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Balance of Power - 1953 There have been many debates about what would have happened if the US and China hadn't negotiated an end to the Korean War in 1953. Lets look at the balance of strategic power at that time to put the situation in context.

United States - Offensive

6 Heavy Bomb Wings with 185 B-36
4 Heavy Strategic Wings with 137 RB-36
7 Medium Bomb Wings with 329 B-47
4 Medium Strategic Wings with 99 RB-47
3 Medium Bomb Wings with 138 B-50
5 Medium Bomb Wings with 110 B-29
1 Medium Strategic wing with 38 RB-50 and 8 RB-29
5 Strategic Fighter Wings with 235 F-84G
20 Medium Air Refuelling Squadrons with 359 KC-97
8 Medium Air Refuelling Squadrons with 143 KB-29

Total stock of nuclear weapons - approximately 1,200 all fission devices

Its often assumed that the "strategic fighters" were intended to escort the B-36s. This isn't quite true. They were intended to "escort" them but in the sense of using nuclear weapons to blast a hole in the outer shell of the Soviet defenses. It was assumed that once the bombers were through the outer crust they could go more or less where they wanted.

United States - Defensive

600 F-86D, 37 F-89B, 31 F-89C, 109 F-94A, 356 F-94B. Large numbers of old piston engined fighters including F-47N and F-51D and H in the Air National Guard. Five Nike-Ajax battalions were formed but would not be operational until mid-1954.

Soviet Union - Offensive

1 Long Range Aviation Corps with 100 Tu-4A
18 Long Range Aviation Regiments with 1,100 Tu-4

The Tu-4A desigantion indicated that these aircraft were the only ones that were atmomic-weapons capable. At least some of these aircraft were configured to act as tankers. The Soviet Union had a stockpile of around 30 nuclear weapons in 1953, all fission devices.

Soviet Union - Defensive

Details are very unclear and contradictory but it appears that there were a mixture of around 1,000 fighters including MiG-15s and MiG-17s, Yak-23s and La-15s as jetfighters and La-11 piston-engined fighters.

A few things pop out of the pageon this. One is that the war is still largely a conventional one - the US has a ferocious atomic arsenal for its first blow but therafter bombing would be largely conventional. The Soviet Union has virtually no nuclear strike capability in terms of reaching the US.

Balance of power; 1957 Sometime earlier we looked at what may have happened in 1957 if the Soviet plans for an attack had gone though. I found the following inventory of strategic forces that might be interesting.

US

4 heavy bomb wings with 127 B-36,

7 heavy bomb wings with 243 B-52

28 Medium bomb wings with 1,285 B-47s

4 strategic recon wings with 216 RB-47s

5 heavy air refuelling squadrons with 24 KC-135

35 air refuelling squadrons with 742 KC-97

3 Atlas-D squadrons with 18 missiles (marginally operational)

5 units with 16 Regulus-1 missiles.

Soviet Union

12 Tu-20 Bear-A
10 M-4 Bison-A
72 Tu-16 Badger-A*
800 Tu-4 Bull**

*Could only reach the US coast on a one-way mission. More probably targeted on the UK

** Copy of US B-29 bomber. Could only reach the US on a one-way mission. Very few of these aircraft (probably no more than 36 - 108 ) were nuclear-capable.

How effective was the Soviet nuclear arsenal during that [Cuban Missle Crisis, 1962] period?

Deployable against the United States? Virtually nil.

Their ICBM was the R-7, a missile that had a detectable reaction time of 20 hours (the detection bit was in the hands of the U-2 and some other assets). By 1961, the R-7 force had grown enormously from its initila deployment level in 1959. By the time of the Cuban Missile Crisis there were no fewer than six R-7s in service. The follow-on to the R-7 didn't enter service until after the Cuban Missile Crisis.

The Soviet bomber force had also changed dramatically since its early days in the 1950s. The most effective weapon the Russian Air Force had was the Tu-95M/Kh-20 combination. There were 15 of these in service by the time Cuba boiled. Unfortunately, they'd have to fly through the NORAD air defense system for two hours before getting to a release point. There were also 25 free-fall Tu-95 bombers and 50 Myaschiev bombers but they were regarded as beinge asy meat for fighters and the Myaschievs were already being relegated to tanker work.

The Russians didn't have any seaborne ballistic nukes; the subs were so unreliable the missiles had explosive warheads. The cruise-missile carrying subs didn't have the range to get over the atlantic; they were tasked against European targets only. The Russians were so desperate they seriously planned nuclear delivery by firing nuclear tipped torpedoes into US ports.

By way of comparison, the US had 1 heavy bomb wing with 45 B-52 aircraft, two with 30 B-52s each and eight with 15 B-52s each, 22 Heavy Strategic Wings with 15 B-52s each and three heavy aerospace wings with a total of 75 B-52s (for a total of 630 B-52s with 547 Hound Dog missiles) 17 medium bomb wings with 45 B-47s each and 3 medium aerospace wings also with 45 B-47s each (for a total of 900 B-47s) to which we should also add 144 Atlas ICBMs, 62 Titan 1s and 20 Minutemen

We shouldn't forget the Navy of course; they brought 144 dedicated carrier-based nuclear strike aircraft and four SSBNs with 64 missiles to the party.

By my maths that gives the US a total of 1,674 nuclear strike aircraft and 290 missiles against 100 Soviet bombers and six missiles.

Sidewinder wrote::shock: I didn't know the US had such overwhelming superiority over the Soviets in terms of nuclear capabilities. Was this fact known to American government and military leaders during 1953, 1957, and 1962? Or did they believe Soviet propaganda inflating the quality and quantity of the Soviet nuclear arsenal?

The Duchess of Zeon wrote:The situation was, for what it is worth, completely reversed by the 1980s--the Soviets had systematic superiourity to us in every single area in that period

The Duchess of Zeon wrote:If we had fought WWIII in 1986, the Soviets would have won, fullstop.

The Duchess of Zeon wrote:We didn't know this, however

Stas Bush wrote:

The Duchess of Zeon wrote:The situation was, for what it is worth, completely reversed by the 1980s--the Soviets had systematic superiourity to us in every single area in that period

More like very rough parity... Our ABM was not enough to hold over the strike. And why didn't you raise a fuss about our "illegal" nuclear ABMs if they were illegal? Didn't you pursue a similar program once?

Dunno. The nuclear planning documents from the US (including teh "gaze ya from the earth!" plans) does not indicate a lack of knowledge about the USSR; though I'm sure Stuart could weigh on this.

phongn wrote:The hue and cry over the Soviet system was that it was already deployed.

phongn wrote:The main issue was Soviet air-defense, which was more more comprehensive than its American counterpart.

phongn wrote:I remember reading Dropshot, and it consistently overestimated both Soviet air-defenses and strategic strike capability

Stas Bush wrote:

phongn wrote:The hue and cry over the Soviet system was that it was already deployed.

You had an opportunity to deploy one too; the treaty allowed for one system. And I know Reagan's SDI was bullshit to the core and nothing was deployed, the thing just being a financial hole.

Stas Bush wrote:

The Duchess of Zeon wrote:The situation was, for what it is worth, completely reversed by the 1980s--the Soviets had systematic superiourity to us in every single area in that period

More like very rough parity... :roll: Our ABM was not enough to hold over the strike. And why didn't you raise a fuss about our "illegal" nuclear ABMs if they were illegal? Didn't you pursue a similar program once?

The Duchess of Zeon wrote:If we had fought WWIII in 1986, the Soviets would have won, fullstop.

No, both would've been very dead. We would've "won" only in the sense that we would have reduced a First World nation to cinders and you only destroyed a Second World one.

The Duchess of Zeon wrote:We didn't know this, however

Dunno. The nuclear planning documents from the US (including teh "gaze ya from the earth!" plans) does not indicate a lack of knowledge about the USSR; though I'm sure Stuart could weigh on this.

Sidewinder wrote: I didn't know the US had such overwhelming superiority over the Soviets in terms of nuclear capabilities. Was this fact known to American government and military leaders during 1953, 1957, and 1962? Or did they believe Soviet propaganda inflating the quality and quantity of the Soviet nuclear arsenal?

Was this fact known to American government and military leaders during 1953, 1957, and 1962?

Ma Deuce wrote:Yes, it was. Eisenhower did not make a big deal of this fact however, on the grounds that publicly embarrassing the Soviets over their strategic inferiority might make them do something irrational (though it was always assumed they would catch up eventually).

JFK, on the other hand blatantly lied about Soviet nuclear capabilities (remember the "missile gap?") to help him win the 1960 election, which convinced the Soviets that he was a dangerous fanatic who wanted to launch a first strike, likely contributing to their decision to deploy missiles in Cuba.

The Duchess of Zeon wrote:The Soviet Union, despite having a larger population than the USA, would have suffered half as many casualties in a 1980s nuclear exchange than the USA, and would have lost maybe a third as much of its industry as we would, due not only to American targeting plans but due to the inherent weakness of our attack compared with your's, and due to your ability to systematically intercept all of our bombers while still leaving over the nuclear tipped SA-10s and the SA-12s that had intrinsic anti-missile capabilities.

Stas Bush wrote:Wait, what? How did you compute that? And we had less industry to begin with; sparse populations, larger territories. And "the ability to systematically intercept all bombers"? Aren't you wanking our SAMs too much?

Ma Deuce wrote:

Stas Bush wrote:Wait, what? How did you compute that? And we had less industry to begin with; sparse populations, larger territories. And "the ability to systematically intercept all bombers"? Aren't you wanking our SAMs too much?

Indeed, and the idea of 15,000 nuclear-tipped quasi ABM/SAMs? That seems absurdly high. How many S-200s and S-300s did the PVO deploy in total?

The Duchess of Zeon wrote:We know, after all, that the SA-10 / SA-12 had in total about 15,000 deployed (the numbers for the SA-10 alone were 10,000 in the early 1980s), and at the very least a very large number of these must have nuclear-tipped.

Ma Deuce wrote:

Was this fact known to American government and military leaders during 1953, 1957, and 1962?

Yes, it was. Eisenhower did not make a big deal of this fact however, on the grounds that publicly embarrassing the Soviets over their strategic inferiority might make them do something irrational (though it was always assumed they would catch up eventually). JFK, on the other hand blatantly lied about Soviet nuclear capabilities (remember the "missile gap?") to help him win the 1960 election, which convinced the Soviets that he was a dangerous fanatic who wanted to launch a first strike, likely contributing to their decision to deploy missiles in Cuba.

Ma Deuce wrote:Yes, it was. Eisenhower did not make a big deal of this fact however, on the grounds that publicly embarrassing the Soviets over their strategic inferiority might make them do something irrational (though it was always assumed they would catch up eventually). JFK, on the other hand blatantly lied about Soviet nuclear capabilities (remember the "missile gap?") to help him win the 1960 election

Shroom Man 777 wrote:Wait, what?

They flew strategic nuclear bombers over Siberia?!

By this time, we had covered two more major airfield targets near Arkhangelsk and were turning to the Southwest toward our last two targets. We had been over Soviet territory an hour and were at 40,000 feet. We had been briefed by Intel that the Mig-15 would not be able to do any damage to us at 40,000 feet with our true air speed on the order of 440 knots.

Well, you can imagine what we called those Intelligence weenies as the first Soviet Mig-17, not Mig-15, made a firing pass on us from the left rear, and we saw cannon tracer shells going both above and below our aircraft. And, the Mig was still moving out rather smartly as he passed under us in front. So enough of this 40,000 feet stuff, I pushed the RB-47 over, descending a couple of thousand feet picking up about 20 knots indicated airspeed in the process. The second Mig-17 made his firing pass and I don’t care who knows, it was scary watching tracers go over and under our aircraft. This guy had almost come up our tailpipes.

Fortunately, when the third Mig started his pursuit pass, our guns burped for a couple of seconds. General LeMay did not believe in tracers for our guns, but the Soviet pilots must have seen something because the third guy broke off his pass and the flight of six, and the next flight which joined us later, stayed out about 30 to 40 degrees to side, out of the effective envelope of our guns. Of course, the Migs didn’t know that our guns would not fire again, even though the Co-pilot pleaded, and I believe he did, at least, kick the panel trying to get them to work.

The fourth Mig of this flight made a firing pass and made a lucky hit through the top of our left wing, about 8 feet from the fuselage through the wing flap. It exploded into the fuselage in the area of the #1 main tank and knocked out our intercom. We felt a good whap and all three of us were a little bit anxious (scared) but doing our mission as briefed, basically because of habit. I firmly believe that’s what good, tough, LeMay-type, SAC training did for his combat crews. Later we also found out, it hit our UHF radio in a way that it would not channelize but was stuck on channel 13, our command post common.

By now we had covered our last photo target and had turned due west toward Finland to get the hell out of there. That flight of six ran out of range I guess and, we were near the Finland border. Real soon another three Migs showed up. Two Migs of this flight made individual firing passes but our added speed obviously made it a bit tougher or I am pretty sure I would not be here writing about this mission today. After those two made passes, on of the Migs came up on our right side, close enough to shake hands and sat there for two or three minutes. Two more Migs tried firing passes, but without hitting us, by this time we were well out of Soviet territory. At the debriefing in Omaha, General LeMay asked, ?Why were you not shot down?? My answer was that there was no doubt in my mind the Mig-17 pilots could have shot us down, if they had been willing to come right up our tailpipes! He made a statement that he was “convinced that most fighter pilots are basically cowards anyway.” General LeMay also said, “There are probably several openings today in command positions there, since you were not shot down.”

Our excitement for this mission was not over. An airborne stand-by KC-97 tanker was holding for us about 50 miles from Stavanger, Norway. We really weren’t sure how the damage to our left wing and fuselage would effect fuel consumption. Initially it didn’t look that bad. As we came into radio range of our airborne tanker I heard him calling (garbled) in the blind on command post common, the only working part of our UHF radio. We were running about 30 minutes behind schedule; I heard the tanker state he was leaving the orbit area at the appointed time. I tried to acknowledge his call but he later said he never heard me transmit anything. Of course they had not been briefed on our mission, but were aware that three B-47’s went through refueling areas that morning and only two had returned.

MKSheppard wrote:The intelligence that the Soviets were actually far far behind us in all types of strategic weaponry (Bombers, missiles) was a closely held national secret