Redemption – Military planes you were wrong about in hindsight!

[M.A.D]

One things for certain, I will go to my grave wondering, contemplating who's doctrine would have worked had the Cold War gone 'hot' and peer adversaries like NATO and the Warsaw Pact had of gone full out in a no bars hold war.
The are so many doctrinal requirements that shaped the Soviets Operational Requirements for given weapons/weapons systems that were simply dismissed, or dare I say arrogantly denounced or critisised by the West - 'Quality vs Quantity' for example. Or that notion that Soviet doctrine was perceived through the eyes of a Western mindset - hence often a biased outcome or even far fetched exaggeration, as a consequence ensured......

MAD

[GTX_Admin]

Dare I say that "had the Cold War gone 'hot' and peer adversaries like NATO and the Warsaw Pact had of gone full out in a no bars hold war", it wouldn't have really mattered since nuclear conflagration would have resulted.   Now, if you take the nukes out of the equation then things get interesting.

[M.A.D]

Dare I say that "had the Cold War gone 'hot' and peer adversaries like NATO and the Warsaw Pact had of gone full out in a no bars hold war", it wouldn't have really mattered since nuclear conflagration would have resulted.   Now, if you take the nukes out of the equation then things get interesting.

So sorry for delayed reply GTX

Yes, there's definitely food for thought there 🤔

MAD

[GTX_Admin]

At the risk of going down a rabbit hole, dare I say we are seeing some of the outcomes of that comparison in Ukraine, especially given some of the vintages of the weapons on each side.  Mind you, I suspect a full on Cold War gone hot scenario in Central Europe that had reached a semi-stalemate like the currentUkraine conflict would have resulted in Soviet use of NBC weapons ... something we hope won't happen in Ukraine.

[M.A.D]

At the risk of going down a rabbit hole, dare I say we are seeing some of the outcomes of that comparison in Ukraine, especially given some of the vintages of the weapons on each side.  Mind you, I suspect a full on Cold War gone hot scenario in Central Europe that had reached a semi-stalemate like the currentUkraine conflict would have resulted in Soviet use of NBC weapons ... something we hope won't happen in Ukraine.

Why would it have to be the Soviet's mate, given the demonstrated shortage of weapons/ammo of the U.S./NATO.

MAD

[Old Wombat]

At the risk of going down a rabbit hole, dare I say we are seeing some of the outcomes of that comparison in Ukraine, especially given some of the vintages of the weapons on each side.  Mind you, I suspect a full on Cold War gone hot scenario in Central Europe that had reached a semi-stalemate like the currentUkraine conflict would have resulted in Soviet use of NBC weapons ... something we hope won't happen in Ukraine.

Why would it have to be the Soviet's mate, given the demonstrated shortage of weapons/ammo of the U.S./NATO.

MAD

Largely, it's because of the immense wind-down of military forces in the West since the end of the Cold War to a tiny fraction of what they were in 1990(+/-).

Then there's the Western belief that a war with a near-peer was never going to happen post the dissolution of the Warsaw Pact (or, at least, not without a long lead-in), & the inevitable "fighting the last war" syndrome which, despite being aware of it, all militaries & governments seem to fall victim to; & the most recent wars we've fought have been quick, decisive invasions followed by long drawn-out guerilla conflicts with the West (having the technological superiority) vs local insurgencies (using effective low-tech solutions). Which has led to the "the tank is dead" mythos & the idea that low numbers of small, precision weapons are superior to large numbers of field artillery, AFV's & properly trained combat troops.

Then there's the idea that, should the unlikely event of a major near-peer war break out, it would go from conventional to nuclear long before stocks of munitions became an issue.

The Soviets & Russians have long held the strategic importance of stockpiling old equipment, so that as reservists & old conscripts are called back into service they can use equipment that they are/were familiar with, thus reducing re-training times.

The Americans do this to some small extent with aircraft but, overall, Western nations don't consider calling up ex-service personnel from 10, 15, 20 or even 30 years ago as a standard contingency plan, so all that old equipment is sold on to 3rd tier nations or scrapped.

[upnorth]

A couple of aircraft that I did an about face on that come to mind (with appologies for the naivety of youth):

EE Canberra
As a kid, I saw pictures of it in books but there usually wasn't much info to accompany those pictures. To my mind, it was this very boring looking bomber. Seeing pictures of the variants with the offset fighter style canopy that led me to think "Who does that?!" didn't help me see it in any better light.

Fast forward to my late teens. I found a book in the public library dedicated to the Canberra and decided to give it a second look. That book left me floored that I had given so little thought to an aircraft that was essentially the heir to the DeHavilland Mosquito, an aircraft I liked very much.

I had no idea, until that point, that the Canberra was as versatile as it was.

Let's just say the aircraft got a new fan that day.

F/A-18 Hornet
I was about 10 when the Canadian military started taking the Hornet into service. The first time I saw a Hornet at an airshow was 1982, and there were CF-101 Voodoos there as well. On the ground, the Hornet looked underwhelming to me compared to the imposing beast the Voodoo was.

At that same show, the Hornet went up and did a very well recieved demo. That demo was followed not long after by four Voodoos. While not close to the aerobatics of the Hornet, you could feel the Voodoo show as much as see it. To finish off, the Voodoos did a low, four ship dirty pass along the flight line that could shake the fillings out of your teeth.

To me it was like the Voodoos saying to the Hornets parked below" "Ok, kid, you're good, but you'll never be THIS good."

It was exactly the sort of thing that impressed 10 year old me. I was a Voodoo fan and stayed abivalent to the Hornet until my mid-teens.

Until my mid-teens, my knowledge of the Hornet was that it was this multi-role type that was developed from the loser to the YF-16. In a nutshell, I thought the Hornet was the YF-17 that got a lucky break. To my mind, the Canadian military had settled for some sort of warmed over something or other.

I was in the Royal Canadian Air Cadets youth organization by that time and it gave me a few opportunities to not only get up close to the Hornet, but also talk at some length to pilots and ground crew. In doing so, I came to realize that the only thing YF-17 about the aircraft was the physical resemblance. Canada hadn't "settled" for anything, we had a right proper modern combat aircraft in the Hornet.

The more I learned about the Hornet, the more I warmed up to it and respected it.

Knowing that the Canadian Hornets soldiering on these days are still the old A and B models taken on in the 1980s that have been given upgrades at times when they could have (and should have) been traded in for C and D models makes me respect the Hornet that much more for durability.

[M.A.D]

Good on ya upnorth and many thanks for your insight.

In hindsight, I can understand your initial impression of the Canberra being somewhat "boring looking", as not many Canberra's carried their weapons load externally.
It's not until you appreciate it's weapons bay, which greatly contributes to it's speed and manoeuvrability, that I appreciated its design and versatility.
Have you ever had an opertunity to climb into the cockpit of a Canberra? Now that is one eye opening experience and appreciation of their crews.

It's funny, as a teen, I was always in favour of the F/A-18A/B's selection over that of the F-16 for RAAF service. But it was only later, when older and wiser did I appreciate how much it's carrier
lineage impacted on its full potential as a land-based fighter/fighter-bomber - what she could have been capable of if both Canada and Australia had of worked together to become the F-18L/TF-18L launch customer's.......what a significant difference shaving off that 3,493kg (7,700 pounds) of carrier-centric structure and equipment would have made to it's performance......

Please keep your thoughts and reflections coming.

MAD

[ChalkLine]

At the risk of going down a rabbit hole, dare I say we are seeing some of the outcomes of that comparison in Ukraine, especially given some of the vintages of the weapons on each side.  Mind you, I suspect a full on Cold War gone hot scenario in Central Europe that had reached a semi-stalemate like the currentUkraine conflict would have resulted in Soviet use of NBC weapons ... something we hope won't happen in Ukraine.

If there was a NATO-WTO conflict in Europe we would have used the nukes first. There was no stopping the WTO pushing into the Alpha Line (where NATO automatically utilises its nuclear arsenal) or the French Force de Frappe triggering their release at the +10km line near the French border.

This was due to three problems with NATO:
- They'd lost 'The Airpower Gamble' where they put all their hopes on an airpower advantage that didn't take into account the WTO integrated air defence while factoring WTO aviation. This is known as 'The Tennis Fallacy' where you only compare opposite systems of similar capability and not the integrated combat environment.
- They'd misunderstood WTO doctrine which emphasised that in event of attack the WTO troops would lunge into Germany to gain as much ground to be negotiated for at a peace. This inevitable led to the NATO release as they'd misunderstood WTO attack intentions.
- They'd significantly underestimated WTO technology which was both more effective (they found in studies after the war the T-72 with ERA was invulnerable frontally to the Rh120/55 in an initial clash) but more importantly more resilient than they'd predicted in that they could continue throwing weapons and personnel at NATO in an attritional war rather than a Prussian 'battle of decision'.

The only way NATO could deal with this was the strikes mentioned earlier or tactical strikes at dispersed units. Tactical strikes trigger what is known as The India Doctrine, the doctrine that has held since the early 1970s and defines nuclear conflict. Pakistan declared they retained the right to use tactical nuclear weapons and India responded that 'India sees any tactical weapon as a strategic weapon and this will trigger a strategic response'.

Coupled with Anders Blixt's 'Ostpolitik', the West's anti-war movement and US realisations of their misinterpretations it led to a lessening of tensions and we managed 30+ years of peace.

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I'm also a big fan of the FA-18 especially in use by middle to low tier powers, it's an excellent platform and I lament it's loss to the RAAF.

[GTX_Admin]

It's funny, as a teen, I was always in favour of the F/A-18A/B's selection over that of the F-16 for RAAF service. But it was only later, when older and wiser did I appreciate how much it's carrier
lineage impacted on its full potential as a land-based fighter/fighter-bomber - what she could have been capable of if both Canada and Australia had of worked together to become the F-18L/TF-18L launch customer's.......what a significant difference shaving off that 3,493kg (7,700 pounds) of carrier-centric structure and equipment would have made to it's performance......

Although there is an argument that the "beefed up" standard F/A-18 helped with the fatigue life issue towards the end of their lives.

[GTX_Admin]

I'm also a big fan of the FA-18 especially in use by middle to low tier powers, it's an excellent platform and I lament it's loss to the RAAF.

Oh but they have been replaced by something far far more capable and in greater numbers.