B-66 Destroyer: One-Size-Fits-All

The U.S. Air Force entered the Cold War well-armed. Swift fighters for air combat and formidable bombers for long-range strikes would have been a serious argument in any global war. The only real gap was in tactical bombers. At first, U.S. planners hoped to do without them, assigning close support to European allies and light attack types, say, Sabres lugging bombs. But as the Soviet Union’s air defenses improved, that approach looked less and less tenable. By the mid-1950s the U.S. military changed course: it adopted an upgraded version of Britain’s Canberra and, to complement it, ordered a land-based variant of the Navy’s A-3 Skywarrior.