Comments by "mpetersen6" (@mpetersen6) on "THE DEUCE IS LOOSE: The Magnificent Delta Dagger Was A 1950s Tech Fest And Vietnam Campfire Killer" video.

To this day there is a company in Illinois that still build vacuum tubes for specialized uses. I'm old enough to remember test fixtures at electronics stores where you could check tubes for whether they worked or not.
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One should never forget that in the 50s and 60s the US and Canada also deployed SAM batteries for point defense of major urban areas. The Nike and Nike Zues were housed in concrete bunkers that covered logical approach vectors. Part of this SAM reliance resulted in the cancellation of the CF-106 Arrow.
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Close only counts in horseshoes, hand grenades and atomic weapons. I suspect in a full on nuclear exchange Soviet bomber formations would seperate long before they could be intercepted by US or Canadian aircraft. In the 50s and 60s the bomber and missile gap was for the most part a misread of intelligence. If the Cuban Missile Crisis had gone hot (1) the US would have been hurt. But the USSR and Western to Eastern Europe would have been shattered. In terms of the percentage of GDP the Soviets far outstripped the US during the Cold War. In almost every type of weapons system be it armor, aircraft, SAM systems etc the Soviets by far out produced the US. By the early 70s the Soviets had by far more missiles and warheads than the US and its Allies in the UK and France. 1) The most likely cause would have been a Soviet commander in Cuba authorizing a launch or a submarine using a nuclear armed torpedo of a US carrier group.
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The only fighters I remember seeing as a kid were F-86s at Truax Field outside of Madison WI. Deeper inside North America there was more SAM based point defense around major urban areas. In the 50s the Air Force started building Bong Air Force Base about 15 miles west of us. Cancelled before they even started pouring concrete for the runways. Now the site of a state recreation area and county golf course.
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