IMHO with the possible exception of the SU15 I suspect that would end rather badly for aircraft in question and again with the possible exception of the Su15 I am doubtful that any of the aircraft in question would have done better than the Mig 21 in such a role.
Yep. That is an issue. It also isn't clear to me if any of the air craft you mentioned were intended for fighter vs fighter combat, and my understanding is that the appearance of B52's over heavily defended targets in North Vietnam was somewhat unexpected. IMHO this further lessens the...
Presuming large numbers of the more modern air craft (ie the Su15, maybe the Tu28 and Su 11 ?)were provided and Vietnam had the pilots, ground crew , GCI systems etc to operate them, more US effort gets put into counter air operations ? Mass raids against their air bases ? Perhaps more...
If a nuclear outcome is avoided some how, one should consider what the attitudes of the U.S. and or the UK are. Do they simply wash their hands of the situation, or threaten nuclear war to get the best possible “deal” for Western Europe, or something in between ?
Perhaps with limited objectives NATO might be able to seize some Warsaw Pact Territory before the Warsaw Pact can mass enough forces to stop them ?
A limited advance might limit the impact of the logistical issues ?
The “Why would NATO do this” question seems very hard to answer (: But...
My understanding is some of the RV’s that used heat sinks vs heat shields were much slower in the final stages of their flights than todays RV’s. I’ll leave it at that.
I recall this topic was hashed out a while back on this board and there was a document discussing how some early RV’s had blunt shapes (maybe a different “Beta” ?) and used different techniques to avoid burn up during re entry ? (Heat sinks ?) I also recall coming across references to slow RV’s...
That might depend on how much effort each side puts into to taking out isolated military units vs destroying other targets ? Until the relevant Cold War era warplans / target lists etc are made available I suspect all we can do is speculate.
Ie. How much effort would the USSR put into...
Maybe an old long range missile that might have had a subsonic (or perhaps low supersonic ?) RV ? (These probably were not around when the F15 was in service ?
Even with slow RV’s detecting the RV and then cueing an F15 to engage it prior to the RV reaching its target seems unlikely to me but...
I’m thinking if there was a need / desire by NATO to make a modest incursion into Warsaw pact territory that might result in a different outcome than a full scale invasion ?
A spoiling attack might be another scenario to consider ? Maybe NATO gets proof that large scale Warsaw pact exercises...
Good points but I suspect the proximity of major U.S. and Canadian population centres to Alaska (ie. Seattle and Vancouver amongst other examples) would cause some concerns. (Perhaps ABM systems evolve differently.)
I suspect the borders of a Soviet owned Alaska might be different than a...
Assuming the cold war in that time line evolved in a similar fashion to the cold war in our time line, in either of those cases I suspect Alaska and the Northwestern part of North America would have been a major potential cold war flash point. I suspect the USSR would either want to reclaim...