panzersaurkrautwerfer

Finally these are getting shorter:
 
Re: Target pods
 
It wasn't overcast that resulted in poor bombing results.  It certainly did not help, don't get me wrong, but the greater problem was target discrimination.  Targeting pods were pairing the advances in optics with the realization future conflicts were going to be against enemies that weren't going to be as obvious as a Soviet tank battalion rolling through Fulda.
 
Re: TIC
 
TIC is "troops in contact" there's a variety of flavors of contact, but they all involve troops being somethinged by the enemy (electronic warfare effects, obstacles and CBRN without actual enemy troops in sight are all forms of contact for instance).  So to that end, in terms of CAS TIC could refer to the enemy 100 meters away....or it could refer to an Abrams company shooting up  stuff from 2.5 KM out.  
 
In terms of weapons, effects and the enemy, in a COIN environment in much more restrictive on what we can do to the environment, and the targets much lower value.  Flattening a building to kill a guy with an AK is usually not a prefered amount of force, and the expectations of real estate preservation are high enough that it can be mission detrimental.  
 
If that same building is full of Krasnovian regulars with AT weapons, MGs, and this is a full spectrum kinetic fight, if I turn the building into literal rubble, it's okay.  SDBs are a great choice for murdering mortar teams, knocking out individual vehicles, etc, etc.  If I'm facing down AFVs and larger infantry formations, I'd rather have the 500 LBS to make an impression.
 
Also generally missiles are preferred for TIC.  A hellfire knows where it's going and will try super hard to get to that point for instance.  Gun rounds are totally slaves to physics once they come out of the tube.  The CEP is a lot higher and 30 MM will ruin days. If we're talking about SDB or Hellfires, it's much better to know that the building on the left is about to disappear, everyone get down, than be somewhere in the area where it's going to start raining 30 MM.
 
Of course this assumes the USAF doesn't just pickle on you anyway.
 
Re; B-1
 
Look at the crew visibility from the cockpit of a B-1 vs an A-10.  The reason the B-1 blue on blued friendly troops was it was unable to spot the IR strobes on the soldiers on the ground.  Targeting pods use thermal optics, which cannot see the IR spectrum because it cannot see any sort of light, it just sees heat.  However as per other CAS platforms, pilots flying using NODs, with the ability to see outside the flight deck can see IR strobes which pretty much resolves the question about which set of guys are our guys.  Once the friendlies are identified (and IR strobes are the sort of thing you can make out for miles if you've got them on), then switching to thermal optics type systems for target acquisition is the preferred method.
 
Additionally by totally lacking the ability to acquire the friendlies with eyeballs using NODs  the B-1 cannot utilize the PEQ-15 type lasers the friendly forces would have had, that could have been used to direct the CAS onto target (this is something I've done with CCA "you see the building with the lasers pointed at it?" "Rog"  "in there" "Rog."  
 
It's a lot easier than having a ten minute conversation about it, and GPS grids are marginal when dealing with things that are pretty close to each other (while the coordinates for two buildings will be different, it's much easier to unambiguously point to the building, than try to establish if the building on the right or left is grid 12345678 or 12345669).
 
Which again points to the USAF using a suboptimal platform that cannot coordinate, and thus cannot fill the S part of CAS. 
 
I've been present for non-aviators calling for USMC fixed wing, and I've called for USMC rotary wing.  Unless I forgot I'm a pilot, I do not think you are correct.  Or at the least the USMC had a flexible enough operating procedure to recognize we did not have a FAC or JTAC type guy handy and the Army ground dude on the phone was as good as it was going to get.   USAF wouldn't even show up unless it was their JTAC.  
 
Here's the genius of calling for CCA. There's a set format to talking to the birds, but here's more or less how it worked out:
 
Helicopter enters your net after being pushed from higher
He gives you who he is (callsign, weapons on board)
You give your call sign(s), force disposition
He acknowledges all, locates you
You give him tactical task and purpose
He sends back coordination measures if required
Mission.
 
So it'd look something like:
 
CCA: "Any station this net, this is Bandit 64, we are two times AH-64 with eight hellfire, 38 rockets, and 200 rounds 30 mm each"
Ground: "This is Demon White 1, we are four times tanks located vicinity OBJ Jabberwocky, stationary, defending.  Enemy infantry to our front
CCA: "Roger White 1.  We see you.  See bad guys
Ground "Bandit 64 I need you to attack to destroy enemy infantry located 400 meters my front vicinity hill mass. Watch for my tracer."
CCA: "Roger, watching for tracer....I see it, see target.  Check fire on my mark, we'll be coming in with rockets"
Ground" Roger Bandit 64"
CCA" Check fire" <white ceases fire>
 
This is just my sort of off the top of my head, but CCA was just that easy.  And that's possible through the sort of working relationship that CCA has with Army units, and USMC units have through their attached aviation elements in the MEU type structure.  USAF you can't trust with that because:
 
a. They don't trust you because you're not a JTAC
b. They really do not have the SA required to understand what you're doing
c. If it's a B-1 it likely cannot see you.

The difference for me is a matter of fuel and fire.  The Ukraine lies about what its setting on fire to continue existing as a country.  This does not disturb me too deeply because it's a small lie about the nature of a war it is conducting.  Such things happen.  What Russia is lying about is that it is at war, and it is without reasonable dispute, the cause for the current war and troubles.  If Russia packed up its toys, and canceled leave and passes for Russian soldiers in Ukraine, the war would be over and life would go on.  But instead it insists on trying to carve off parts of a sovereign country through fake terrorists that it has armed, all in the interest of forcing a political situation the Ukraine rejected wholeheartedly while lying about it even existing.
 
And lying that there is a war, is far less excusable than the ever so slight whitewashing (to be fair, given the crimes of Russian supported terrorists, Ukraine could tell the truth and still come out of this lily-white).  

What we are talking about is just as serious, realistic, and honest as Russian intentions of peace and freedom in the Ukraine.  

There's Russian troops where your government says there are zero Russian troops, with ethnic Russians driving Russian military hardware, in a war against Ukrainian nationals.  There was disorder, but there wasn't war in the Ukraine until your country brought it.
 
If Russia was serious about peace, it wouldn't have sent in Russian terrorists, it wouldn't have sent in tanks, it wouldn't have killed a few hundred Dutch people in the wrong plane at the wrong time.  If you think that's the way to treat a brother, I feel honest fear for your siblings.
 
 
Brother let me tell you, with how low oil has gotten the exchange rate actually demands a lot more blood per drum.  Like a lot.  I'm seriously running out of improvised third world children at this point.

The Ukraine appears to disagree with that sentiment.  

There's Russian troops where your government says there are zero Russian troops, with ethnic Russians driving Russian military hardware, in a war against Ukrainian nationals.  There was disorder, but there wasn't war in the Ukraine until your country brought it.
 
If Russia was serious about peace, it wouldn't have sent in Russian terrorists, it wouldn't have sent in tanks, it wouldn't have killed a few hundred Dutch people in the wrong plane at the wrong time.  If you think that's the way to treat a brother, I feel honest fear for your siblings.
 
 
Brother let me tell you, with how low oil has gotten the exchange rate actually demands a lot more blood per drum.  Like a lot.  I'm seriously running out of improvised third world children at this point.

Waiting for the bread lines to get longer mostly.  

Simply a light hearted jab at how many of these threads seem to turn into "well in 2015 Aramta will....." threads.  When the thing actually rolls on May 9th, and exists outside of strongly being implied to exist, I'll be more interested, but it's feeling a lot like the old FCS at this point in terms of a wundertrack that's all of so many months away from being available/capable/etc.

The Ukraine appears to disagree with that sentiment.  

Simply a light hearted jab at how many of these threads seem to turn into "well in 2015 Aramta will....." threads.  When the thing actually rolls on May 9th, and exists outside of strongly being implied to exist, I'll be more interested, but it's feeling a lot like the old FCS at this point in terms of a wundertrack that's all of so many months away from being available/capable/etc.

Honestly starting to wonder if the Armata field kitchen, and Armata armored administrative vehicles will live up to expectations.

Sums it up rather nicely.  There's also the amusing tendency of some Russian sources to twist anything the west does to something intended to affect Russia.  ABMs located in a place that stands no practical chance of intereception Russian launched missiles?  PLAN TO INVADE AND NUKE THE BABIES!  Intervention in Libya?  THIS IS A BLOW AGAINST RUSSIA.  etc, etc, etc.  
 
I mean prior to Crimea Russia hardly registered much above the actual Ukraine in terms of international policy concerns.  

Honestly starting to wonder if the Armata field kitchen, and Armata armored administrative vehicles will live up to expectations.

My insomnia is totally paying off tonight!
 
Re: Themobaric weapons
 
The point of the thread was looking into the baseline standard non-special weapons squads.  In that regard the US Army by exception and USMC as a rule both employ thermobaric weapons as augmentation type weapons (fired mostly from SMAWs), but again it's a specialist weapon/round that is usually reserved for special occasions.
 
Re: Javelinovich
 
I get that the Russian Army is undergoing some major changes, and it will look pretty different in a while.  That said when we're getting to the point of "this is something we're working on that doesn't have names or specifics yet" it's getting sort of out there.  Like US Railgun and laser program out there.  I don't doubt Russian technical abilities, but even looking at the US military on several occasions we've been poised on dramatic changes that either simply evaoprated (FCS) or evolved into a totally different system (like Land Warrior's transition into other C3 systems).  Until Russia has these new weapons systems in quantity I'm not exactly holding my breath.  
 
Re: Javelin issue
 
For infantry units it's generally one CLU (the Command Launch Unit) per squad, and two per Cavalry platoon last time I looked.  Missile allocation is theater dependent but 2-3 per squad is not an unreasonable assumption, with more obviously for mechanized and Stryker units given they don't actually have to pack the system.
 
Re: XM-25
 
SCAR was never intended as a mass purchase, it was a product pitched to the SOF community, used by the SOF community, and then abandoned by the SOF community because it wasn't cool enough/hell if I know SOF gets distracted by new toys on a weekly basis.  XM-25 remains very much part of the planned future squad layout, and again, if we're talking about CMBS, it is in the game in that role.  Given that it is fully functional at the moment it is one of the more reasonable "future" systems in the game.
 
Re: Only 1/3 in Bradley
 
Yes, but again, if we're talking about a high intensity conflict, we're not putting 10th Mountain Division on a plane to go fight tanks.  So to that regard the preponderance of infantry units in a shooting war with a near-peer to peer power is going to be those 11 ABCTs, some of the SBCTs, and an IBCT or two.
 
So to that end, your original statement remains incorrect, and the majority of the conventional warfare aligned units operate M2A3 type Bradleys.
 
Re: Machine guns
 
The thing is that US infantry units don't lack the 7.62 MGs.  The SBCT/IBCT organization allocates two M240s with dedicated teams per platoon (so three "rifle" squads 9 soldiers) and one "weapons" squad, which again is two four man MMG teams.  Mechanized infantry lack the weapons squad, having only the three rifle squads, but they retain the weapons themselves (at least the weapons themselves, it might be there's a M240B/L on every Bradley, but I can account for at least two per platoon).  
 
There's no real hard fast rule to the actual squad makeup, some IBCT/SBCT units use the weapons squad as  just a fourth rifle squad and issue the M240s to augment the rifle squads, some mechanized infantry units train their third squad as a weapons/AT squad in addition to its rifle squad duties.  As the case is, in addition to the M249s though there's still 2-4 M240s per platoon.
 
Re: APS
 
If the US Army needed APS, it could have it in a few weeks.  There's off the shelf systems that are compatible with the M1/M2 series vehicles, it's just a matter of buying them.
 
Or maybe Quickkill will come out.  Who knows.  But off the shelf APS in preperation for a conventional war is not a huge leap at all considering some of the other crash upgrade programs the Army has done (see the rapid conversion of several hundred M1A1s to M1A1HA standards before the Persian Gulf war, fielding LRFs and IR jammers to Bradleys for same conflict), and the hardware already exists.
 
Re: Javelin vs Kornet
 
But the Jav does it all in a handy portable by one or two guys package with a high possibility of one hit one kill.   
 
Kornet is scary, but it's definitely a dedicated team sort of weapon, vs the Javelin which is just a standard squad level weapon system.

Fire away, they're the wrong numbers.  The serial number would tell you were the weapon went maybe, but the NSN and part number which is what gets people all hot and bothered is just the tracking number for ANY TOW missile of that model.  Same number would be on the same type of missile in the USMC, Lebanon, Italy, my basement.  The corresponding screenshot showing its a US military missile is just that, the reference page for what a "NSN 12345whateve" is in the National Stock Number system, not, again showing that particular missile was anything but made in America and given to someone.
 
We've got enough RPG-29s, RPG-7s, and even various ATGMs from various sources.  It'd be like Afghanistan if we were supplying them, we only started sending Stingers because SA-7s weren't doing the job.  There's no reason to ship US military TOWs to Syria if we were to send military aid, and it's readily apparent when we DID send military aid to the Kurds it was largely from these stocks of second hand stolen/borrowed/seized from other sources stocks.
 
It'd be dumb.  Like giving BUKs out to untrained operators dumb.

It is a TOW missile.  However it's from a batch that could have gone anywhere from Saudi Arabia, to Turkey, to Italy and beyond.  It's no more a sign of US involvement than finding an RPG-7 is a sign of Russian infiltration.
 
In terms of applying lethal force the onus is on the government to control the violence.  The police in Ferguson, the security apparatus of the Ukraine are all examples of doing it wrong, responding with violence simply starts an action-reaction interaction in which violence response to increasing violence.  To put it in perspective across the United States of America in 2013 had a net total of 320 police killings.  In January 2014-March 2014 the Ukrainian security forces killed 100 people alone through largely gunshot wounds, in just Kiev.
 
Given the difference in population, short "killing" window there's simply not comparing the two.  Virtually none of the 100+ protestors shot down by the Ukrainian government realistically had to die, while on occasion the US police kills low single digit numbers of people who did not need to be shot.
 
There's simply no comparing a "bad" shooting of one teenager to the dozens of people shot down in the streets of Kiev to ensure Putin's favorite puppet could still squander his country's resources.  
 
In terms of Syria, I'm sorry where are the Syrian government's tanks and attack helicopters coming from?    If you're going to talk about fueling a civil war, Russia was pouring arms in well before the west was offended enough to send what little it has sent.  

It is a TOW missile.  However it's from a batch that could have gone anywhere from Saudi Arabia, to Turkey, to Italy and beyond.  It's no more a sign of US involvement than finding an RPG-7 is a sign of Russian infiltration.
 
In terms of applying lethal force the onus is on the government to control the violence.  The police in Ferguson, the security apparatus of the Ukraine are all examples of doing it wrong, responding with violence simply starts an action-reaction interaction in which violence response to increasing violence.  To put it in perspective across the United States of America in 2013 had a net total of 320 police killings.  In January 2014-March 2014 the Ukrainian security forces killed 100 people alone through largely gunshot wounds, in just Kiev.
 
Given the difference in population, short "killing" window there's simply not comparing the two.  Virtually none of the 100+ protestors shot down by the Ukrainian government realistically had to die, while on occasion the US police kills low single digit numbers of people who did not need to be shot.
 
There's simply no comparing a "bad" shooting of one teenager to the dozens of people shot down in the streets of Kiev to ensure Putin's favorite puppet could still squander his country's resources.  
 
In terms of Syria, I'm sorry where are the Syrian government's tanks and attack helicopters coming from?    If you're going to talk about fueling a civil war, Russia was pouring arms in well before the west was offended enough to send what little it has sent.  

It is a TOW missile.  However it's from a batch that could have gone anywhere from Saudi Arabia, to Turkey, to Italy and beyond.  It's no more a sign of US involvement than finding an RPG-7 is a sign of Russian infiltration.
 
In terms of applying lethal force the onus is on the government to control the violence.  The police in Ferguson, the security apparatus of the Ukraine are all examples of doing it wrong, responding with violence simply starts an action-reaction interaction in which violence response to increasing violence.  To put it in perspective across the United States of America in 2013 had a net total of 320 police killings.  In January 2014-March 2014 the Ukrainian security forces killed 100 people alone through largely gunshot wounds, in just Kiev.
 
Given the difference in population, short "killing" window there's simply not comparing the two.  Virtually none of the 100+ protestors shot down by the Ukrainian government realistically had to die, while on occasion the US police kills low single digit numbers of people who did not need to be shot.
 
There's simply no comparing a "bad" shooting of one teenager to the dozens of people shot down in the streets of Kiev to ensure Putin's favorite puppet could still squander his country's resources.  
 
In terms of Syria, I'm sorry where are the Syrian government's tanks and attack helicopters coming from?    If you're going to talk about fueling a civil war, Russia was pouring arms in well before the west was offended enough to send what little it has sent.  

The other possibility is they reclassify the F-35 as the A-10, the A-10 as the F-117, and just hope no one actually looks at the planes they're sending to the scrapyard/that the A-10 now costs about as much as it would to simply just buy Russia whole and avoid the war nonsense.  

My insomnia is totally paying off tonight!
 
Re: Themobaric weapons
 
The point of the thread was looking into the baseline standard non-special weapons squads.  In that regard the US Army by exception and USMC as a rule both employ thermobaric weapons as augmentation type weapons (fired mostly from SMAWs), but again it's a specialist weapon/round that is usually reserved for special occasions.
 
Re: Javelinovich
 
I get that the Russian Army is undergoing some major changes, and it will look pretty different in a while.  That said when we're getting to the point of "this is something we're working on that doesn't have names or specifics yet" it's getting sort of out there.  Like US Railgun and laser program out there.  I don't doubt Russian technical abilities, but even looking at the US military on several occasions we've been poised on dramatic changes that either simply evaoprated (FCS) or evolved into a totally different system (like Land Warrior's transition into other C3 systems).  Until Russia has these new weapons systems in quantity I'm not exactly holding my breath.  
 
Re: Javelin issue
 
For infantry units it's generally one CLU (the Command Launch Unit) per squad, and two per Cavalry platoon last time I looked.  Missile allocation is theater dependent but 2-3 per squad is not an unreasonable assumption, with more obviously for mechanized and Stryker units given they don't actually have to pack the system.
 
Re: XM-25
 
SCAR was never intended as a mass purchase, it was a product pitched to the SOF community, used by the SOF community, and then abandoned by the SOF community because it wasn't cool enough/hell if I know SOF gets distracted by new toys on a weekly basis.  XM-25 remains very much part of the planned future squad layout, and again, if we're talking about CMBS, it is in the game in that role.  Given that it is fully functional at the moment it is one of the more reasonable "future" systems in the game.
 
Re: Only 1/3 in Bradley
 
Yes, but again, if we're talking about a high intensity conflict, we're not putting 10th Mountain Division on a plane to go fight tanks.  So to that regard the preponderance of infantry units in a shooting war with a near-peer to peer power is going to be those 11 ABCTs, some of the SBCTs, and an IBCT or two.
 
So to that end, your original statement remains incorrect, and the majority of the conventional warfare aligned units operate M2A3 type Bradleys.
 
Re: Machine guns
 
The thing is that US infantry units don't lack the 7.62 MGs.  The SBCT/IBCT organization allocates two M240s with dedicated teams per platoon (so three "rifle" squads 9 soldiers) and one "weapons" squad, which again is two four man MMG teams.  Mechanized infantry lack the weapons squad, having only the three rifle squads, but they retain the weapons themselves (at least the weapons themselves, it might be there's a M240B/L on every Bradley, but I can account for at least two per platoon).  
 
There's no real hard fast rule to the actual squad makeup, some IBCT/SBCT units use the weapons squad as  just a fourth rifle squad and issue the M240s to augment the rifle squads, some mechanized infantry units train their third squad as a weapons/AT squad in addition to its rifle squad duties.  As the case is, in addition to the M249s though there's still 2-4 M240s per platoon.
 
Re: APS
 
If the US Army needed APS, it could have it in a few weeks.  There's off the shelf systems that are compatible with the M1/M2 series vehicles, it's just a matter of buying them.
 
Or maybe Quickkill will come out.  Who knows.  But off the shelf APS in preperation for a conventional war is not a huge leap at all considering some of the other crash upgrade programs the Army has done (see the rapid conversion of several hundred M1A1s to M1A1HA standards before the Persian Gulf war, fielding LRFs and IR jammers to Bradleys for same conflict), and the hardware already exists.
 
Re: Javelin vs Kornet
 
But the Jav does it all in a handy portable by one or two guys package with a high possibility of one hit one kill.   
 
Kornet is scary, but it's definitely a dedicated team sort of weapon, vs the Javelin which is just a standard squad level weapon system.

This is actually incorrect.
 
There's three kinds of Brigades currently in the US Army:
 
1. Infantry BCT.  Infantry squads have no assigned transport, but each battalion has sufficient light trucks to move around one company at a time.  Several of these brigades are also oriented on either airmobile or paratroop missions
2. Stryker BCT. Infantry rides in Strykers.  This is the only BCT that uses Strykers as transports
3. Armored BCT.  Infantry rides in Bradley Fighting Vehicles.
 
HMMWVs are not generally used as infantry transport, they saw use in Iraq/Afghanistan as patrol vehicles, but this should not be taken as the way the US plans to fight in a high intensity conflict.
 
The only real front line HMMWVs still in use are that the Infantry style brigades have weapons platoons in each infantry company, which is some number of HMMWVs allocated to carry heavy weapons (M2 HMGs, MK-19s, TOW-2Bs etc), and both Armored and Infantry recon units have some number of HMMWVs (Armored Recon platoon is currently a 5 scout truck, 3 Bradley mix, although it's likely going back to a "pure" six Bradley configuration, Infantry scout platoon has six scout trucks).  Next closest is the Stinger MANPADs teams usually have an uparmored cargo HMMWV to move around the battlefield.  
 
The remainder are all used for light cargo, transporting support or command type troops.
 
In terms of firepower in absolute terms the US infantry has significantly more in a squad for squad, platoon for platoon fight.  As I stated in my original post, the XM-25 and Javelin are both capabilities the Russian Army just lacks entirely in the dismounted role, and the allocation of designated marksmen systems and light machineguns (true belt fed ones vs magazine fed) is significantly higher.  Additionally US fire support systems are traditionally allocated one to two echelons below their Russian counterparts (especially so with heavy mortars and similar systems).
 
In terms of transports, BTR and Strykers are both fairly similar in terms of practical performance, the base model Strykers have superior fire control (turret really, and the MK-19 on a Stryker is pretty wicked), better protection, while the BTR-80A has superior firepower and all BTRs are much lighter and able to handle poor terrain better.  In terms of Bradley vs BMP-2, Bradley wins easily, Bradley vs BMP-3 really comes down to who's shooting first, BMP won't hold up to current generation AP rounds from the 25 MM, but the BMP-3 has overmatch against the Bradley's armor package.  Optics package, basic armor, and troop bay are all superior on the Bradley though.  100 MM with airburst is some nasty fire support, and the through the gun ATGM at least offers a better rate of fire (although the Bradley does have the ability to plop out two missiles in short order) however.
 
In terms of communication, there's a bit of an embarrassment of riches.  At the least each squad (9 man) and team (4 man) leader has encrypted short range communications, with longer ranged radio in the hands of the RTO at platoon level.  What is not at all uncommon is Squad leaders actually having their mitts on longer ranged radios, and encrypted HF type radios for Platoon and Squad leaders.  
 
In practice our infantry guys seemed to have more radios than they could practically use, so usually it was picking the right radio for the mission (larger manpack style ones for missions in fairly spread out environments, the smaller ones for urban operations or the like).   
 
Re: Ukrainian Quality
 
They've managed to bounce back pretty good.  I'm willing to credit at least the top quarter of Ukrainian units with comparing to the 60-40% percentile Russian forces.  The average Ukrainian unit isn't going to be up to snuff, but the better trained and equipped out to hold their own just fine.
 
 
Missed this on the first pass.  Maybe Russian optics, but US thermal optics are entirely able to maintain resolution for all engagements, on the move or not.  Daysights are the backup sights, or used when you've got some crazy-weird thermal crossover going on.

Excessive amounts of Deutch speaking airsofters start appearing in Kaliningrad? 

Dunno, Russia wasn't taking potshots at airliners, Ukraine wasn't shooting down airliners, as far as any one knew the seperatists only had access to captured Ukrainian stocks, which did not include that echelon of anti-aircraft asset.
 
It's almost like people expected a good faith effort not to put very dangerous, long range anti-aircraft weapons under the control of folks who can't tell the difference between an SU-25 and an airliner or something.

Dunno, Russia wasn't taking potshots at airliners, Ukraine wasn't shooting down airliners, as far as any one knew the seperatists only had access to captured Ukrainian stocks, which did not include that echelon of anti-aircraft asset.
 
It's almost like people expected a good faith effort not to put very dangerous, long range anti-aircraft weapons under the control of folks who can't tell the difference between an SU-25 and an airliner or something.

It'd be better as a weirdo ovoid three part venn diagram.  US infantry will likely trend towards better, between some really awesome capabilities (XM-25, Javelin, every squad is a spotter for fires as part of the boring old standard rifle squads) and likely a higher quality due to uniformly volunteer "lifer" type units in play.  However some of the better Russian units will likely touch into the realm of US squad for squad functionality.  And while not as sexy hardware decked out, they do have some good stuff (more night vision than Ukrainian forces at least, RPG-29s, functional dismounted coms).  Conversely some of their dudes are going to be the not as well trained "Russian modernization is still catching up" guys, which will likely be closer to on par with the Ukrainians.  Ukrainians will have some really good units that stack up well against peer level Russian forces, but almost none of the cool sexy gadgets, and more than a few Ukrainian units more or less magicked into existence in the last few months, so while doing a-okay against well armed separatists, might struggle against the full force of the Russian military.  
 
Don't think you can dispute the squad for squad aspect of the US on top, just for the technical capabilities alone, but I'm sure the other countries will have some force structures that are not SOF but still worth a damn.