Cold War-era ‘Assault Breaker’ program revived with aim to decimate advancing Russian or Chinese forces

Back in the heyday of the Cold War, Europe had a real problem: even with American military might on its side, the region faced a Soviet military with overwhelming numbers on its eastern flank. If the Soviet Union had opted to invade, there was little NATO could do to stem the flow of Russian armor as it poured through Baltic allies in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania.

Eventually, NATO’s combined forces could mount a counter-attack, but it would take days or even weeks to amass enough reinforcements. As a result, the use of nuclear weapons to decimate advancing Soviet armor became the strategy of last resort, but many posed concerns that even the use of small, tactical nukes could elevate such a conflict into nuclear war. NATO needed another way.

So the “Assault Breaker” concept was born. In the event of a large-scale invasion, the United States would pair data provided by sensors aboard airborne surveillance aircraft with long-range weapons carried aboard a fleet of America’s massive B-52 bombers. That fleet, composed of 12 aircraft, would each release 20 “Assault Breaker” missiles, each capable of unleashing a “swarm” of 40 smaller sub-munitions that would rely on IR guidance to engage Russian tank columns from above, where their armor is weakest, using forged penetrators.