6 ms·

The US actually had many more and much better nuclear weapons and delivery systems, but they thought the soviets were much further along than they really were.

29athrowaway 6y ago
The Soviets were the first to deploy operational ICBMs. They also had the first Submarine launched ballistic missile. They had the largest stockpile of nuclear weapons for many years. They developed the most potent nuclear weapons. Can you be more specific?
- YarickR2 6y ago
  Guidance systems were (and are) presumably worse, if one has to judge by officially released data. Propulsion systems were much more difficult to keep in a ready to launch state, and much more fragile. In general, USSR preferred less sophisticated solutions, instead making sure they could be easily replicated.
  - paganel 6y ago
    Because that had worked for them in WW2, when German tanks (among many other things) were technically superior to their Soviet counter-parts with the results we all know. Fortunately this will never happen but I have always been curious about how US technicals would fare in a ground-war in Russia. My bet is that they would fail most of the times with no possibility of easy fixes, at least compared to their Soviet (now Russian) equivalents. What’s the US equivalent for the Russian Ural or Kamaz trucks?
    - jabl 6y ago
      Quantity has a quality of its own. T-34, which was superior to most German tanks like pzkpfw 3/4 when it was introduced, was produced in vast numbers, around 80000. German designed a competitive tank with the Panther, but only about 6000 were made, and they were beset by reliability problems. Add in the production by the Western allies, such as 50000 Sherman tanks, the surprising thing is that Nazi Germany didn't collapse faster. Don't know about modern hardware. Certainly Soviet hardware has a reputation for reliability in adverse conditions. OTOH the first Gulf war was a pretty damning indictment of the warfighting ability of Soviet armour.
      - arethuza 6y ago
        I have seen a description of the allied fighting in Normandy that concluded that it doesn't matter if your tanks are 6 times better if your enemy has 10 times the number of tanks.
        jabl 6y ago
        In Northern France much of the tank action IIRC was at very short range, due to lots of hedgerows. In such an environment where all tanks are able to reliably hit and penetrate all others, numbers become the dominant factor. In more open country, tank armour and punching power make more of a difference.
    - rbanffy 6y ago
      > My bet is that they would fail most of the times with no possibility of easy fixes That's a solid bet. The US has not engaged a similarly sophisticated opponent in generations and with high unit costs of American weapons, any such war would be extraordinarily costly.
  - tryauuum 6y ago
    (offtopic) Last sentence made me want to play red alert 2. Though, you cannot call apocalypse tanks unsophisticated...
- rl3 6y ago
  I believe GP was referring to this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Missile_gap https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Missile_gap
hatenberg 6y ago
While there was lots of bluffing on both sides (Star Wars, cough), the notion of "better" is a terrible misunderstanding of that time, and of nuclear weapons today. Once capacity exists on all sides to end earth several times over, better is an exercise and distinction without meaning, a mad illusion of value maybe to military grammar nazis
- asimilator 6y ago
  More effective?
  - iagovar 6y ago
    When you have 100 nukes comming at you, it doesn't matter that much how effective they are. You'll get nuked, no doubt.
    - jacobush 6y ago
      It matters, a great deal in a sort of sad way. I can only speak for Sweden, but a lot of large military and civilian defence bunkers (and hardened, fixed in bedrock artillery) went obsolete went “the other side” got better targeting systems. Until then, a lot of the installations were immune to anything but a direct hit, which was incredibly unlikely. Airbursts just wouldn’t have cut it to crack open the more serious underground installations.
      - iagovar 6y ago
        Hmm, didn't think it that way, you're right.
      - nyolfen 6y ago
        modern airburst fuzes are indeed accurate enough to destroy hardened underground bunkers: https://thebulletin.org/2017/03/how-us-nuclear-force-modernization-is-undermining-strategic-stability-the-burst-height-compensating-super-fuze/ https://thebulletin.org/2017/03/how-us-nuclear-force-moderni...

29athrowaway 6y ago

The Soviets were the first to deploy operational ICBMs. They also had the first Submarine launched ballistic missile. They had the largest stockpile of nuclear weapons for many years. They developed the most potent nuclear weapons. Can you be more specific?

YarickR2 6y ago
Guidance systems were (and are) presumably worse, if one has to judge by officially released data. Propulsion systems were much more difficult to keep in a ready to launch state, and much more fragile. In general, USSR preferred less sophisticated solutions, instead making sure they could be easily replicated.
- paganel 6y ago
  Because that had worked for them in WW2, when German tanks (among many other things) were technically superior to their Soviet counter-parts with the results we all know. Fortunately this will never happen but I have always been curious about how US technicals would fare in a ground-war in Russia. My bet is that they would fail most of the times with no possibility of easy fixes, at least compared to their Soviet (now Russian) equivalents. What’s the US equivalent for the Russian Ural or Kamaz trucks?
  - jabl 6y ago
    Quantity has a quality of its own. T-34, which was superior to most German tanks like pzkpfw 3/4 when it was introduced, was produced in vast numbers, around 80000. German designed a competitive tank with the Panther, but only about 6000 were made, and they were beset by reliability problems. Add in the production by the Western allies, such as 50000 Sherman tanks, the surprising thing is that Nazi Germany didn't collapse faster. Don't know about modern hardware. Certainly Soviet hardware has a reputation for reliability in adverse conditions. OTOH the first Gulf war was a pretty damning indictment of the warfighting ability of Soviet armour.
    - arethuza 6y ago
      I have seen a description of the allied fighting in Normandy that concluded that it doesn't matter if your tanks are 6 times better if your enemy has 10 times the number of tanks.
      - jabl 6y ago
        In Northern France much of the tank action IIRC was at very short range, due to lots of hedgerows. In such an environment where all tanks are able to reliably hit and penetrate all others, numbers become the dominant factor. In more open country, tank armour and punching power make more of a difference.
  - rbanffy 6y ago
    > My bet is that they would fail most of the times with no possibility of easy fixes That's a solid bet. The US has not engaged a similarly sophisticated opponent in generations and with high unit costs of American weapons, any such war would be extraordinarily costly.
- tryauuum 6y ago
  (offtopic) Last sentence made me want to play red alert 2. Though, you cannot call apocalypse tanks unsophisticated...
rl3 6y ago
I believe GP was referring to this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Missile_gap https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Missile_gap

hatenberg 6y ago

While there was lots of bluffing on both sides (Star Wars, cough), the notion of "better" is a terrible misunderstanding of that time, and of nuclear weapons today. Once capacity exists on all sides to end earth several times over, better is an exercise and distinction without meaning, a mad illusion of value maybe to military grammar nazis

asimilator 6y ago
More effective?
- iagovar 6y ago
  When you have 100 nukes comming at you, it doesn't matter that much how effective they are. You'll get nuked, no doubt.
  - jacobush 6y ago
    It matters, a great deal in a sort of sad way. I can only speak for Sweden, but a lot of large military and civilian defence bunkers (and hardened, fixed in bedrock artillery) went obsolete went “the other side” got better targeting systems. Until then, a lot of the installations were immune to anything but a direct hit, which was incredibly unlikely. Airbursts just wouldn’t have cut it to crack open the more serious underground installations.
    - iagovar 6y ago
      Hmm, didn't think it that way, you're right.
    - nyolfen 6y ago
      modern airburst fuzes are indeed accurate enough to destroy hardened underground bunkers: https://thebulletin.org/2017/03/how-us-nuclear-force-modernization-is-undermining-strategic-stability-the-burst-height-compensating-super-fuze/ https://thebulletin.org/2017/03/how-us-nuclear-force-moderni...