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Propagandalf
Dec 6, 2008

itchy itchy itchy itchy
I work in a refurbished fallout shelter. It looks like a normal office, but the opposite side of my work area is stacked to the ceiling with burn bins, first aid kits, water drums, and hazmat suits.


Senor Science posted:

This is probably one of my favorite defection incidents during the Cold War:

http://everything2.com/index.pl?node_id=1083518

The idea of a pilot abandoning everything he knew from his family to his own country, defecting in a Mig-25 and landing at a civilian airport is pure :black101:


This is funny. "Intelligence windfall" is a serious understatement. We drat near copied the MiG-25 to finish the F-15. The MiG-25 was also the F-22 of its time. It was advertised as a major leap ahead in fighter technology (the first of the Third generation, the F-22 is 5th for comparison) and had most of SAC and TAC making GBS threads their collective pants. Till we picked that one up. We then realized the engines had to be scrapped and changed every time the plane went supersonic, and the airframe was motherfucking STEEL. It could barely fly, and was nothing but propaganda. The old boys got a good laugh, invented the F-15, and never looked back.


If anyone is interested in a good Cold War Commie Hunt manual, J. Edgar Hoovers classic 'A Study of Communism' is a fantastic read. Directions on how to report Communist plots, how to recognize subversive movements in your neighborhood, the whole 9 yards. I'm too lazy, but it's almost worth a 'Let's Read' thread. gently caress it, I'll do one after the holidays, this poo poo is too good.

http://www.amazon.com/study-communism-J-Edgar-Hoover/dp/B0007HSLSY/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1292529168&sr=8-2


J. Edgar's Foreward- May 25, 1962 posted:

Today's headlines remind us that there has been no basic change in Communist Imperialism. The danger which wold communism presents to free nations is not abated. If anything, it has increased. We will not be able to preserve and develop adequately our heritage of freedom without continually adding to our knowledge of the nature of communism and its totalitarian objectives.

What is communism? What gives communism its dynamic character? Why have been the contributions of Marx, Engels, Lenin, Stalin, and Khruschev to the development of the world Communist movement? How does communism come to power? How has the Communist empire expanded? What are the attractions of communism? Why do people become disillusioned with communism? Why is our free society inherently superior to communism? The answers to these any many other questions are included in this book. It is hoped that this information will not only inform the reader about communism, but also to develop within him a deeper awareness of the superiority of our hertitage of freedom over communism.

Propagandalf fucked around with this message at 21:07 on Dec 16, 2010

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iyaayas01
Feb 19, 2010

Perry'd

McNally posted:

Dad started his career doing propellant transfer on Titan IIs at Little Rock Air Force Base. His stories of that time involve doing repairs on something or other while up to his waist in fuel (for which he earned the coveted title of "steely-eyed missile man"), noxious fumes capable of melting your lungs, and causing pigs to run up hills, making them lose weight and causing the farmer to sue the Air Force.

<...>

As for my own connection with air power history, I'll just leave this here.



That story was pretty amusing, and your dad was awesome. Seriously, the fumes those early liquid propellant ICBMs put off were no joke...one exploded after a mechanic dropped a wrench and punctured the skin, causing the tank to leak. The resulting explosion blew the 8,000 lbs warhead several hundred yards away.

As for that picture...:fap::fap::fap:

markoshark posted:

Don't suppose there is a 1920x1080 shot of that around is there :*(

I'll go ahead and tell the history behind that picture...the contrails in the foreground are of a couple of F-15s operating out of Elmendorf. The contrails in the background are of a couple of MiG-29s...that were on their way over to an airshow in BC...in 1989. So while the Cold War was still going on, the Soviets sent a couple of their top of the line fighters to an airshow in a NATO country. To top it all off, the aircraft stopped over at Elmendorf to top off their fuel tanks before continuing on to BC. The irony there can't be understated; Elmendorf was probably neck and neck with Keflavik in Iceland for sheer number of interception sorties launched from there (and the other satellite airfields, like King Salmon and Galena).

I know a few people that were stationed here when they landed, and apparently the flightline perimeter was PACKED with people wanting to catch an up close glimpse of an aircraft of the Soviets, a country that many of them had spent their entire careers viewing as a major threat.

Anyway, regarding higher-res pictures, wikipedia has a couple of nice shots.

Here is a close up of one of the MiGs, here is a good shot of the escorting Eagles and MiGs flying formation, and here is the one you were originally asking about.

Cyrano4747
Sep 25, 2006

Yes, I know I'm old, get off my fucking lawn so I can yell at these clouds.

iyaayas01 posted:

I'll go ahead and tell the history behind that picture...the contrails in the foreground are of a couple of F-15s operating out of Elmendorf. The contrails in the background are of a couple of MiG-29s...that were on their way over to an airshow in BC...in 1989. So while the Cold War was still going on, the Soviets sent a couple of their top of the line fighters to an airshow in a NATO country. To top it all off, the aircraft stopped over at Elmendorf to top off their fuel tanks before continuing on to BC. The irony there can't be understated; Elmendorf was probably neck and neck with Keflavik in Iceland for sheer number of interception sorties launched from there (and the other satellite airfields, like King Salmon and Galena).

I know a few people that were stationed here when they landed, and apparently the flightline perimeter was PACKED with people wanting to catch an up close glimpse of an aircraft of the Soviets, a country that many of them had spent their entire careers viewing as a major threat.

My family was living in Anacortes, WA at the time and a seven year old me who was totally in love with all things airplanes dragged my parents to the airshow that they were flying to. It was right across the border in BC. I thought it was pretty loving cool, and my parents say that it was quite the mind-gently caress for their baby-boomer brains to be that close to Soviet military hardware. I distinctly remember asking my dad why they had black coverings over the cockpits (it was some kind of tarp thing that just covered the glass) because it irked me that part of it was covered up.

As I recall they also had some hilariously huge as gently caress Soviet transport aircraft at that airshow. I remember being rather disappointed that it wasn't a bomber or something cool.

iyaayas01
Feb 19, 2010

Perry'd

Cyrano4747 posted:

My family was living in Anacortes, WA at the time and a seven year old me who was totally in love with all things airplanes dragged my parents to the airshow that they were flying to. It was right across the border in BC. I thought it was pretty loving cool, and my parents say that it was quite the mind-gently caress for their baby-boomer brains to be that close to Soviet military hardware. I distinctly remember asking my dad why they had black coverings over the cockpits (it was some kind of tarp thing that just covered the glass) because it irked me that part of it was covered up.

As I recall they also had some hilariously huge as gently caress Soviet transport aircraft at that airshow. I remember being rather disappointed that it wasn't a bomber or something cool.

Little kid at airshow stories are the best. I was at the Offutt airshow back in '95 when the B-2 "The Spirit of Nebraska" was officially entering service...it was pretty cool being that close to something that had been declassified less than a decade ago. Doubly cool that a next door neighbor of mine growing up had been intimately involved with the development program and got me a copy of the first publicly releasable picture of the B-2 when it was first declassified. I actually had all sorts of cool things like that happen, goes along with growing up less than 15 minutes from SAC/STRATCOM headquarters I guess...I've had a couple of personal guided tours of the E-4 NAOC/NEACP/"Doomsday" plane because not one but two of the squadron commanders that fly it have been personal friends of my family, and one of my sisters is friends with the daughter of the four star that commands STRATCOM.

Seeing the marksmen they had deployed on various hangars around where the aircraft was on display along with the ridiculous amount of loaded for bear Security Forces airmen they had physically around the aircraft was cool as well.

mikerock
Oct 29, 2005

Haha holy poo poo I was there too! Maybe young cyrano and mikerock rubbed some elbows trying to see those MiGs. If I remember they had a bunch of Russian stuff there, like that HUGE transport plane and possibly another type of fighter.

NosmoKing
Nov 12, 2004

I have a rifle and a frying pan and I know how to use them

Cyrano4747 posted:

As I recall they also had some hilariously huge as gently caress Soviet transport aircraft at that airshow. I remember being rather disappointed that it wasn't a bomber or something cool.

Russians ain't afraid to make poo poo BIG.

Edit: I'm directly on the flight path of MSP airport. This summer, I heard engines that sounded odd. I looked up and saw a BIG 4 engine aircraft with a LOOONNNG stabilizer and two vertical tails set on the ends of the stabilizer.

Some casual searching didn't show me poo poo.


I think it was coming in for an air show or something.

NosmoKing fucked around with this message at 23:34 on Dec 16, 2010

SyHopeful
Jun 24, 2007
May an IDF soldier mistakenly gun down my own parents and face no repercussions i'd totally be cool with it cuz accidents are unavoidable in a low-intensity conflict, man

NosmoKing posted:

Russians ain't afraid to make poo poo BIG.

Edit: I'm directly on the flight path of MSP airport. This summer, I heard engines that sounded odd. I looked up and saw a BIG 4 engine aircraft with a LOOONNNG stabilizer and two vertical tails set on the ends of the stabilizer.

Some casual searching didn't show me poo poo.


I think it was coming in for an air show or something.

AN-225 sounds similar to what you describe but it's 6-engined

kwantam
Mar 25, 2008

-=kwantam

SyHopeful posted:

AN-225 sounds similar to what you describe but it's 6-engined

It is also the loving bomb.

B4Ctom1
Oct 5, 2003

OVERWORKED COCK
Slippery Tilde
According to the internet, during the cold war, some near dozen US nuclear weapons and estimated 40 former soviet nuclear weapons were lost and never recovered. This does not count any european or asian losses.

iyaayas01
Feb 19, 2010

Perry'd

markoshark posted:

Also because i suck and can't provide additional info -
During the cold war, were there actually any military clashes (barring espionage / spies etc), or was it all political?

Well, others have pointed out Korea/Vietnam as the most obvious, and Cyrano brought up a few more (Arab-Israeli conflict, etc.) To piggyback on what he said, there were MANY times during the '50s that U.S. and Soviet military forces were no kidding shooting at each other. Most of them were related to U.S. (and RAF) penetration overflights by SAC reconnaissance aircraft, most of whom (prior to the U-2) were just modified nuclear bombers. In a few cases the Soviets actually shot down U.S. aircraft, and in one case they were able to capture multiple U.S. personnel from a B-47 crew. There is a very good (and very readable, unlike many of the other works on the subject) book about these overflights titled "By Any Means Necessary."

Also, as others have already pointed out, the reasons ICBMs were a game changer were that they enabled quick delivery ("Anywhere in the world in 30 minutes or less, or the next one's free"), were practically impossible to defend against, particularly in a full scale attack involving hundreds/thousands of missiles, and with the development of silos/SLBMs, offered rather defensible employment that required a direct hit from a megaton range nuke (in the case of silos) or detection/destruction of the quietest thing ever put in the ocean (in the case of SLBM subs) to negate.

To get off on a bit of a nuclear strategy related tangent because hell, I'm the OP and it is a Cold War thread, you have two basic types of nuclear strategies, counterforce and countervalue. Counterforce is when you target (or threaten to target) an enemy's forces, nuclear or otherwise, in an attempt to disarm him. Countervalue is when you target (or threaten to target) an enemy's civilian population in an attempt to deter him. ICBMs require three things to ensure their accuracy: where they were, where they are, and where they need to be. Reconnaissance satellites ensured the third and increasingly accurate INS ensured the second, but the first was only able to be fully determined if you knew where your launching point was. For land based ICBMs this is no problem, but for SLBMs this could pose a problem. This is why the early SLBMs had a CEP (Circular Error Probable) measured in hundreds of meters instead of tens. Land based ICBMs are generally seen as a counterforce method of employment, especially if they are equipped with MIRVed warheads. SLBMs are generally seen as a countervalue method of employment due to their less accurate nature (although the CEP of the newer systems has lessened this somewhat) and their increased survivability over land based ICBMs--Actually, you know what? I'm going to stop myself right there because this could turn into a whole post in and of itself (Launch on Warning, first strike policy, no first use policy, depressed trajectory SLBM launches, C4ISTAR, x ray pin down, decapitating strikes, Dead Hand, Emergency Rocket Communication System, Airborne Launch Control System...I could go on). Anyway, if there is interest, I could do a post on the various type of nuclear war strategies and tactics.

To shift gears a bit, since someone brought up the Soviet conventional forces, any war in Europe was going nuclear quickly, because the only way NATO was able to maintain any sort of parity with the Soviet forces was to ensure the liberal dispersion of tactical nuclear weapons. Hence the whole NATO Nuclear Sharing thing. Of course, it's important to remember that "tactical" nuclear weapons (like the B61, for instance) while being "kiloton yield" weapons quite probably have a yield at least an order of magnitude larger than the bomb that destroyed Hiroshima. "Tactical." Right. In any conventional war scenario, if these weapons weren't used, you'd have the old joke..."Two Soviet generals meet in Paris, one says to the other, 'Oh by the way, who won the air war?'" (Admittedly, things like REFORGER, AirLand Battle, and the development of precision guided munitions lessened this somewhat into the '80s, but I am personally still skeptical of NATO's ability to defeat a Soviet invasion using only conventional forces, even in NATO's heyday of the early to mid '80s.)

The Soviets responded to the large number of theater level nukes by deploying the SS-20 IRBM that, in addition to putting pretty much every NATO military facility at risk of very short notice destruction, put NATO nations' cities at risk as well. This would be why the deployment of the Pershings and GLCMs was such a big deal, because far from being a U.S./NATO aggressive move, they evened the playing field. Now not only were Soviet forces subject to the same threat as NATO forces, but Soviet leadership in Moscow was not only threatened by a strategic ICBM strike but also by theater level weapons that would have a much shorter warning time.

All this led to the INF treaty that was followed by the CFE, hastening the end of the already thawing Cold War. Now, Russia has since "suspended" the CFE treaty and has threatened to do the same with INF, but that's a story for a different day.

NosmoKing
Nov 12, 2004

I have a rifle and a frying pan and I know how to use them

SyHopeful posted:

AN-225 sounds similar to what you describe but it's 6-engined

They're pretty high still when then come overhead as I'm about 30 miles straight from the airport. One of the cooler things is the doppeler compression of the incoming aircraft. You hear a really high whistle sound that persists for a bit, then the tone deepens to the noise of the engine. They must be still moving pretty drat fast to get that sound compression.

One of the SALT treaties limited the number of warheads on an individual launcher to 10. Several of the ICBM's out there were designed to carry more than that. The Trident series was initially designed to carry 14 MIRV's. The SS-18 IIRC was somewhere in the high teens to 20 of the drat things.

The US looked around and saw the giant diameter Titan II and the hyooge throw weight and said "poo poo, we can do that too". Never happened due to the treaty.

The Sprint/Spartan missile system was initially set up to cover all the major cities in the US AND the various military installations. There were going to be thousands of missiles in sites all over to protect the US cities. Then the system got cut back to just protecting ICBM fields. Then just a single field. Then it was open for a few days when it got defunded by congress and died.

Nobody liked the idea of detonating thousands of nuclear weapons over the US to destroy the incoming warheads, but the other option was to let the warheads detonate themselves over their intended targets.

Somewhere out there on the intertubes is a government document that was very well written that detailed what it would be like to be a CD person in charge of a survivor/refugee center. it went over the triage procedure for giving people supplies. Limited supplies=limited support for survivors. People well enough to do heavy work like shoveling, moving corpses, and general break-back debris clearing got something like 1500 calories a day. Folks who could do office tasks got something like 1000 calories a day. Wounded were pretty much written off if they were past basic first aid.

NosmoKing
Nov 12, 2004

I have a rifle and a frying pan and I know how to use them

iyaayas01 posted:

Well, others have pointed out Korea/Vietnam as the most obvious, and Cyrano brought up a few more (Arab-Israeli conflict, etc.) To piggyback on what he said, there were MANY times during the '50s that U.S. and Soviet military forces were no kidding shooting at each other. Most of them were related to U.S. (and RAF) penetration overflights by SAC reconnaissance aircraft, most of whom (prior to the U-2) were just modified nuclear bombers. In a few cases the Soviets actually shot down U.S. aircraft, and in one case they were able to capture multiple U.S. personnel from a B-47 crew. There is a very good (and very readable, unlike many of the other works on the subject) book about these overflights titled "By Any Means Necessary."

Also, as others have already pointed out, the reasons ICBMs were a game changer were that they enabled quick delivery ("Anywhere in the world in 30 minutes or less, or the next one's free"), were practically impossible to defend against, particularly in a full scale attack involving hundreds/thousands of missiles, and with the development of silos/SLBMs, offered rather defensible employment that required a direct hit from a megaton range nuke (in the case of silos) or detection/destruction of the quietest thing ever put in the ocean (in the case of SLBM subs) to negate.

To get off on a bit of a nuclear strategy related tangent because hell, I'm the OP and it is a Cold War thread, you have two basic types of nuclear strategies, counterforce and countervalue. Counterforce is when you target (or threaten to target) an enemy's forces, nuclear or otherwise, in an attempt to disarm him. Countervalue is when you target (or threaten to target) an enemy's civilian population in an attempt to deter him. ICBMs require three things to ensure their accuracy: where they were, where they are, and where they need to be. Reconnaissance satellites ensured the third and increasingly accurate INS ensured the second, but the first was only able to be fully determined if you knew where your launching point was. For land based ICBMs this is no problem, but for SLBMs this could pose a problem. This is why the early SLBMs had a CEP (Circular Error Probable) measured in hundreds of meters instead of tens. Land based ICBMs are generally seen as a counterforce method of employment, especially if they are equipped with MIRVed warheads. SLBMs are generally seen as a countervalue method of employment due to their less accurate nature (although the CEP of the newer systems has lessened this somewhat) and their increased survivability over land based ICBMs--Actually, you know what? I'm going to stop myself right there because this could turn into a whole post in and of itself (Launch on Warning, first strike policy, no first use policy, depressed trajectory SLBM launches, C4ISTAR, x ray pin down, decapitating strikes, Dead Hand, Emergency Rocket Communication System, Airborne Launch Control System...I could go on). Anyway, if there is interest, I could do a post on the various type of nuclear war strategies and tactics.

To shift gears a bit, since someone brought up the Soviet conventional forces, any war in Europe was going nuclear quickly, because the only way NATO was able to maintain any sort of parity with the Soviet forces was to ensure the liberal dispersion of tactical nuclear weapons. Hence the whole NATO Nuclear Sharing thing. Of course, it's important to remember that "tactical" nuclear weapons (like the B61, for instance) while being "kiloton yield" weapons quite probably have a yield at least an order of magnitude larger than the bomb that destroyed Hiroshima. "Tactical." Right. In any conventional war scenario, if these weapons weren't used, you'd have the old joke..."Two Soviet generals meet in Paris, one says to the other, 'Oh by the way, who won the air war?'" (Admittedly, things like REFORGER, AirLand Battle, and the development of precision guided munitions lessened this somewhat into the '80s, but I am personally still skeptical of NATO's ability to defeat a Soviet invasion using only conventional forces, even in NATO's heyday of the early to mid '80s.)

The Soviets responded to the large number of theater level nukes by deploying the SS-20 IRBM that, in addition to putting pretty much every NATO military facility at risk of very short notice destruction, put NATO nations' cities at risk as well. This would be why the deployment of the Pershings and GLCMs was such a big deal, because far from being a U.S./NATO aggressive move, they evened the playing field. Now not only were Soviet forces subject to the same threat as NATO forces, but Soviet leadership in Moscow was not only threatened by a strategic ICBM strike but also by theater level weapons that would have a much shorter warning time.

All this led to the INF treaty that was followed by the CFE, hastening the end of the already thawing Cold War. Now, Russia has since "suspended" the CFE treaty and has threatened to do the same with INF, but that's a story for a different day.

Nuclear strategy is what this poo poo is all about (in addition to the cool toys). Depressed trajectory SLBM launches were (are) the scariest thing possible for the Washington DC people. Launch to vaporized is measured in single digit minutes. At least the Soviets had the historical good sense to put their capital city WAY inland.

NosmoKing fucked around with this message at 00:33 on Dec 17, 2010

iyaayas01
Feb 19, 2010

Perry'd
Also, it may have gotten buried in my initial huge rear end reply, so here it is again...if you are even remotely interested in Cold War nuclear forces, you MUST watch this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jlPEBROvR9w

Rodrigo Diaz
Apr 16, 2007

Knights who are at the wars eat their bread in sorrow;
their ease is weariness and sweat;
they have one good day after many bad
gently caress planes.






From the DIA art series The Threat in the 80's

iyaayas01
Feb 19, 2010

Perry'd

NosmoKing posted:

One of the SALT treaties limited the number of warheads on an individual launcher to 10. Several of the ICBM's out there were designed to carry more than that. The Trident series was initially designed to carry 14 MIRV's. The SS-18 IIRC was somewhere in the high teens to 20 of the drat things.

The US looked around and saw the giant diameter Titan II and the hyooge throw weight and said "poo poo, we can do that too". Never happened due to the treaty.

SS-18 was never deployed with more than 10 warheads per missile. However, they were deployed with 10 warheads...and FORTY penaids, which should give you some idea for how many warheads if could've theoretically carried. Of course, there is a tipping point regarding MIRVed missiles and security, after which point the more warheads per missile you have the less secure you are because you are too vulnerable to a counterforce strike. But this is balanced out by the fact that you can hold on to more of your missiles during a first strike and potentially have enough remaining to credibly threaten your adversary's population after the initial exchange...goddammit, there I go again. I need to just shut up and do the drat nuclear strategy post.

Also worth mentioning that the SS-18 was initially deployed with a warhead that had a yield between 18-25 MT. At that yield, you are talking about the complete leveling of anything within 6 or so km of an airburst...suffice to say that the fireball from such a warhead would be HUGE. It was thought that the purpose of such a large warhead on a rather accurate missile was to enable strikes against buried C2 facilities...basically to turn Cheyenne Mountain into Cheyenne radioactive lake.

There was also a FOBS warhead developed (but never deployed) for the SS-18. FOBS was some seriously destabilizing/scary poo poo.

NosmoKing posted:

The Sprint/Spartan missile system was initially set up to cover all the major cities in the US AND the various military installations. There were going to be thousands of missiles in sites all over to protect the US cities. Then the system got cut back to just protecting ICBM fields. Then just a single field. Then it was open for a few days when it got defunded by congress and died.

The site in North Dakota with the Missile Site Radar component of the Safeguard system is still there, although abandoned. The Perimeter Acquisition Radar component is still operational in ND; it's part of Space Command's early warning/space observation network.



Link to full resolution.

Propagandalf
Dec 6, 2008

itchy itchy itchy itchy
The real mindfuck isn't seeing CIS hardware on US runways anymore. The real mindfuck is seeing former CIS hardware with deactivated weaponry, in civilian colors. A poo poo ton of the cargo being moved into Afghanistan is coming in on contracted Eastern European carriers pushing AN-124s and IL-76s with tail turrets, rocket pod mounts, and chin turrets still installed (but painted over).


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EC-121_shootdown_incident

http://www.nsa.gov/public_info/declass/c130_shootdown.shtml
http://www.history.navy.mil/avh-1910/APP34.PDF

http://www.rb-29.net/html/77ColdWarStory/00.25cwscvr.htm

iyaayas01
Feb 19, 2010

Perry'd

Rodrigo Diaz posted:

gently caress planes.






From the DIA art series The Threat in the 80's

That art series contains some seriously cool works, and was surprisingly accurate given that it was depicting Eastern Bloc equipment that we had limited information on.

McNally
Sep 13, 2007

Ask me about Proposition 305


Do you like muskets?

Propagandalf posted:

The old boys got a good laugh, invented the F-15, and never looked back.

I had no idea that time travel was so widespread back then, considering the F-15s first flight was in 1972 and the aircraft entered service eight months before Belenko defected with his MiG-25.

Ace Oliveira
Dec 27, 2009

"I wonder if there is beer on the sun."
Holy poo poo, I didn't know jack poo poo about Cold War airpower, but now I know some pretty interesting poo poo. Maybe if this was an Cold War infantry thread I could participe in it, but this is still interesting as gently caress, nonetheless.

As someone with an interest that borders on obsession about the Vietnam War, how were the F-4 Phantoms that the US military used back then? Nothing says "hardcore" quite like an F-4 Phantom, except maybe a Huey Hog or a AH-1 Cobra.

iyaayas01
Feb 19, 2010

Perry'd

Ace Oliveira posted:

Holy poo poo, I didn't know jack poo poo about Cold War airpower, but now I know some pretty interesting poo poo. Maybe if this was an Cold War infantry thread I could participe in it, but this is still interesting as gently caress, nonetheless.

As someone with an interest that borders on obbession about the Vietnam War, how were the F-4 Phantoms that the US military used back then? Nothing says "hardcore" quite like an F-4 Phantom, except maybe a Huey Hog or a AH-1 Cobra.

Depends on what you mean by "how were"? They possessed an acceptable top speed and range, as well as a respectable payload (8 air to air missiles or a sizable load of bombs) but were not the most maneuverable and suffered dearly in close in combat from their initial lack of a gun on board.

But yeah, it's kind of hard to argue with being in service with 12 countries and still being in service with 7 of those, including some countries with relatively modern militaries, like Japan, South Korea, and Germany. Beyond the lack of a gun I addressed earlier, I am unaware of many complaints with their combat users.

McNally posted:

I had no idea that time travel was so widespread back then, considering the F-15s first flight was in 1972 and the aircraft entered service eight months before Belenko defected with his MiG-25.

Yeah, I meant to talk about that earlier...the Eagle was designed to combat the MiG-25 as the West originally conceived of it, which was a high speed high agility bogeyman. When Belenko defected, we realized that we had vastly overestimated the Foxbat's capabilities (which in Propagandalf's defend he did address in his post) but figured what the hell, we're now that much further ahead of the Soviets anyway.

The amusing thing is that the Eagle then in turn forced the Soviets to design the Flanker.

Propagandalf
Dec 6, 2008

itchy itchy itchy itchy
Pedants gonna ... ped?

McNally
Sep 13, 2007

Ask me about Proposition 305


Do you like muskets?

Propagandalf posted:

Pedants gonna ... ped?

Works for me, I guess.

iyaayas01
Feb 19, 2010

Perry'd

Propagandalf posted:

Pedants gonna ... ped?

Dude, you saw the discussion that led to the creation of this thread, right? This thread is built on being a pedant.

Edit for content:

If you are interested in the history of atomic weapons and the Cold Wars arms race, you need to read Richard Rhodes "trilogy" of The Making of the Atomic Bomb, Dark Sun: The Marking of the Hydrogen Bomb, and Arsenals of Folly: The Making of the Nuclear Arms Race. I own all three but I've only read the first in its entirety...I'm working my way through the second now. However, I've skimmed enough of the third to tell you that all three are excellent and pretty much required reading if you are interested in the subject. The stuff that SAC did under LeMay during the Cold War was rather...terrifying. The level of respect I have for LeMay for his skills as a military leader and manager are only matched by my disgust for his geopolitical views and actions. And in turn, the stuff that the CPD/Team B folks (starting with Nitze and NSC-68) did during the Cold War isn't much better..."THERE IS A BOMBER GAP!!!" "No, there isn't." "Okay, but THERE IS A MISSILE GAP!!!" "Not really." "BUT NOW SERIOUSLY GUYS, THIS TIME THERE IS A MISSILE GAP AND WE NEED TO BUILD STAR WARS TOO!!!" *Several billion dollars of spending later* "Yeah, that was all pretty much exaggerated or outright falsified too."

Finally, here's 15 BUFFs doing a MITO departure from Minot during an exercise last year: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wJ7niLYSVFo

iyaayas01 fucked around with this message at 03:12 on Dec 17, 2010

NosmoKing
Nov 12, 2004

I have a rifle and a frying pan and I know how to use them

iyaayas01 posted:

Dude, you saw the discussion that led to the creation of this thread, right? This thread is built on being a pedant.

Edit for content:

If you are interested in the history of atomic weapons and the Cold Wars arms race, you need to read Richard Rhodes "trilogy" of The Making of the Atomic Bomb, Dark Sun: The Marking of the Hydrogen Bomb, and Arsenals of Folly: The Making of the Nuclear Arms Race. I own all three but I've only read the first in its entirety...

Dark Sun has one of the most chilling sentences I've ever read when describing the effects of the detonation of the Mike device "Elugelab was gone." A substantial island of rock and coral had been completely obliterated and consumed.

Edit: the pants shittingly scary part of his first book is when he describes and explains that in a given nuclear explosion, there's a ring where people who are in the open will literally have their skin ripped off. They're flayed alive by the bomb. The heat prompt vaporizes water under your epidermis. Basically it's like a huge blister or it's like a quick blanching of a tomato. The skin gets separated from the rest of you. A teeny bit later, the blast wave hits you, not enough to crush you flat, but more than enough to RIP YOUR loving SKIN OFF.

That poo poo has to sting.

NosmoKing fucked around with this message at 03:44 on Dec 17, 2010

gfarrell80
Aug 31, 2006
Such an awesome OP about the cold war and bombers, but no pic of a B-52 or Dr. Strangelove references?

I like turtles posted:



ahh, thank you.

Fascinating thread. I've heard about them before, but it always blows my mind a little bit reading about nuclear-tipped SAM's.

Syrian Lannister
Aug 25, 2007

Oh, did I kill him too?
I've been a very busy little man.


Sugartime Jones

Cyrano4747 posted:


My favorite cold war poo poo is the completely crazy technical stuff that various countries did to gently caress with each other. Like that time the US rigged up a fake cargo transport into a mobile salvage vessel to steal the middle (ie important) section of a Soviet submarine that sank in really deep water due to technical problems.

edit: yes, "steal" is the right word. Salvage law gets all kinds of hosed up when you're talking about warships.

Glomar Explorer built for the CIA by Hughes looking for a new Soviet Sub K-129.

http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/nukevault/ebb305/index.htm

Edited to correct sub number and include link.

Syrian Lannister fucked around with this message at 07:09 on Dec 17, 2010

NosmoKing
Nov 12, 2004

I have a rifle and a frying pan and I know how to use them

gfarrell80 posted:

Fascinating thread. I've heard about them before, but it always blows my mind a little bit reading about nuclear-tipped SAM's.

Nuclear tipped ABM's were introduced because of the challenges in hitting a target moving at Mach 20 with a bullet moving at Mach 10. There's precious little time to interact object A with object B as they pass. Conventional explosives are literally TOO SLOW to effectively hit an incoming warhead. Plus, the radius of damage is teeny compared to a nuclear explosive.


The warheads used on nuclear ABM's were enhanced radiation warheads or "neutron bombs" which apparently as far as is unclassified, uses non-fissile and non-neutron capture tampers on the secondary. When you get a fusion reaction, you release an awful lot of neutrons. If your secondary is jacketed with uranium, you get a fission reaction from it. If it's jacketed with some dense heavy metal that does NOT absorb neutrons, they just pour out into the surrounding space.

First off, if you are exposed to a large amount of neutrons zipping through space and through YOU, you're deader than poo poo.

Second, the neutrons scoot out of the reaction at a significant fraction of the speed of light. They also gently caress up electronics as well as damage the fissile material in incoming warheads.

Apparently, the neutrons were supposed to be the main RV damaging component of the nuclear ABM warhead. If the RV got fried by heat or blast as well, so much the better.

Defense of the US with the Sprint/Spartan missile system would have lead to thousands of neutron bombs being detonated right overhead.

Hope you put that 3 feet of dirt and 1 foot of cement over top of your fallout shelter.

Not Nipsy Russell
Oct 6, 2004

Failure is always an option.

Burning Beard posted:

I've been tapped to teach a "World Politics" course for Spring. Rather than a bland survey, I've decided to theme it around the Cold War, yay :dance:!

I am balls deep in building the syllabus, but so far I am doing a sections on ideological origins, technology, the nuclear arms race, pop culture and the origins of the cold war. I plan to show the documentary "Atomic Cafe" at the start and finish the course with Dr. Stranglove. We will go all the way up through 1992. I'm pretty psyched about it, I hope my students will be as well.


Secret Hope: TFR all move to my school to take my course and make it awesome.

The Atomic Cafe is a Netflix instant watch - woo hoo! Tonight is "We're All Gonna Die" night! Popcorn! Beer! Duck and Cover! It'll be like old times (minus the beer).
No question; growing up, I felt like there was a missile in Russia with my name on it.

NosmoKing
Nov 12, 2004

I have a rifle and a frying pan and I know how to use them
Books you should read:

ICBM Making the Weapon that Changed the World
US Strategic and Defensive Missile Systems 1950-2004
Rings of Supersonic Steel: An Introduction & Site Guide Air Defenses of the United States Army 1950-1979 (Nuclear Weapons)
Russian Strategic Nuclear Forces
The Dead Hand: The Untold Story of the Cold War Arms Race and Its Dangerous Legacy
TITAN II: A History of a Cold War Missile Program
Atlas: The Ultimate Weapon by Those Who Built It (Apogee Books Space Series)
With Enough Shovels: Reagan, Bush, and Nuclear War
The Kremlin's Nuclear Sword: The Rise and Fall of Russia's Strategic Nuclear Forces, 1945-2000
Cold War Peacemaker: The Story of Cowtown and the Convair B-36
Valkyrie: North American's Mach 3 Superbomber (Specialty Press)


that will keep you busy for a bit.

Absolut_Zero
Dec 23, 2008

A serious misallocation of valuable military resources
This thread is goddamn gorgeous, and should be required reading.

Scratch Monkey
Oct 25, 2010

👰Proč bychom se netěšili🥰když nám Pán Bůh🙌🏻zdraví dá💪?

NosmoKing posted:

Do the sexiest looking bomber of all time, the B-58.

Oh yeah. In the current issue of Strategy & Tactics magazine they had a short article about how the supersonic escape capsules designed for this were initially tested using semi-sedated bears.

Ace Oliveira
Dec 27, 2009

"I wonder if there is beer on the sun."

iyaayas01 posted:

Depends on what you mean by "how were"? They possessed an acceptable top speed and range, as well as a respectable payload (8 air to air missiles or a sizable load of bombs) but were not the most maneuverable and suffered dearly in close in combat from their initial lack of a gun on board.


Basically, how they performed in combat, their armament, maybe even their combat history. I didn't know that the Phantom didn't have a gun on board, for example. That seems like really lovely design decision.

Another old Cold War era plane that I like is the A-1 Skyraider. It was a propeller-driven plane in the Jet Age. And it's successor was the A-10 Thunderbolt. God, I love the Skyraider.

Look at this badass motherfucker. It even has a poker spade and a happy face on it!

Senor Science
Aug 21, 2004

MI DIOS!!! ESTA CIENCIA ES DIABOLICO!!!
Gentlemen, I bring you the M388 Davey Crockett nuclear recoilless rifle!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eiM-RzPHyGs

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M388

drzrma
Dec 29, 2008

baupdeth posted:

Glomar Explorer built for the CIA by Hughes looking for a new Soviet Sub K-129.

http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/nukevault/ebb305/index.htm

Edited to correct sub number and include link.


This was apparently my father's first real job after college, he only tells a couple stories about it and they are all very short on details. There is a book about it, but according to him it isn't particularly accurate which shouldn't be a real surprise considering the nature of the project.

The whole project really fits in that era of insane feats of engineering regardless of the cost and potential consequences, particularly with Hughes being involved. Talking to him about it now though I get the feeling he was just happy to finish the job and get off the ship alive. He used to have a cool set of shot glass sized styrofoam cups, the result of sending ordinary coffee cups down with the claw. I have no idea where they have ended up though, I'll see if I can't find them at some point.

slidebite
Nov 6, 2005

Good egg
:colbert:

iyaayas01 posted:

That story was pretty amusing, and your dad was awesome. Seriously, the fumes those early liquid propellant ICBMs put off were no joke...one exploded after a mechanic dropped a wrench and punctured the skin, causing the tank to leak. The resulting explosion blew the 8,000 lbs warhead several hundred yards away.

As for that picture...:fap::fap::fap:


I'll go ahead and tell the history behind that picture...the contrails in the foreground are of a couple of F-15s operating out of Elmendorf. The contrails in the background are of a couple of MiG-29s...that were on their way over to an airshow in BC...in 1989. So while the Cold War was still going on, the Soviets sent a couple of their top of the line fighters to an airshow in a NATO country. To top it all off, the aircraft stopped over at Elmendorf to top off their fuel tanks before continuing on to BC. The irony there can't be understated; Elmendorf was probably neck and neck with Keflavik in Iceland for sheer number of interception sorties launched from there (and the other satellite airfields, like King Salmon and Galena).

I know a few people that were stationed here when they landed, and apparently the flightline perimeter was PACKED with people wanting to catch an up close glimpse of an aircraft of the Soviets, a country that many of them had spent their entire careers viewing as a major threat.

Anyway, regarding higher-res pictures, wikipedia has a couple of nice shots.

Here is a close up of one of the MiGs, here is a good shot of the escorting Eagles and MiGs flying formation, and here is the one you were originally asking about.
Seems to me I remember the Soviets letting a Canadian Air Force pilot fly the Mig29, if not at the airshow quite soon thereafter which was of course huge news.

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SyHopeful
Jun 24, 2007
May an IDF soldier mistakenly gun down my own parents and face no repercussions i'd totally be cool with it cuz accidents are unavoidable in a low-intensity conflict, man

Ace Oliveira posted:

Basically, how they performed in combat, their armament, maybe even their combat history. I didn't know that the Phantom didn't have a gun on board, for example. That seems like really lovely design decision.

Another old Cold War era plane that I like is the A-1 Skyraider. It was a propeller-driven plane in the Jet Age. And it's successor was the A-10 Thunderbolt. God, I love the Skyraider.

Look at this badass motherfucker. It even has a poker spade and a happy face on it!


SyHopeful fucked around with this message at 19:27 on Dec 17, 2010

Scratch Monkey
Oct 25, 2010

👰Proč bychom se netěšili🥰když nám Pán Bůh🙌🏻zdraví dá💪?

SyHopeful posted:



If I remember that story correctly when they let that thing go it almost hit one of the planes flying next to that A-1.

Ace Oliveira
Dec 27, 2009

"I wonder if there is beer on the sun."

SyHopeful posted:



I didn't know toilets were part of the armament for Skyraiders.

And holy poo poo, the A-1 is gigantic. I never noticed how big they are. And am I the only one here who can only pronounce "Skyraider" and "Skyrider"?

Armyman25
Sep 6, 2005

iyaayas01 posted:

My third video is also related to a nuclear war drama, but this time in the U.S. I'm sure most of you are familiar with The Day After, and you probably remember some scenes featuring U.S. military personnel attempting to respond to the initial attack before the warheads strike. You may even remember that these were actual U.S. military personnel. What you probably don't know is that the scenes were clipped from a longer "drama" portion of a documentary called "First Strike." Now, ignoring the fact that "First Strike" was produced by the Team B/CPD folks and drastically inflated the actual threat posed by Soviet nuclear forces, if you are in any way interested in the Cold War military, you MUST watch this film. I'm not sure what my favorite '70s kitsch bit is because there are so many, and I don't want to ruin it for you, so I won't comment any further. But seriously, watch it...it was filmed with the full cooperation of the DoD, so all the people in it are U.S. military members, U.S. military equipment, the whole shebang.

Here's the clip that contains the nuclear war :drama" portion: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jlPEBROvR9w
]

Heh, I love the quotes about how the B-52 can't be expected to be used after the mid 90's. Also great is the argument that the Soviet submarine missile system is good enough to wipe out the bombers and ICBM's, but the US subs, being able to only destroy all the Soviet cities, aren't a credible deterrent to the Soviets.

Basically this movie is a sales pitch by the Military Industrial Complex.

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McNally
Sep 13, 2007

Ask me about Proposition 305


Do you like muskets?
I have a book called "101 Things You Should Never Ask a Marine To Do" and all this talk of nuclear tipped missiles and things reminds me of one of them.

"Never ask a Marine to design weapons."

The cartoon accompanying it shows a Marine general giving a briefing on a nuclear hand grenade. Throwing radius, 30 meters. Killing radius, two miles.

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