That's a pretty big question. US tech tended to be more advanced, more reliable, and easier to maintain. Russian tech was simpler, easier to use, and more rugged. Each had its own advantages. In practice, US/Western tech tended to come out on top. Not always by any means, but generally speaking. Russian posters might argue that their tech was misused by the Koreans/Chinese/Vietnamese/Arabs, and they may be right.

yeah I AGREE WITH SENTINEL somewhat but,I think it is obvious now that the u.s. had better equipment.

well adding on to sentinel28a, russia was able to produce much faster and bring up large sums of weapons in a short period of time, but not as good of weapons. The U.S. weapons were more precise and better. With longer range missles, the U.S. could get Russia farther away, but if the fight came to the U.S., Russia could have had a chance just beacause of sheer masses of missles.

that makes me remember of the spatial pen stuff: US spends Millions of bucks to design a pen which can be use in Zero G, while russian uses pencils :)

"Each had its own advantages." Exactly.

I would say that the russians had better intelligence on the US. The US had more reliable weaponry, Russian weapons could compete with Us weapons in efficiancy, but were alot cheaper to produce. US had more money, so that compensates for the price difference in the weapons. The US also had better pens..lol.. the mig 29 sweaped the opposition of it's feet, but it didn't come out until the final years of the cold war. Geographicaly, Russia had the 'iron curtain', whilst the US had NATO, and the Atlantic ocean. It would have been alot earier for the US to attack Russia that for Russia to attach the US.

I agree with every single thing you said except for one point. I wouldn't say that Russia, at any point, had better intelligence on the Americans. Russia had an interesting arsenal, in depth strategic planning and the will to carry it out. The difference is--we knew every step they took through our intelligence. This is partly why we were able to run the table on the Russians during those 13 heart-pounding days. Thanks.

okay sooner rememeber that for all the tech advances of the US in sig-int the russians were VERY good at hum-int, Aldrich Ames walked out of the CIA with black plastic bags FULL of top level info and walked past FBI cameras into the russian embassy to sell them!!! so i dont think the US ever had better inteligence - it just thought it did! on the equipment level - i think USSR kit would work better with less well trained soldiers and their doctrine of massive combined arms assaults whereas NATO doctrine was use of tactical first strike nukes!

Russian artillery was awesome, but USAF planes ruled the skies. Some of the Naval assets are better on the US in those days, and the tanks well m60 could take out t-72/64 in those days no matter what armor the russian tank had. I think the only russian advantage well was the mineplows on tanks, sheer numbers of russian subs, artillery until the paladin and mlrs cameout. Lastly the Kirov, krestas, krivaks, sovrem, udaloys,slavas cruder but heavier armed than the USN variants... but a Burke/Tico then was still superior due to radar and defense/aegis. The mig25 was a crude bust only fast. One thing the su27 cameout in 1977 not long after the f-15 it's twin.. the mig29 cameout as the ram also in 77 after the f17/18 in 76.. both variants mig29 and f-18 entered in late 70's early 80's. The Blackjack was a copy of the B1A. The IL76 a copy of the old us plane used in Vietnam, forgot the name of it star??

Lol... Il-76 is definitely not a copy of C-141. Its more comparable with US C-17, but with shorter range (or may be C-130, but Il-76 has more carry capacity). Tu-160 is absolutely not a copy of B-1. Its another concept of strategic bombers. Its may look similar. Although, if you really mean B-1A (not B-1B), you may be partially right... US concept of universal VLA for warships is excellent, AEGIS radar system too. Russian warships are less cost-effective (which was not a problem for USSR). And they are more specialized. M60 is large and cumbersome. Its height made it an excellent target. In trained hands T-72 is far more effective than M60. Israeli tankers are really better than Arabs, arab T-72I are cheap export version with weak armor and bad optics. So, modified Israeli M60s with Blazer armor are more capable than Arab T-72s. And for USAF "ruling the skies" - always remember Russian SAMs ;-)