Wich country do you think had the better weapons during the Cold War?

All i want to know. I think it was Russia. They had a bigger military, and experimated with different technologies. Also had more nuclear weapons, and they were deployed close to the United States.

I think you're definately wrong.

The US had much more capable ICBM's (although not road mobile), theatre nuclear weapons all around the soviet union (Western Europe, Diego Garcia, Guam, and many others), more advanced cruise missiles, and our SSBN's were second to none. Not to mention the B-52, B1, B2 and the myriad of smaller fighter-bombers (i.e. F111).

Yes, the US yeilds were typically smaller, but the CEP and number of warheads easily compensated for that.

The Soviet conventional army was larger, but who knows if it would have ever been as easily deployed and flexible as the US Army/Marines have shown the capability to do. Also the gulf wars have shown the clear superiority of smaller numbers of M1 (even lightly armored vehicles) over much larger numbers of state of the art russian armor.

Although I firmly believe that any comparison of the realitive merits of either conventioal army is an exercise in futility, as a conflict never would have stayed at that level.

The real cold war weapons were not made of hardware. Disinformation and spies were the best weapons of the cold war. Both the USSR and the States had amazing training facilities for spies and battalions of people devoted to steering the other in the wrong direction.
My vote *listens to imaginary drum roll* Russia!

lol. Starwars50, have you forgotten space? Russia was the first in space. They would not leave without deploying nuclear warheads that can be launched from satellites. Just ask Krushaev (leader of the U.S.S.R. during the Cuban missle Crisis). Wait he's dead...

[edit on 043030p://ex30 by AD5673]

Originally posted by AD5673
lol. Starwars50, have you forgotten space?

Russia was the first in space. They would not leave without deploying nuclear warheads that can be launched from satellites. Just ask Krushaev (leader of the U.S.S.R. during the Cuban missle Crisis). Wait he's dead...

[edit on 043030p://ex30 by AD5673]

Do you think the US doesn't have the ability to track and determine the type of every sattelite in space? If Russia ever did that, we would know - and there would have been major issues (it is a violation of fundamental international law).

Don't fall into the trap of thinking that such a sattelite would be small or easy to conceal either. It takes a lot of energy to de-orbit an object (especially from the alititudes needed for an accurate re-entry). So even though the warhead could be man-sized, you would need almost as large of a 'booster' to de-orbit the warhead as you need to launch an ICBM in the first place.

Besides, you never know when a sattelite will malfunction and/or possibly de-orbit. The idea of orbital nukes is simply insane from any angle (with the capbility to attack earth - something to defend the planet against foreign objects would be a much different story). Not even a country at the height of the cold war would take that risk.

It has to be the US not only were our armed forces better trained and equiped but we were ready 24/7 we had B-52 bombers fly routes around russia from 1950-1991 non stop there were at least 4 in the air around russia with nukes onboard 24/7 365 days a year.

So what. If they did have the ability to track the sattelites what would they do about it?? Cry to the U.N.? They most liley have weapons up there too...NOW. Not druing the Cold War.

Iam not russian but, they could have whooped some ass if the cold war would have turned hot!!!!!!!!!!!!

if the cold war had turned hot the US in the long run would have won because it had more allies plus of course our good ass military.

Originally posted by AD5673
So what. If they did have the ability to track the sattelites what would they do about it?? Cry to the U.N.? They most liley have weapons up there too...NOW. Not druing the Cold War.

Did you read the message? The whole point is that they don't....

If they did, yes we would have been able to take care of it. The UN would not have been an issue. At our request (we "cried" directly to them), they dismantled a very large radar system that violated the ABM treaty (obviously before we pulled out of the same treaty). The US also regularly inspects Russian nuclear weapons facilities (and vice versa) - which is why we kept the Peacekeeper ICBM's online several years after START II made them "illegal" (the US is currently de-activating all of the Peacekeeper missiles, and has converted many Minuteman to single RV's).

If you are naive enough to think that any country (the US or Russia) could put nuclear weapons into orbit with no "diplomatic solution" .. it would still be no problem for either country to launch a sattelite into a very close orbit with the enemy sattelite capable of destroying it at any time.

It would be a no-win situation..

The US had better and more accurate ICBM's but Russia had ICBM's that are megatones upon megatones deadlier. Russia did not need accuracy because they'll hit the target anyway, that was their philosophy of nuclear war.

The Soviet army, unlike NATO was trained for nuclear warfare. They all were issued protection that would make them still a lethal fighting force when the # hits the fan.

The Soviets also had the better tanks. The Warsaw Pact had 26,000 while NATO had 11,000.

starwars50 :"Do you think the US doesn't have the ability to track and determine the type of every sattelite in space? If Russia ever did that, we would know"

During the cuban missiles crisis the former USSR send approximate 42,000 soldier to cuba under the nose of the US , so don't be sure about the ability of the united states to track any kind of russian nuclear satellites during that time!.

I want also to add that in reality the KGB had a big advantage on the CIA in the 1970's . I think that the CIA agent Robert Hanssen( I am not sure about the name .... i will check it later) provided the KGB with USA most dangeress secrets i.e, the Nuclear Bunker that will Protect the president and the congress men , the military communication code of the USA navy and he provided the KGB with almost 1 million document ( I saw these informations on a program interviewed with CIA agents on the Discovery channel ) and the CIA agents admitted that if there were any kind of conflict between the two countries in that time , the USSR would have a bigger chanse of winning it !.

Compare these informations with Hollywood and james bond movies about russia

Yeah "what if" i know this thread is about who had the best weapons during the cold war and i have to say the US because we won the cold war so if we won that means that we had better weapons! and russia now is only a shell of its former self.

[edit on 16-6-2004 by WestPoint23]