"Technical information on tactics for nuclear weapons" Topic

Hello everyone, odd history question, but I just absolutely cannot find the answer anywhere, here is probably a good a place as any to try!

Is there any information out there about how the actual, technical, tactical employment of nuclear weapons would have worked in a NATO-Warsaw Pact Cold War gone hot scenario post Cuban Missile Crisis? There is endless information on:

1) Lists of all the weapons themselves and delivery systems
2) High level political considerations about strategic war
3) Speculation about conventional war in that scenario
4) Very-very early Cold War scenarios along these lines like Operation Dropshot and concepts like Pentomic divisions
5) Many, many things where the authors basically throw up their hands and say "nuclear war bad, not worth thinking about at all"

But when it comes to the specific, purely operational questions of how tactical nuclear weapons would have been used on the battlefield in a post ~1965 context, there seems to nothing at all. I'm talking very technical/tactical information, at the level of "one useful tactic would be to have F-111s saturate front-line airfields with gravity bombs, where the air burst would have destroyed aircraft in the open but not hardened shelters", etc., stuff to that effect.

I can only assume that either a) all that information essentially remains classified or b) wasn't even ever seriously considered as a battlefield tool beyond holding in reserve endless lists of targets, or some combination of these two.

Does anybody know of any other sources on this topic that I'm missing?

U.S. Army field manual FM 30- 40 published June 1975 provides some general background regarding Soviet use of tactical nuclear weapons. One table provides some information about rocket delivery systems. Hope this helps a bit.

There are some CIA releases on the subject, including even targeting info. I'd start there first, with various Google searches for what you are looking for.

A lot of US, UK, and other tactical aircraft were planned to drop small nukes on the airfields, SAM defenses, radar and GCI stations, command and control HQs, etc., in order to pave the way for the heavy bombers to strike into the interior of the Soviet Union and China (yes, the latter was on the list too, since they might as well eliminate communism totally while you're at it).

Even the USN was in on the game, with their various tactical aircraft – A-4s, A-5s, A-6s, and A-7s. British carrier aircraft could too, all the way back to the 1960s era jets.

Check out the list of US and UK tactical aircraft equipped to carry nukes – many could. Same for even the West Germans, and French too.

The trick was to come up with and ensure that the various aircraft struck their targets on time, in order to avoid destroying follow-on waves of other planes flying through or near the same airspace.

link

PDF link
used with FM25-50

Here's a bit of info about the subject – see Operation Skyshield info, and the plans for smaller bombers to clear the way for the B-52s:

link

Supposedly, the B-52s would be in the second wave of attacks, if the reported info is true, and that the V-Bombers, B-47s, and B-58s would be in the first wave(s).

B-52s carrying Hound Dog missles could also help clear the way for themselves, neutralizing enemy air defenses, including: SAM sites, airbases, radar stations, ground control intercept facilities, etc., etc. They'd also use Quail radar decoys to mislead the enemy's defenses too during the run-in to their targets.

Note, there is no mention of smaller tactical aircraft carrying nukes too, though many/most fighter bombers could/would I suspect as well.