What, if any, advantages did Soviet aircraft construction and design in the late Cold War have over their US/NATO equivalents? I've got an idea bouncing around for an alternate history thing where Reagan's comment about an "alien threat from outside this world" was a tacit reveal that Earth is facing a threat from a hostile extraterrestrial civilization in the near future (from when he said that, late '90s to early-mid '00s). That basically kicks off a planetary alliance and goes absolutely NUTS with the cassette futurism kind of shit, what the '80s thought defense tech in 2000 would be like.So what would the USSR bring to that equation in aerospace programs? Aside from pure numbers, were there any areas the Soviets had an edge in?
>>62127971Heavy-lift rocketsAnti-satellite weaponsSimple designs
The absolute most impressive thing the soviets ever built was the Energia Buran. It had a much higher payload than the space shuttle and could be flown without crew. Of course the russians only flew it once and then let it rot in a hanger because they're retarded. The RD 180 engine is also good but that might be a bit late for your setting.I'm curious to know how you plan on making it so that aliens stand any kind of chance against aliens
>>62127971>That basically kicks off a planetary alliance and goes absolutely NUTS with the cassette futurism kind of shit, what the '80s thought defense tech in 2000 would be likeIt would still be shit like F22, Zumwalt and Seawolf>What, if any, advantages did Soviet aircraft construction and design in the late Cold War have over their US/NATO equivalents?By the late 80s, none whatsoeverThey could not into microelectronics and that fucked them hardTechnologically they lost the race and never took it back
>>62127971Cheap, expecially the upfront costs
>>62127971They had a few neat quirks in their rocketry but the USSR's competitiveness ended in the 1960s/1970s when they were unable to build good chip foundries due to bad quality control. America OTOH took full advantage and their 1980s kit was superior. It simply took that 1 generation for the realisation to blossom.There's a great CIA report on it declassified after the period.
>>62128044And the cheapness comes from slave labor drowned in alcohol and ignoring quality control.
>>62127971They honestly didn’t do anything better than the west, I hate to say. They had some interesting design choices and a particular aesthetic, but aircraft in the west were just better. They tried to design a wide variety of planes for very particular roles, but that’s a very expensive strategy and a lot of them were so-so attempts at copying western designs. You see it even today in their civilian market.
>>62128117This. If I'm not wrong I'm pretty sure the mig 29 was the only truly dangerous aircraft for the west
>>62128189>and overall superior material sciencelol>Maybe more knowledge in automation LMAO, this nigga living in a an upside-down world
>>62128212I believe the Mig29 was dangerous only to light CAS bombers / multiroles such as the Mirage, F16, or HarrierThe Su27 was more dangerous because it actually had a decent radar, some modicum of RWR, raw thrust and a big missile supply
>>62128008>so that aliens stand any kind of chance against aliens
>>62128239yes I am retarded. It should say so that humans stand any kind of chance against aliens
>>62127971>DesignEngineering fell off hard, but their hard-sciences cadre remained good at coming up with theoretical ideas. Petr Ufimtsev's research on EM-wave reflection, for one specific case. More researchers are always useful.>ConstructionThey had a 3-5 year lead on fielding off-boresight missiles and helmet-mounted displays. This is critical for punching up against a foe that is likely equipped with superior sensors, agility, and countermeasures, thus reducing effective engagement range to an ambush and proverbial knife-fight. In a similar vein, the red-aligned VPAF pilots would have plenty of tactical insights to contribute.
>>62127971They put more work into their short range IR AAMs. The R-73 was on paper better than contemporary sidewinders although how well they actually fair in combat is a different matter. They also got working helmet counted sights and off bore lock on in service first. Again, questionable how well 80's Soviet electronics actually work in the real world. But the idea was there. It's also questionable how much it matters because these things entered service around the same time AMRAAM did. And most would agree a next gen BVR missile is more important than a next gen WVR dog fight missile.
>>62127971The only way the USSR excelled was in propaganda. They made us think their MiGs weren’t doodoo.
>>62128008>SovietsGermans, Ukrainians and Pole captured engineers.
>>62127971>Reagan's comment about an "alien threat from outside this world"He actually meant Russians are subhuman but had to reword it because of presidential advisors, you know how it goes.
>>62128333Only if you ignore half of the proverbial paper, 9L/9M had much better flare rejection and through-cloud tracking to name a few. But ultimately the individual stats are less important; the ultimate result of such a team-up would be an AIM-9X equivalent offering the best of each by the mid 90's, not 2005.
>>62128008>It had a much higher payload than the space shuttleIt didn't, don't confuse the Energia carrier rocket's payload figure with what the Buran spaceplane itself could actually carry to orbit in its payload bay. The fact that the Energia rocket was an entirely separate vehicle from Buran and could launch many different kinds of payloads other than just Buran can throw you for a loop when comparing it to the Shuttle, where the main liquid-fueled booster engines were on the spaceplane itself thus making it an integral, inseparable part of the whole system. Both the Shuttle and Buran could carry around 25-30 tons or so in their payload bays.
>>62128359Soviets didn't say anything about the mig25 though. The US just got leaked files on a new aircraft they were making. The MIC took it, said it was supermaneuverable and made the right politicians freak out and give them a zillion to make the f15.
>>62128189>overall superior material scienceTurbine engines are a fantastic filter of who has materials science down and who doesn’t. Nobody is buying Russian engines to put in their airplanes.
>>62127971I think the only area where the Soviets were conceivably more advanced during the Reagan era was particle physics. Even then the U.S. caught up in 5-10 years with Fermilab.However, it's plausible enough that the Soviets could nigger-rig some science-fiction asspull by creating a particle-based weapon or some string theory multiverse.
>>62128380Yeah and I bet in practice that helmet sight was next to useless and probably wasn't widely issued either. I see a bunch of Russian helmets with the mount for the sight but rarely does anyone actually have the damn thing.
>>62128283>>62128333>They had a 3-5 year lead on fielding off-boresight missiles and helmet-mounted displaysAll of these things were invented, designed and tested in the Agile missile back in the mid 70s but the funding was cut short and US went with the cheaper AIM-9L instead. Radar-slaved missile seekers were also vietnam-era tech.R-73 was by far the most successful soviet air-to-air missile but its range is overstated and its flare rejection is very subpar.
>>62128396>Soviets didn't say anything about the mig25 though.Speeding over Israel from Egypt at speeds that threatened to wreck the aircraft in mid air was a pretty big bluff on their part. It backfired horribly.
>>62127971The Salvation War did the "world team-up" but vs God+Satan (God took a heel turn) instead of extraterrestrials.
>>62128189>more knowledge in automationThey did not as evident by Toshiba-Kongsberg scandal. Also look up propaganda materials how a typical car factory or a metal shop looked like in the west and USSR, soviets were always 10-20 years behind
>>62127971The only thing they really did better was SHORAD, and that was mainly because they had to be.
>>62128487Invented vs. fielded is the crucial distinction though, especially when organizing international industrial-scale projects. It's much faster to refine current, operational designs than dust off decades-old blueprints and call up retired developers to explain all the undocumented features. Doable, sure, but that's where the 3-5 year delay comes from.
>>62128827Yes, the soviets fielded them first but my point is this was not indicative of a technology level but of the US focus on long-ranged BVR radar guided missiles instead.
>>62128712US interfered with the import of video game consoles into USSR because they thought soviets might use them to make CNC machines, that's how far behind the soviets were.Muh atomation meme comes from the soviet subs and their shuttle copy. They didn't want to or expect to maintain the subs at sea and wanted to have as few submariners and as many political officers onboard as possible so they tried to offload all maintenance and operation onto machines and dock crews.
>>62128008Energia was cool but I wouldn't call them dumb for canning Buran. The Space Shuttle was ultimately a huge waste of money and killed more astronauts than any other spacecraft.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b6GG8KHDjZk
>>62128487That's why I said they focussed more on it and not that they were more advanced. These things had already been invented in the west but weren't prioritized. The Soviets did prioritize them. It's a similar story to tank development. The US has smoothbore guns and composite armor years before the Soviets but didn't field it because they deprioritized army funding until the 80's. The money that could have bought the T95 instead went to nuclear bombers like the B-58.
>>62127971A lot of cost efficient designs honestly.Like if you had to outfit an earth army 1 billion men strong you'd want to give them AK74's
>>62127971A "surface-to-UFO" missile production line.Everyone's projections of late 1980's tech couldn't handle a MIRV salvo even at ludicrous expense, but paranoia beat pragmatism for the USSR and they actually built+operated an ABM complex around Moscow anyway. The AESA-guided terminal defense component - 53T6 missiles - are still some of the most capable interceptors ever built. As Russian claims cannot be taken at face value, I estimated the performance using NASA's rocket equations, dimensional analysis, and Nike Sprint figures to sanity-check.>Mach 15 in 4 seconds, at about 10km altitude>1.2km/s delta-v, for a range of 75km>90g maneuver limit>5-10kt neutron-bomb warheadFrankly I don't think we could've done much better kinematically, so in this case humanity would be best served by integrating American fire-control radar and computers.
>>62128008>163 KB>163 KB JPG> The absolute most impressive thing the soviets ever built was the Energia Buran.Buran during it's single flight didn't deliver any payload to the orbit. So you are comparing real Shuttle to paper tiger
>>62130176Thats just Sprint copy. Also tells you how deep in the US were commie spies.
>>62127971maybe relatedi had a look at the Komsomolsk-on-Amur Aircraft Plant on mapswhat are those aircraft? the twin boom planes are su-80 but what are those red marked planes/uavs?i originally had look on Komsomolsk because the airbase there had some good rotten smekalka mig-23 there
pic of mig-23
Comrades, in the waning days of the 1980s, a peculiar and unforeseen event transpired, testing the resilience and unity of our great Soviet Union. An invasion from beyond our earthly realm descended upon us, with alien beings of unknown origin aiming to conquer and subjugate our people. Their advanced technology and otherworldly appearance struck fear into the hearts of many. Yet, it was not superior firepower or military might that thwarted their ambitions, but the indomitable spirit and ingenuity of the Soviet people.In the face of this extraterrestrial threat, we demonstrated the strength of our socialist principles. Rather than succumbing to panic or chaos, we extended the hand of proletarian solidarity to these alien invaders. Recognizing the futility of their mission in the face of our collective resolve, the aliens were gradually incorporated into our society. They learned the ways of Marx and Lenin, adopting the virtues of communal effort and shared progress. Our scientists and engineers, working alongside these visitors, found ways to merge their advanced technologies with our own, ushering in an era of unprecedented innovation.Thus, what began as an attempt at domination ended in the enrichment of our Union. The aliens, no longer invaders but comrades, contributed to the greater good. This episode, dear comrades, stands as a testament to the unyielding power of our ideology. It is a reminder that the strength of the Soviet Union lies not merely in its material capabilities, but in the unity and solidarity of its people, a force formidable enough to turn even would-be conquerors into allies in our march towards a brighter, collective future.
>>62130196It's still a more energetic Sprint that's ready to shoot at ayyys right away, versus a pilot project cancelled in 1976. Engineering man-hours and specialized industrial hardware at rocket-science scale can't be dismissed so easily.
>>62128369
>>62128008If buran had any chance of being milkable, it would've been milked line their space program is.It didn't, so that means it was dogshit but propaganda said it was dogs bollocks.Simple. As.T14 is also the greatest tank ever made and single handedly would destroy ukraine.Su57 is also the only 5th gen in the world and could single handedly destroy ukraine.both are on buran tier.None of the 3 are used for anything but propaganda.I will let you gess why.
this looks familiar...oh, right
>>62128008>could be flown without crewit _had to be_ flown without crew, because they didn't believe it would successfully fly and there wasn't even a life support system finalized. Flying in an automated mode is easy, flying manually is harder.
>>62131215>it was dogshit but propaganda said it was dogs bollocks.have you just considered that Russians are retarded and too poor to actually run the equipment that their engineers design?
>>62130226gay lefty fiction
>>62132338yeah and that's the best they could do. If we're talking about speculative fiction they probably would have kept using it
>>62128381>The fact that the Energia rocket was an entirely separate vehicle from Buran and could launch many different kinds of payloads other than just Buran can throw you for a loop when comparing it to the ShuttleThis. Anons should think real hard where the Mir space station got into orbit. For what its worth the engineers had big plans for Energia even as the Buran was a top down enforced project since anglo-saksii were doing it. but (thankfully) the vatnik union imploded and the good pieces that could be salvaged from their derelict space program were adopted by others. Like some engines
>>62133264a slightly better pic
>>62128008>Of course the russians only flew it once and then let it rot in a hanger because they're retarded.To be fair they had absolutely no money for space stuff at that point.
>>62130214cant really tell from the resolution but are those fixed wings or variable-sweeps? Helps narrow down suspects
>>62128978Up until Shuttle, all U.S. spacecraft were one and done designs. NASA did more than it's share of fuckery during the shuttle program, but it was a definite step forward.
>>62130214It looks like they have two ducted fans at the back of the wings, maybe a t-wing as well?
>>62127971The Bolsheviks could make planes that excelled at a single thing, usually at the expense of every other thing they were intended to do. A good example was the Mig-25. Very fast, but everything else was sacrificed for speed.
>>62128045>There's a great CIA report on it declassified after the period.link it bro
>>62133536It's called an interceptor bud
>>62133536>the Mig-25. Very fast, but everything else was sacrificed for speed.bollocksit was a high performance fighter, such as it is in the USSRit had good range, sensors, and all weather capability for its time, in addition to that speedif you want the limited-use interceptor budget model, that'd be the Mig-29
>>62127971Only thing I can think of are Hall effect thrusters but that is more space than aircraft, still might be interesting in a war scenario with a space domain
>>62133264>>62133289>This. Anons should think real hard where the Mir space station got into orbit.>image...Anon, do you think that payload is part of the Mir space station because it says Mir on the side? That's Polyus, probably one of the coolest things the Vatnik Union ever attempted: a 1-megawatt orbital laser platform.Of course, in typical late Soviet-era fashion they fucked it up.>For technical reasons, the payload was launched upside down. It was designed to separate from the Energia, rotate 180 degrees in yaw, then 90 degrees in roll and then fire its engine to complete its boost to orbit. The Energia functioned perfectly, however, after separation from Energia, the Polyus spun a full 360 degrees instead of the planned 180 degrees. When the engine fired, it slowed the vehicle, which burned up over the south Pacific Ocean. This failure was attributed to a faulty inertial guidance system that had not been rigorously tested due to the rushed production schedule.
>>62128588Now thats a blast from the past
>>62130176Like everything else they made it doesn't fucking work. They also claim S-400 is a good ABM system.
>>62128008Pole engineers...
>>62127971What is this plane?
>>62139028MiG 1.44.
>>62133264>Anons should think real hard where the Mir space station got into orbitproton?
>>62128588Should've nuked both hell and heaven into glass tbqh.Michael was pretty cool though, respect the hustle.
>>62127971>YOU ARE SUPERIOR IN ONLY ONE RESPECT>YOU ARE BETTER AT DYING
>>62130226>Defeating an alien invasion by turning them communist, completely destroying their society and culture in the processThis would be a genuinely good idea for a book where humanity plays the long game against the invaders
>>62130226UHHHHHHHH BASED?
>>62127971looking waaaay fucking cooler
>>62128380I don't think it's necessarily fair to compare only those things. The R-73 maneuverability and HOBS capabilities make it a very powerful missile. The 9M had a rosette scan seeker which is inherently better at resisting flares than the standard con-scan of the MK-80 seeker on the R-73, but the anti flare ECCM of the 9M was pretty mediocre, essentially it was INS that turned on as long as it saw a flare in the FoV alongside the target. If the target changes course while flaring then it will pass him by. The R73 utilized FoV gating that would activate a significantly smaller FoV of the seeker when flares were detected. It made it a better anti flare missile because it is so extraordinarily hard to seduce the seeker from any rear aspect shots
>>62137464Anon, the USSR could still rely on East Germans for rocket science backed by Ukrainians for production - rocketry was one of the few areas they still maintained nominal parity. They were never able to miniature their electronics, but for telephone-pole missiles command-guided by a warehouse-sized mainframe computer it worked.
>>62141583So why can't S-400 defend itself then?
>>62130226>>62139894Outside the scope of OP, but reading these it occurs to me that the Stasi's institutional expertise would be pivotal in hardening international organizations to ayyy infiltration attempts.
>>62141625>the absolute state of zoomers' historical literacyThat was amazing ABM performance - at the time it was designed in 1978.
>>62127971>What, if any, advantages did Soviet aircraft construction and design in the late Cold War have over their US/NATO equivalents?None. Inferior metallurgy, shorter engine life, shorter air frame life, worse user interface, worse handling, worse survivability, worse radar, worse navagation. Endgame communism only excelled in poor quality control and inferiority
>>62127971when you can't make silicon chips and your metallurgy is 30 years behind and your computers are the equivalent of your enemies children's toys you become inferior in every way. You don't have computers to help you design and model, organise and communicate and the materials you are working with are shitty. Communism/state and the kgb/fsb, its a hell of a failure drug
>>62127971Read the story of how Soviet submarines could be heard across the Atlantic until they bought Japanese CNC machines (CNC was a cutting edge tech at the time) and leapt ahead to justasgood tier. The Japanese board was forced into virtual seppuku for breaking sanctions.
>>62141664the main culprit in enabling the Soviet breakthrough was John Walker
>>62141625A non-nuclear, much smaller, less energetic, cheaper system made and maintained exclusively by Russians following an S-300 cargo cult, in a modern threat environment. Nope, no idea why.As it relates to OP, no single system should be assumed capable of defending itself from alien attack either. Any chance of victory would need to leverage surprise, deception, and concentration of force.
>>62141664That's bullshit thoAll CNC's allow you is cheaper high quality milling. You can do the "same" things with manual machines.
>>62142532Yes, if you're competent.What happens if your workforce is comprised of constantly drunk FAS babies that prefer stealing over working ?
>>62142554Well they certainly can't run a CNC machine for one.
>>62141583So...why S-300 can't defend itself from ATACMS?
