AKL-201708 AviaCollection / AviaKollektsia series 08/2017: Dassault Mirage IV French Supersonic Strategic Bomber. Photos, schemes, colour pictures. 32 pages, soft cover, text in Russian.

THE CREATION OF THE AIRCRAFT
In contrast to the Soviet or American strategic strike aircraft of the 1950s and 1960s, the Mirage IV supersonic bomber, also considered "strategic" in France, is difficult to attribute to "breakthroughs" in the field of aviation technology. Rather, it was the result of one of these "breakthroughs". "Mirage IV is a further development of the famous Mirage III, a copy of it, magnified approximately one and a half times in size and more than two times in mass.
Whether the "four" can be considered a strategic bomber is debatable. In size and weight, it is still closer to the front-line bombers than, say, the Tupolev Tu-22. The fact that this aircraft was created as a carrier of nuclear weapons - a factor that does not determine the tactical nuclear bombs made and many fighter-bombers. However, the tasks for these French machines were set precisely of a strategic plan.
As the first French carrier of nuclear weapons, Mirage IV had a history of creation with a very bright political component. The rapid military defeat of 1940 and four years of being in the position of an occupied and puppet state excluded France from the list of great powers. This deeply shocked the entire country, which once considered itself the greatest state in Europe, and therefore the world,and hurt the national pride of the French. France's international prestige was not strengthened by the loss of its colonial possessions. Despite the fact that, compared with many other European States, the military destruction in France was relatively small (the war destroyed only 10% of production capacity), the economy was long in disarray and decline. As a result, the government had to agree to help from America under the "Marshall plan", while going to a certain financial and political dependence on the United States.
In the struggle to restore its former international influence, France regained a relatively strong economic position by the end of the 1950s. However, "military muscle" was also required to confirm the status of a great power. The Republic set out to restore its former military power. But in the new historical conditions, this required joining the circle of nuclear powers, since in the post-war era, the presence of nuclear weapons became a decisive sign of true sovereignty.
The creation of the French nuclear bomb became particularly important after the Suez crisis of 1956, when France's main NATO ally, the United States, took a neutral position and refused to support British-French-Israeli aggression against Egypt in the face of unequivocal threats from the Soviet Union. Moscow then hinted at the possibility of using its (still very few) missiles with nuclear warheads against the brazen Europeans, clearly proving that "there is no reception against nuclear-missile scrap".