WHY?

oz codger

oz codger

Active member
If the Super-Dooper model of the Russian S.400 is so good, then why did the "2nd rate" US cruise missiles not get shot out of the sky?

Did they need a weeks notice to get ready, did they not have all the terrific radars to tell them the sky was full of Tomahawks?

Is the Russian stuff full of b******t? Just like saddam's?

Will the next Super Dooper be invincible?

OC
 
I assume you realise that (and this applies to all countries) along with new weaponry comes new propaganda to tell you how great it is.

For example, stealth is only stealth from certain angles, impregnable armour is never impregnable and shooting down missiles is not an easy thing to do, no one has a foolproof system of doing it.

The reality is that most missile defence systems barely get a 50% pass mark and even that involves fudging the numbers, my personal belief is that until someone comes up with a UAV that can shadow the launcher and get the missile while it is slow and on a fixed trajectory then it I all just a 50/50 lottery.
 
Monty,

Have to agree with that, and I do wonder at the western media slant of "Russian and Chinese stuff is great and the American stuff is crap".

We had an 'expert' called Major Peter Young here in the days prior to the invasion of Iraq, and he stated on national TV that an invasion of Iraq would cost the US "50,000 dead". It was all over in 100 hours, and very few Yanks were killed, far less than the 'Invincible Guard' I think they called themselves.

Never seen him on TV since.

OC
 
oz codger said:
Monty,

Have to agree with that, and I do wonder at the western media slant of "Russian and Chinese stuff is great and the American stuff is crap".

We had an 'expert' called Major Peter Young here in the days prior to the invasion of Iraq, and he stated on national TV that an invasion of Iraq would cost the US "50,000 dead". It was all over in 100 hours, and very few Yanks were killed, far less than the 'Invincible Guard' I think they called themselves.

Never seen him on TV since.

OC
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Clearly that was someone who swallowed the WMD story hook, line and sinker.

Conversely I recall talking to a guy in the reception at work and it turns out he had been part of the UN weapons inspection team, he said there was nothing to find, seems he was right.

Then again your guy wasnt entirely wrong as the number of dead and wounded US personnel up to 2016 is about 36,000.
 
"Then again your guy wasnt entirely wrong as the number of dead and wounded US personnel up to 2016 is about 36,000."



Major Young was referring to 50,000 DEAD as a cost of the invasion.

And i doubt that the WMD question was what he had in mind, it was the supposed cost of KIAs in conventional battle. He mentioned the T72 as a major factor and threat to the 'Abrams'. I read a claim thet the battle made a VERY big impression on Russia and China.

OC
 
oz codger said:
"Then again your guy wasnt entirely wrong as the number of dead and wounded US personnel up to 2016 is about 36,000."



Major Young was referring to 50,000 DEAD as a cost of the invasion.

And i doubt that the WMD question was what he had in mind, it was the supposed cost of KIAs in conventional battle. He mentioned the T72 as a major factor and threat to the 'Abrams'. I read a claim thet the battle made a VERY big impression on Russia and China.

OC
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I am not sure what people saw in the T-72 by 2003, I am sure the Russian non-export version was a reasonable MBT in the 1970s but by the 2000s the export version was always going to be outclassed by modern MBTs.

Everyone I have ever spoken to about Russian armour says they make probably the worlds best gun but everything else about them hasn't really progressed since 1970.

What the latest Russian MBT is like I have no idea, there is no doubt that they have put in the effort to modernise but everything about the Russian military needed to change from the mindset up and I am not sure they are capable of that in the short term.
 
MontyB said:
I am not sure what people saw in the T-72 by 2003, I am sure the Russian non-export version was a reasonable MBT in the 1970s but by the 2000s the export version was always going to be outclassed by modern MBTs.

Everyone I have ever spoken to about Russian armour says they make probably the worlds best gun but everything else about them hasn't really progressed since 1970.

What the latest Russian MBT is like I have no idea, there is no doubt that they have put in the effort to modernise but everything about the Russian military needed to change from the mindset up and I am not sure they are capable of that in the short term.
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Russian tanks have been based on the same design since the JS tank appeared, it followed with the T54/55, the T62, the T64, the T72, the T80, and the T90. They were all based on the Soviet/Russian doctrine. A doctrine that worked against the Germans during the Second World War and the Cold War. The Russians focused more on quantitative than on quality. With saying that, Russian equipment is that bad, it's robust. It works when you want it to work. However, Russian tanks have much lesser of protection than their Western counterparts. The Russian tanks are smaller and weigh lesser than NATO tanks. I have read things about Russian tank losses during the Georgian conflict, and the Russians suffered a lot of tank losses during the conflict. It is hard to verify the exact amount of losses, so the empirical evidence is shaky. But the Russians began to realize their tank design was obsolete. I think they began to develop the Armata tank and the Armata IFV shorty after the Georgian war. If the Russians get the Armata to work and produce it large numbers is too early to say. The Russians have a tendency to make prototypes, but then lacking the funds to mass produce their weaponry. We will see if the Armata is to be taken seriously
 
I3BrigPvSk said:
Russian tanks have been based on the same design since the JS tank appeared, it followed with the T54/55, the T62, the T64, the T72, the T80, and the T90. They were all based on the Soviet/Russian doctrine. A doctrine that worked against the Germans during the Second World War and the Cold War. The Russians focused more on quantitative than on quality. With saying that, Russian equipment is that bad, it's robust. It works when you want it to work. However, Russian tanks have much lesser of protection than their Western counterparts. The Russian tanks are smaller and weigh lesser than NATO tanks. I have read things about Russian tank losses during the Georgian conflict, and the Russians suffered a lot of tank losses during the conflict. It is hard to verify the exact amount of losses, so the empirical evidence is shaky. But the Russians began to realize their tank design was obsolete. I think they began to develop the Armata tank and the Armata IFV shorty after the Georgian war. If the Russians get the Armata to work and produce it large numbers is too early to say. The Russians have a tendency to make prototypes, but then lacking the funds to mass produce their weaponry. We will see if the Armata is to be taken seriously
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I think the biggest problem is that the Russians believe their own BS, just look at the data available for the much-vaunted T-90, if word of mouth is to be believed they would only need one to take over the world, yet it is vapourware, nothing more than a prototype.

The last time Russian armour could legitimately go toe to toe with a Western force was probably about 1950 but once the west perfected combined arms use and built the weapons needed to make it work the Russian military became a drunk dinosaur.

Russia is in many ways still fighting Napoleonic type wars, where brute force and numbers won the result is an archaic and obsolete force.
 
The Israeli wars in 1967 and 1973 confirms what you are saying. The Syrians and the Egyptians were issued Russian tanks, maybe not their latest version, but what they had was the best Russian tanks in the 1950s. I have only watched one doc about the Korean war and I don't really want to draw any conclusions from the doc (battle tanks, or something like that) But both sides used what I know mostly tanks from the Second World War. They might have been updated since then, but still
 
I3BrigPvSk said:
The Israeli wars in 1967 and 1973 confirms what you are saying. The Syrians and the Egyptians were issued Russian tanks, maybe not their latest version, but what they had was the best Russian tanks in the 1950s. I have only watched one doc about the Korean war and I don't really want to draw any conclusions from the doc (battle tanks, or something like that) But both sides used what I know mostly tanks from the Second World War. They might have been updated since then, but still
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I guess there is a reason the Korean war is called the forgotten war.
:)


To be honest I am in a similar position and know nothing about the Korean war mainly because my father never spoke about it (although he spoke readily about his WW2 service), my overall impression is that Korea is not a terrain suited to armoured warfare.
 
MontyB said:
I guess there is a reason the Korean war is called the forgotten war.
:)


To be honest I am in a similar position and know nothing about the Korean war mainly because my father never spoke about it (although he spoke readily about his WW2 service), my overall impression is that Korea is not a terrain suited to armoured warfare.
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We can begin to watch docs and read about the Korean war and maybe we can find something interesting to discuss. We will probably increase our knowledge about it too.
 
I3BrigPvSk said:
We can begin to watch docs and read about the Korean war and maybe we can find something interesting to discuss. We will probably increase our knowledge about it too.
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The only thing I know about the Korean War was the TV series ""MASH""

Oh, I do know Michael Caine served in Korea. Not a lot of people know that.
 
The little I know about the Korean war is; The North attacked South and they were initially successful. The North Korean offensive was halted around the bridgehead around the port city Pusan (southeast of South Korea) The allied launched a counter offensive and conducted an amphibian assault at, I will spell this wrong, Itiun. It doesn't matter much, they landed west of Seoul. The Allied offensive continued across the North/South border. When they approached the Chinese border, the Chinese got pissed about it and intervened in the war. The Chinese/North Korean forces pushed the allied back to more or less where the border is today. After that, the war turned into something that reminds of the First World War
 
BritinAfrica said:
If I remember correctly MacArthur wanted to use nukes, I believe he was stopped by the US president.
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Yes, Truman fired him. If he did that because of he wanted to use nukes or if there was something more behind the decision to sack MacArthur, I don't know.

MacArthur had a huge ego and that can be disturbing.
 
I3BrigPvSk said:
Yes, Truman fired him. If he did that because of he wanted to use nukes or if there was something more behind the decision to sack MacArthur, I don't know.

MacArthur had a huge ego and that can be disturbing.
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So did Patton have a huge ego. In my opinion there is more to his death then meets the eye
 
BritinAfrica said:
So did Patton have a huge ego. In my opinion there is more to his death then meets the eye
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Maybe, there are theories about it.

I have found something about the Korean war. The majority of the weapons were from the Second World War. I assume they were updated. That's not case for what happened in the air. Both sides had fighter jets. The Americans had the Sabre and the NK/China had MIG-15 and MIG-17. The Americans may had a jet bomber too. I'm thinking about a bomber plane, but I don't remember what it was called
 
I3BrigPvSk said:
Maybe, there are theories about it.

I have found something about the Korean war. The majority of the weapons were from the Second World War. I assume they were updated. That's not case for what happened in the air. Both sides had fighter jets. The Americans had the Sabre and the NK/China had MIG-15 and MIG-17. The Americans may had a jet bomber too. I'm thinking about a bomber plane, but I don't remember what it was called
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As a matter of interest the MIG15's flew with a Rolls Royce Nene engines thanks to Sir Stafford Cripps and the Labour Party
 
BritinAfrica said:
As a matter of interest the MIG15's flew with a Rolls Royce Nene engines thanks to Sir Stafford Cripps and the Labour Party
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Yes, I know. I bet the British government regretted that...

Shall we ask Red about moving the Korean war part of this thread to the modern war section?

Norway had its National Day the 17th this month so he might have a hangover still
 
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