Phat writes:
As far as I know, we only dropped two on Japan, though we tested many within our own territories.
Actually, we dropped four in Spain, others in North and South Carolina, one missing somewhere in the Mediterranean, several accidentally destroyed in crashes off the US Pacific Coast and at airports in California among other sites.
Phat writes:
Not counting Japan, probably ourselves. Again, they were tests, however.
But most were not tests but accidents.
Phat writes:
I would surely hope so.
Except we kinda don't. The one dropped in South Carolina has never been found, the one in the Med has never been found, the one off Tybee has never been found, the one off the Pacific NW has never been recovered....and those are some of the acknowledged examples.
The record has not been good but so far the safety feature and procedures have kept us from a major incident. The bombs and hardware are old though. Incidents like the recent US Naval Ship collisions has made questioning training and staffing reasonable. The bomber deterrent was initially dropped because it posed greater accident risk and less security than the Nuclear Missile Submarines.
So before putting nuclear bombs back in the skies over us maybe we need to be sure the hardware, training and procedures offer sufficient assurances of safety to offset the risk.
But is that analysis actually being done?