With early-warning systems getting more advanced in the 50s, Sandia National Laboratory’s Experimental Weapons Research Group was tasked with developing a “laydown” concept for weapons delivery and any other method that may allow a low-flying supersonic aircraft from escaping the blast. In late 1955, based on the studies of this group, a joint Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) and Department of Defense (DOD) group was created in the form of the Tableleg Committee to pursue these methods for military application.
Two methods were carried into fruition, the first being an elaborate aircraft maneuver that might provide escape time: as it approached, a low-flying aircraft could pull up and lob its bomb in an arc toward the target, while the pilot looped the plane over and back toward safety. The second, parachutes, rotochutes, or retro-rockets on a bomb might retard its decent to the ground, slowing it to prevent its destruction at impact, thereby allowing a timer to delay detonation.
