.


Disproval of gap

US President
Dwight Eisenhower Dwight David "Ike" Eisenhower (born David Dwight Eisenhower; ; October 14, 1890 – March 28, 1969) was an American military officer and statesman who served as the 34th president of the United States from 1953 to 1961. During World War II, ...
had always been skeptical of the gap. However, with no evidence to disprove it, he agreed to the development of the U-2 to find out for sure. The first U-2 flights started in 1956. One early mission, Mission 2020, flown by
Martin Knutson Martin A. "Marty" Knutson (May 31, 1930 - December 11, 2013) served as Director of Flight Operations for NASA's Ames Research Center at Moffett Field, CA, and also as site manager of the Ames-Dryden Flight Research Facility at Edwards Air Force Ba ...
on 9 July 1956, flew over an airfield southwest of
Leningrad Saint Petersburg ( rus, links=no, Санкт-Петербург, a=Ru-Sankt Peterburg Leningrad Petrograd Piter.ogg, r=Sankt-Peterburg, p=ˈsankt pʲɪtʲɪrˈburk), formerly known as Petrograd (1914–1924) and later Leningrad (1924–1991), i ...
and photographed 30
M-4 Bison The Myasishchev M-4 ''Molot'' (russian: Молот (Hammer), USAF/DoD reporting name "Type 37", ASCC reporting name Bison) was a four-engined strategic bomber designed by Vladimir Mikhailovich Myasishchev and manufactured by the Soviet Union in ...
bombers on the ramp. Multiplying by the number of Soviet bomber bases, the intelligence suggested the Soviets were already well on their way to deploying large numbers, with
National Intelligence Estimate National Intelligence Estimates (NIEs) are United States federal government documents that are the authoritative assessment of the Director of National Intelligence (DNI) on intelligence related to a particular national security issue. NIEs are pr ...
11-4-57 of November 1957 claiming 150 to 250 by 1958, and over 600 by the mid-1960s. In fact, the U-2 had actually photographed the entire Bison fleet; there were no M-4s at any of the other bases. Follow-up missions over the next year showed increasing evidence that the Soviet military was actually at a very low level of activity. Further, the CIA received information from the factories that showed that production rate had slowed down. A follow-up report in April 1958 by
Sherman Kent Sherman Kent (December 6, 1903 – March 11, 1986), was a Yale University history professor who, during World War II and through 17 years of Cold War-era service in the Central Intelligence Agency, pioneered many of the methods of intelligence ...
of the CIA stated that the program appeared to be winding down, not speeding up, and that the estimates for the force should be decreased. The Air Force, however, remained skeptical. In May 1958, they instead suggested that production was being carried out at Kuybyshev,
Kazan Kazan ( ; rus, Казань, p=kɐˈzanʲ; tt-Cyrl, Казан, ''Qazan'', IPA: ɑzan is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Tatarstan in Russia. The city lies at the confluence of the Volga and the Kazanka rivers, covering a ...
, and
Irkutsk Irkutsk ( ; rus, Иркутск, p=ɪrˈkutsk; Buryat language, Buryat and mn, Эрхүү, ''Erhüü'', ) is the largest city and administrative center of Irkutsk Oblast, Russia. With a population of 617,473 as of the 2010 Census, Irkutsk is ...
, and the aircraft being delivered to
Engels-2 Engels Air Force Base (russian: Энгельс, formally Engels-2) is a strategic bomber military airbase in Russia located east of Saratov. Engels is a major bomber operations base, and is Russia's sole operating location for the Tupolev Tu- ...
,
Bila Tserkva Bila Tserkva ( uk, Бі́ла Це́рква ; ) is a city in the center of Ukraine, the largest city in Kyiv Oblast (after Kyiv, which is the administrative center, but not part of the oblast), and part of the Right Bank. It serves as the admi ...
, and Orsha Southwest - all locations that had not yet been overflown. They suggested these be photographed, with the expectation that it would also provide information on new equipment. By this time, after receiving a stern diplomatic note from the Soviets, Eisenhower had shut down the U-2 flights. To preserve some sense of
plausible deniability Plausible deniability is the ability of people, typically senior officials in a formal or informal chain of command, to denial, deny knowledge of or responsibility for any damnable actions committed by members of their organizational hierarchy. Th ...
, in 1957 the CIA had reached an agreement with
MI6 The Secret Intelligence Service (SIS), commonly known as MI6 ( Military Intelligence, Section 6), is the foreign intelligence service of the United Kingdom, tasked mainly with the covert overseas collection and analysis of human intelligenc ...
and began training
Royal Air Force The Royal Air Force (RAF) is the United Kingdom's air and space force. It was formed towards the end of the First World War on 1 April 1918, becoming the first independent air force in the world, by regrouping the Royal Flying Corps (RFC) and ...
pilots on the U-2. The group moved to
Turkey Turkey ( tr, Türkiye ), officially the Republic of Türkiye ( tr, Türkiye Cumhuriyeti, links=no ), is a list of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country located mainly on the Anatolia, Anatolian Peninsula in Western Asia, with ...
in 1959 and began preparing for the missions. The very first flight, on 6 December 1959 with pilot Wing Commander Robert ‘Robbie’ Robinson, photographed the Kapustin Yar missile test range, the Engels-2 air base, and the Kuybyshev bomber factory. They showed no sign of the bombers nor the production capacity for them, and demonstrated that the total number of Soviet bombers was far less than the inflated estimates of the CIA and Air Force.
Allen Dulles Allen Welsh Dulles (, ; April 7, 1893 – January 29, 1969) was the first civilian Director of Central Intelligence (DCI), and its longest-serving director to date. As head of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) during the early Cold War, he ov ...
, head of the CIA, called it "a million-dollar photo". At least in official circles, the gap had been disproved. As it was later discovered, the M-4 was unable to meet its original range goals and was limited to about . Unlike the US, the Soviets still lacked overseas bases in the
Western Hemisphere The Western Hemisphere is the half of the planet Earth that lies west of the prime meridian (which crosses Greenwich, London, United Kingdom) and east of the antimeridian. The other half is called the Eastern Hemisphere. Politically, the term We ...
and so the M-4 could not attack the US and then land at a friendly airbase. Production ended in favor of an improved version, the 3M, but it too was unable to carry out attacks on much of the US, including
Washington, DC ) , image_skyline = , image_caption = Clockwise from top left: the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall, United States Capitol, Logan Circle, Jefferson Memorial, White House, Adams Morgan ...
. Interest in the M-4 waned, and only 93 were produced before the assembly lines were shut down in 1963. The vast majority were used as tankers or maritime reconnaissance aircraft; only the original ten shown at the air show and nine newer 3MD13 models served on nuclear alert.Myasishchev 'Bison'
/ref>


In popular culture

*In
Stanley Kubrick Stanley Kubrick (; July 26, 1928 – March 7, 1999) was an American film director, producer, screenwriter, and photographer. Widely considered one of the greatest filmmakers of all time, his films, almost all of which are adaptations of nove ...
's movie ''
Dr. Strangelove ''Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb'', known simply and more commonly as ''Dr. Strangelove'', is a 1964 black comedy film that satirizes the Cold War fears of a nuclear conflict between the Soviet Union and t ...
'', the notion of a "Bomber Gap" is parodied when the character of Buck Turgidson (a Pentagon general) declares that the US "must not allow a mineshaft gap" in discussing the use of mineshafts as nuclear
fallout shelters A fallout shelter is an enclosed space specially designated to protect occupants from radioactive debris or fallout resulting from a nuclear explosion. Many such shelters were constructed as civil defense measures during the Cold War. Duri ...
.


See also

*
Missile gap In the United States, during the Cold War, the missile gap was the perceived superiority of the number and power of the USSR's missiles in comparison with those of the U.S. (a lack of military parity). The gap in the ballistic missile arsenals di ...
*
Nuclear arms race The nuclear arms race was an arms race competition for supremacy in nuclear warfare between the United States, the Soviet Union, and their respective allies during the Cold War. During this same period, in addition to the American and Soviet nuc ...


Notes


References


Citations


Bibliography

* * * {{cite techreport , url=https://www.cia.gov/library/readingroom/docs/CIA-RDP61S00750A000500040115-4.pdf , archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170122215034/https://www.cia.gov/library/readingroom/docs/CIA-RDP61S00750A000500040115-4.pdf , url-status=dead , archive-date=January 22, 2017 , title=Heavy Bomber Targets, CIA-RDP61S00750A000500040115-4 , publisher=Central Intelligence Agency , date=21 May 1958 , ref=CITEREFTargets1958 Cold War weapons of the United States Soviet Union–United States relations Technological races American propaganda during the Cold War