IMHO

My point is Russia is already strong enough to counter any threat at the regional level and it will never ever be strong enough to compete at the global level as Russia's is only 1.9% of global economy whereas US, EU, China are around 19-20% each. Russia's strategy of trying to look menacing, using aggressive rhetorics in the hope "they" will fear us and will sit at the negotiation table crosses all limits of reason and costs dearly to the future of the country. And it brings no benefits whatsoever. Even military ones. PS @c3k, sorry I answered the question you didn't ask Sorry, I misread your reply.

@c3k, That depends on who you compare with. Lagging behind IDF and US Army - for sure. China - may be, I know so little about them. The rest of Europe - I really doubt. Division level exercises is common practice nowadays. What's the last time UK or France or Germany repositioned hundreds of tanks, tens of thousands of personnel supported by hundreds of aircraft to a farthest corner of the country in the middle of the night? Certainly it cannot make up for the deficiencies in equipment of an individual military unit but sheer numbers and training in massive application of force do count as well. Hierarchy is still culturally very much ingrained in the heart of Russian military. But from warfare point of view it's rapidly disappearing. The main tactical element now is a Battalion Tactical Group (BTG). I mean not on paper but in real life. Russian Army may be not as capable as a combined team of all of Europe due to deficiencies in air power but it's certainly stronger in continental warfare than any two biggest European militaries taken together. It's not much of a threat to Europe as Europe is protected by the Russian dependence on Europe as a trading partner. It's a kind of non-nuclear MAD - Russia would plunge into stone age should European economy collapses.

IMHO the idea of T-14 supplementing T-72 lineup is like when one tries to move from wooden construction to masonry and instead of working on the bricks production and new architecture techniques one starts spending money like crazy on the best grooming process for the lawns. Hardly anyone would argue a nice lawn helps a nice house but is it really the first thing one starts with? I'd say the major technological areas where Russia is lagging behind are: Thermals and light intensifiers "Really long" long rods New armour laminates and/or NERA, SLERA or at least enhanced ERA Day-time targeting and observation Engines - engine life/MTBF, power output, power-to-weight ratio APS Tube life Powder stability / Burning regimes Seems like I listed half of a modern tank The only point that T-14/T-15 could help designers with as opposed to T-72 platform major upgrade is "long" long rods. And even in this case Black Eagle option was a possibility. But surely they started designing full tank having none of the component technologies. Money's gone, no T-14 in sight and T-90 and T-80 upgrades are fashionable again. PS And who would think the trick of designing a forward engine heavy APC is to take a tank of classic configuration and to put it hinder part forward

But this case is true and it was common knowledge right from the start. Believe me even what you see in quality Russian press, not "TV for an average Joe" but quality business press, even there you're lucky if 5% of what they write comes anywhere close to what people in higher echelons really believe into, what positions they take in internal deliberations etc. And Western reporting on Russia not only hopelessly lacks any local sources, the guys do not even bother to do background checks on the Internet. Which is not only useless - it's dangerous. The mass media forms the public opinion and then politicians has no other option but to follow. It's amazing for me but the Russian dispatches in Western press is now almost universally written in B-rate Hollywood style. Everything is simplified to the utmost, everyone must be labelled either good or bad and once this happens the protagonist never changes his/her assigned camp. Disclaimer: I didn't mean the BBC article you linked - haven't read it yet.

Kudrin Medvedev

Yes, you're absolutely correct there's no sane rationale to spend these money. The real reason is... Mere human vanity Like I understand it's irrational but I'm dying for a shiny new toy No, don't judge the reaction of Russian public by Russian media. Rearmament program didn't have any friends whatsoever outside the military and military industrial complex - it was very contentious issue. Even a long time personal friend of Mr. Putin and most influential member of Russian cabinet - way more influential than prime minister himself - quit over the size of rearmament program. It's just fighting vanity was a loosing battle And however it may sound unbelievable it wasn't Mr. Putin who adopted the rearmament program as the most beloved pet and who pushed it against all the opposition inside the government.

Certainly US military technology taken overall is way ahead of Russian's. But if you take the rest of the pack then Russia is more than competitive except for very specific areas and sometimes is even ahead of the curve. You can take turbine blades for materials science or military grade electronics where your latest iPhone is many times if not many magnitudes more impressive as a computational platform than F-35 - and Russia produces sensible amount of industrial semis. The major problem for Russian military production is not that they are unable to produce a toy at a certain technological level but rather that there's little if any market for such a toy (if it's of Russian origin ). Russian military budget alone is peanuts compared to US's so Russia cannot afford both big series production and/or too high a per unit cost. And with cutting edge equipment R&D is a major part of your per unit cost so you end up in a vicious circle. A half-measure to alleviate this is to put up with a lower per year output while trying to stick to the same series production numbers by extending production timeframe. You'll run into different kind of troubles - high maintenance costs, "teething problems", subtle or not-so-subtle differences between equipment within the same series - but still it may let you jump over your head a little bit. There was this idea that Russia may spend a hell of money overnight and come with a totally updated army in an eye blink - hordes of Armatas AND Boomerangs AND Kurganets, 5th gen fighters AND Stealth bombers AND a full lineup of new transport planes. The idea was peddled by people who know nothing about the economics of high-tech business and sometimes have reasons not to know

<Sighs> Seems my "ticklish inner Russian" took over as always

Funny In reality Pak aid storyline was like this: Abbotaban raid that US side did not inform Paks beforehand as US was rightly concerned about OPSEC. Paks see Abbotaban raid as a breach of its sovereignty so Pak Army discontinues training provided to tribe zone paramilitaries by American instructors, sends them home and curtails further visas to US personnel. US gets angry as the training was a main/major source of recruits to US intelligence and a good place to keep track of what's going on in tribal zone in general. And the whole program of Predator targeted killings is in danger without HUMINT from tribal zone. So there was no particular "care" that stopped the arms flow to Paks. US wanted HUMINT from tribal zone so it needed a safe place to recruit. Going to tribal zone directly is too dangerous for US personnel. Paks closed the flow of sources - US stopped supplying arms. No moral high-ground involved. PS What I wrote here is quite checkable though respectable US press.

T-55/T-62 are still kept in store that's why I said it's the Soviet zoo plus Russian-built versions. Here's MB2017: MBT 2,700: 1,100 T-72B/BA; 800 T-72B3; 450 T-80BV/U; 350 T-90/T-90A; (17,500 in store: 2,800 T-55; 2,500 T-62; 2,000 T-64A/B; 7,000 T-72/T-72A/B; 3,000 T-80B/BV/U; 200 T-90) PS @Kozlice, and it explains the difference between @IICptMillerII evaluation and your numbers PPS By the way the "storage facilities" present quite a sight. You drive by some obscure unpaved forest road then suddenly you find yourself at a huge forest clearing and you can see whole kilometers of tanks, neatly parked rows of them going one after another and taking up all the visible space up to the horizon.

Nope, I'd say Russia has much more diverse MBT base. Russia is old Soviet zoo PLUS newly minted ones. And many variants going under the same name actually differ from one another - changes to transmissions, engine, targeting etc. You can imagine what a waste of resources it is. Having incomparably lower military budget Russia has many times more platforms in every class. In early eighties Soviet Union did a strategic assessment of how well it can stand against Chinese Army. And the conclusion was in conflict limited to Far East the Soviet Union would need to resort to nuclear weapons to stop a potential Chinese thrust. Mainly due to logistical issues - limited road network, a sole railway link etc.

1. What will happen afterwards? Russia can be annihilated economically even without resorting to military force though... 2. Everyone understands that where's one there will be another so full scale warfare is more probable than not, IMO. 5 minutes ago, MikeyD said: If they can't take Mariupol... They can from a military point of view. The question is what to do with Mariupol afterwards and why on Earth Russia needs it.

And add to this it's T-90s of all modifications and in all kinds of state of readiness. Meaning some of them work only on paper and some better be left in peace rather than risk a fight against say a Leclerc or a later Leo model. ...by NATO's absolute domination in airspace.

If I were you I'd rather complain about lack of proper trigger / finite-state machine implementation. E.g. compare CM triggers to Arma3 where one has the tools to implement quite realistic reinforcement/QRFs behaviour.

Arghh... Some more. Remarkably low saturation with really heavy weapons - even a T-55 or two is a local game changer. And one can defend practically forever in cities of reinforced concrete when facing low caliber AA guns.

I'd suggest the following reasons as well: Different schools of thoughts: ex-Soviet military school is very much about maneuver warfare whereas Syria is still stuck somewhere in the past long gone. This defines commanders decisions. Road network and transport platforms in Syria. Road network is very much hub-and-spoke of highways and cities. Fighting platforms come in the form of civilian 4WDs and civilian buses and trucks provide for transportation. Since they require quality roads so it makes the task of controlling transportation hubs so important. Syrian war turns a "real" all-out war only in the very brief periods of intensive fighting (if at all...). Fully encircles cities of hundreds thousands live in full encirclement for years. That means encirclement does not mean real sealing out - an absurdity from a military point of view. So why practice maneuver if it does not give any advantage? All points are IMHO...

Very nice scenario - enjoyed it so much. Here's a little communal grave

RPG MIRVed

DEVGrus

Tough guy technical

Our guys vs. their guy: quod licet Iovi, non licet bovi. Russia Isn’t the Only One Meddling in Elections. We Do It, Too. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/17/sunday-review/russia-isnt-the-only-one-meddling-in-elections-we-do-it-too.html “If you ask an intelligence officer, did the Russians break the rules or do something bizarre, the answer is no, not at all,” said Steven L. Hall, who retired in 2015 after 30 years at the C.I.A., where he was the chief of Russian operations. The United States “absolutely” has carried out such election influence operations historically, he said, “and I hope we keep doing it.”... But in recent decades, both Mr. Hall and Mr. Johnson argued, Russian and American interferences in elections have not been morally equivalent.

I was referring to the policy of the US of A rather than the forum. There's nothing new as per the forum: "our guys" may annihilate residential blocks as they are there to instill right attitude into peoples' minds and "their guys" are just barbarians as they are "theirs" not "ours". Amen!

The new normal is no one cares anymore...

I didn't mean to imply Marines are "bad" they did did heavy barrages of the city. I can compare it to the question of WWII Allied Strategic Bombing. Was it ugly? Yes, it was. Was it good that Allies did it? Yes it certainly was, since the alternative would be much worse. And in case of Raqqa and Mosul and ISIS it's much much much worse. Just for a reason unknown to me heavy barrages somehow equate with "bad thing" in current fade. To me - they are not, it least not automatically. I was arguing specifically against the limited point that US didn't cause much destructionю It wasn't to tacitly charge the argument with "good" vs. "bad" dimension since to me this case is firmly in the lands of good. I obviously somehow failed at not implying that Lower calibers wouldn't have done the trick. 105mm contains a little over 2kg of explosives, whereas 155mm - about 7kg. I remember a video interview with Idlib's military commander. He complained Idlib's militants negotiated to bring a tunnel boring machine to improve city defenses but Turkey didn't let it pass after Russia-Turkey deal. So I believe they must really dug deep in Raqqa/Mosul as well. And if they turned every other building in the city into a hardened position then only near total destruction was inevitable.

Let's call it a day