iyaayas01 posted:

SyHopeful posted:

- Cyrano this is his thread, stfu

Naramyth posted:

His inane personal anecdotes are actual contributions to the thread. It is interesting that the Swiss are still rocking bomb shelters. Whatever you are posting is not.

Mister Sinewave posted:

I wasn't sure why ICBMs were such a huge game-changer, I tried to look it up and near as I can figure it's because they're dumb and they're cold which - unlike for example bombers - made them really hard to see before it was too late.

Is that still the case today?

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.

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!

Factory Ten posted:

Anyone interested in reading a book on the politics of the latter period of the Cold War is highly encouraged to pick up a copy of the Pulitzer Prize-winning book The Dead Hand. The first half of the book discusses how Reagan and Gorbachev almost agreed to do away with all nuclear weapons, but Reagan refused to give up SDI and that moment in time slipped away.

The second half discusses the USSR's secret bioweapons program.

This book relates to airpower because, when I ordered it from Amazon, I'm sure it was flown out to me.

iyaayas01 posted:

Before I really get cracking on the nuclear war strategies/tactics post, does anyone have any specific requests for stuff under that umbrella that they'd like to see covered?

iyaayas01 posted:

In effect, the RFP was combining the best features of the Skyraider, the Soviet Il-2 Shturmovik, and the German Hs 129 Panzerknacker.

That's all I have time for now, tune in next time to hear the rest of the A-X and A-10 saga.

NosmoKing posted:

It's only sorta-kinda airpower related, but don't forget all the anti-air assets developed in the arms race.

The USA worked under the AIR FORCE BLOW poo poo UP theory of air superiority for the most part. There were a few different SPAAG's and missile carriers fielded, but for the most part, the US's anti-air mobile assets kinda sucked.

You had the old M163 Vulcan 20mm rotary cannon that was wedged into an old APC. Then along with that was the MIM 72 Chaparral system which was essentially 4 AIM-9 sidewinder variants strapped on a turret on top of the same old APC.

Then the US tried to field a 40MM dual gun system, the Sgt. York. After eating up roughly a zillion dollars in defense $$$, it was abandoned as a failure.

The USA had a few systems that were more or less haul around, then set up in a forward position (hawk, patriot which still exits), but not much in the way of a mobile AA "road march along with the tanks and IFV's" style weapon.

There were lots of studies, proposed adoptions of foreign systems, stuff like strapping podded Stingers to Bradley's and Hummers, but nothing really developed.

The Soviets on the other hand churned out a new gun system and especially missile system seemingly every other drat month. The later variants have some neat vertical launch capability with little directional change motors towards the nose of the missile. The missile gets farted out of the tube, the motor at the nose quickly tips the missile towards the target, and then the main motor ignites, zipping off towards said aircraft.

Wikipedia posted:

The gun was noted for its high (often uncomfortable) vibration and extreme noise. The airframe vibration lead to fatigue cracks in fuel tanks, numerous radio and avionics failures, the necessity of using runways with floodlights for night flights (as the landing lights would often be destroyed), tearing or jamming of the forward landing gear doors (leading to at least three crash landings), cracking of the reflector gunsight, an accidental jettisoning of the cockpit canopy and at least one case of the instrument panel falling off in flight. The number of fragments from detonating shells was sufficient to damage aircraft firing (or flying) within 200 metres of the impact area.

Sunday Punch posted:

The F-14 will always hold a special place in my heart. Also it looks great in silhouette.





Click images for huuuge

priznat posted:

Beavers own.

Also Twin Otters.



I had only seen the pic of the B-1B zooming over water like that, and I think I've seen other versions of it similar too. Still looks cool as hell.

priznat posted:

You have insulted a national institution! *glove slap*



I have flown on pontoon twotters before and they land like they're divebombing pearl harbour or something. It owns.

Flanker posted:

Okay I will need this but with a semi rigid Zodiak style inflatable boat and a B70 Valkyrie bomber vertically mounted. And the B70 has to do that pitch/toss bomb maneuver when it reaches its target. The genius of my strategic vision is undeniable.

slidebite posted:

I have a B70 book and there is a cartoon of that very image in it. I'll see if I can scan/photo it for you if you like.
Edit: Flapping, but not off a zodiac.

iyaayas01 posted:

The Raptor airborne?

The Raptor on the ground being fixed?

It's really not that bad, but it can be a royal pain in the rear end sometimes...and I don't even deal directly with the jet itself on a regular basis.

iyaayas01 posted:

Where's your friend work? One of the AMUs?


I would back this procurement program 100%.

SyHopeful posted:

Okay so can somebody give me a breakdown of the differences between the A-12 and the SR-71?

priznat posted:

I'm only racist against Belgians. gently caress those guys.

priznat posted:

I like FN so that makes it all the hotter.. Like it's forbidden

iyaayas01 posted:

eating Moose's Tooth

iyaayas01 posted:

The slightly longer short version is that NATO forces viewed armor (and all the other arms...aviation, artillery, etc.) as support for the infantry, while Warsaw Pact forces were reversed, with the infantry (and aviation, artillery, etc.) providing support for armor. Warsaw Pact forces had a real hard on for armor, as evidenced by their development of tanks through the years of the Cold War, as opposed to the U.S.'s incremental development stagnation of the Patton design (Chieftain and Leopard designs notwithstanding in the case of the U.S.'s NATO allies).

While the Warsaw Pact developed ATGMs (they had the first combat use of such missiles in the Yom Kippur War through proxy use with Egypt's forces), the US/NATO were most concerned with anti-armor developments, as evidenced by the TOW missile, Hellfire missile, and development of the anti-armor helicopter (Cobra and Apache are the best examples of this). The Warsaw Pact developed ATGMs as part of their effort to aid armor, while the US/NATO forces developed anti-armor weapons in order to turn back the tide of Warsaw Pact armor.


Haters gonna hate.

The Santa's Little Helper pizza and Fairweather IPA were deeeeelicious.

Also, I had some Snow Goose beer a few days ago, and drank a plethora of Alaskan Amber beers today. Anchorage really has it going on when it comes to brews...going to hit up Glacier Brewhouse this weekend.

iyaayas01 posted:

Vipers aren't really that bad as far as fighter aircraft go, even...Strike Eagles are pretty loving loud, and for some reason Super Hornets are the absolute worst.

priznat posted:

Growing up in Victoria, BC I was fairly close to the Trident sub base in Bangor, WA. So it'd be fairly bad times all round for that area of the pacific northwest.

Also home of Canada's pacific fleet (in Esquimalt), if the russians felt like using a nuke on that. What the hell they had enough of em.

Lobster God posted:

Britain's Cold War.jpg:



Vulcan B.2 and TSR.2 taken from a Concorde.

iyaayas01 posted:

Like he said, TSR.2. Cancelled '60s era British supersonic strike and reconnaissance aircraft...roughly the U.K. equivalent to the Canadian Arrow in terms of cancelling a well performing project for political reasons.

Insert name here posted:

Seconding the Let's Read.

Also since this thread resurfaced I figured I would ask these 2 questions:
1) How does the B-2 yaw? It obviously doesn't have a rudder.
2) Prior to the introduction of the Harpoon, what weapons were going to be used on navy planes against ships? Did they even have anything or did they just plan on using their own ships to shoot it out?

Cyrano4747 posted:

Weeeeeeeel. . . I don't want to derail this thread into WW2 chat

Cyrano4747 posted:

No, and I still don't loving care what you think. Believe it or not, talking about the aerospace advances of late WW2 and how they were utilized by the cold war antagonists in the early phases of that cluster gently caress is appropriate to this thread. Trying to talk about US or Soviet aeronautics and rocketry in the 50s without mentioning Nazis is goddamned retarded.

The part where I try to avoid a huge loving derail on how much or how little German generals followed Hitler's orders would be appropriate because, hey, not cold war.