United States vs Russia capability questions

[WhiteWolf65]

Good morning all,

I am playing several scenarios of CMBS as the Russian player vs the Americans and I have some questions about the capabilities or lack thereof as far as the Russians are concerned. 1) Is Russian night vision equipment as bad as it seems in the game? Is American night vision equipment as good as it seems in the game? One of the scenarios I am playing is one taking place at night and I am playing the Russian. It almost seems that the American player can see through walls at times. No sooner do I get an anti-tank unit (Kornets) or MG set-up then it gets ripped to shreds by infantry or armored vehicle small arms fire. All I see are the "ghost" icons of either the infantry or the armored units with my other units that do have a clear LOS to the enemy units. 2) Why is it that a Russian artillery barrage takes up to three to four times longer to arrive than it does for an American artillery barrage to arrive? Is the Russian command communication network that bad in reality? I am not really complaining about these two issues, just wondering is all.

**Chris**

[AttorneyAtWar]

The American night-vision optics are a blend of NVG and thermal imaging so yes they are absolutely superior to the Russians NVG's. Keep in mind that EVERY US soldier has this optic as well so that is a huge force multiplier when fighting at night. As for vehicle optics I think steel beasts shows how advanced targeting/commander optics are on vehicles like the M1A2 SEP.

 

 

As for Russian artillery delays I agree that they are a little to long compared to the Americans.

 

Edited June 6, 2019 by Raptorx7

[Sgt.Squarehead]

1 hour ago, WhiteWolf65 said:

It almost seems that the American player can see through walls at times.

They can.  They can do it in CM:SF2 too!  

While testing Coup I drove a vehicle past a building with no windows on that side and a tall wall between us and it, but still received small arms fire from the (very competent) US team inside!  

I believe @MOS:96B2P saw it take place.

[IMHO]

4 hours ago, Raptorx7 said:

The American night-vision optics are a blend of NVG and thermal imaging so yes they are absolutely superior to the Russians NVG's. Keep in mind that EVERY US soldier has this optic

It's been bought for select units only. And it's lacking from combat vids so most probably it wasn't actually fielded en mass even in those units.

[AttorneyAtWar]

1 minute ago, IMHO said:

It's been bought for select units only. And it's lacking from combat vids so most probably it wasn't actually fielded en mass even in those units.

I meant every soldier in-game, but yes you are definitely right in that these are only deployed in large numbers to active units in Europe for example.

[IMHO]

1 minute ago, Raptorx7 said:

I meant every soldier in-game, but yes you are definitely right in that these are only deployed in large numbers to active units in Europe for example.

Sure? Do you have information on this? AFAIK it's been bought for "quick response" units not specifically for European deployment.

[DMS]

Forward observer calls artillery fast enough, 5 minutes for 152 howitzers. Mortars - yes, they are too slow for unit organic weapons. And AGS lack indirect fire capability. They are widely used in this role in Donbass. Indirect fire is described in manual, it is "official" feature of the weapon.

[AttorneyAtWar]

12 minutes ago, IMHO said:

Sure? Do you have information on this? AFAIK it's been bought for "quick response" units not specifically for European deployment.

I can't find a good source for what units exactly have them, but what I can say is that my friend in the Army received them (ENVG 1/2 which has the thermal/NVG fusion technology) during training about two years ago and that his unit actively rotates through Europe.

As for numbers I only have a wikipedia link that has multiple sources cited at the bottom, apparently about 25,000 ENVG 2 and 1 sets have been bought by the US army since 2003. The ENVG 3 will start rolling out this year and the army plans to buy 45,000 of them in total.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AN/PSQ-20

https://www.army.mil/article/219674/army_to_field_new_night_vision_goggles

I know that's not ideal but its all I got. I think its fair to say that active units that are the most likely to see combat will be sufficiently equipped with these.

Edited June 6, 2019 by Raptorx7

[IMHO]

4 hours ago, WhiteWolf65 said:

1) Is Russian night vision equipment as bad as it seems in the game? Is American night vision equipment as good as it seems in the game? One of the scenarios I am playing is one taking place at night and I am playing the Russian. It almost seems that the American player can see through walls at times. No sooner do I get an anti-tank unit (Kornets) or MG set-up then it gets ripped to shreds by infantry or armored vehicle small arms fire. All I see are the "ghost" icons of either the infantry or the armored units with my other units that do have a clear LOS to the enemy units.

Equipment that is fielded en masse lags behind US level for about 25 years. Russian Army sees as if it were few years after the First Gulf War. Equipment that is fielded in limited numbers is more advanced - say about 7 years behind American level. Lab-produced matrices are just 3-4 years behind American standard but Russia lacks capacity to produce them in significant numbers.

4 hours ago, WhiteWolf65 said:

2) Why is it that a Russian artillery barrage takes up to three to four times longer to arrive than it does for an American artillery barrage to arrive? Is the Russian command communication network that bad in reality?

Nope it's just BFC firmly believes Russian Army is stuck somewhere in "glorious 80s". In reality the Army of today operates in combined arms Battalion Combat Groups. A Russian commander will have more tubes and MRLSes readily available than an American one. As per the grunts-airmen interoperability - the delay will be higher than for the US since Russian Army is more reserved about keeping aircraft on station for anyone to call an immediate ad-hoc strike. One can judge from Syria experience, having just a handful of aircraft on the theater Russia was able to exert significantly higher pressure on the opponents than the Coalition. Strike-to-sorties ratio for the Russian aircraft must be many times higher than for the Coalition aircraft.

[Sgt.Squarehead]

10 minutes ago, IMHO said:

Lab-produced matrices are just 3-4 years behind American standard but Russia lacks capacity to produce them in significant numbers.

I see a profitable opportunity for some cooperation with China right there. 

[IMHO]

15 minutes ago, Sgt.Squarehead said:

I see a profitable opportunity for some cooperation with China right there. 

China lacks it as well  At lab level Russia walks in step with France though production capacity lags materially behind. Actually Russia is pretty advanced in I2/IR but they are expensive so Russia Army does not order them in numbers.

Edited June 6, 2019 by IMHO

[ikalugin]

It is much easier to produce optics for IRSTs (or even tank sights) than to mass issue them to infantry.

[sburke]

On ‎6‎/‎6‎/‎2019 at 1:30 PM, IMHO said:

Nope it's just BFC firmly believes Russian Army is stuck somewhere in "glorious 80s".

It isn't just an issue of technical equipment but also in use.  Russia severely lacks the experienced NCO capability of the US forces and that significantly affects how you can use the capabilities you might have.  Sending a smoking stink hole of a carrier to support troops in Syria also didn't inspire much confidence in the "modern" Russian military.  Yeah the balance point should likely be a little more in Russia's favor particularly as their better troops would presumably be deployed for a head on conflict as represented in CMBS, but you can't ignore the reality that it is an army still struggling to transition with layers of bureaucracy and corruption impeding that transition.

[Rheinstoff]

Russian Navy is most certainly the weakest link in Russian military as a whole, especially if it is used for (attempted) projection of power. However, using it to argue for slower artillery response time is quite an interesting way to see it.

[sburke]

4 minutes ago, Rheinstoff said:

Russian Navy is most certainly the weakest link in Russian military as a whole, especially if it is used for (attempted) projection of power. However, using it to argue for slower artillery response time is quite an interesting way to see it.

Wasn't using it as a particular argument for that, simply saying stated Russian capability versus the reality is sometimes quite a different kettle of fish.  Can someone show what real life Russian capability in response time is given real battlefield conditions?  US at least has some projections based on actual combat from veterans who contribute feedback to BF.  Not sure we have the same data cycle when it comes to Russian experience.

[ikalugin]

1 hour ago, sburke said:

It isn't just an issue of technical equipment but also in use.  Russia severely lacks the experienced NCO capability of the US forces and that significantly affects how you can use the capabilities you might have.  Sending a smoking stink hole of a carrier to support troops in Syria also didn't inspire much confidence in the "modern" Russian military.  Yeah the balance point should likely be a little more in Russia's favor particularly as their better troops would presumably be deployed for a head on conflict as represented in CMBS, but you can't ignore the reality that it is an army still struggling to transition with layers of bureaucracy and corruption impeding that transition.

First of all - Soviet patern army does not require excellent NCO corps, because it is not built around said corps. This is reflected, for example, in how officer corps get trained in such a system.

Second of all - Russia currently has more contract soldiers and NCOs than the consripted soldiers and NCOs, particularly in combat roles, where the bulk (around 2/3 manning) of Ground Forces units (ie across the board for line units) are now made out of the said contract soldiers and NCOs, many of whom were rotated through various combat deployments (ie aforementioned Syria). The transition has already, essentially, happened, you just seem to be living atleast 5 years in the past.

Note that there are no "elite" small core forces made out of the contract soldiers and NCOs - they are now commonplace. Very much unlike what CMBS etc would imply, yes.

Edited June 27, 2019 by ikalugin

[ikalugin]

28 minutes ago, sburke said:

Wasn't using it as a particular argument for that, simply saying stated Russian capability versus the reality is sometimes quite a different kettle of fish.  Can someone show what real life Russian capability in response time is given real battlefield conditions?  US at least has some projections based on actual combat from veterans who contribute feedback to BF.  Not sure we have the same data cycle when it comes to Russian experience.

Not without a large scale war, however you would be welcome to look into the snap drills that we now conduct fairly regularly and which include moving random brigades around ~5500km by rail.

[sburke]

Making a Sergeant a contract soldier versus a conscript does not result in anything different unless you treat the position different.  That is a bigger cultural issue in how officers approach the position.  Other pieces can also give one perspective for example what is the retention rate for enlistment.  Is that reflective of interest in the position or lack of general opportunity in the economy etc.  Data may be hard to get, this is a link for US service reenlistment rates that seems to be relatively current.  https://search.yahoo.com/search;_ylt=Awr9CWz5NBVdPg0ApARXNyoA;_ylu=X3oDMTEwbHI2ZzczBGNvbG8DZ3ExBHBvcwMxBHZ0aWQDBHNlYwNyZWwtYm90?p=us+army+reenlistment+rate+sergeants+association+2018+schedule&ei=UTF-8&fr2=rs-bottom%2Cp%3As%2Cv%3Aw%2Cm%3Aat-s&fr=opensearch

The link may be funky but I did find the doc

 

Saying essentially  Russia is a fully modern army should be able to compete on equal footing because they can …….ride a train. Doesn't inspire much confidence.  Snap drills versus what we do with regular rotations in our national training areas is like night and day.  

there needs more actual data based on actual experience if you want to make an argument for BF to change the models in game for capability.

Re enlistement rates.pdf

Edited June 27, 2019 by sburke

[IMHO]

@sburke,

1. There was a live video from Syria on how CAS happens now in the Russian Army. One can time it and compare to CMxx values.
2. Whereas US Army struggles with getting recruits Russian Army is now awash with people willing to serve as a contract soldier. Russian Army salaries are now times higher than an  average salary one can get anywhere except for most populous cities.
3. Modern Syria war can be a good proxy for measuring relative performance. At least the data on Air Force performance is open on both sides - there are coalition and Russian MoD reports. Compare number of sorties per helo/plane, number of combat sorties, number of targets hit etc. One can see that Russian MoD was way more successful in getting as much as possible from their air platforms if not in terms of how advanced they are.

Edited June 28, 2019 by IMHO

[FoxZz]

Tbh, comparing Coalition and Russia in Syria can be very misleading, it's easy to have high number of target hits and combat sorties when you bomb indinstinctivly (on purpose ?) civilian and military targets and when you have very flexible RoE ... The fact that Russian planes almost always use non guided bomb should be a hint.

I think the Russian army is force to be recon with, and I think CM:BS depicts it well, when you use the appropriate unit to order artillery fires you get very good response times, imho the issue is more with the US army which was kind of overbuffed in some aspects which explains the imbalance. The Abrams could certainly be toned down a little and it should not whistand so many artillery hits, the APS systems which were not fitted in 2017 or the modern grenade launcher which I have never seen other than in the game are also over abundant in my mind. That being said, the US has a tactical technical edge, and this should be balanced by scenario designers.

 

[IMHO]

2 hours ago, FoxZz said:

Tbh, comparing Coalition and Russia in Syria can be very misleading, it's easy to have high number of target hits and combat sorties when you bomb indinstinctivly (on purpose ?) civilian and military targets and when you have very flexible RoE ... The fact that Russian planes almost always use non guided bomb should be a hint.

This is Raqqa. Where exactly do you see "discriminative" Coalition bombing?

[WhiteWolf65]

On 6/6/2019 at 4:41 PM, Sgt.Squarehead said:

I see a profitable opportunity for some cooperation with China right there. 

Yeah right.

[FoxZz]

9 hours ago, IMHO said:

This is Raqqa. Where exactly do you see "discriminative" Coalition bombing?

You know very well most of those destructions don't come only from planes.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian–Syrian_hospital_bombing_campaign

I'll just leave that here as an example and won't say more not to derail the thread.

[IICptMillerII]

16 hours ago, IMHO said:

Whereas US Army struggles with getting recruits Russian Army is now awash with people willing to serve as a contract soldier. Russian Army salaries are now times higher than an  average salary one can get anywhere except for most populous cities.

The Army isn't struggling to recruit so much as it is growing at a slightly slower rate than was planned for. The Army is still growing though, and is on target to meet its recruiting and retention goals this year. Further, the US economy is extremely strong right now, meaning the job market is very good. This usually means that young people have many more options when it comes to getting a well paying job, which tends to result in fewer overall recruits going into the Army, or military in general. The fact that the Russian economy is in such poor condition that one of the only well paying jobs on can get in Russia is joining the army is not a good thing. 

16 hours ago, IMHO said:

Modern Syria war can be a good proxy for measuring relative performance.

Generally speaking, no its not. For similar reasons why Desert Storm was not a good "proxy performance" to Soviet forces in Germany during the late Cold War. Same goes for various export models of famous (or infamous) tanks and their performance or lack thereof in contemporary conflicts. 

12 hours ago, FoxZz said:

The Abrams could certainly be toned down a little and it should not whistand so many artillery hits, the APS systems which were not fitted in 2017 or the modern grenade launcher which I have never seen other than in the game are also over abundant in my mind.

This argument has been had too many times on this forum already. Both sides get speculative equipment. I'm fine with taking away the US speculative equipment, as long as Russia loses its as well. Also, the XM25 (the modern grenade launcher I think you are referring to) was combat tested and proven in Afghanistan and was going to be aquired by the US Army in bulk. However, 2012-2013 were not kind to the defense budget, and the acquisition was scrapped due to a lack of funds for it, not because it was some prototype that never got built. It can also be toggled off in the editor, so if you really don't want it you can swap it out for the more conventional M320's. 

Edited June 29, 2019 by IICptMillerII

[Sgt.Squarehead]

Blimey, this agreeing thing is happening quite a lot these days.....I must be mellowing!