Soviet Military Equipment Which Impressed You! and Why?

[yasotay]

I am shocked to find that no one on this venerable thread has added accolades for the tried and true Mil-8/17/171. It isn't sexy, it can be cantankerous (it is a helicopter after all), but it works. It has been, and remains, a mainstay of many countries air mobility. Like many workhorse aircraft, they will likely still be flying when all the glitter festone planes are in the boneyard.

Flying truck.

Absolutely! One of the best.

 

[Pioneer]

I am shocked to find that no one on this venerable thread has added accolades for the tried and true Mil-8/17/171. It isn't sexy, it can be cantankerous (it is a helicopter after all), but it works. It has been, and remains, a mainstay of many countries air mobility. Like many workhorse aircraft, they will likely still be flying when all the glitter festone planes are in the boneyard.

Yes, good and valid point you make regards the Mi-8/17 yasotay .
I must admit that I overlooked the value and capabilities of the Mi-8. I think I take the Mi-8 for granted and to some degree wish the West had of utilised the likes of the Sikorsky S-61R likewise......

One thing I've always been apprehensive about the visual aspect of Mi-8/17 is the seemingly sleepiness of its tail boom.....

Regards
Pioneer

 

[publiusr]

Polyus and other Energia payloads interest me.

 

[Pioneer]

Polyus and other Energia payloads interest me.

Valid and very interesting pieces of kit my dear publiusr.
Unfortunately, my knowledge of such powerful systems is lacking. But hey, thats the beauty of this forum and such topics..... Now to curtail such lack of knowledge about "Polyus and Energia"!!......

Regards
Pioneer

 

[Stovepipe]

the Mi-8/-17 was tested by Western pilots like Tim Peake and while it was found to very, very useful, it's cockpit layout was chaotic and quite often, no two Mi-8s matched as switches appeared to be installed at random and most important, it's tail rotor authority was found to be lacking.

 

[Hanz2k]

Definitely Tor SAM SA15. No analogs on western side and this approach will be the future - SAM system that can detect while moving and fire 10s from coming to a stop. Shkval torpedo just as gimmick.

 

[Monk78]

I’d say underrated soviet weapons imho

Charlie victor and Echo II mod class subs

MiG-23 M/ P/MLMLD ( they are essentially F-4 minus and almost equal to mirage F1C ) mass produced in such a short time frame

SS-20

AS-4/6 antiship missiles

 

[Stovepipe]

Things that always impressed me about the Foxbat.. Yes, it was inefficient, yes you wrecekd the eninges if you wnet too much > M2.8, yes, it wasn't "smooth", and yes, the electronics were behind ours. BUT... they managed to produce a M2.8 aircraft that could operate from a semi-prepared field and could be built in a truck factory by people with less than the equivalent of a high school education.

Not quite true. The Soviet military education system quickly filtered out the best people for maths, science, technology and so on and the best went to the Strategic rockets or the Air Force and their factories always had well trained engineering staff and their combat arms placed a high emphasis on engineering standards. They knew perfectly well that the average T55 or MiG 21 didnt meet Western standards, but it didnt have to. The system constantly upgraded their tanks and other equipment so that an SA2 fielded in 1965 would be upgraded so that in 1985, it was still a competitive weapon. In the case of things like BMPs, I'd take a Western vehicle anyday because we put crew first but a BMP has it's place and is still a very useful vehicle.

 

[Stovepipe]

Yeah the "punch" of the Howitser was indeed formidable. Firing it actually felt more like "firing an artillery piece" than firing the bigger 155mm/52cal 155K98. Always remembering the first rounds we fired with the D30. First we fired the so called "4th charges" which only had the minium of explosives in the cartirdges and you could actually see the offgoing grenade, it was so slow velocity. But then we moved straight to the "full charge" which was the maxium ammount of explosives...and I literaly fell over my ass when I fired the gun.

One major flaw in D30 was that tri-leg arragment. It had little usefull purpose and it just made deploying the gun more complicate than standard two-leg carriage.

Copied from an original Skoda design for 360 degree traverse. No lifting the trail like a 25 pdr or leFH 18M. Just turn the wheels until the gun is aligned.

 

[Stovepipe]

I always assumed this was a result of experiences in WWII, where normal artillery pieces had to engage panzers. A sort of emergency anti tank secondary role.

I’d say underrated soviet weapons imho

Charlie victor and Echo II mod class subs

MiG-23 M/ P/MLMLD ( they are essentially F-4 minus and almost equal to mirage F1C ) mass produced in such a short time frame

SS-20

AS-4/6 antiship missiles

You should read the Western opinions of the MiG 23 from the pilots who flew them in the Constant Peg programme. Some parts of it were well regarded but a lot of it's setup, equipment and systems were regarded as hard work for the pilot compared to Western systems. The American pilots preferred the Mig 21 for its reliability.

 

[Monk78]

You should read the Western opinions of the MiG 23 from the pilots who flew them in the Constant Peg programme. Some parts of it were well regarded but a lot of it's setup, equipment and systems were regarded as hard work for the pilot compared to Western systems. The American pilots preferred the Mig 21 for its reliability.

They had the mig23MS which was universally the worst version

 

[F.L.]

They had the mig23MS which was universally the worst version

Yes, and the unfortunate thing is that the MiG-23MS's bad reputation made all the other variants look bad. Whereas the second-generation MiG-23s were quite good.

 

[Stovepipe]

the cockpit ergonomics were woeful, the view out was bad and the level of manual effort required to do things like fire a missile or drop a bomb were worse than equivalent Western aircraft.

 

[TsrJoe]

9K32 Strela (Sa.7 Strela 'Grail') / ZSU.23-4 Shilka / 2K12 Kub (Sa.6 'Gainful') the introduction of trio during the late 60's and use during 1973, changed how the west's presumption of air superiority over the battlefield was no longer certain

 

[Monk78]

the cockpit ergonomics were woeful, the view out was bad and the level of manual effort required to do things like fire a missile or drop a bomb were worse than equivalent Western aircraft.

Compared to equivalent western aircraft all Soviet planes are subpar imho
I’m not saying it was an amazing aircraft , just an underrated weapon system

Just like a club is inferior to a rapier

 

[Monk78]

Yes, and the unfortunate thing is that the MiG-23MS's bad reputation made all the other variants look bad. Whereas the second-generation MiG-23s were quite good.

Even this reviled MS has shot down an Israeli and Iranian F-4/F-5 with the R3S/R-13

Many a times bad weapons work well under the right circumstances

 

[F.L.]

Even this reviled MS has shot down an Israeli and Iranian F-4/F-5 with the R3S/R-13

Many a times bad weapons work well under the right circumstances

It must be said that being lighter, it had terrific acceleration capabilities !

 

[Colonial-Marine]

There are some excellent accounts of what the USAF Red Eagles squadron discovered in testing the MiG-23s that the US obtained but as far as I know these were all of the first generation of the aircraft, the Flogger-E and the ground attack Flogger-F by NATO name. In the years following the dissolution of the USSR I'd have to assume that USAF pilots had the opportunity to fly some of the second generation models operated by former Warsaw Pact states, but are there any accounts of this? I'm sure everyone was fascinated by the more advanced East German MiG-29s so any closer look at those MiG-23s probably wouldn't have grabbed much attention.

 

[Monk78]

There are some excellent accounts of what the USAF Red Eagles squadron discovered in testing the MiG-23s that the US obtained but as far as I know these were all of the first generation of the aircraft, the Flogger-E and the ground attack Flogger-F by NATO name. In the years following the dissolution of the USSR I'd have to assume that USAF pilots had the opportunity to fly some of the second generation models operated by former Warsaw Pact states, but are there any accounts of this? I'm sure everyone was fascinated by the more advanced East German MiG-29s so any closer look at those MiG-23s probably wouldn't have grabbed much attention.

As far as I know Israelis got a mig23mld in 1990

 

[XtraSaltee]

As an old Cold Warrior I can say the Soviets had an open window in the '70s and early '80s vis-a-vis system designs and deployment vs their NATO adversaries. They are great chess players and weapons design during the Cold War was like watching a game of chess.

I mostly admired their fighter interceptors. The MIGs, 17,21,23. These were dangerous capable air craft in their day and even today should not be underestimated or taken for granted.

The Mig-21 is a great soviet fighter, honestly, Russia hasn't been able to produce a fast, maneuverable, sustainable easy-to-produce fighter jet since.

 

[Scott Kenny]

I will confess to a fascination with the BMD series for IFVs. The idea to give paratroopers their own IFVs is kinda mindblowing.
T64 MBT, though arguably it's a medium not a main. Under 40 tonnes, and still has the 125mm!
Rifle wise, well, I own an SVT40.
The AK is rather amazingly simple, there is very little you can take away from that design (the only thing that usually gets taken away is the auto sear and 3rd pin to support it).
The Akula-class subs were pretty impressive professionally.
Oh, and aesthetically the Su27 series fighters are just gorgeous.

 

[Justo Miranda]

- The second generation of Soviet surface-to-air missile systems S-75 (SA-2 Guideline) was designed with the aim of correcting all the SA-1 shortcomings.

Each SA-2 launch site was capable of 360-degree coverage, to cope with the threat posed by a single bomber and consisted of six launcher pads deployed in a circular pattern around the RSNA/SNR-75 Fan Song fire control radar, with 120 km range. All the Guideline components were mounted on wheeled vehicles.

The V-750 rail-launched missile with Mach 4.0 top speed, 35 km range and 27,000 m ceiling, used one Kartukov solid fuel rocket booster to accelerate off its launcher and one bi-propellant rocket motor sustainer, with 3,000 kg peak thrust and 25-60 seconds burn time.

To offset the accuracy limitations of Fan Song guidance, the missile was fitted with 5E11 Shmel radio proximity fuse and 11D fragmentation warhead, with 250 kg of conventional explosive. The warhead blast radius for severe damage at high-altitude was 250 m, due to the rarified atmosphere.

Fan Song could simultaneously direct three missiles against a target to achieve acceptable success possibilities.

The new P-12 A (Spoon Rest) early warning radar had 275 km acquisition range and 32,000 m ceiling.

In spring of 1958 the Guideline system was deployed in 600 launch sites around Moscow, Leningrad, and Baku.

In the early 1960s the final U-2 overflight of the Soviet Union U-2 was planned under the code name Grand Slam.

The Pakistan-Norway nine hours flight was 3,800 miles long, with 2,900 miles over the Soviet airspace overflying Tyuratam, Chelyabinsk, Kyshtym, Sverdlovsk, Kirov, Severodvinsk, Kandalaksa, Murmansk, Polyarnyy and Bodo-Norway.

On May 1, 1960, one U-2 took-off from Peshawar at 6:26 AM, and once airborne the spy plane turned toward the Afghanistan border flying at 66,000 ft. (20,120 m).

The U-2 was spotted by Soviet radar over Afghanistan while it was still at fifteen miles of the USSR border.

An alert was called, all civilian airliners were grounded and all V-PVO airfields, SAM sites, radar stations and command posts over the southern Soviet Union were placed on full combat alert.

The U-2 was tracked by multiple PVO radars, thirteen fighters scrambled around Tashkent, and they carried out zoom-climb attacks in an attempt to catch the intruder despite the fact that experience had demonstrated that the MiG fighters were unable to intercept the U-2.

The intruder was lost on radar and reacquired over Tyuratam flying at 70,500 ft. (21,493 m)

Two MiG-19P fighters made an unsuccessful attempt to get into firing position, vectored by ground radar, but they could only ascend to 58,000 ft. (17,682 m).

The PVO staff predicting that the U-2 was heading toward Sverdlovsk, and all the SAM SA-2 sites of 4th Independent Army and the fighter units based in the area were instructed to down the intruder “whatever the cost”.

Captain Mentiukov, the pilot of one Sukhoi Su-9 Fishpot fighter that made a refueling stop at Kolcovo airfield, was ordered to intercept the U-2.

The Su-9 was in ferry configuration, it carried no air-to-air missiles, and none were available at Kolcovo, but Mentiukov received order to ramming the spy plane.

The mission was suicidal because the pilot did not have high-altitude pressure suit.

Instead of using the old Taran tactics, Mentiukov tried cutting the target trajectory and putting it out of control with the trail turbulence. This type of attack had been successfully used by a D.H. Mosquito FB VI of the 418th RAF Squadron to destabilize a V-1 flying bomb in June 1944.

The U-2 had to fly very near their never-exceeded speed and the margin with the stall speed at 70,000 ft. (21,341 m) was only 12 mph. Exceeding any of both limits could cause transonic airflow separation at the wings and structural damage.

The Su-9 was guided by ground control radar, but its zoom-climb attack was unsuccessful and overshot the target by 26,000 ft. (7,927 m).

The first salvo of SA-2 surface-to-air missiles failed because the U-2 was already out of range by the time the missiles reached its altitude.

When the intruder entered the engagement area of the next launch site at 08:36, only one SA-2 was fired due to fire control malfunction. At 70,500 ft. (21,493 m) over Sverdlovsk the missile warhead detonated near the U-2 damaging the tailplane. The aircraft was destabilized losing its wings due to the g-forces and the pilot Francis Gary Powers was captured, creating an international incident.

Meanwhile two MiG-19 P Farmer B fighters were airborne and approaching the engagement zone, but their IFF transponders did not work, and Lieutenant Safronov's plane was destroyed by the third salvo of missiles.

The incident was kept secret for many years.