Description

French language text and captions.
In 1994, the magazine Air Fan devoted, over several successive issues, a long series of articles signed by Alain Crosnier on Dassault’s Mirage IV bomber.
In these articles, the author almost engaged in an “exegesis” of the career of the plane which was to be considered for a very long time not only as the flagship of the Saint-Cloud design office, but also and above all as the privileged instrument of Gaullian nuclear deterrence policy. The doctrine patiently developed by thinkers like – among others – General Pierre Gallois would make the Mirage IV the cornerstone of France’s foreign policy. It is thanks to this plane that, for several decades, many countries were able to see in the French policy of national independence, a path allowing them to escape the Manichean choice between two superpowers in the middle of the Cold War.
Today, these articles, written while the Mirage IV was still in service, have not aged a bit. This book brings them together and does not claim to treat the subject exhaustively. It simply has the value of a snapshot of a certain vision of almost thirty years ago.

1. The saga of the first vector of the French nuclear weapon
2. Ramp-up and deployment of the Mirage IV component
3. Operational posture, first alert
4. Towards low-altitude penetration
5. Electronic warfare and war paint
6. The Mirage IVP, carrier of the ASMP (I)
7. The Mirage IVP, carrier of the ASMP (II)