WI the IR weapons treaty never happened in the 1980s

destiple

Banned
How did the IR weapons treaty in 80s affect the theater tactical nuclear capability of Soviets?
They lost a lot of weapons that could have taken out high value NATO targets at a moment's notice albiet albeit in a nuclear war

But how did the Soviets plan on compensating these gaps in their tactical and theater nuclear weapons?

Did these reductions severely cripple the tactical nuke capability of Soviets in the late 80s ?

WI this treaty never happened
 
Before the Treaty, they had almost twice as many warheads as the USA.

They still had plenty for WWIII

Now all those weapons do cost money and manpower to maintain.

Effect?
They lose the game of 'Deep Pockets' they were playing with Reagan even faster.
 

destiple

Banned
Before the Treaty, they had almost twice as many warheads as the USA.

They still had plenty for WWIII

Now all those weapons do cost money and manpower to maintain.

Effect?
They lose the game of 'Deep Pockets' they were playing with Reagan even faster.
but did they have enough tactical nuclear weapons after this treaty to counter NATO?
 
but did they have enough tactical nuclear weapons after this treaty to counter NATO?

That and more. Neither side was ever in a situation where lack of tacnukes was ever an issue. They'd run out of virtually everything else first and at that point the probability of it still being a tac nuke fight approaches zero.
 
They already had a couple thousand Frog, Spider and Scud launchers.
More than enough to make West Germany a wasteland a couple times over

Not to mention all the airdropped assets which no amount of air superiority could stop. Estimate was 15000 tactical warheads in 1991.
 

destiple

Banned
They already had a couple thousand Frog, Spider and Scud launchers.
More than enough to make West Germany a wasteland a couple times over
Why did they not eliminate the frogs , spiders and scuds and kept the SS-12 ,SS-20 and SS-23

The military balance of 1990 I have shows that there were still 174 IRBM operational in 1990
is this true ? or were all IRBM made nonoperational by 1988?
 
why cant the air dropped assets be stopped by superior NATO fighters ?

Because the supposed NATO air superiority advantage at the time was massively overstated and every Soviet combat aircraft had tactical nuclear capability. NATO estimate was that no meaningful air superiority had any chance of being established within the crucial initial phase of an eventual WP/NATO clash and especially not in the early 80s. If the soviets wanted to drop nukes on a target badly enough there was no real feasible way for NATO to reliably stop them.
 

destiple

Banned
Because the supposed NATO air superiority advantage at the time was massively overstated and every Soviet combat aircraft had tactical nuclear capability. NATO estimate was that no meaningful air superiority had any chance of being established within the crucial initial phase of an eventual WP/NATO clash.
How ?
if you look at the numbers NATO had a clear qualitative and quantitative superority ?
e.g in 1985 there are negligible mig-29
2100 Mig-23M/ML and 1000 Mig-21 only
while NATO has hundreds of f-15s and f-16s just based in europe not to mention the reserves and in north america

only by 1989-1990 are there like 700 mig-29 and 300 su-27 and by then the cold war is practically over
 

Philip

Donor
why cant the air dropped assets be stopped by superior NATO fighters ?

Did you ever notice how the USN does not rely on fighters to protect the fleet from a saturation attack? There is only so much fighters can do. And if the leaker is nuclear-tipped, you have a significant problem.
 

destiple

Banned
wasnt the threat of saturation attacks by red navy wildly overestimated , I mean the red navy of 80s even was barely enough to deal with two 2nd rate navies like RN and japanese navy at one time.It stood no chance against even a couple of carrier battle groups
 
Hate to tell you this but the F-16A was something of a dud in the A2A department and C variant didn't really get widespread BVR adoption untill the introduction of the AMRAAM.
 

destiple

Banned
well yes the AIM-7 was only operational with the F-16s of ANG I think
but from what Ive read it seemed like F-16 A/C were some sort of super fighter with a single f-16s able to defeat 3 mig-23s

why was A version a dud ?
 
well yes the AIM-7 was only operational with the F-16s of ANG I think
but from what Ive read it seemed like F-16 A/C were some sort of super fighter with a single f-16s able to defeat 3 mig-23s

why was A version a dud ?

This is definitely the case with later F-16 blocs (I.E the moment they got AMRAAMS the F-16 became the worlds undisputed dominant fighter due to sheer numbers and an amazing array of capabilities) but earlier variants lacked the A2A capability (there were US units that had Sparrows but they were not widely adopted before the introduction of the amraam and the F-16 could only carry 2 Sparrows anyway) to operate in a really aggressive manner.

Norwegian F-16As for example realized that they were forced to always fly low and extremely defensive (As BVR engagements of which the soviets at that time had an undisputed edge in terms of numbers spelled likely death with AIM-9s only) which significantly limited their operational freedom and usefulness.
 
Last edited:

destiple

Banned
. Norwegian F-16As for example realized that they were forced to always fly low and extremely defensive (As BVR engagements of which the soviets at that time had an undisputed edge in terms of numbers spelled likely death) which significantly limited their operational freedom and usefulness.
if that was the case then even the mig-23ML ( and the soviets had 900 of them in 1985) was a significant threat , the ML had decent BVR weapons for the 80s and it may not be as agile as an F16 but had decent accelaration , 4 x IR weapons and a cannon probably can handle slash and dash attacks against NATO strike planes ?

What would you say about the bad rep for mig-23 in 1982 bekee valley incident against F-16As these were albiet mig-23MS mostly
 
What would you say about the bad rep for mig-23 in 1982 bekee valley incident against F-16As these were albiet mig-23MS mostly

Which was a non-BVR variant. The closest western counterpart is the West german F-4 phantoms (a good example that soviets weren't the only ones who sold downgraded monkey models). Unsurprisingly any F-16 (especially the light early ones) would wipe the floor with them in a dogfight on even tactical terms. Problem is once BVR becomes a reliable thing like it did in the 80s the tactical situation changes.
 

Ak-84

Banned
BVR equipped MiG-23 of the USSR got their asses handed to them by Pakistan AF F16A’s.

BVR has always been less than advertised. If the enemy has got good RWR then he can dodge several shots.
 
BVR equipped MiG-23 of the USSR got their asses handed to them by Pakistan AF F16A’s.

BVR has always been less than advertised. If the enemy has got good RWR then he can dodge several shots.

that was one interception of an airstrike against mujahedin with no missiles where the soviets did not expect it (pakistani F-16s did several such intercepts where they failed to shoot down a single soviet plane despite being right on their six and the soviets having no idea they were there during the entire ordeal) with the result being 1 dead F-16 and 2 dead Mig-23s. The US themselves concluded in testing that the 23 was a superior fighter to the early non-bvr 16s.

and no, by the 80s BVR was no longer overrated. It gave a high initial kill probability an massive initial tactical advantage.
 
Last edited:
Top