AHC/WI: Soviet Wunderwaffe?

While the more hysterical Western fears of Soviet capabilities were certainly overblown, the same is true of more hysterical Soviet fears of Western tech. Soviet gear introduced during the 80s certainly way outclassed anything the F-4 and M60 could do. While each side might have been somewhat inferior and somewhat superior in certain aspects at certain time, on average they generally kept pace with each other in terms of weapons technology.

F-4 could carry modern missiles and radar as well as F-15. M-60 Sabra is still a pretty good tank. With lower cost of acquisition more could have been spent on training, or, even better, in reducing defense expenditure and maybe working on something more important on long term.

Disagree on the Sturgeon. Soviet subs got extremely quieter after they bought the Toshiba prop milling machine. Their newer subs are really good. Very hard to track. I would not have wanted to be on the receiving end of a "Dance of the Vampires" attack either. Their ASMs are very fast. They also have pretty good SAMs and ground based AAA.

Sturgeon was already pretty quiet. And, of course, US sub development was pretty much evolutionary rather than revolutionary, a sensible route, IMHO.
 
F-4 could carry modern missiles and radar as well as F-15. M-60 Sabra is still a pretty good tank. With lower cost of acquisition more could have been spent on training, or, even better, in reducing defense expenditure and maybe working on something more important on long term.

Oh yeah, sure, they remained combat capable to the end and in the end the Soviet Union wound up collapsing for reasons that had little to do with whether this or that particular tank was acquired. But that’s pure, unvarnished 20/20 hindsight speaking. From the perspective of when these vehicles were designed and developed in the 1970s, the prospect of a war with the USSR didn’t look like it was ever going to go away and the prospect of having to face down Soviet tank armies and air fleets from both a quantitative and qualitative disadvantage in that regard is not something that either NATO politicians or generals were going to countenance. The M1, after all, was built not just to outperform the T-64/72/80 but also further hypothetical developments in Soviet tank design. It was built to be a long-term main battle tank, which is why the US is still using it today despite the design nearly being 40-years old. Similar story with the F-15, although it’s slowly being flown into the bone heal.
 
Oh yeah, sure, they remained combat capable to the end and in the end the Soviet Union wound up collapsing for reasons that had little to do with whether this or that particular tank was acquired. But that’s pure, unvarnished 20/20 hindsight speaking. From the perspective of when these vehicles were designed and developed in the 1970s, the prospect of a war with the USSR didn’t look like it was ever going to go away and the prospect of having to face down Soviet tank armies and air fleets from both a quantitative and qualitative disadvantage in that regard is not something that either NATO politicians or generals were going to countenance. The M1, after all, was built not just to outperform the T-64/72/80 but also further hypothetical developments in Soviet tank design. It was built to be a long-term main battle tank, which is why the US is still using it today despite the design nearly being 40-years old. Similar story with the F-15, although it’s slowly being flown into the bone heal.

It's not hindsight. F-4, properly updated, is very combat capable aircraft even today. Arguably, if the amount of money pumped to F-15 was pumped to more developed sensors and weapons (IRST, helmet mounted sight, agile dogfighting missiles, all feasible with 70's technology) it would have been immensely more capable fighter than F-15 during 1980's.

Of course newer weapons are better. But there are also opportunity costs and marginal utility when developing new weapons. It's very hard to see in hindsight, or even with 1970's perspective, what was the utility of having M-1's, F-15's, AH-64's and B-1's over improved M-60's, F-4's, AH-1's and B-52's, for example. Every penny spent on procurement of new weapons was a penny not used elsewhere for defense, or even more importantly, on something more immensely useful such as better health care, lower taxation or whatever you fancy. At the same time budget could also be used to develop truly revolutionary stuff, such as B-2 and F-22.

In many systems US has actually followed an evolutionary route, such as KC-135, C-130, B-52 etc.

And this of course not taking into account that nuclear weapons were the most important ones, conventional weapons were just a sideshow.
 
It's not hindsight. F-4, properly updated, is very combat capable aircraft even today. Arguably, if the amount of money pumped to F-15 was pumped to more developed sensors and weapons (IRST, helmet mounted sight, agile dogfighting missiles, all feasible with 70's technology) it would have been immensely more capable fighter than F-15 during 1980's.

No, it’s clearly hindsight speaking. The F-15 was a whole generation ahead of the F-4 not just in sensors and weapons, but in terms of stuff like the air frame and other intrinsic features like that. Plus, historically, development of the F-15 went hand in hand with extensive modernization programs of the F-4. It was never an “either/or” thing. And yet the F-4 still wound up inferior in performance to the MiG-29 and Su-27.

And those gizmos were developed and were mounted on the F-4 (IRST actually pre-dates the 70s). It did not change that during the 70s and 80s the F-4 was an increasingly obsolete air craft unable to compete with new generations of Soviet systems.

Of course newer weapons are better. But there are also opportunity costs and marginal utility when developing new weapons.

To a point. But weapons acquisition hardly made, or makes. up the bulk of western military budgets.

It's very hard to see in hindsight, or even with 1970's perspective, what was the utility of having M-1's, F-15's, AH-64's and B-1's over improved M-60's, F-4's, AH-1's and B-52's, for example. Every penny spent on procurement of new weapons was a penny not used elsewhere for defense, or even more importantly,

The fact those weapon systems were increasingly less and less effective against new generations of Soviet weapons even with aggressive modernization.

on something more immensely useful such as better health care, lower taxation or whatever you fancy.

Again, obviously something advocated with the hindsight that the Soviet threat would disappear at the end of the 80’s.
 
And those gizmos were developed and were mounted on the F-4 (IRST actually pre-dates the 70s). It did not change that during the 70s and 80s the F-4 was an increasingly obsolete air craft unable to compete with new generations of Soviet systems.

Performance of aircraft is only minimally tied with the airframe itself during 1980's. Radar, other sensors and missiles were the key and even F-4 could have been well upgraded with AMRAAM, agile dogfighting missiles etc. The difference being, of course, that with no F-15 spending the said systems could have been developed quicker...

To a point. But weapons acquisition hardly made, or makes. up the bulk of western military budgets.

I recall it was something from 1/3 to 1/4 of the whole budget. A massive sum, however, which could have been more used for increased force size, better training etc.

The fact those weapon systems were increasingly less and less effective against new generations of Soviet weapons even with aggressive modernization.
...
Again, obviously something advocated with the hindsight that the Soviet threat would disappear at the end of the 80’s.

But the said 1980's generation of weapons did not offer revolutionary capabilities over upgrades. Weapons such as F-22 and B-2 did and it was known already in 1980's. That's the reason Carter cancelled the B-1, for example.

And again, you must remember that conventional weapons were ultimately a sideshow. A M-60 fulfills the vaporization role as well as M-1. For interventions against pariah states both are about as effective. Actually, would still be...
 
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I can’t remember it’s project number, but how about the Stalin-era sub design that would have had like 8 torpedo tubes, 3 to 4 V-2’s, and a launch rail for firing V-1 clones?
 
Behold...
the Chyeranovsky BiCh-17 of 1935
bich17dr.jpg

M-22 Radial, and an 76mm APK recoilless gun in each wing

But Kurchevsky, designer of the cannons ended up executed after the purges, and all of his weapons were destroyed.

You can make fun of the Russians all you want, in the 30's they had some advanced projects in the works, spanning mostly automatic weapons with extreme high ROF, recoilless rifles, nifty mortars, etc that would have increased the firepower of their infantry formations enormously, had Uncle Joe not seen fit to execute all the designers and shit can their work. What an asshole!
 

iVC

Donor
What an asshole!

Most of Kurchevsky’s experimental guns had too many irreparable defects and their technical specifications did not correspond to those declared. In 1937, Kurchevsky was arrested, charged with designing poor weapons systems at the Tukhachevsky Case, and sentenced to death on November 25, 1937. One of his personal flaws was his desire to see his weapons mounted on tanks, what resulted in tragedy during field test of his recoilless artillery when compensation backblast scorched several riflemen who were following the tank platoon. His desire to develop a 305-mm recoilless gun on a destroyer resulted in stalling the production of entire Novorossiysk Naval Bureau. Kurchevsky enjoyed the support of Mikhail Tukhachevsky and Sergo Ordzhonikidze in promoting his projects and due to this patronage during the time period from 1931 to 1935, almost all of the Soviet artillery factories worked on the tasks of Kurchevsky. As a result, all the aircraft, ship, tank, mountain, anti-aircraft and other Kurchevsky guns were combat ineffective or required addtional preparations for use here and now, which totally jeopardized the artillery organization of the Soviets.

had Uncle Joe not seen fit to execute all the designers

Talented but also shuck and crooked weapon designer.
Maybe Uncle Joe was not so wrong when he decided to put this man aside?
 
You can make fun of the Russians all you want, in the 30's they had some advanced projects in the works, spanning mostly automatic weapons with extreme high ROF, recoilless rifles, nifty mortars, etc that would have increased the firepower of their infantry formations enormously, had Uncle Joe not seen fit to execute all the designers and shit can their work. What an asshole!

First monoplane fighter with retractable gear and one of the first to carry cannon (I-16), massive lead on air-ground rockets and rocket artillery (and there's another soviet "wonder weapon")...
 
One of his personal flaws was his desire to see his weapons mounted on tanks, what resulted in tragedy during field test of his recoilless artillery when compensation backblast scorched several riflemen who were following the tank platoon.

Yet Marines got good use out of this
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Lightweight, low ground pressure and the ones upgraded with a Chrysler V8 were very mobile.

Sometimes the backblast was a bonus, when surrounded bu enemies. Jarheads were smart enough not to spend any time behind one
 
You can make fun of the Russians all you want, in the 30's they had some advanced projects in the works, spanning mostly automatic weapons with extreme high ROF, recoilless rifles, nifty mortars, etc that would have increased the firepower of their infantry formations enormously, had Uncle Joe not seen fit to execute all the designers and shit can their work. What an asshole!

Indeed I wonder what kind of superpower Russia would have become if the WWI and the Soviet Disaster was avoided. Even with all the destruction inflicted by Communism the engineering and science achievements were really remarkable.
 

iVC

Donor
Sometimes the backblast was a bonus, when surrounded bu enemies. Jarheads were smart enough not to spend any time behind one

It seems to me that the main problem was not even the incident with the deaths on drills. In the very end, the weapon designer did not conduct the exercises himself, and someone else could foresee the burning of personnel with a jet stream.

The main trouble was that the talented engineer lied constantly and made impossible promises. This can happen in any country, you know. Got support from government officials, climbed up high, got important appointments to offices and forced all state-owned factories to produce only guns of his own design. As a result, the money was spent, time was lost, and warehouses are filled up with products with defects or prototypes that have not been finalized for combat. Instead of trying in his experimental laboratory, he got a whole country as a testing ground.

I do not approve of the policy of shootings, instead of just dismissals with shame, but Kurchevsky overstepped his authority well enough and paid for it.
 
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