Radar Bomb Scoring[1] is a combat aviation ground support operation used to evaluate Cold War aircrews' effectiveness with simulated unguided bomb drops near radar stations of the United States Navy, the USAF Strategic Air Command, and Army Project Nike units.
[3] Scores for accuracy and electronic warfare effectiveness were transmitted from radar sites such as those at Strategic Range Training Complexes[3] (e.g., from Detachment 1 at the "La Junta Bomb Plot").
Most of the SAC sites were in the continental US with units (detachments) manned by technicians and operators of the Automatic Tracking Radar Specialist career field (AutoTrack).
World War II included Army Air Forces Bombardier Schools' scoring of trainee's proficiency at the "West Texas Bombardier Triangle"[4] and other USAAF ranges (e.g., observers on Range Towers),[5] and ground-directed bombing for combat guided by automatic tracking radars was used in the Mediterranean Theatre's Po Valley.
On 6 June 1945 "the 206th Army Air Force Base Unit (RBS) (206th AAFBU), was activated at Colorado Springs, Colorado under the command of Colonel Robert W. Burns [with] operational control of the two SCR-584 radar detachments located at Kansas City and Fort Worth Army Airfield (Det B),[6]: 3199 and dets were later "established at Denver, Chicago, Omaha, Albuquerque and [c. 1952 at] Los Angeles.
[30] The Northrop T-38C was upgraded to have no-drop bomb scoring capability in 2007[31] by estimating the impact from the onboard GPS-calculated position of release,[32] and the United States Marine Corps had no-drop bomb scoring at Yuma Proving Ground in 2010.