# Did American and Soviet troops ever actually shoot at each other in the cold war? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [January 28, 2014, 11:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-american-and-soviet-troops-ever-actually-shoot-at-each-other-in-the-cold-war/679998 "2014-01-28T23:56:17Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Gray\_Ghost](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/c0e974/32.png) [@Gray\_Ghost](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gray_Ghost)\ **Post date:** [January 29, 2014, 8:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-american-and-soviet-troops-ever-actually-shoot-at-each-other-in-the-cold-war/679998/21 "2014-01-29T20:26:42Z")
> [@Amateur\_Barbarian](#): > > It’s mentioned above, but worth expanding: the US sent some 15,000 troops to Russia in 1918-20 to help protect the railroads and other resources from Bolshevik forces. There were engagements and firefights and both divisions took casualties. It was most definitely a “cold war” action in two respects: the Reds eventually overthrew the US-supported Whites, leading to a century of armed face-off, and it WAS in Siberia, where the cold killed more US troops than anything else, and froze water-cooled weapons. It was a very cold war… insert jokes about salt treaties here. [Wiki](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allied_intervention_in_the_Russian_Civil_War) on the Allied Intervention in the Russian Civil War. I’d heard of the Archangels’k expedition, but didn’t realize there was another one to Vladivostok, that made it as far as Lake Baikal. Have you tried just googling his name? There are a few RB-47 incidents that resulted in DFCs: [28 April 1965](http://www.thefreelibrary.com/A+hot+day+in+a+Cold+War.+An+RB-47+vs.+Mig-17s,+April+28,+1965.-a0152512982), RB-47 vs DPRK MiG-17s; [8 May 1954](http://data-freeway.com/plesetsk/overflights.htm), RB-47E vs assorted MiGs near Murmansk; 28 September 1952, B-47B overflight of ~1000 miles of Siberia. I’m sure there are others. Here’s the DFC Society’s [Honor Roll](http://www.dfcsociety.net/?page_id=699). ---
**Author:** ![Amateur\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/59ef9b/32.png) [@Amateur\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Amateur_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [January 29, 2014, 9:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-american-and-soviet-troops-ever-actually-shoot-at-each-other-in-the-cold-war/679998/22 "2014-01-29T21:34:49Z")
> [@Gray\_Ghost](#): > > I’d heard of the Archangels’k expedition, but didn’t realize there was another one to Vladivostok, that made it as far as Lake Baikal. Yeah, you tell most Americans that we fought on Russian soil and they look at you like you’re a loon. > [@](#): > > Have you tried just googling his name? […] Here’s the DFC Society’s [Honor Roll](http://www.dfcsociety.net/?page_id=699). He shows up all over Google in his current profession - he’s just slightly famous in that respect - but the honor roll doesn’t list him. I am fairly sure he wasn’t making it up. It came up in a very strange context and he was very uncomfortable mentioning it. I ass/u/me that some cold war medals are not publicly noted or listed. ---
**Author:** ![aldiboronti](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9fc348/32.png) [@aldiboronti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aldiboronti)\ **Post date:** [January 29, 2014, 10:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-american-and-soviet-troops-ever-actually-shoot-at-each-other-in-the-cold-war/679998/23 "2014-01-29T22:05:06Z")
> [@griffin1977](#): > > Is it just me or is that article terribly written for someone who claims to be a history professor? No, not just you, [although the guy does seem to be kosher.](http://history.osu.edu/directory/Lerner26) Maybe they just don’t write as well as they once did. ---
**Author:** ![astorian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ad7895/32.png) [@astorian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astorian)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2014, 10:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-american-and-soviet-troops-ever-actually-shoot-at-each-other-in-the-cold-war/679998/24 "2014-01-30T22:51:59Z")
Not Russians in this case, but Cold War era commies: My father-in-law was a pilot in the Navy, and regularly flew spy missions over North Korea. Nothing really serious or cloak-and dagger. Generally, his orders were something like, “See how far you can get into North Korean air space before they detect you. As soon as they respond, get the hell out.” He says that, several times, North Korean planes shot at him… but he’s pretty sure they weren’t REALLY trying to kill him, just to send a warning. I’m sure incidents LIKE that happened many times, in many countries. You can be sure Francis Gary Powers isn’t the only spy pilot who flew over Russia and got shot at. In general, nothing came of these incidents But if an overly aggressive Russian or Korean pilot HAD killed some pilots like my father-in-law, we might have had a major incident. ---
**Author:** ![nevadaexile](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/eb8c5e/32.png) [@nevadaexile](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nevadaexile)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2014, 11:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-american-and-soviet-troops-ever-actually-shoot-at-each-other-in-the-cold-war/679998/25 "2014-01-30T23:16:13Z")
There were minor skirmishes when US and Red Army forces met along the Elbe in 1945 at the end of WWII. And it’s pretty clear that Soviet pilots were flying the MiGs during many engagements during the Korean War (intelligence ships could hear Russian being spoken between the aircraft and ground controllers) ---
**Author:** ![aruvqan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aruvqan/32/2891_2.png) [@aruvqan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aruvqan)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2014, 4:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-american-and-soviet-troops-ever-actually-shoot-at-each-other-in-the-cold-war/679998/26 "2014-01-31T16:12:44Z")
When mrAru and his submarine were somewhere classified [on a Northern Run, so obviously they were not playing around Tahiti] a Soviet sub locked them with ‘blocks of wood’ sonar - meaning they could have launched at his ship. Not really being shot at but very disconcerting nonetheless. ---
**Author:** ![Amateur\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/59ef9b/32.png) [@Amateur\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Amateur_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2014, 4:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-american-and-soviet-troops-ever-actually-shoot-at-each-other-in-the-cold-war/679998/27 "2014-01-31T16:17:18Z")
> [@astorian](#): > > You can be sure Francis Gary Powers isn’t the only spy pilot who flew over Russia and got shot at. It’s been a while since I read anything on Powers, but IIRC the Soviets did regularly fire SAMs at the U2s, but the altitude and quality issues usually made them explode 10k’s of feet below the targets. The Powers shootdown has never been conclusively resolved but if it wasn’t a failure of the plane or pilot error that brought him down, it was a very lucky shot from a highly modified SAM. ---
**Author:** ![shiftless](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e9c0ed/32.png) [@shiftless](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/shiftless)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2014, 4:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-american-and-soviet-troops-ever-actually-shoot-at-each-other-in-the-cold-war/679998/28 "2014-01-31T16:34:37Z")
During the Soviet war in Afganistan US congressman Charlie Wilson actually manned a 50 cal. to fire at Soviet helicopters. Did he really fire at real Soviet soldiers? I don’t know, but the book says he did. He sure as hell wanted too. There’s a picture at this [link](http://www.chasingthefrog.com/reelfaces/charliewilsonswar.php) ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2014, 4:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-american-and-soviet-troops-ever-actually-shoot-at-each-other-in-the-cold-war/679998/29 "2014-01-31T16:35:54Z")
Soviet warships also purposefully got too close and sometimes even collided with U.S. Navy vessels (playing “chicken of the sea”), as happened to the guided missile cruiser USS _Yorktown_ in the Black Sea in 1988: > **[USS Yorktown (CG-48)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Yorktown_(CG-48))** > > USS Yorktown (DDG-48/CG-48) was a Ticonderoga-class cruiser in the United States Navy from 1984 to 2004, named for the American Revolutionary War Battle of Yorktown. > Yorktown was launched 17 January 1983 and was sponsored by Mrs. Mary Matthews, widow of Nick Matthews, a prominent citizen of Yorktown, Virginia. Yorktown was commissioned on 4 July 1984 at Yorktown, Virginia, and was designed to take advantage of the American Aegis technology. Among its various weapon systems were surface to air... > **[12 Feb 1988: USS Yorktown vs. Bezzavetnyy](http://redbannernorthernfleet.blogspot.com/2010/02/12-feb-1988-uss-yorktown-vs-bezzavetnyy.html)** > >   The former Bezzavetnyy , shown in typical Ukrainian colors Two different views (with my very rough translation of Russian report): ... ---
**Author:** ![Amateur\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/59ef9b/32.png) [@Amateur\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Amateur_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2014, 4:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-american-and-soviet-troops-ever-actually-shoot-at-each-other-in-the-cold-war/679998/30 "2014-01-31T16:36:42Z")
> [@shiftless](#): > > During the Soviet war in Afganistan US congressman Charlie Wilson actually manned a 50 cal. to fire at Soviet helicopters. Did he really fire at real Soviet soldiers? I don’t know, but the book says he did. He sure as hell wanted too. It’s hard to tell how staged/meaningful this report and picture are - I keep thinking of “Tailgunner Joe” McCarthy and his famous pictures… shot outside an aircraft hangar, IIRC. ---
**Author:** ![astorian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ad7895/32.png) [@astorian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astorian)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2014, 7:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-american-and-soviet-troops-ever-actually-shoot-at-each-other-in-the-cold-war/679998/31 "2014-01-31T19:46:46Z")
> [@Amateur\_Barbarian](#): > > It’s been a while since I read anything on Powers, but IIRC the Soviets did regularly fire SAMs at the U2s, but the altitude and quality issues usually made them explode 10k’s of feet below the targets. > > The Powers shootdown has never been conclusively resolved but if it wasn’t a failure of the plane or pilot error that brought him down, it was a very lucky shot from a highly modified SAM. You’re probably right- regardless, I doubt whether the Russians actually wanted to kill Powers or any other spy pilot. They were just telling him, “We know you’re there, and we want you gone.” That’s probably what the North Koreans were telling my father-in-law. I have no doubt that the US has sent many spy planes into other nations’ territory, and that some of those planes have been shot at. Similarly, I’m sure other nations have sent spy planes over our turf, and we’ve sent out some planes to fire some shots and scare them off. I’m sure it didn’t seem like that big of a deal at the time. But any such incident held the potential for disaster. ---
**Author:** ![Amateur\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/59ef9b/32.png) [@Amateur\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Amateur_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2014, 8:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-american-and-soviet-troops-ever-actually-shoot-at-each-other-in-the-cold-war/679998/32 "2014-01-31T20:13:46Z")
> [@astorian](#): > > Similarly, I’m sure other nations have sent spy planes over our turf, and we’ve sent out some planes to fire some shots and scare them off. Completely from memory of what may have been a faulty report: I believe there were some UFO reports in the southern midwest that were due to MiG penetrations up the Mississippi river. Some were not intercepted and turned back for hundreds of miles, and rather than report this, the strange patterns of light in the sky from the invader and interceptors (and sometimes warning shots) were left unexplained… hence UFO reports. ---
**Author:** ![Sailboat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sailboat/32/461_2.png) [@Sailboat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sailboat)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2014, 8:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-american-and-soviet-troops-ever-actually-shoot-at-each-other-in-the-cold-war/679998/33 "2014-01-31T20:18:11Z")
Major Rudolf Anderson was killed by a Soviet-made, Soviet-supplied SA-2 missile fired by a Cuban missile battery during the Cuban Missile Crisis. It’s possible the missile crew was under supervision of Soviet advisors. Does that count? > **[Rudolf Anderson](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rudolf_Anderson)** > > Rudolf Anderson Jr. (September 15, 1927 – October 27, 1962) was an American and United States Air Force major and pilot. He was the first recipient of the Air Force Cross, the U.S. military's and Air Force's second-highest award and decoration for valor. The only U.S fatality by enemy fire during the Cuban Missile Crisis, Anderson died when his U-2 reconnaissance aircraft was shot down over Cuba. He had previously served in Korea after the Korean War ended. He is seen as a war-hero in American ... ---
**Author:** ![rbroome](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/838e76/32.png) [@rbroome](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rbroome)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2014, 9:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-american-and-soviet-troops-ever-actually-shoot-at-each-other-in-the-cold-war/679998/34 "2014-02-01T21:07:00Z")
> [@Amateur\_Barbarian](#): > > Completely from memory of what may have been a faulty report: I believe there were some UFO reports in the southern midwest that were due to MiG penetrations up the Mississippi river. Some were not intercepted and turned back for hundreds of miles, and rather than report this, the strange patterns of light in the sky from the invader and interceptors (and sometimes warning shots) were left unexplained… hence UFO reports. From where might these MiGs have come from? It is about 700 miles from Havana to New Orleans. I believe that is outside the effective radius of most MiGs. See: [http://www.fas.org/spp/aircraft/table\_ag.htm](http://www.fas.org/spp/aircraft/table_ag.htm) Were they supposing that MiGs made use of aerial refueling in the middle of the Gulf of Mexico? I could better imagine longer range soviet aircraft. But MiGs doesn’t seem reasonable. It would be like the US sending an F104 on a long-range intelligence flight… ---
**Author:** ![Bijou\_Drains](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bijou_drains/32/2814_2.png) [@Bijou\_Drains](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bijou_Drains)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2014, 1:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-american-and-soviet-troops-ever-actually-shoot-at-each-other-in-the-cold-war/679998/35 "2014-02-02T01:58:49Z")
Some people think soviets sank a US sub in 1968 but it’s not proven [USS Scorpion (SSN-589) - Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Scorpion_%28SSN-589%29) ---
**Author:** ![syncrolecyne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f08c70/32.png) [@syncrolecyne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/syncrolecyne)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2014, 2:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-american-and-soviet-troops-ever-actually-shoot-at-each-other-in-the-cold-war/679998/36 "2014-02-02T02:36:07Z")
> [@griffin1977](#): > > Is it just me or is that article terribly written for someone who claims to be a history professor? I will be generous and assume it is a transcription of a lecture or talk (it says “rapporteur” at the end). ---
**Author:** ![stealthbiker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a698b9/32.png) [@stealthbiker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/stealthbiker)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2016, 4:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-american-and-soviet-troops-ever-actually-shoot-at-each-other-in-the-cold-war/679998/37 "2016-11-26T16:23:44Z")
Last military conflict with the Russians during the Cold War was here > **[The Last Incident Of The Cold War](https://militaryhumor.net/the-last-incident-of-the-cold-war/)** > > The Cold War was slowly coming to an end and the relations between the USSR and the USA were pacified but old tensions and animosities remained unabated. In the beginning of 1988, cruiser USS Yorktown (DDG-48/CG-48) and destroyer USS Caron... [![](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/N4jQhnXrWbg/hqdefault.jpg "USS Caron getting rammed by the Russians in the Black Sea - Feb 1988") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N4jQhnXrWbg) ---
**Author:** ![Leo\_Bloom](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/leo_bloom/32/10377_2.png) [@Leo\_Bloom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leo_Bloom)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2016, 4:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-american-and-soviet-troops-ever-actually-shoot-at-each-other-in-the-cold-war/679998/38 "2016-11-26T16:37:16Z")
Pertinent to the prehistory, the excellent GQ thread **[List of last occurences in WWII](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=757639)**, which should be inserted\* in toto\* in Wiki, with each poster given credit. ---
**Author:** ![DSYoungEsq](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/c6cbf5/32.png) [@DSYoungEsq](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSYoungEsq)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2016, 5:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-american-and-soviet-troops-ever-actually-shoot-at-each-other-in-the-cold-war/679998/39 "2016-11-26T17:03:52Z")
Love when zombie threads get re-opened. ---
**Author:** ![Corry\_El](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ecae2f/32.png) [@Corry\_El](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Corry_El)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2016, 9:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-american-and-soviet-troops-ever-actually-shoot-at-each-other-in-the-cold-war/679998/40 "2016-11-26T21:10:15Z")
> [@TroutMan](#): > > Again not really small arms fire, but a few Soviet pilots were covertly involved in the Korean war and probably fired on US troops at some point. It was far from a few and they were not advisers. The MiG-15’s the UN forces encountered over Korea were almost entirely from regular units of the Soviet Air Forces from the time they were first encountered in early November 1950 until the following September. Thereafter a significant % of the opposition were units of the PLAAF (Chinese) and KPAAF (North Korean) but the Soviets were still most of the opposition effectiveness-wise until the last few months of the war in 1953. The USAF downed over 300 Soviet AF MiG-15’s in the Korean War per Russian count, and the majority of around 175 UN a/c of all types downed in air combat over Korea were victims of Soviet MiG’s. In addition, regular Soviet antiaircraft units, guns, searchlights and radar, were routinely encountered by UN a/c over North Korea. They also suffered significant personnel casualties to UN bombing. Soviet ground advisers were present with North Korean forces at the start of the war, but it’s not clear whether any were actually seen by US forces. There are such stories, but they could be apocryphal, some of the well known ones seem to be. For example there’s a common story of a Soviet adviser killed in a T-34 tank in the early fighting, but the surviving KPA’s tank unit personnel were largely captured after the retreat of North Koreans in September-October 1950, there are many interviews with POW’s from those units, and none of them mention Soviet advisers actually manning tanks. Anyway when including aerial warfare the Korean War was far and way the biggest case where US and Soviet forces directly engaged one another during the Cold War. It had a limited political impact because the Soviets were attempting to keep it secret, and the US might have played along with that. For example ‘secret’ level USAF documents of the times speak of Soviet ‘pilots’, and at that level it’s disclosed that Russian language radio transmissions were intercepted, but it’s possible at higher classifications (stuff still not declassified) the US realized the actual situation. It was somewhat confusing because Soviet fighter units rotated between training duty for Chinese and NK pilots inside China and flying direct combat missions on their own over North Korea. The USAF (again at least up to ‘secret’) seems to have confused this with Soviet pilots flying as advisers with Chinese/NK units over NK, which in case of the Chinese they did not. It’s possible some Soviet advisers flew with NK units, but again a lot of the MiG opposition was just regular Soviet units. The US knew the real situation shortly after the armistice in 1953 when the North Korean MiG-15 pilot No Kum-sok defected. He’d been based with the Soviet units at Antung in China and told the USAF all about it. Although it’s possible the USAF wasn’t sure his account was reliable (it can now known be seen to have been highly accurate; No knew and named some of the Soviet pilots now celebrated as ‘aces’ against the USAF). And anyway his account remained secret till much later. The Soviet involvement mainly became common knowledge when the Russians declassified some of their archives in the 1990’s. In contrast there’s no documentary evidence Soviet pilots flew combat missions in the Vietnam War. There are some individual stories claiming that, but neither the VPAF official history or the declassified Soviet GRU history of the air war mention it. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-american-and-soviet-troops-ever-actually-shoot-at-each-other-in-the-cold-war/679998.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-american-and-soviet-troops-ever-actually-shoot-at-each-other-in-the-cold-war/679998.md?page=3)