Military equipment if the Cold War continued till 2019

If, via an undetermined but relatively near 1991 POD, the USSR avoided collapse until at least 2019, what would modern military equipment look like? Expenditures would be higher in both the US and USSR, and nuclear proliferation would be far greater. A greater focus on conventional warfare might change the path of the development of equipment as well. Another affect of the increased budgets would be economies of scale for expensive, high tech projects that IOTL have very few completed units.

The Warsaw Pact may or may not partially or fully collapse, look at all of these possibilities if you want.
 
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If, via an undetermined but relatively near 1991 POD, the USSR avoided collapse until at least 2019, what would modern military equipment look like? Expenditures would be higher in both the US and USSR, and nuclear proliferation would be far greater. A greater focus on conventional warfare might change the path of the development of equipment as well. Another affect of the increased budgets would be economies of scale for expensive, high tech projects that IOTL have very few completed units.

We were more willing to experiment with unmanned combat aircraft then and I expect drone warfare would be much more developed. Vulnerable aircraft like the A-10 and Su-25 would have been retired long ago.

In land systems much more advanced self propelled howitzers, which has been greatly negelected in the age of low intensity conflict. I find it hard to believe modern tanks would still be using diesel or turbine engines. We would have transitioned to battery powered tanks already as these have very low thermal signature. And refueling could be done with quick battery swaps.

Surface ships would be stealthy in shape. There would probably be active underwater defense systems against torpedoes on surface vessles and submarines.

Nuclear missiles should be much longer ranged, no longer restricted to fly over the north pole and therefore less vulnerable to interception.

5.56 would be obsolete for infantry rifles, being replaced by something effective against body armor, perhaps a saboted projectile.
 
If, via an undetermined but relatively near 1991 POD, the USSR avoided collapse until at least 2019, what would modern military equipment look like? Expenditures would be higher in both the US and USSR, and nuclear proliferation would be far greater. A greater focus on conventional warfare might change the path of the development of equipment as well. Another affect of the increased budgets would be economies of scale for expensive, high tech projects that IOTL have very few completed units.
As already mentioned I expect SP guns would be much more advanced. I suspect tanks with 140 mm or larger guns would be common.

I have my doubts that the bans on certain cluster munitions and mines would have been as wide spread, although eventually I suspect cluster munitions would have been largely replaced by PGM's.

I'm not sure how much more effort would have been put into small arms. I suspect 5.56 mm M855 / SS109 might still be in wide spread use. Edit to add:
Maybe the G11 enters service in West Germany ?

I suspect there would have been a new U.S. ICBM by now and probably a new generation of nuclear war heads to arm them with. We might have seen dedicated earth penetrating ICBM warheads come into service and or high yield multi megaton ICBM war heads come back into U.S. service. There probably would have been another generation of tactical nuclear weapons as well.

The next generation SRAM gets produced. The advanced cruise missile stays in service.

The U.S. probably replaces their field radio systems with something fundamentally different.

The F22 is produced in much larger numbers. Maybe the F35 is a bit less complicated (so it can be rapidly produced in large numbers ?) and another 5th generation fighter is developed as well.

The E3 AWACS is probably replaced by now.
 
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trurle

Banned
We would have transitioned to battery powered tanks already as these have very low thermal signature. And refueling could be done with quick battery swaps.
Not low enough to justify inconvenience of 20-times reduced energy density. Battery-electric systems have typical thermal efficiency 65% for rechargeable and about 80% for non-rechargeable batteries, which do not make large difference from 40% of diesel

Nuclear missiles should be much longer ranged, no longer restricted to fly over the north pole and therefore less vulnerable to interception.
FOBS were forbidden by international agreement SALT II in 1979. Therefore, progress in long-range ICBM would be likely zero.
 
We were more willing to experiment with unmanned combat aircraft then and I expect drone warfare would be much more developed. Vulnerable aircraft like the A-10 and Su-25 would have been retired long ago.
Possibly, or at least put into reserve.

In land systems much more advanced self propelled howitzers, which has been greatly negelected in the age of low intensity conflict. I find it hard to believe modern tanks would still be using diesel or turbine engines. We would have transitioned to battery powered tanks already as these have very low thermal signature. And refueling could be done with quick battery swaps.
Battery power? Not bloody likely. too short-ranged, and handling batteries with that much juice is more dangerous than handling liquid fuel.

Surface ships would be stealthy in shape. There would probably be active underwater defense systems against torpedoes on surface vessles and submarines.
What sort of systems were you thinking of?

Nuclear missiles should be much longer ranged, no longer restricted to fly over the north pole and therefore less vulnerable to interception.
I doubt range will go up much, 10,000 km gets you a hit on Moscow from anywhere in CONUS.

5.56 would be obsolete for infantry rifles, being replaced by something effective against body armor, perhaps a saboted projectile.
5.56 already is reasonably good against body armour.
 

trurle

Banned
5.56 already is reasonably good against body armour.
Chinese would disagree. They recently (since 1995) moved to 5.8mm with APCR bullet being standard, specifically due body armor concerns. Russians also made APCR bullet standard, despite making bullet lighter (keeping 5.45mm caliber). Therefore, more body armor considerations (due more emphasis on stronger projected enemy) in prolonged Cold War may result in more countries adopting calibers starting from 5.8 and up to 7.62mm.
 
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I find it hard to believe modern tanks would still be using diesel or turbine engines. We would have transitioned to battery powered tanks already as these have very low thermal signature. And refueling could be done with quick battery swaps.

man what kind of freakin battery does it take to power a TANK
 
We were more willing to experiment with unmanned combat aircraft then and I expect drone warfare would be much more developed. Vulnerable aircraft like the A-10 and Su-25 would have been retired long ago.

The A-10 and the Su-25 would have gone but they would have been replaced with a faster, armoured, low flying manned CAS systems and things like the Predator and the Reaper would never have be procured. Drones simply can't handle high intensity air combat yet and all existing drones are Permissive airspace only.

In land systems much more advanced self propelled howitzers, which has been greatly negelected in the age of low intensity conflict.

Along with air defense and other heavy mechanised equipment.

Surface ships would be stealthy in shape.

Yes

There would probably be active underwater defense systems against torpedoes on surface vessles and submarines.

Probably not very effective ones. Ultra-high speed torpedos however would be in widespread service.

5.56 would be obsolete for infantry rifles, being replaced by something effective against body armor, perhaps a saboted projectile.

Depends if the G11 works, it was cancelled before we really found out. If it's an expensive fiasco then 5.56 will probably still be in widespread use as the fallback option. If it works then similar caseless rounds will be widespread.
 
Chinese would disagree. They recently (since 1995) moved to 5.8mm with APCR bullet being standard, specifically due body armor concerns. Russians also made APCR bullet standard, despite making bullet lighter (keeping 5.45mm caliber). Therefore, more body armor considerations (due more emphasis on stronger projected enemy) in prolonged Cold War may result in more countries adopting calibers starting from 5.8 and up to 7.62mm.
TheUnited States has switched over to a steel 5.56 round. Officially because of concerns of lead contamination on military bases, unofficially because of superior armor penetrating capability
 
The F22 is produced in much larger numbers. Maybe the F35 is a bit less complicated (so it can be rapidly produced in large numbers ?) and another 5th generation fighter is developed as well.

You'd definitely get a lot more F22's but with bigger 1990's budgets the F35 aka the Joint Strike Fighter probably gets butterflied away. Instead you would have a joint USMC/Royal Navy STOVL program, a continued A/F-X program to replace the F-111 and A-10 for the USAF in the 1990's followed by a F-16 replacement. There would be no Super-Hornets for the USN, the 1990's money would be spent on the A-12 and NATF and even with a continued Cold War the USN couldn't afford to fill out it's force with both so I suspect you would see a Hornet replacement program launched in the 1990's to provide a low-end plane to supplement the crazy expensive A-12 and NATF.

By 2019 you'd probably have this sort of force structure

USAF

F-22 as high end ASF
F-16 replacement as the low end Multi-role fighter and main NATO fighter.
B-2 as the sole strategic bomber (B-52 and B-1 would be retired if the USAF could buy enough B-2's)
A/F-X as tactical and CAS bomber, also with major NATO sales.

USN

NATF Tomcat replacement, probably only one squadron per CAG due to cost
A-12, one or two squadrons
Multi-role fighter, a F-18 replacement to pad out CAGs, for budget reasons this might be the same as or a variant of the the USMC STOVL aircraft or the F-16 replacement.

USMC/RN

STOVL multi-role aircraft.

Unless defense budgets get higher than the Reagan era you're not going to get much more than that, you've got 6 additional expensive programs there so the temptation to combine is going to be very strong. The most obvious cost saving measure is to combine the F-16 low end replacement, the F-18 low end replacement and the STOVL into one aircraft. Now in OTL we know that was a disaster with no cost savings but significant capability shortfalls. Hopefully fatter budgets sees the USAF fight off incorporation into the joint program which should save some money and deliver better aircraft.
 
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DougM

Donor
The Navy would not be using only Hornets. An A6 replacement and an F14 replacement would both be in place
 
Chinese would disagree. They recently (since 1995) moved to 5.8mm with APCR bullet being standard, specifically due body armor concerns. Russians also made APCR bullet standard, despite making bullet lighter (keeping 5.45mm caliber). Therefore, more body armor considerations (due more emphasis on stronger projected enemy) in prolonged Cold War may result in more countries adopting calibers starting from 5.8 and up to 7.62mm.
I'm thinking for most Western / NATO nations the next step after ss109 / M855 would be tungsten AP rounds (without changing the caliber / cartridge) if there was a precrived need for significantly better performance vs body armour. I don't see small arms getting much attention by most nations in a continued Cold War setting. (IMHo the finite amount of money will likely be spent in other areas (ie anti armour weapons.)

Edit to add:
Perhaps DU is used for small arms ammunition if tungsten is in short supply ? (Probably and hopefully not but who knows what might have happened if heavy body armour was wide spread ?)
 
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US military spending could hardly be higher than it is right now. Honestly I can't see that military technology would be any more advanced, there just might be more stuff produced.
 
US military spending could hardly be higher than it is right now. Honestly I can't see that military technology would be any more advanced, there just might be more stuff produced.
I suspect if the GWOT was butterflied away money could have been found for a number of new weapon systems.
 
I think a big question is how has the cold war continued, given the USSR was devoting something like 40% of GDP to spend half of what the US was, something has to change in the USSR to allow this competition to continue. That something might have its own impact on what all that money is spent on!


US military spending could hardly be higher than it is right now. Honestly I can't see that military technology would be any more advanced, there just might be more stuff produced.


No spending might be high compered to others, but compered to US spending post WW2 it's not particularly high

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What would the modern Soviet equivalent of the T-14 be? Presuming they still see a need for something similar, perhaps after seeing the M1 utterly ravage a third-world army equipped with modern-ish soviet tanks like the T-72?

Might the US be working on an Abrams replacement by ATL 2019?
 
What would the modern Soviet equivalent of the T-14 be? Presuming they still see a need for something similar, perhaps after seeing the M1 utterly ravage a third-world army equipped with modern-ish soviet tanks like the T-72?

Might the US be working on an Abrams replacement by ATL 2019?

The most likely Soviet MBT would be Object 299, as before they collapsed it was chosen or judged to be the best proposal of their next gen tank concepts. It was front engined and turbine powered with fleshed out proposals for MBT, heavy IFV, combat engineering, SPH, MLRS, and a VL ATGM carrier based on it's chassis. I imagine it would have a high pressure 125mm gun like the 2A66M with 152mm variants coming later.

The Abrams had various upgrades ready in the 80s and 90s that were axed, as well as proposals for a Block 3 variant as a stepping stone to a lighter FCS in the 2020 timeframe. The Abrams in this TL would probably look like the CATTB with in-arm suspension replacing torsion bars, the LV100-5 turbine, requisite armor and fire control upgrades, and a new turret to house the XM291 120/140mm gun.
 
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