Strategic Air Command: "The Strength of SAC" pt1-2 1966 USAF

more at http://scitech.quickfound.net/aviatio...

"DEPICTS CONSTANT READINESS OF STRATEGIC AIR COMMAND'S PEOPLE, BOMBERS AND MISSILES TO DEFEND THE COUNTRY. PORTRAYS AROUND-THE-CLOCK OPERATIONS WHILE AIR AND GROUND CREWS, MISSILEMEN AND MAINTENANCE PERSONNEL TELL HOW THEY CARRY OUT THEIR IMPORTANT MISSIONS. COVERS COMMAND AND CONTROL, COMMUNICATIONS, AIR REFUELING, RECONNAISSANCE, AND NUCLEAR SAFETY ACTIVITIES. STRESSES PROFESSIONALISM AND RELIABILITY OF SAC'S PERSONNEL."

Public domain film from the National Archives, slightly cropped to remove uneven edges, with the aspect ratio corrected, and mild video noise reduction applied.
The soundtrack was also processed with volume normalization, noise reduction, clipping reduction, and equalization.
Split with MKVmerge GUI (part of MKVToolNix), the same software can recombine the downloaded parts (in mp4 format): http://www.bunkus.org/videotools/mkvt...

US Air Force film SFP-1448

part 2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MyCtlI...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strategi...

The Strategic Air Command (SAC) was both a Major Command (MAJCOM) of the United States Air Force and a "specified command" of the United States Department of Defense. SAC was the operational establishment in charge of America's land-based strategic bomber aircraft and land-based intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) strategic nuclear arsenal from 1946 to 1992...

During the interwar period between World War I and World War II , a group of U.S. Army Air Corps officers colloquially referred to as the Bomber Mafia, convinced of the potential of strategic bombing, paved the way both for the massive strategic air campaigns in Europe and the Pacific in World War II and the later creation of SAC. One of SAC's United States Army Air Forces (USAAF) predecessors, the "Continental Air Forces" (CAF) was established on 13 December 1944 and activated on 15 December 1944. CAF controlled the numbered air forces within the United States (1st Air Force, 2nd Air Force, 3rd Air Force and 4th Air Force) and their training mission.

On 21 March 1946, CAF was disestablished as part of a major reorganization of the USAAF. Within the United States, the USAAF was divided into three separate commands: Tactical Air Command (TAC), Air Defense Command (ADC), and Strategic Air Command (SAC). Airfields formerly assigned to CAF were reassigned to one of these three major commands...

The situation began to change on 19 October 1948, when Lieutenant General Curtis LeMay assumed leadership of the Strategic Air Command, a position he held until June 1957, the longest tenure for any United States armed forces commander since Winfield Scott...

During LeMay's command, SAC was able to effect great changes in American nuclear strategy...

LeMay started shortly after his arrival at SAC, by having SAC planners draw up Emergency War Plan 1-49, which involved striking seventy Soviet cities with 133 atomic bombs over a thirty day period in an effort to destroy Soviet industrial capacity. But with the Soviet Union gaining possession of atomic weapons in 1949, SAC was forced to rethink its nuclear strategy...

By the end of the 1950s, SAC had identified 20,000 potential Soviet target sites and had officially designated 3,560 of those sites as bombing targets, with the significant percentage being counterforce targets of Soviet air defense, airfields and suspected missile sites.

...the concept of a SAC airborne command post was developed... The aircraft selected for this duty was a deriviative of SAC's KC-135 Stratotanker. Named the EC-135 Looking Glass, it realized the SAC vision of a flying command post. As a result, one of SAC's EC-135 Looking Glass aircraft was constantly airborne from 1961 until the dissoultion of the Soviet Union and the de facto end of the Cold War in 1990...

With the end of the war in Vietnam... older B-52B, B-52C, B-52E and B-52F aircraft were retired, along with the B-58A, leaving SAC with an offensive force of several hundred B-52D, B-52G, B-52H and FB-111A strike aircraft, augmented by 1,054 Titan II, Minuteman II and Minuteman III ICBMs...

• Category

  Education

[tackN2Wind]

As a young man, am grateful to have been a part of a SMALL piece of TRIAD. I also appreciate the greater context of how nuclear deterrence kept me, my subsequent family, and the world, protected from fools with a finger poised above a button.

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Saddly, I see no relief from the danger imposed by the undocumented poseur now in charge of all our nukes. Obama is THE Clear and Present Danger !!!!!

[Bluenose352]

I like this! Not only is it the machines, being the strength behind SAC but also the men and women that helped keep our country safe while SAC was active. Long live SAC!

[Flickchaser]

@webdev17- Thanks for the SAC films. We owe a debt for the commitment and sacrifice of their families to keep us safe.