The Supersonic Shield

(See Cover)

If Moscow should decide some mid night to attack the U.S., 900 Soviet heavy bombers could be over North America by dawn. Some 300 Red planes, manned by elite crews and loaded with nuclear or thermonuclear bombs, would streak toward vital U.S. target areas. The others, carrying TNT and fire bombs, would serve to divert and confuse U.S. defenses.

Twoscore well-placed hydrogen bombs could kill one-fourth of the American people; conceivably, an all-out surprise attack could destroy the nation's will to resist and power to strike back.

America's defenses against this nightmarish—but very real—possibility are centered in the pleasant resort town of Colorado Springs. There, in a two-story blockhouse, grey and windowless, is a huge Plexiglas map on which the position of any strange plane sighted anywhere over North America is immediately plotted. Within two minutes, two jet interceptors scramble skyward with orders to identify the unknown aircraft—or shoot it down.

The grey blockhouse and the scrambling jets are part of General Ben Chidlaw's Continental Air Defense Command. Like the Strategic Air Command, Chid law's Air Defense is at the ready every minute of the day and night. Its radar (see cut) and interceptors could make the difference between life and sudden death for millions of Amer icans and perhaps for the nation itself. No defense can be close to perfect, but the ever-alert, ever-expanding Continental Command is dedicated to the proposition that defense measures are practical, even in a ther- monuclear war.

Massive Menace. By military standards, the dan ger of a Red strike against the U.S. is greater now than ever before. The Soviet Un ion is very nearly capable of a knockout blow delivered without warning. In 1949, when the Reds first tested an atomic bomb, they lacked the means to strike directly at the U.S. They have since built a massive intercontinental striking force: Aviatsiya Dalnevo Deyst-viya, known to U.S. airmen as SUSAC (Soviet Union Strategic Air Command).

SUSAC now has at least 1,200 TU4 heavy bombers stationed at newly built bases in the Soviet arctic, only a few hours' flying time from the U.S. In the last year SUSAC crews have been trained intensively in instrument flying and tanker-refueling techniques for long-range raids (equaling round trips from Siberia to Los Angeles). They have been supplied with electronic bombsights, two new types of 600-m.p.h. jet bombers (the T-37 and T-39, resembling respectively the U.S. 6-52 and 6-47), and probably with hydrogen bombs.

The two jets, first reported at the Moscow air show last May, can double the speed and multiply the menace of any Soviet air strike. Observers, who saw the huge T-37 flying over Moscow at 200 ft., hoped for a time that the planes were prototypes displayed as bluff. But in June a flight of 60 T-395 flew over Moscow in perfect formation.