The Blackburn Buccaneer was a Royal Navy carrier-borne attack aircraft designed in the 1950s, a mid-wing, twin-engine monoplane with a crew of two in a tandem seat arrangement.
Designed and initially produced by Blackburn Aircraft at Brough, it was later officially known as the Hawker Siddeley Buccaneer when Blackburn became a part of the Hawker Siddeley group.
The Buccaneer was originally designed in response to the Soviet Union’s massive Sverdlov-class cruiser construction program.
Instead of building a new fleet of their own, the Buccaneer would attack these ships with relative impunity by approaching at low altitudes below the ship’s radar horizon.
The Buccaneer would attack using a nuclear bomb or conventional weapons in engagements lasting less than a minute, quickly flying out of range while its weapons struck.
It was later intended to carry short-range anti-shipping missiles to further enhance its survivability against more modern ship-based anti-aircraft weapons.
