Pick the best /worst cold war weapons

Even though I have stated that I felt the Nike system was a sham,  I've always been facinated with it.  There were 2 Nike sites near my home growing up and my Dad took me over to see the Missles standing on their launch frames.  Years later, I found out that my late father-in-law was the man with his finger on the trigger, so to speak.  From 1958 to late 1960 he was it.  No fail-safe, no "football" no red phone.  Ft. Monroe Va. was the Command Center for the East Coast Army Air Defense Network. There were 2-3 other officers, they took turns handling the reponsibility.  As a Major [later a Col.] he was Senior Officer in charge.

Best soviet weapons:

Edited by Mosquito - 20-Oct-2010 at 19:56

I mean soviet subs like Sierra class, Kilo class, Oscar class. I especially like Sierra which could have go to depth even about 1000m due to titanium made hull.

and so far I know US navy didnt have any submarine class with titanium hull...

While googling for pics of various things I stumbeled onto these 2 items.  The first is a WWII idea, but I thought it sort of fit.

Originally posted by Mosquito   Sierra class had titanium hull (Sierra II didnt) and was very silent. And it was titatnium hull that allowed them to dive deeper than any other submarines all over the world:   Soviet titanium technology was far in advance of the West's requiring fewer passes to achieve weld at the disadvantage of the cost of each hull which limits numbers built despite the advantages of greater depths and underwater speed

Originally posted by Mosquito Thats what I was trying to say. Soviet military technology wasnt really backward compared to western. The problem the soviets had was crippled economy which didnt allowe them to produce their best things in large quantities.

Edited by Cryptic - 22-Oct-2010 at 23:26

Originally posted by opuslola I would just like to ask our friend "Cryptic", just how could he remark that a great victory over "repressivism" ? could be anything but "Unfortunate?" For America and the rest of the "free world", it could not be considered as anything less than "fortunate!" To assume anything else is to make one's self a supporter of Communism and the end of Democracy!

Edited by Cryptic - 23-Oct-2010 at 08:17

Another great naval design was the French lafayette Class stealth frigate.   Though put into service in the closing days of the cold war, the Lafayette was way ahead of its time and started the stealthy design revolution.  The innovative design features of the Lafayette are now almost the world standard.

Taking words from Big D, above; "well, the training/use of the weapon is VERY important...an average weapon in a good soldier's hands is deadlier than a great weapon in a poor soldier's hands....I think the Israelis proved this in 67'"

Yes sir! A very astute statement! I could place a lot of blame upon the decision of the US Army to adapt a new form of small arms fighting via the use of the so called "supression fire" mode when under attack! This method of loosing a war was taken because the AR-15's / M-16's were soon all equiped with full automatic switches, which allowed a GI to fully empty his 20 round magazine in but a second or so, at the enemy!

Sounds great, but their could probably be shown hundreds of film clips whereby, the US toops, who had been carefully trained in aimed fire, began to use this "supression" technique whilst having almost all of their bodies hidden behind their fox-hole or other cover! Therefor, their was a lot of fire, and a lot of troops literally ran out of ammo, because all of their bullets merely had "to whom it may concern" written upon them, rather than "this bullet is personally directed towards you my individual enemy!"

I have read of one estimate, based upon ammunition usage in Korea, where it was estimated that 50,000 rounds of ammo was expended for every enemy soldier wounded or killed! And this was when not many troops had fully automatic control of their weapon.

What the number might have been in Vietnam might well scare the hell out of me, but it did not scare the hell out of the Viet Cong, nor the NVA!

Regards,