Ahem: the V-bombers were all subsonic (at least in service — the prototype Handley-Page Victor went supersonic on at least one occasion and was controllable in

Ahem: the V-bombers were all subsonic (at least in service — the prototype Handley-Page Victor went supersonic on at least one occasion and was controllable in transsonic flight; the production Victors had various external extras bolted on which made supersonic flight impractical). The requirement issued for these bombers in the late 1940s, was for a mission to carry ten tons of Atom bomb from the UK to Moscow at high subsonic speed and able to penetrate Moscow's air defenses. They were pretty successful; Vulcans carried out the longest bombing mission in aviation history prior to Operation Desert Storm (the 8000-mile Black Buck raids during the Falklands Conflict) and the last Victor tankers were retired in 1993. And we're looking at designs that flew little more than a decade after the piston-engined Lancasters and Halifaxes of RAF Bomber Command. All three V-bomber types — the Valiant, Vulcan, and Victor — saw service carrying Britain's nuclear weapons from the 1950s to the early 1970s. (They were replaced in the deterrent role by Polaris submarines.) More here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/V_bomber https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/V_bomber