Cold War conflicts

Here in America, they say that the United States military caused the peace in Europe, I would like to hear the Russian point of view about the situation after World War II about what prevented any wars in Europe? Both sides had military agreements NATO and Warsaw Pact.

andalusia wrote:Here in America, they say that the United States military caused the peace in Europe, I would like to hear the Russian point of view about the situation after World War II about what prevented any wars in Europe? Both sides had military agreements NATO and Warsaw Pact.  

Nuclear weapons and MAD caused peace around the globe.   Aside from 3rd world proxy wars that would not lead to any major war.  

If the USSR did not have nuclear weapons, Uncle Scumbag would have rolled east to finish the job the Nazis started.    I believe that
the US did not have enough confidence in its own intelligence about the Soviet nuclear capacity between 1945 and 1949 to launch an
attack and the US also lacked the resources (nuclear bombs and serious long-range bombers) for such an attack.   By 1949 it was too late
and the following hydrogen bomb race did not yield any advantage since the Soviets managed to detonate their own device 6 months
after the Americans.   Then we had the ICBM race and the USSR caught Uncle Scumbag with his pants down in 1957.    From then it was
game over for any attempt to wage large scale war in Europe against the reviled east.    

But now Uncle Scumbag feels that his ABM fig leaf is some epic shield that Russia cannot defeat and feels the urge to launch a
first nuclear strike on Russia.    This time around the Americans are undermining peace and brazenly.

kvs wrote:

andalusia wrote:Here in America, they say that the United States military caused the peace in Europe, I would like to hear the Russian point of view about the situation after World War II about what prevented any wars in Europe? Both sides had military agreements NATO and Warsaw Pact.  

Nuclear weapons and MAD caused peace around the globe.   Aside from 3rd world proxy wars that would not lead to any major war.  

If the USSR did not have nuclear weapons, Uncle Scumbag would have rolled east to finish the job the Nazis started.    I believe that
the US did not have enough confidence in its own intelligence about the Soviet nuclear capacity between 1945 and 1949 to launch an
attack and the US also lacked the resources (nuclear bombs and serious long-range bombers) for such an attack.   By 1949 it was too late
and the following hydrogen bomb race did not yield any advantage since the Soviets managed to detonate their own device 6 months
after the Americans.   Then we had the ICBM race and the USSR caught Uncle Scumbag with his pants down in 1957.    From then it was
game over for any attempt to wage large scale war in Europe against the reviled east.    

But now Uncle Scumbag feels that his ABM fig leaf is some epic shield that Russia cannot defeat and feels the urge to launch a
first nuclear strike on Russia.    This time around the Americans are undermining peace and brazenly.

Thank you kvs for your response. The Americans say that if the US didn't have nuclear weapons that the USSR would have rolled west and put all of Western Europe under the Communist flag. Is that true?

andalusia wrote:

kvs wrote:

andalusia wrote:Here in America, they say that the United States military caused the peace in Europe, I would like to hear the Russian point of view about the situation after World War II about what prevented any wars in Europe? Both sides had military agreements NATO and Warsaw Pact.  

Nuclear weapons and MAD caused peace around the globe.   Aside from 3rd world proxy wars that would not lead to any major war.  

If the USSR did not have nuclear weapons, Uncle Scumbag would have rolled east to finish the job the Nazis started.    I believe that
the US did not have enough confidence in its own intelligence about the Soviet nuclear capacity between 1945 and 1949 to launch an
attack and the US also lacked the resources (nuclear bombs and serious long-range bombers) for such an attack.   By 1949 it was too late
and the following hydrogen bomb race did not yield any advantage since the Soviets managed to detonate their own device 6 months
after the Americans.   Then we had the ICBM race and the USSR caught Uncle Scumbag with his pants down in 1957.    From then it was
game over for any attempt to wage large scale war in Europe against the reviled east.    

But now Uncle Scumbag feels that his ABM fig leaf is some epic shield that Russia cannot defeat and feels the urge to launch a
first nuclear strike on Russia.    This time around the Americans are undermining peace and brazenly.

Thank you kvs for your response.  The Americans say that if the US didn't have nuclear weapons that the USSR would have rolled west and put all of Western Europe under the Communist flag. Is that true?

They prevented that by opening the second front 11 months before the end of the war. I do not know of any threats to use nuclear weapons
that "stopped Stalin". So Stalin clearly had a logistics problem and was worried about over-extending if the USSR was to swallow the whole
of Europe. But anyone with a clue knew that Stalin was not interested in world revolution like Trotsky. So real world constraints were important
considerations for Stalin.

If the bomb was such an effective club against Stalin, then it would have been used to drive the Soviets out of eastern European countries. There
was a 4 year gap (1945-49) for the bomb to be used this way. It was not. So the argument you quote is total BS.

GarryB wrote:Americas ability to fly a nuclear bomb to Moscow was non existent.

Adolph Tolkachev confirmed otherwise.

higurashihougi wrote:Before that, must ask, do US nuclear bombs still require tritium to operate ? And how much tritium does the US still have ?

It is needed to remember that tritium halflife is 12 yrs and tritium maintenance is relatively expensive.

That is not the point, which is: Can the US penetrate Soviet/Russian airspace all the way to Moscow ?

The answer is yes.

When I was active duty and on the F-111, Upper Heyford and Lakenheath had Victor Alert status jets. Each VA jet is loaded with two external fuel tanks and two free fall B61 nuclear bombs. On the F-111, while the Weapons System Officer (WSO) is a qualified pilot, if he is assigned the WSO status for a flight, piloting the jet is secondary. Part of his duties, in VA status, is to program the navigation cartridge. We have nav codes for all the major targets from Eastern Europe all the way to Moscow.

Back then, in every arms negotiation, the Soviets always demanded that the F-111 be withdrawn from England, and every time, our answer have always been: STFU.

Before Tolkachev went to work for US, we were always hopeful that if it ever come to such a mission we would make it. After Tolkachev confirmed that the Soviets had no credible response to the F-111, we went from hopeful to confident. Of course, those of us on the front lines were never informed that we had such a source.

Bottom line is that I do not care if post collapse Russian Internet denizens believe what happened back in the Cold War. In many ways, you cannot afford to believe.

havok wrote:

higurashihougi wrote:Before that, must ask, do US nuclear bombs still require tritium to operate ? And how much tritium does the US still have ?

It is needed to remember that tritium halflife is 12 yrs and tritium maintenance is relatively expensive.

That is not the point, which is: Can the US penetrate Soviet/Russian airspace all the way to Moscow ?

The answer is yes.

When I was active duty and on the F-111, Upper Heyford and Lakenheath had Victor Alert status jets. Each VA jet is loaded with two external fuel tanks and two free fall B61 nuclear bombs. On the F-111, while the Weapons System Officer (WSO) is a qualified pilot, if he is assigned the WSO status for a flight, piloting the jet is secondary. Part of his duties, in VA status, is to program the navigation cartridge. We have nav codes for all the major targets from Eastern Europe all the way to Moscow.

Back then, in every arms negotiation, the Soviets always demanded that the F-111 be withdrawn from England, and every time, our answer have always been: STFU.

Before Tolkachev went to work for US, we were always hopeful that if it ever come to such a mission we would make it. After Tolkachev confirmed that the Soviets had no credible response to the F-111, we went from hopeful to confident. Of course, those of us on the front lines were never informed that we had such a source.

Bottom line is that I do not care if post collapse Russian Internet denizens believe what happened back in the Cold War. In many ways, you cannot afford to believe.

Listen carefully, as i will say this only once. You have no idea, not even a faintest idea, what kind of massacre would it be to fly F-111s from England to Moscow in hope to drop B-61 on something of any value whatsoever. Let alone fact response would come long before any F-111 would even be anywhere close to Moscow so i am not sure what would be the point of such attack, especially in first strike scenario wich you are trying to put here in front of us as viable.

And i am saying this from the perspective of Air Defence officer, i will not go deep into any arguments about if MiG-25 is capable of this or that or if Su-15 is capable of this or that. US couldnt even freely fly above tiny Serbia in 1999. let alone USSR in early 80s.

Also Tolkachevs information could not really affect operations of F-111 in any way as you describe it here at least. Americans even believed Russians did not have Look-down/shoot-down capable radars before his leaks.

Really no need to reply to him. He seems to have spewed quite a load of crap. Still waiting for his evidence to his engineering cap and working on MiG-25. A lot of talk but little in way of evidence. Which is actually key to well, anything we discuss.

Militarov wrote:Listen carefully, as i will say this only once. You have no idea, not even a faintest idea, what kind of massacre would it be to fly F-111s from England to Moscow in hope to drop B-61 on something of any value whatsoever. Let alone fact response would come long before any F-111 would even be anywhere close to Moscow so i am not sure what would be the point of such attack, especially in first strike scenario wich you are trying to put here in front of us as viable.

And you have no idea, not even the faintest, of what we were and still are capable of doing.

Militarov wrote:And i am saying this from the perspective of Air Defence officer, i will not go deep into any arguments about if MiG-25 is capable of this or that or if Su-15 is capable of this or that. US couldnt even freely fly above tiny Serbia in 1999. let alone USSR in early 80s.

Yugoslavia was a NATO operation, not US. If you want to see US, look at Desert Storm, of which the Soviet generals had their own version of 'shocked and awed'. After all, they trained the Iraqi military.

higurashihougi wrote:

havok wrote:After Tolkachev confirmed that the Soviets had no credible response to the F-111

Could you please explain to me why Su-15, MiG-25, MiG-31, or even Su-27 and MiG-29 cannot do anything to F-111.

About the Iraqi army, I would like to say that, the USSR had many students but not all of them were good students. Iraq lost the battle, but a certain country with MiG-21 and SA-75 did not easily give up the battle like that.

He cant explain it to you, simply coz he is talking random stuff, for the sake of talking something.

havok wrote:

Militarov wrote:And i am saying this from the perspective of Air Defence officer, i will not go deep into any arguments about if MiG-25 is capable of this or that or if Su-15 is capable of this or that. US couldnt even freely fly above tiny Serbia in 1999. let alone USSR in early 80s.

Yugoslavia was a NATO operation, not US. If you want to see US, look at Desert Storm, of which the Soviet generals had their own version of 'shocked and awed'. After all, they trained the Iraqi military.

Wasn't it the French who trained there air-defense troops??

havok wrote:

Militarov wrote:Listen carefully, as i will say this only once. You have no idea, not even a faintest idea, what kind of massacre would it be to fly F-111s from England to Moscow in hope to drop B-61 on something of any value whatsoever. Let alone fact response would come long before any F-111 would even be anywhere close to Moscow so i am not sure what would be the point of such attack, especially in first strike scenario wich you are trying to put here in front of us as viable.

And you have no idea, not even the faintest, of what we were and still are capable of doing.

Militarov wrote:And i am saying this from the perspective of Air Defence officer, i will not go deep into any arguments about if MiG-25 is capable of this or that or if Su-15 is capable of this or that. US couldnt even freely fly above tiny Serbia in 1999. let alone USSR in early 80s.

Yugoslavia was a NATO operation, not US. If you want to see US, look at Desert Storm, of which the Soviet generals had their own version of 'shocked and awed'. After all, they trained the Iraqi military.

Yeah, i watched Independence Day 6 times i am aware what you can do.

Iraq was Coalition operation.

Not only Russians actually, Iraqis were trained by multiple countries and supplied by many countries too. From domestic equpment to French, Romanian, Soviet, US, North Korean, Chinese, Hungarian, Yugoslavina, Brasilian, Swedish, German, Italian... all of them provided some kind of training.

When its about Iraqi Air Defence they used French IADS not Soviet.

GarryB wrote:What exactly did he confirm?

That Soviet air defense had no radar capable of detecting a low flying F-111.

GarryB wrote:Is he like the Iraqi defectors claiming Saddam had weaponised WMDs that took 45 minutes to deploy?

Nothing like that at all.

GarryB wrote:Even a MiG-29 would eat an F-111 for breakfast... a Flanker would kick your ass.

There is a reason the MiG-31s most famous intercept during testing was a target 20km away at 20m altitude while flying at over 6,000m altitude with an R-33... that is shooting down an F-111 or a Tornado trying to penetrate Soviet airspace... at that altitude the MiG-31 or MiG-25 can fly twice as fast as the F-111 can at very low altitude...

Every time I read something like this, I know the person is a poseur, not even amateur for an amateur requires at least the minimum experience.

Sure, under the ideal conditions, even a Sopwith Camel can shoot down an F-22. But the problem for the poseur is that he does not understand that in war, avoidance of the ideal conditions is paramount. You think it is that easy to find an aircraft despite the plethora of radar systems you can deploy ? Further, you seems not to know the difference between detection and identification.

The F-111 was never designed as a 'dogfighter', although it is more maneuverable than people think. But once I am in hard TF at minimum altitude, sorry, pal, find me first before you can start launching missiles. I am not here to put myself into that ideal conditions for you.

Militarov wrote:Yeah, i watched Independence Day 6 times i am aware what you can do.

I would expect that you, as a claimed Russian air defense officer, would have received even some basic analyses of what happened in Desert Storm, instead of sci-fi movies. From one professional to another, am sorry to hear that your military has deteriorated to that condition.

higurashihougi wrote:Could you please explain to me why Su-15, MiG-25, MiG-31, or even Su-27 and MiG-29 cannot do anything to F-111.

Hmmm...I can see that you need further education.

When I said 'response', what I meant was that the overall response have lower levels of responses. You cannot simply sent up fighters and expect them to magically know where the enemy is. The first response for air defense is detection, next is identification. What Tolkachev confirmed was that the Soviet air defense system had no radar coverage that could reliably detect low altitude flyers, let alone a flight of F-111s determined to penetrate Soviet airspace with tools designed to make such detection even more difficult.

higurashihougi wrote:About the Iraqi army, I would like to say that, the USSR had many students but not all of them were good students. Iraq lost the battle, but a certain country with MiG-21 and SA-75 did not easily give up the battle like that.

That certain country with MIG-21s ? Look up Operation Bolo.

havok wrote:

Militarov wrote:Yeah, i watched Independence Day 6 times i am aware what you can do.

I would expect that you, as a claimed Russian air defense officer, would have received even some basic analyses of what happened in Desert Storm, instead of sci-fi movies. From one professional to another, am sorry to hear that your military has deteriorated to that condition.

I am not Russian, i am Serbian. And i served after both Gulf Wars.

While i am very well aware of the ground, cloud, water and various other reflections which you could use to hide during low lvl penetration... where exactly would you hide F-111s flying towards Moscow? Did you guys ever bother checking those penetration paths you were given? Its flatland around Moscow, nowhere to hide for hundreds of miles.

Also USSR had literally hundreds of low altitude recon radars, some of which my unit used too P-14, P-15/M3, P-12NP/NA, P-18/ML, P-19. Unlike other equpment radars were very rarely discarted from service but rather canibalized gradually to keep older models in service or modernised but kept in service, so Soviets had impressive overlaping radar coverage on many different bands and radiation modes.

On top of everything Soviets had fixed site VHF/UHF radars as part of ABM which could track fairly easy major air assets movements in good part of the Europe even tho it was not their task originally.

Militarov wrote:

havok wrote:

Militarov wrote:Yeah, i watched Independence Day 6 times i am aware what you can do.

I would expect that you, as a claimed Russian air defense officer, would have received even some basic analyses of what happened in Desert Storm, instead of sci-fi movies. From one professional to another, am sorry to hear that your military has deteriorated to that condition.

I am not Russian, i am Serbian. And i served after both Gulf Wars.

While i am very well aware of the ground, cloud, water and various other reflections which you could use to hide during low lvl penetration... where exactly would you hide F-111s flying towards Moscow? Did you guys ever bother checking those penetration paths you were given? Its flatland around Moscow, nowhere to hide for hundreds of miles.

Also USSR had literally hundreds of low altitude recon radars, some of which my unit used too P-14, P-15/M3, P-12NP/NA, P-18/ML, P-19. Unlike other equpment radars were very rarely discarted from service but rather canibalized gradually to keep older models in service or modernised but kept in service, so Soviets had impressive overlaping radar coverage on many different bands and radiation modes.

On top of everything Soviets had fixed site VHF/UHF radars as part of ABM which could track fairly easy major air assets movements in good part of the Europe even tho it was not their task originally.

You are aware the guy is a troll, and a bad one at that too, right? He hasn't brought any evidence and just talks a lot.  Even down syndrome people can look up what the Soviets and Russians had/have in order to deal with all kinds of threats but this guy continues to talk nonsense.

His evidence is trying to attack others militaries or training or whatever with a single sentence such as:

From one professional to another, am sorry to hear that your military has deteriorated to that condition.

Cant get more pathetic than that.

higurashihougi wrote:Congratulation on your successful ambushes, but I actually look at the whole war and I see that the losses of MiGs was much much lower than American Fs. Not to mention that, this country did not possess a vast flying fleet like America.

I also see that BOMBER MiG-19 managed to knocked down two F-4s.

For the sake of brevity, North Vietnamese Air Force (NVAF) will be used.

You claimed to have 'look at the whole war', but it seems you did not see much.

Speaking of ambushes, that was all the NVAF knew how to do. The fleet was small so the NVAF had to restrict their usage to missions that would minimize the odds of loss of even one combat capable fighter. NVAF sorties were against heavily laden US fighter-bombers, like the F-105. When the NVAF pilots attacked, the tactic was 'slash and dash'. They basically dived from a higher altitude, shot at a few fighters, then ran. What the US pilots did was reacted as expected -- they discarded their bombs so they could be lighter to maneuver. There were no 'Top Gun' movie style air combat maneuver (ACM) involved. In forcing the US pilots to jettisoned their bombs, the NVAF pilots reduced some measure of damages that could have been done against home soil. The results are that very few MIGs were shot down and high NVAF aces. Points for cheering by those who really did not look at the details.

As for Operation Bolo, it proved what combat pilots always knew -- it is the man that counts. It does not mean that WW I Manfred von Richthofen in his Fokker can win against WW II Thomas McGuire in his P-38. Machines do impose limitations on a pilot's skills, creativity, and drive to win. While the MIG-21 and F-4 may have their differences, they are essentially in the same generation of combat fighters, and Operation Bolo proved that the man mattered.

So here is a lesson to you and anyone in this forum who is willing to learn, even if the lesson came from an American: In combat, you win not by fighting under your opponent's rules, but by forcing him to fight under yours, and cheating is allowed.

To remain with air combat, any advantage you have is a rule. If you have superior thrust, force the fight to vertical. If you have superior turn capability, force the fight horizontal. If you have superior radar, hit from afar. If you are small, get yourself lost in ground clutter and attack from where least expected -- from below.

Do you see the point ?

In Operation Bolo, the Americans knew that the NVAF pilots were restricted to only one tactic that just happened to involved very little ACM. So to force the NVAF pilots to fight under American rules, the Americans had to break up the NVAF formation into individual units and gang up on the individual.

Ambushes are nothing new. If you are a victim in an ambush, the first response is to take cover such as get to ground. In air combat, the first response is to violently maneuver. A steady state aircraft is a dead aircraft. Then everyone report to the flight commander his status. It is the responsibility of the flight commander to reorganize and formulate a group response. If the flight commander have poor situational awareness (SA), either because of his personal skills as a pilot or because the immediate emergency situation prevented him from knowing, then the flight is essentially lost. That is what happened in Operation Bolo.

So despite the fact that the F-4 were inferior to the MIG-21 in several capabilities, in a single engagement, the NVAF lost half of their MIG-21 fleet. The American pilots essentially knew their F-4s better than the North Vietnamese pilots knew their MIGs. The NVAF pilots received their training from the Chinese who received theirs from the Soviets. After Operation Bolo, the NVAF grounded the rest of the MIG-21s for months to review how to use them better, but the NVAF never fully recovered.

higurashihougi wrote:And what are his reasons and proofs ?

You really think the US is going to reveal the details of Tolkachev's work ? Even now ? But for general information, Tolkachev revealed/confirmed that the core issue was technology. The Soviets simply did not have air defense radars sophisticated enough to consistently detect and track low altitude aircrafts, especially high speed ones like the F-111 and cruise missiles.

He took pictures of...

- Circuit boards,
- Finished components,
- User manuals from manufacturer to finalized instructions for field use,
- Documentations on the modifications to the MIG-25 with its new look down shoot down radar,
- Technical and operational plans for the new Soviet AWACS,
- Concept for a new Soviet bomber,

And that is just a short list.

Significant to people on the front lines -- like I was -- were the finalized user manuals. If you know how the enemy is going to use a tool, you will know its strengths and weaknesses. You can come up with ways to bypass its strengths and exploit its weaknesses. Once in a while, the enemy can have someone with high enough intelligence and skills to use a tool in creative ways but those people are rare and under the Soviet system, independent and creative thinking are discouraged. It was the task of the USAF's R/D branch, Systems Command, to analyze what Tolkachev gave, and he never sold, and it was up to individual USAF combatant commands throughout Western Europe to plan how to bypass Soviet strengths and exploit weaknesses. All wings then came together to analyze who came up with what and how to coordinate each other's plans.

Like I said, Tolkachev never sold what he produced. The US did gave financial estimates for what he produced and put the money into a trust for the day when we would extract Tolkachev and his family out of the Soviet Union. Unfortunately, that never happened. But Tolkachev's motivations never involved selling what he got.

miketheterrible wrote:His evidence is trying to attack others militaries or training or whatever with a single sentence such as:

From one professional to another, am sorry to hear that your military has deteriorated to that condition.

Cant get more pathetic than that.

Like the man's comment about the movie Independence Day was really professional.