Share Your Cold War Memories

[Ura-Ki]

Funny, I remember getting a warning that the Commies had figured out Starlight and a crude version of FLIR! We would be watching them maneuver and we would "Burn" them with I.R. and lasers!!! Fun stuff! I remember a Echo 15 played intercept on a group of Bear snoopers that had fighter escorts with them, the Echo RF burned them with his Radar and jamming set's, which effectively blocked all signals and allegedly fried all siglent/elint! They were forced to turn away and abort the mission, and rumors were one crashed and the Norwegians found the wreck and got a bunch of intel from the crash site! I do know Ivan was very much trying to get us to send up the best stuff we had so they could try and get a read on us, what our stuff was capable of, and how good it might be. If they only knew!!!

 

[Diamondback]

Hell, an F-106 Delta Dart's radar, if turned on on the ground, would cook any living thing within a 30' distance downrange of the antenna... I've heard rumblings from the AWACS community that their plan for if a fighter got too close was train their radar on the pilot's helmet and deep-fry his a**.

"Echo 15"--you talking a Mudhen? (F-15E, "Strike Eagle")

This is also why the F-22s in Alaska never fly without drop tanks--not so much for the fuel, but to futz with Ivan's radar signatures They're even having to ADD reflectors to the ones over Syria so the OpFor air will get the message about "we're here and one wrong move means You Are Going To DIE!"

 

[Ura-Ki]

Hell, an F-106 Delta Dart's radar, if turned on on the ground, would cook any living thing within a 30' distance downrange of the antenna... I've heard rumblings from the AWACS community that their plan for if a fighter got too close was train their radar on the pilot's helmet and deep-fry his a**.

"Echo 15"--you talking a Mudhen? (F-15E, "Strike Eagle")

This is also why the F-22s in Alaska never fly without drop tanks--not so much for the fuel, but to futz with Ivan's radar signatures They're even having to ADD reflectors to the ones over Syria so the OpFor air will get the message about "we're here and one wrong move means You Are Going To DIE!"

YUP! There was an old trick Ground crews would do for alert fighter/interceptor's, they ran a copper ground strap to the radar antenna, and had a on/off switch that was grounded to the airframe! One flick of the switch while the radar was in search/ track mode would pretty much fry receivers on the Ruskies airplanes and ground tracking sets! Had to be VERY careful which way your radar antenna was aimed, you wouldn't wanna fry a friendly! The Ol' Mudhen F-15 is quite the deadly bird, probably the best in the world at every thing!!! I hear the Squids Super Hornet is almost as good in most of the same roles as the "Echo" is! Funny you bring up the Old 106! Arguably the very best fighter we ever had during the hot years of the cold war. Vastly superior to any thing else we had, and every one else had as well, yet it never got used like it should, and never got the fame of the other lesser designs! Sad really. The other one we had was the F-104! Many will tell you it could out fly a current top shelf F-16 and from what I have seen, I would believe that! Too many put all their faith in the F-4, and were let down, not that the F-4 was a bad airplane, it was a case of jack of all trades, master of very few! The only reasons it stuck around so long was it could do one thing better then ALL others, Fly very fast at very low level, for a very long ways, and carry a very big load of bad azz!!! There are still a handful of them, Most likely last mod "S' versions still in use for just that reason!!! The A.F. doesn't want folks knowing that even the Mighty Eagle and the F/A/-22 cant do what Ol Smokey was famous for, and still can! That and she is still one sexy lady, even after she quit smoking! LOL

 

[Diamondback]

Grandpa slung wrenches on the Sixes at McChord, and the prof that took me under his wing and played "surrogate dad" through my college years both flew 'em and commanded Grandpa's old squadron about a decade later. (About the only bird I have a stronger affinity toward is the B-52... you shoulda seen LTC N.'s reaction to high-end sims where I'd pop several fighters at a time with modified BUFFs using "Rain of Death" tactics. LOL)

N.: "You DO realize those missiles cost the taxpayers a million bucks a shot, right?"
Me: "Ammunition is cheap--airframes, and the lives and training of my aircrew, are expensive!"
N.: *laugh*

Hornet's overrated, there were Tomcat designs that'd Tag & Bag 'em every time if they'd been built and the A-6F Intruder II still woulda outbombed it. An old friend from a plane modeling board was an ECMO who transitioned from Prowler to Growler and more than once told me he'd kill to have his old Tadpole back... heck, maybe I should tell you about the "Kitchen Sink Eagle" concept a former F-35 development engineer and I hatched--two of these beasts could kill an entire fighter wing if the missiles did their part. (32 AMRAAMs each--"Macross Missile Massacre," anyone?)

On second thought, make mine a modernized version of the unbuilt RB-12 "Tactical Blackbird." Full bays of missiles that could give me a crack at intercepting an ICBM in Boost Phase, then go on to respond in kind with a return dose of Instant Sunshine? "Yes, PLEASE!"

 

[cigars]

Spent two years in the early 80's doing border patrol along the former Communist borders of East Germany and Czechoslovakia. Scary times. Our job was to delay Warsaw Pact forces as long as we could if/when they decided to roll across the borders. In the event that "the balloon went up", they told us that our life expectancy was about seventeen seconds. Yet, we volunteered anyway.

 

[teflon6string]

The house I grew up in had a concrete shelter in the basement.

Mine too, just a dank void under the garage prior to all the political sabre rattling in 1962 when we put in a thin wooden door and paved the floor. Absolutely ZERO protection from anything nuclear. But with a week's worth of canned food and water on a shelf it became the "bomb shelter."

I was just a kid, so I gave more than a little thought to who we'd allow in when the neighbors came begging for refuge in our fortress. At first it was my buddies with the best toys. A couple years later it was Ginger & Mary Ann.

 

[Stomper]

Muh man!!

 

[Fjordforder]

I know a few guys from the old country with some stories from the other side of the Iron Curtain. Some of the best stories come from a Bulgarian who was an MP in the 1980s. His station was a tiny, nameless Bulgarian village on the border with Romania. Here`s what happened:

He was summoned to investigate a military truck that skidded off the road and straight into the woods in the midst of winter 1983. The driver claimed a big white horse had jumped in front of his GAZ and he swerved to avoid it. Indeed, the horse was present, it wasn`t perturbed in the least either. After taking statements and making their notes, my friend`s superior ordered that the scene had to be recreated in order to fully ascertain if the driver was truthful. So they lead the horse to the start of the tire skids on the road. The superior ordered my friend hold up the horse`s tail while he grabbed a 2x4 out of the ditch and handed it to another private.

"Private: I order you to deliver a hearty blow to the animal`s rear."
"S-Sir...?"
"I don`t ask twice, Private. Deliver the swing."

So the private rears back on one leg and delivers a home run swing to the animal`s rear with closed eyes and gritted teeth that would`ve made Babe Ruth proud. At least, that was the plan; in reality he hit low and nailed it right in the crown jewels. The horse immediately kicked behind it in response and knocked the private cold in the snow with a mighty kick to the stomach. The animal didn`t stir at all, just trotted away into the frozen woods. The captain looks to my friend and orders that he ensure it goes on record that yes, a loose horse jumped in front of the driver.



Another time he had a military patrol coming through the village when a Russian farmboy got separated from his unit and lost in the village. The convoy had already continued without him when they radioed the lead that they were minus a troop. A storm was rolling in and the soonest they could return to pick him up was the next morning so he had to be put up in the village. He was a large, quiet man, kept to himself and ate heartily at dinner. He went to his room to bathe and go to bed for the night without issue and the convoy arrived in the morning to pick him up and they went on their way. As was custom, the MP had to inspect the room he was bedded in to make sure he didn`t forget anything. While looking through the bathroom, he found the soap bar was absolutely mangled. It was green, mind you. Next to it was a handwritten note apologizing for the bar`s destruction and a few roubles to buy a new one. The note explained that he had never seen green soap before, only white and that he thought it was a case and mangled it trying to get to the soap inside.

 

[uscsoldier]

What about Star Wars

 

[Fjordforder]

Oh, here`s another from a Polish Drill Sergeant equivalent. His role was to martial the new conscripts and also train them in everything they`d need to know, from mindset to weapons manipulation to uniforms to vehicle maintenance and employ to fieldcraft to enemy vehicle ID. If you had to know anything about anything, he was the man to go to. So the story goes like this:

The base was near an abandoned rail yard where the troops would often train among the rusting metal and railroad ties. So the troops head out and form a half circle around the sergeant as he produces an E-Tool. For the uninformed, the Eastern Bloc E-tool isn`t a folding affair like we have in NATO, it`s a more or less square steel head on a wooden handle about a foot and a quarter long with a knob on the end. Some have a sharpened edge as well. So the sergeant orders any private to raise his hand if he knows what the tool is for: A few raise their hands and he calls on one: He says "To dig a foxhole?" "No!" shouts the sergeant, who calls on another private, "To dig fortifications and trench systems?" "Wrong again!" he yells until another private raises his hand. He was being a smartass when he proudly proclaimed "It`s a multipurpose tool!" "Wrong as always, idiots!" The sergeant yells. "The Saperka is used for killing!" and with that he heaved the shovel at a railroad tie about 10 yards away. The cutting edge hit its mark and the wooden handle vibrated as the Saperka vibrated in the wood. No privates were able to recreate this feat that day.

 

[uscsoldier]

Anyone else take part in military liaison missions, I did some time in Potsdam.

 

[Captain O]

I remember Disney's "Duck And Cover" film in the classroom and the "Conelrad" (later Emergency Broadcast System) alerts. The Cuban Missile Crisis of '62. We were children and remember the fear and hatred of/for the Communists. This lasted all the way through High School (Corvallis High School, Class of '73, rah)! I still distrust the Communists/Socialists... including those running the government.

 

[Fjordforder]

I just feel I should make clear I`m about as far from a socialist/communist/statist as can be. Family came over from the old country and I was born here in a traditional family.

 

[Medic!]

Any of you guys from Germany remember reading The Stars and Stripes.
I wasn't like today. No Interweb. Outlets for information were scarce. And Everybody read the paper.
I saved a few.

 

[uscsoldier]

Any of you guys from Germany remember reading The Stars and Stripes.
I wasn't like today. No Interweb. Outlets for information were scarce. And Everybody read the paper.
I saved a few.

View attachment 316659

And watching football on AFN at 3am

 

[Medic!]

And watching football on AFN at 3am

And The morning news after work.

When you weren't in the field.

 

[uscsoldier]

And The morning news after work.

When you weren't in the field.

View attachment 316660

We had a TV in the command GP in grafenwöhr

 

[oremike]

Cold war memories, Stop, Drop, and Cover, NBC wasn't just a TV network, to this day I still stop what I'm doing when I hear an alert signal whether on the radio of from the fire hall and breath a sigh of relief when "this was just a drill" comes on. I was in the Navy on a supply ship other wise called a target. Russian "trollers" would shadow us right at the horizon until the tincans chased them off, Bears would fly over with our fighters above and below their wings so they couldn't turn. I spotted a periscope in our wake once from a sub hiding in our prop wash, the tin cans chased them off after we went to evade maneuvers. We were on edge a lot you just didn't know if today was the day or not. And then there was the day where we were R&Ring in the Philippines and got the call for everyone to head back to their ships... This is not a drill... No internet, no cell phones just somethings big is going on and a call to arms right now. Just a little thing they call now the Iranian Hostage Crises, back then our embassy had been taken and we were going to take it back. We where in the gulf of Oman and the gulf of Aden so we knew something was up but they never did tell us what was up or our roll in it.

 

[Medic!]

Cold war memories, Stop, Drop, and Cover, NBC wasn't just a TV network, to this day I still stop what I'm doing when I hear an alert signal whether on the radio of from the fire hall and breath a sigh of relief when "this was just a drill" comes on. I was in the Navy on a supply ship other wise called a target. Russian "trollers" would shadow us right at the horizon until the tincans chased them off, Bears would fly over with our fighters above and below their wings so they couldn't turn. I spotted a periscope in our wake once from a sub hiding in our prop wash, the tin cans chased them off after we went to evade maneuvers. We were on edge a lot you just didn't know if today was the day or not. And then there was the day where we were R&Ring in the Philippines and got the call for everyone to head back to their ships... This is not a drill... No internet, no cell phones just somethings big is going on and a call to arms right now. Just a little thing they call now the Iranian Hostage Crises, back then our embassy had been taken and we were going to take it back. We where in the gulf of Oman and the gulf of Aden so we knew something was up but they never did tell us what was up or our roll in it.

The Military is not very good at disseminating information.

I was out stereo shopping at the PX in Furth. Picked up the Stars and stripes. Only to find my unit was shipping off to the Middle east!

Thought it was BS until I got to the post and they locked me down.

Saved a copy of that one to.

 

[maddog]

Another warm summer evening, about 30 minutes before sunset, we were set up in a defensive perimeter along a bluff, with a large meadow behind it and about 100 meters from a tree-line overlooking a valley. We'd been training straight for over 36 hours and we were all beat. But the orders were "no sleeping, everybody at their fighting station." And being young soldiers one guy was elected to man the Cupola (little turret on top of the big turret) in spite of the orders. Well, the CO drove up behind everyone in his tank, jumped down with an armful of tear gas grenades, and popped one down the hatch of two tanks that didn't have somebody with their head up and alert. Pop!....Jes..H Chr...st!" Coughing and hacking, noses flowing snot profusely, guys jumped out onto the ground and fanned what little wind there was into their faces. One guy, a recently graduated Marketing major who was drafted into service, stuck his head up through the loader's hatch wearing his gas mask, the right half of which was full of shaving cream. He proceeded to jump to the ground and do the dying fish to everyone's delight.

A young private from the other tank found out the tear gas was being kept in the CP tent where the officers and Platoon leaders slept. Somehow, he'd commandeered three of them and word went around to stealthily gather around the CP tent at 0300 the next night. And, promptly at 0300, there were 3 pops in the CP tent. "GAS" was the cry inside and it was promptly vacated in short order.

The next day we were called into a company formation, all of us expecting that kid to arrested and hauled off. Instead the Old Man lectured us on the critical nature of what we were doing and the importance of constant readiness and the consequences of not being so. He then spent the next 5 minutes glaring at each of us in turn with the worst stink-eye i have experienced, then or since.

The private stayed a private for as long as I was there, but the CO went on to Battalion staff. He was the best leader I've ever met. He and Charlie Company Commander were both aviators and took those of us who wanted to go, flying with them in a Kiowa observation chopper. There's another story about meeting a German family in a clearing about 12 inches above the ground and 100 miles an hour I'll share sometime.

I was told never volunteer for anything when I went in, but I did anyway. And I gained some experiences that I will never forget. Met some people I'll never forget either.