About Jets of the Cold War
Introduction to Jets of the Cold War
Hi there, and welcome! This is my little corner of the internet where I ramble on about model making, mostly from the Cold War era, because that’s the period I find the most fascinating. You’ll find a mix of model kit reviews, tools, books, and whatever else I stumble across that I think might be handy or interesting for fellow model makers.
I’ve also put together some extra pages on Cold War aircraft (both NATO and Warsaw Pact), the big aviation events of the time, colour schemes, and plenty of walk-around photos for reference.
This site is very much a work-in-progress, always growing and changing, but my hope is that it’ll be useful, or at least entertaining for other model makers and anyone curious about the history of the Cold War.
It was a period of great leaps in aircraft technology and ideas. At the start, jet fighters were similar to their WW2 counterparts, machine gun and cannon armed with a single or possibly dual purpose. By the end, aircraft were expected to be able to carry out multiple mission roles, fighter, bomber, reconnaissance etc. Although there would always be expectations to this, such as the US A10 Warthog and the Soviet SU25 Frogfoot.
It was also a period where the Helicopter came into its own and developed from lightweight observation platforms to heavily armed and armoured troop carriers that could and do dominate the airspace over a battlefield.
Brief overview of the Cold War
The Cold War was a period between 1946 to 1991 of tension, and at times near conflict between the ‘Free’ West and the ‘Communist’ East.
It was a period when the world lived under a very real constant threat of nuclear annihilation by opposing ideologies, and only came to an end when the Soviet Union was pressured from within by its citizens and by the crippling costs of maintaining the arms race.
Although NATO and the Warsaw Pact never met in open warfare, other countries around the world, were, unfortunately for them, pawns for the two clashing ideologies. Korea, Vietnam, the Far East, the Middle East and many African Countries all suffered, and continue to do so, as battlefields between the ‘West’ and ‘East’. Testing grounds for the weapon makers and the strategy and tactics of the opposing military systems. The only winners in the Cold War were the weapons manufacturers.
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