plawolffantastic find!
plawolfalso, fft was talking about ac, which are made by large and respectable firms, while most of your low end walmart goods are made by small private business. so there is really no comaprison between the two.
plawolfwell there are crappy american goods in walmart too, so what? its silly yo assume that all products coming out of a huge country such as china will all be of the same quality.
what many westerners seem to failt to realise is that while chinese good are generally much cheaper then their western counterparts, there are still varying prices to present different quality levels.
you cant really expect to go into your local walmart, pick out the cheapest product on offer (which often will be chinese) and expect it to work just as well as the more expansive products also on offer (many of which will also be chinese).
also, it is human nature to only take notice of things that dont really work as expected. if your ketal is working perfectly and has been working perfectly for years, would you really bother to check where it was made? however, if your ketal breaks down after only one year, you would most likely check its lable yo see where it is from.
all this means is that people buy the cheapest goods and expecting them to work like the best on the market, and getting diapointed when these products fail to meet expectations, and when they check the lable, most are found to be made in china, hence creating the false impression that all chinese goods are of poor quality.
just go through your house and take a look at all the lables of your durable and good quality products and you might be suprised just how many of them have ‘made in china’ on the back.
plawolfwhat’s a claw-hammer again?
and you never know, who said the cross was fixed?
plawolf…the circle is almost complete. 😀 😎
plawolfsome people have way too much free time. 😉
plawolfoh, where to start…:rolleyes:
plawolfloved them, forgot them, now wish i could remeber more about them…:(
plawolfThey can. Regardless, a portion of the SSBN fleet was always on combat patrol- you cannot eliminate SSBNs as a deterrent. The latest generation of Soviet SSBNs don’t need to leave Russian waters to strike their designated targets, their SLBMs have plenty of range. Soviet SSBNs would stay in their ‘bastions’, defended by the Soviet Navy (including SSNs) from enemy SSNs trying to destroy them.
Why are you speaking in hypotheticals? The range and existence of the Kh-55 is factual. Anyway, you’re exaggerating the density of USAF fighters available to shoot down low-flying cruise missiles, not to mention that none of them have the capabilities of the MiG-31 in that regard.
well if it came down to taking our each other’s SSBNs and missile silos, i dont think either side will stick to purely conventional weapons. not sure how effective naval bases can be defended against nuclear tipped cruise missile and balistic missle attacks.
as for the USAF’s ability to intercept crusie missles, well that was more of a worst case scnario. with the USSR suffering a US nuclear first strike, would the surviving soviet bomber fleet be able to, by itself, ensure mutal total destruction to the US? i dont think so.
as already discussed, the soviet SSBN fleet will not be very effective, so the main deterance force will lie on the ICBM fleet. not very comforting considering that at the speed technology was developing, no-one could be sure that the other side will not suddenly find a way to effectively counter ICBMs (Ronald’s ‘star wars’ advanture springs to mind).
plawolfUS performance in Desert Storm in ideal conditions was pathetic against truck launched ballistic missiles. The Soviet SLBMs could be launched tied up in dock and still reach all of their targets, and the first nuclear detonation in a Soviet ICBM field would result in the launch of the rest. It has yet to be proven that the B-2 can penetrate Soviet airspace as many of the early warning radar sites operated in bands that shaping has no effect on. I also think you over estimate the ability of interceptors to engage targets with standoff ranges of over 2,500kms, whether it is a B-52 or a Bear.
one question would be whether the SLBMs can reach their targets from home ports.
as for the argument that no-one could have taken out all of the otehr side’s ICBMs, well that was an obvious answer with the advantage of hindsight. however the soviets did not have that luxury. the whole reason for developing bomber, ICBMs and SLBMs is that you have tripple redundency, that if they other side were to make a break through that allowed them to confidently intercept or pre-emptively strike and destroy one form of your delivery platform, there are two others there to make sure he didnt take a chance and bomb you first.
with all your SSBNs tied up at ports, they effectively become missile silos, and poorly defended ones at that, which meant your detterant ability was effectively cut to two.
as for bombers. well unless you were planning to launch a pre-empltive strike, you will not be able to get your whoke bomber fleet in the air in time. if the other side were to launch a pre-emptive strike, one could assume that the major bomber bases will be hit first, so only a small percentage of your bombers would be available for the counter attack. (lets remeber that neither side wanted to to start a war, and were just paraniod that they other sided were bent on world domonation and only wanted to counter-balance them).
as for 2,500km cruisemissles, well if they were to have such great range, then they would be sub-sonic weapons, which means that if not launched in massive numbers, they few would be able to make it through the massive screen of USAF fighters. when the goal is to ensure mutual destruction, thats not a very good result.
all that means that the USSR’s only true deterrant was in its ICBMs, but one breakthrough could allow the US to be able to counter them as effectively as SSBNs and bombers.
the US didnt manage to do that, but could any reasonable leader bet fait of himself and his people on the opponent failing to do something? especially when he had the ability to actively do something to counter the opponent?
a more likely reason why the soviets didnt try to develop stealth bombers might have been that the leadership did not believe or realise the potential of stealth. but no-one really knows for sure.
plawolfdont thin there will be a replacment. the threat is gone, so is most of the money.
plawolfoh, i can think of at least one thing that is worse. 😉
plawolffair enough argument, but i just feel that that sleek design shows more promise and so should be more then just an omi-role interceptor. its size and range would not be out of place amounst some other bombers.
also, i feel that this design has the potential to product a steathy bomber, match that with supercurise and you have a potential world beater!
plawolfcouldnt we switch to using the ones MSN messenger has? 🙁
plawolfThe Russian philosophy of strategic bombers is to send cruise missiles over enemy territory rather than the bombers themselves which standoff ouside the airdefence network of the enemy… makes sense to me. Besides a hypersonic cruise missile using scramjet technology is likely to be developed well before the first effective hypersonic scramjet aircraft. It makes sense to operate slow cheap bombers that can launch long range high speed weapons, rather than building a few very expensive fast bombers. The Russians can use Bears in the conventional role in chechnia or other border hotspots, whereas a new super strategic bomber is less multirole. (it would be too expensive for a theatre bomber and probably too fast to use in chechnia… it would keep crossing borders too quickly.)
The Purpose of this new interceptor is to have an aircraft that can cover huge distances relatively quickly if necessary so that fewer bases were needed and more territory could be covered by fewer aircraft effectively.
B2s can also use stand-off crusie missles which would have made them much more difficult to intercept.
during the height of the cold war, bombers would not get half-way to their launch sites before they are spotted and enemy fighters send to intercept them. the Tu160s with their high speed had a much better chance then the Bears and B52s, but they were still very vonerable to interception.
as for scramjet cruise missles v bombers, well if they were serious about the 701, then i’d say they could have done pretty well with the scramjet bomber if they had the funds to finish it.
after all, the idea was to ensure mutual analation so no-one would get trigger happy. boarder partol was just another competion for the two. even if the soviets were able to come up with a super fighter that could garentee 100% intercept of american and NATO strategic bombers and cruise missles, it would still have been pointless as these new fighters had no chance in hell of stopping all the american ICBMs.
on the other hand, the russians were in a bind. none of their SSBNs were truely safe, B2s could sneak in undetected and take out missile silos and their bomber fleet ran a grave risk of being intercepted. while the US could still, by no means garentee the neuturalisation of the soviet nuclear detterant, you have to admit that the americans had the upper hand.
concerntrating you limited resources on defence would have only helped to widen that gap.
also, who said a 701 type bomber would have to fly at supersonic speeds all the time? it can just switch to subsonic flight for conventional bombing in a situation like chechnia. however, it seems a little unfair to compair the 701 bomber like this, as the 701 would still have been omi-role even if it as made as a fighter, which would not have put it in a favourable position in terms of value for money when compaired with multi-role fighters.
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