I believe redneck that the reason the Russian hardware did poorly in the Arab-Israeli wars was that they were operated by inefficient, poorly educated, and horribly trained crew members. Put a German, American, or a Russian crew behind those same Russian equipment and you will see how well they fare against American equipment.

When Russian pilots were flying Russian jets in Korea we have seen how well their kill rate was against Western fighters. I believe the reason why Russian equipment got a bit of tarnished history is because the Soviets supplied them to untrained, peasant, 3rd world armies. Have you seen how well Russian equipment that was captured by the West did in tests flown by Western pilots in many of the cases the West was impressed at the Russian hardware. In Germany when the wall came down, East German MiG-29 fulcrums piloted by German pilots beat their American counterparts in dog fight practices, and no you can't say they had western avionics in them because at that time the East German MiGs had no single Western avionics.

Put an American Marine or Army tank crew behind a T-72 tank and put an Iraq crew behind a M1 and you will see how badly the M1 loses in combat. My whole point is When Russian equipment was operated by well trained crews they did superb but when you hand those equipment to a peasant and 3rd world army against a well trained Westernized army they will do poor and it all comes down to who is operating the equipment.

Originally Posted by UnitedSomalia

I believe redneck that the reason the Russian hardware did poorly in the Arab-Israeli wars was that they were operated by inefficient, poorly educated, and horribly trained crew members. Put a German, American, or a Russian crew behind those same Russian equipment and you will see how well they fare against American equipment.

When Russian pilots were flying Russian jets in Korea we have seen how well their kill rate was against Western fighters. I believe the reason why Russian equipment got a bit of tarnished history is because the Soviets supplied them to untrained, peasant, 3rd world armies. Have you seen how well Russian equipment that was captured by the West did in tests flown by Western pilots in many of the cases the West was impressed at the Russian hardware. In Germany when the wall came down, East German MiG-29 fulcrums piloted by German pilots beat their American counterparts in dog fight practices, and no you can't say they had western avionics in them because at that time the East German MiGs had no single Western avionics.

Put an American Marine or Army tank crew behind a T-72 tank and put an Iraq crew behind a M1 and you will see how badly the M1 loses in combat. My whole point is When Russian equipment was operated by well trained crews they did superb but when you hand those equipment to a peasant and 3rd world army against a well trained Westernized army they will do poor and it all comes down to who is operating the equipment.

Is that why the russian equipment have worked so well first in the 80,s in Afghanistan and then at a later date in Tchetchenia?
I would love to hear about where you have seen russian kit in action..
The russkies have done some good low tech kit.
Like the AK47, AKM and their combat shovel.
The Mi24 Hind is an exception that have done fairly well in action, still the fact is they had ineffective countermeasures against SAM,s.
Wich the Mujahedin proved over and over again.

The rest of their kit is just for show.

Russia have got the 2'nd harsh landscape in the world second to Africa, Most to all African country's uses Russian equipment in their Defense and it works nice, Angola South African war Russian Land Mine's was, tamed by The south African, when the world spend Billions On making good to best We The south Africa build the only weapons that can handle all land mine, "not sure on all IED, CNN did a test try to blow up a south African APC on Military.com is the clip" Hind yes no counter measures but very good, Russians make Practical weapons that work that is LOW TECH and it work as you say use better trained crew and the Russian junk will be victorious Russian weapons aircraft, tank, APC, or hand held gun must be easily fix with little to no TECH center close by. Yes hail the TECH but in war what is practical is what will win the war WW2 proved it between the Germans and the Russians.

I must go with Eurocopter because I don't know the others except from movies

When Russian pilots were flying Russian jets in Korea we have seen how well their kill rate was against Western fighters

The kill ratios in Korea were fudgedby the russians, and i dont think anyone can trust soviet kill reports. In the 1970s russian pilots faced israeli ones in egypt and had a terrible kill ratio.

The problem is not only the gear, sometimes russian gear was betterthan western gear. The problem was the russian operational methods that are good for a country with 40000 and endless ground to manouver on. That was not the case for most of their clients.

Tactically, and in realistic terms, how important is a mast-mounted millimeter wave radar? Do you think it's a must-have or can an attack helicopter do its job without it?



On this Ka-52 we're also seeing some electro-optics above the cockpit.

Originally Posted by SHERMAN

The kill ratios in Korea were fudgedby the russians, and i dont think anyone can trust soviet kill reports. In the 1970s russian pilots faced israeli ones in egypt and had a terrible kill ratio.

The problem is not only the gear, sometimes russian gear was betterthan western gear. The problem was the russian operational methods that are good for a country with 40000 and endless ground to manouver on. That was not the case for most of their clients.

Where were these Russian pilots that Israel faced in Egypt? What prove is their that Russia ever sent it pilots? Trust me if the Soviet Union sent their pilots to fly for the Arabs the air wars would have turned out very different, Soviets had very skilled pilots. Were any of these pilots ever captured? Have any ever been identified? The answer I believe is no.

I think the reason Russian equipment did poorly in many instances was because they were being operated by uneducated, peasant, 3rd world armies. In instances were these Russian equipment was operated by well trained crews they bested their Western counterparts.

Again, that's simply not the case.
Russian equipment has for the most part been sub par, especially when it comes to modern times. It's not hard to explain why: Western weapons platforms have been improving like crazy even after the Cold War ended with the advances in technology, especially computer technology. Russian equipment, not so.
Then I have a question for you: why is it that poor, 3rd rate countries go for Russian gear while the countries that can actually afford it, tend to buy either American or European hardware to make the backbone of their military? It can't be because they have an obsession with paying more money for something that has the same performance. It's because the experts know. The Russian stuff is rarely good enough.

The Soviets like everyone else never exported their top of the line gear, tanks, aircraft, SAM's none of it with a few very notable exceptions was exported with all the bells and whistles that the Red Army had, they were export models. Not high tech and dumbed down.

The South African Rooivalk is relatively low maintenance as well.

Originally Posted by the_13th_redneck

But then again we can talk about the SKS which may have been more common, especially early in the war and those things were horrible.

Don't knock the SKS, man. It may have already been obsolete (semi-auto, internal mag) when it was designed but that doesn't make it a bad weapon. It's quite reliable and durable, ridiculously easy to maintain, and slightly more accurate than the Kalashnikov.