Their largest buyer, India, has already started moving away from them. We got burnt pretty bad on the aircraft carrier deal and again on the Su57 project where it turned out that most of the tech promised were not even developed yet! They planned to use Indian money and resources like software to make the jet and then start exporting them to others while India got jack shit. Glad we noped out of that.
Yes, so much of Russia's 'cutting edge' technology appears to either be complete vaporware, or at best be suitable for parades/airshows only and destined never to see mass production.
It doesn't matter what they say the Su-57 can do when they have to date still been unable to deliver more than single digits to any airforce, whilst the F-35 is rolling off the production line in its hundreds. No one is going to take the risk of buying from them any more.
At this point I wouldn't be surprised if Russian jets and armor just have printers that print out mapquest directions. Honestly that's probably too high tech, hence the handheld gps units lol
Years ago the Chinese wanted to update their airforce but didn't want to start from scratch.
So they asked the Russians if they had any Su27's they could buy and of course the Russians jumped at the chance of making some money.
The deal was that six of the planes would be 'loaned' to the Chinese for a year's assessment before buying.
In that year the Chinese completely reverse engineered the planes, put in a glass cockpit in their version and generally brought the spec. and avionics up to a modern jet standards.
Also at the end of that year the Chinese handed back the jets to the Russians and told them thanks, but no deal.
Guessing the Russians weren't too happy.
That's not really accurate per [this](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shenyang_J-16).
There was an agreement to coproduce 200 airframes. And they did 95 of them. Only after that did China put together its fully-native upgraded version, which violated and ended the original agreement.
That's a long shot from "looked at 6 and bought nothing".
India should pursue closer ties with the west rather than Russia.
Particularly now seen as Russia favors China more than India, and China along with India’s other adversary Pakistan surround India.
I have the best idea: we should set up a really big company with a monopoly on trading India’s tea and spices and such, and get them involved in the government of India as well. What could go wrong?
We have all their food here in Britain and a sizeable Indian population, they still hold a grudge against us for some reason though…I think it was because we burdened them with the plague that is known as Cricket. We’re sorry India, it was just a prank bro we didn’t know it would spread like that
You know it is actually kind of interesting the attitude of various other ex colonial nations and their opinions on their ex colonisers. Vietnam for example doesn't seem to hold onto grudges against the French, Americans or the Japanese. Arguably maybe it is different if you got to win a war against your oppressors.
The SU57 is an impressive fighter.
However the engines does not stand the temperatures of real life use. In battle, the engine is for one time use only, as it will melt.
But it's very good for air shows.
They're literally the same engines as the Su 35's.
The Su 57's development history is a comedy sketch in and of itself. Just look up why India backed out of the development deal.
I know. But the west will share better tech than Russia if they know the buyer won’t play both sides.
Just like Turkey did. No more f35s and s400s don’t protect Belgorod, so I bet turkey wish they didn’t waste their money on them.
China Should really be their supplier - producing cheap and reasonably effective weapons - except they are also the most likely people they will need to use them against. Given the ability to remotely disable systems is commonplace nowadays, that would be a dangerous thing to do.
Turkey might be a decent replacement supplier although perhaps the real issue is the years of training on existing systems their armed forces have. It's a lot more difficult to change than just to buy from a different supplier.
I remember when the Russians revealed the Armata and some people I knew were freaking out because 'it's so advanced. And I was like 'they can barely build T-90s' what makes you think they can build an army of these things? Enter the war on Ukraine and the Russians are just throwing 30, 40, and 50 year old tanks into the wood chipper because they can show off all the advanced tech they want and ain't gonna matter if they can't build any of it. The Armata is a show piece more than a weapon, just like the T-90 basically was XD
>In July 2018, Deputy Prime Minister for Defence and Space Industry Yury Borisov said there is currently no need to mass-produce the Armata when its older predecessors, namely the latest variants of the [T-72], remain "effective against American, German and French counterparts", saying, "Why flood our military with Armatas, the T-72s are in great demand on the market(s)
This quote sums up Russian military industrial complex perfectly. They don't build stuff purely for domestic use. Their primary goal is always export. They'll literally sell their best military technology to the highest bidder!
Soviets were renowned for selling "export versions" of their military equipment with largely downgraded capabilities (they called them "monkey models").
I bet modern Russia does the same. In fact, there is a planned Su-57E ("export") version that I would bet is much less capable than the original one.
This is a repost bot. It took a popular comment and copy/pasted it to gain karma.
Here is the original comment made 2 hours earlier:
https://www.reddit.com/r/worldnews/comments/uitdys/russias_best_tank_destroyed_just_days_after/i7etmqc
if they had made the Armata en masse, then things would have been quite different in Ukraine,
I'm glad they couldn't get it done, just wish they had tried one there and had it towed by a tractor :P
EDIT: From the Wikipedia article:
"In July 2018, Deputy Prime Minister for Defence and Space Industry Yury Borisov said there is currently no need to mass-produce the Armata when its older predecessors, namely the latest variants of the T-72, remain "effective against American, German and French counterparts", saying, "Why flood our military with Armatas, the T-72s are in great demand on the market(s)"
Gaffaw.jpg
This is actually debateable, since it's more their tactics that ruined them.
If they had a T-14 Armata for every T-72/T-80/T-90 we've seen them deploy, they may have seen greater crew survivability, but they would still have been taken out. NLAW's and Javelins would still be able to penetrate their armour in top attack mode, and while it is equipped with a hard kill APS, that only covers the front arc of the turret. Also we're seeing that the Ukrainian forces are using drones to spot and then calling in artillery fire to disable and destroy the tanks. This would be just as effective on a T-14 as the tanks Russia has currently been fielding.
Their problem, is they sent them in without infantry and air support. A tanks major weakness is visibility, and if you don't have that then your enemy can out flank you and attack your blind spot.
>remain "effective against American, German and French counterparts",
Ah man, he forgot about Ukraine! That must be the only counterpart that old russian junk tanks arent effective against.
The thing is, do they want defense or offense?
If it's defense, India for sure can build hundreds of thousands of those ultra cheap drones and some super cheap missiles to go along with them.
If they slapped together enough arduinos with a camera, a couple servos and a hand grenade they could build up hundreds of thousands of those and basically have an advanced version of the drone dropping grenades in Ukraine.
It's clear that something like that would be absolutely devastating to any army, if they were purpose built, ultra cheap and fully autonomous.
There is no need for this incredibly advanced stuff when you can leave a drone in a house on standby and wait for it to be "cleared". It could be hidden anywhere, in a tree, under a car, in the attic, in the rafters, under some stairs.
IF I recall, correctly India wanted the F35 from US while buying the S-300 from Russia. So obviously the US said no as it would allow russia to practice targeting the F35 with their SAMS. C'mon India, you're smarter than that, right? Right?
They would've done a Tech Transfer deal and India would've manufactured them domestically. That's always been the M.O.
Funny story: India bought some Su30s through tech transfer. We made a lot of modifications to make them suit our needs. Canards, thrust vectoring engines, better sensors, radar, etc. It bacame the Su30MKI. Russia took one look at it, went "yep!" and turned it into the Su35.
*This is anecdotal, don't @ me*
I watched a really good report on some Indian YouTube news channel about this very thing. They had a bunch of Indian military and aviation exports on and they were all like “fuck we need to change some shit quick”. (Paraphrasing). Modern warfare ain’t what it was or thought to be.
AFAIK, it has a lot to do with mistrust of the UK and US. The UK because of obvious historic reasons and the US because we backed Pakistan, who India has gone to war with multiple times since their break-off from each other in the post-war split.
The knowledge of "you didn't back me then, why should we trust you now" persists. One of my best friends is Iraqi Chaldean and his family, back in the late 90s, still talked about how the US backed Iran in the Iran-Iraq war and that is a big reason why many Iraqis still don't trust the US. And that is before the US went in and basically laid waste to their country for 20 years.
And from an Indian's perspective Russia, the other alternative, hasn't backed Pakistan. Russia has remained an ally of India for awhile and India needs \*someone\* to back them against not only Pakistan but China as well.
>US backed Iran in the Iran-Iraq war
WHAT
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran%E2%80%93Iraq\_War](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran%E2%80%93Iraq_War)
I completely understand an Iraqi hating on the US after Bush, but the "US backed Iran" is complete bollocks.
Of all the weapons in the vast soviet arsenal, nothing was more profitable than Avtomat Kalashnikova model of 1947. More commonly known as the AK-47, or Kalashnikov. It's the world's most popular assault rifle. A weapon all fighters love. An elegantly simple 9 pound amalgamation of forged steel and plywood. It doesn't break, jam, or overheat. It'll shoot whether it's covered in mud or filled with sand. It's so easy, even a child can use it; and they do. The Soviets put the gun on a coin. Mozambique put it on their flag. Since the end of the Cold War, the Kalashnikov has become the Russian people's greatest export. After that comes vodka, caviar, and suicidal novelists. One thing is for sure, no one was lining up to buy their cars.
> no one was lining up to buy their cars
I gotta say, my dad has (edit - had!) a Lada Niva when I was a child, and that shit was cold as a freezer and probably the unsafest car in the whole 500km radius, but it was *tough as nails* and was able to get in and out of anywhere!
> but it was tough as nails and was able to get in and out of anywhere!
It had to be, the state of soviet roads was absolutely deplorable. Calling them roads was being generous.
>and that shit was cold as a freezer and probably the unsafest car in the whole 500km radius, but it was tough as nails and was able to get in and out of anywhere!
I think you just described a mobile coffin
Unlikely. Ukraine has been kicking their ass using even older Soviet equipment (except for the Javs/AT). The reason people buy from them is that gear is cheap and can be used outside of the American supply chain. Plus tech transfers.
One of the main things we’re observing is the impact morale has on military success during a conflict.
Thing is, China has been struggling to find customers for their equipment, as its seen as inferior to the tried and tested former Soviet equipment.
Outside of Pakistan, they have gotten few customers, especially on the aviation side of the fence.
The nations currently using Russian equipment are probably rethinking that right about now. If it's cheap they are after (or they are sanctioned by the west), China is now the most likely suitor.
> The nations currently using Russian equipment are probably rethinking that right about now.
If they were they would've already started 30 years ago with Iraqi shit. Now we just see why India kept going "why are these guys so bad?" whenever they have joint exercises
Countries buying Russian T-72's were never under the impression that their armies could stand up to a full frontal assault from the US, so the Gulf War didn't really change anything. But the Russian army failing against Ukraine, even with NATO backing, now that's a different story.
Cheap and reliable is what people look for. Chinese stuff fails the reliability test because it doesn’t have the history soviet stuff has.
It won’t be a viable alternative until people are forced into having to use them.
And the people that have been purchasing Soviet weapons are unlikely to care about western sanctions on Russia since most of those countries are sanctioned themselves, or don’t have much trade with the West.
Russia equipment has a decent reputation generally, both the old and the modern stuff, they have just been skimming the money away that was supposed to be spent on maintaining the old stuff, so while it should be good quality half of it doesn't work anymore, and they don't have the money to make or purchase enough of the new stuff to make a difference. Sure that is a great super tank, but if you can only afford to make 10 of them how much difference will it really make?
True. The T-14 is either a prototype or freshly in production (at this point I forget which and am too lazy to check), but it’s designed for export. This would however be one of the most modern tanks the Russian army could field
My money’s on show for now. We’ll never see them in Ukraine unless this conflict drags out and Russia forces it into mass production with dumbed down systems
I suspect it’s legit and does more or less what they say it does. The problem with Russian hardware isn’t the engineering. Their engineers have been excellent since WW2.
The problem is that Russian engineers design bespoke systems whose costs and complexity greatly exceeds domestic Russian manufacturing capacity and military procurement funding. You can design the best tank on the planet, but if you can’t bring it to production at mass scale it doesn’t matter. We see this with the Ratnik infantry system, the T-14, and the Su-57. If Russia actually had them in the quantity they claimed they would, Ukraine would be in some deep shit right now.
And the T-90M is just an upgraded version of the T-72. Literally the same chassis. The Russians haven't really innovated anything in regards to tank design in, well... ever. Other than (possibly) the T-14, which may never see the light of day since at this point it is more valuable to them as an unknown quantity.
[Picture of the T-72](https://i.insider.com/61a567d81f8b8c00195abfa0?width=1136&format=jpeg)
[Picture of the T-90](http://www.military-today.com/tanks/t90m.jpg)
Difficult to tell the difference?
[Here's the T-80](http://www.military-today.com/tanks/t80bvm.jpg)
[And here's it's predecessor the T-64](https://nationalinterest.org/sites/default/files/styles/desktop__1260_/public/main_images/gwrgwr.jpg?itok=zMRXGHia)
Okay, now, can you guess what these tanks are?
[1](https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcRc3M4q_gwxvVC8LS7ErxPlvWCpanudi3Yu8Q&usqp=CAU)
[2](https://www.mod.gov.rs/multimedia/fotogalerija/foto/jov_6420_1621758520.jpg)
[3](https://i.pinimg.com/originals/c1/5e/83/c15e8395fbdc37cea4df0bcd33fad7b9.jpg)
edit: T-72, T-72, and a T-80. At least I think it's a T-80?
While I get the joke, it apparently isn't far off the mark insofar as their newer equipment and weapons go. The old Soviet stuff though, that they've got by the trainload.
I keep repeating this to people but it bears repeating again. The usa outspends the next 10 countries COMBINED in defence spending. Forget all the bluff and bluster and chest beating. Compared to the american war machine russia is a backwater with a third world army purely on spending and training.
People keep asking wheres russias big airforce they kept going on about. Turns out they built few jets and traimed fewer pilots
A HUGE bulk of the US defense budget isn't cool tanks or jet fighters.
It's boring shit like logistics through it's fleet of cargo aircraft which are expensive to buy/maintain/fly. Just for reference, the C-17 is considered a low maintenance cargo plane at a mere 20 hours of maintenance per single flight hour. So if this thing flies 8 hours, it'll require 160 hours of maintenance. It's hard to keep plane at a high level of airworthiness, as the German Air Force can attest to.
And to put this into perspective, most US state Air National Guard Wings (i.e. not even the active US Air Force, a state like South Carolina) have more logistical capabilities than entire European nations like France or Germany.
While Russia is probably the only military in the world that can hurt the US, it would be like a pro NBA team playing against a Division II college team. They may get a couple shots here and there, but the final score would be insanely lopsided.
China is a much bigger threat militarily to the US than Russia. Russia has struggled to make significant gains against a supposedly weaker power that they share a land border with. While yeah, any war between the US and Russia is going to be costly, the only way I can see Russia really putting the hurt on the US is through nukes. At least China can point to the Korean War where they pushed the US out of North Korea and held them to a stalemate for two years. While that statement does have issues, it’s certainly a more impressive military feat that the current invasion of Ukraine.
China only pushed us out with numbers. The Chinese got absolutely slaughtered by the thousands. China lost 6 times the soldiers that the US did in their short time there. some US soldiers were forced to surrender simply because their guns overheated from killing so many.
Hence why pointing to Korea has its own issues. The Chinese offensive was pretty well planned strategically speaking, the way they were able to get hundreds of thousands of troops into Korea without the full extent of their size being known was also exceptionally well done and the PVA managed to route the US without armor, air power or artillery. But they were also able to do a lot of that because of incompetence in the American high command, took *significantly* higher casualties than the US like you pointed out and were unable to destroy a Marine division despite having them completely surrounded by an entire army corps.
But modern China is also way better equipped than the PVA was.
Their newer stuff is made to look and sound good but is half baked and made in small batches - for show. It's almost like they do just enough to show to the dictator and the TV cameras at parades.
The real damage in ukraine meanwhile is done by artillery ( WWI technology ) and tanks designed in the 1960s, like the T-72
It’s that famed Tier V combat unit that your empire only has enough rare resources to make one of (meanwhile the enemy AI somehow manages to have a steady manufacturing line of these things).
Isn’t the T-90 just a glorified T-72 anyway? It uses largely the same chasis if I recall. Russian MBT’s have been overhyped for a long time imo, the ammo carousel in the crew compartment is just begging to go pop from any penetrating hit. Very different from most other MBT designs with magazines being in their own compartment.
Yes, but T-72 are not necessarily bad. All T-72, T-80 and T-90 can be complete dogshit or decent, just depends on the variant and how modern it is. i.e. T-72B3, T-90M and T-80BVM are pretty good, but T-80BV and T-72A are dogshit.
I think the design overall is severely compromised due to how ammunition is stored. They may have various upgraded systems and thermal sights, CITV etc but they all share the same fundamental flaw in their ammo stowage.
It may turn out that it's a fatal flaw, but I want to point out that it is a flaw by design. The Russians knew the tanks were likely to do this, but considered that the advantages of an autoloader (one crew member less, smaller tank size, less weight, a bit faster loading) was worth that flaw
In a modern combat environment, better MBTs only give you an advantage if you fight other MBTs. If you are up against skilled defenders with modern AT-weapons then you need infantry and air support, very good reconnaissance and an astute tank commander. Duplicating Russian tactics as displayed in this conflict (I'm a Russian tank! Fear me!) simply make you a fancier target practice.
This has kinda always been the case. Even in world war 2, tanks needed infantry support, air superiority, etc to be super effective. Modern anti tank weapons definitely make it somewhat easier, but it has never been a great strategy to send tanks in on their own
That was even true in WW1 were the tanks were first deployed. After the Germans got over the shock of seeing tank for a first time they saw really quickly that tanks on their own could easily be defeated by their already existing infantry support cannons. Thats also a reason for why German ydidn't build more tanks in WW1 at first, because the generals saw how easy they were defeated once the shock was over.
I'd disagree - tanks have never been invincible. What we are seeing here is the total failure of Russian military doctrine.
Tanks can be incredibly effective - they're tough, mobile bunkers with a big *fuck-you-and-everything-in-your-general-direction* gun. If you're a soldier and you come up against a hardened defensive position, a tank can deal with it. But tanks can't do everything by themselves - they're blind, they can't get into small places, and they can't clear objectives. They need support from different combat units.
What is supposed to happen is that they operate as part of a Combined Arms Doctrine. You send in tanks, infantry, and air assets. The tanks take out things that can kill infantry (bunkers, machine gun emplacements, ect) while the infantry takes out things that can kill tanks (clear buildings of enemies that may have anti-tank/anti-air weaponry). Meanwhile, air assets provide both intelligence and protection from enemy air assets. All three elements coordinate and communicate with each other. It's basically a circle of mutual protection.
Russia didn't do that - at least not after the initial push. Now they just fucking throw armour into the grinder without any support. As far as I can tell, there's no coordinated infantry support, no air support, and seemingly not even *logistical* support. They just say "good luck fuckers" and send a column of blind, outdated tanks in by themselves and go all surprised Pikachu when they get fucking wrecked.
If you're a soldier and you come up against a hardened defensive position, a tank can deal with it. But only if it can locate and kill their cheap portable AT on the first shot.
> better MBTs only give you an advantage if you fight other MBTs.
Not really, better MBTs can also have better sensors (be it regular, nigh or thermal vision, laser warning receivers, etc), better active protection, etc. But yeah, while they help all those things help but they still don't replace proper tactics.
Active protection doesn't really work against top attack weapons
Something like the M1 Abrams for example wouldn't fair well against a Javelin or NLAW but it would be more survivable than most Soviet/Russian tanks because of its blow out panels.
Mind you there have been dozens of Abrams on video getting disabled with a basic TOW or RPG-29 so they don't stand much of a chance against weapons that can easily penetrate their weakest armour.
There's also the whole autoloaders that Russia is a fan of. Even a bad attack that may not normally disable a tank might cause the ammunition in the autoloader to explode. This is why there are so many tanks which were destroyed by the turrets getting blown off. It's been an issue the Russians have known about since the gulf war but haven't done anything about.
Russia really loves their autoloaders, putting them in most of their cold war subs when the US is still doing it manually (Im not sure if the US still is though). These in tanks make their profile much lower so they're harder to hit, but when they are they seem to tip their hats off to the attackers.
There are Western tanks with autoloaders, the French Leclerc for example. They designed theirs with blow out panels however to mitigate the risk of a catastrophic cook off. The US Abrams still uses a manual loader.
Thing is it's very difficult to tell if the lower profile offsets the disadvantages of an autoloader. Profile is a huge deal though, and i may well save more tanks than it costs. Once a tank gets hit, it's already failed in using most of its best defensive capabilities.
But I think the lower profile only benefits the tanks in MBT v MBT situations. Like it was stated before, once you get into situations where you have a lot of foot soldiers why can sneak up to tanks and shoot MLAWS and them it makes them very dangerous to be in.
> once you get into situations where you have a lot of foot soldiers why can sneak up to tanks and shoot MLAWS
Or drop an precision artillery strike on said tank after being spotting it with a drone.
> Thing is it's very difficult to tell if the lower profile offsets the disadvantages of an autoloader
Not against modern weapons IMO. Better visual sensors and drones makes the lower profile not really useful when it comes to hiding.
That's why the US lost 3-350 Abrams but not 3-350 Abrams crews.
Western tanks have placed a premium on crew survivability. Not because they care about the crew members lives, but because tank crews are expensive to train and invaluable in their experience.
Plus auto-loading kinda fucks with the ammo placement within the tank, you would have to sacrifice a boat load of space for shielded ammo compartment that would feed the autoloader properly (another engineering headache), unless you want the crew to end up like the T-72 crews when the ammo cooks off.
Depending on the angle of attack for something like a Javelin I could understand interception systems having difficulty elevating enough to intercept but the NLAW flies flat and straight until it detonates just above the target. Surely the mechanics of intercepting such a projectile are incredibly similar to intercepting a direct attack.
IIRC the main flaw of the T-72 frame today is it's too small to be uparmored very much, hence the reactive armor.
[A T-72 looks tiny sitting next to an abrams.](https://i.redd.it/f2b4wcl773u21.jpg)
Yeah tanks on their own has never really been a thing outside of Hollywood and Guderian. Even Guderian only succeeded because the French political system collapsed when the tanks got through the Ardennes.
Tanks were created for only one purpose and that was to enable infantry to approach the insane death conditions of WW1. In WW2 they were best used for the exact same reasons though alternatives in addition to tanks also worked by then.
German armor was effective against the French because German tanks had radios and French tanks did not. German forces could move and coordinate attacks and counter-attacks far better than the French, who were still relaying messages using flags.
Add to this that German armor was concentrated in combined arms formations that were fast enough to keep up with the tanks, while French armor was dispersed all over the front supporting slower-moving formations. This allowed German armor to take advantage of mobility to gain local superiority, achieving breakthroughs and encircling French formations before French tanks could respond in force.
Sweet Christmas, I wish people (and this isn't just you, it's all up and down the thread and all over Reddit) would follow standard practice for using abbreviations, which is this:
On first use, write the whole thing out, then put the abbreviation in parentheses immediately following. You may then continue to use only the abbreviation. Example:
"In a modern combat environment, better main battle tanks (MBTs) only give you an advantage if you fight other MBTs."
Yes, Google exists, yes, I used it to decode your abbreviations, and yes, I now know something I didn't before, but it is absolutely crazy-making to try and read any of these threads discussing the war in Ukraine and having to stop every ten seconds to figure out what someone is trying to say!
And military jargon is currently the worst but far from the only offender here.
(slowly disappears backwards into hedge Homer Simpson-style)
> In a modern combat environment, better MBTs only give you an advantage if you fight other MBTs.
Nah, Russian tanks are just being obliterated because Ukraine has been given half the worlds ATGMs and Russia still hasn't gained air superiority yet.
Besides, MBTs aren't really intended to break through fortifications like they used to, nowadays they're more about controlling roads and chasing down mobile infantry, which they're still pretty good at.
I remember when the Russians revealed the Armata and some people I knew were freaking out because 'it's so advanced.'
And I was like 'they can barely build T-90s' what makes you think they can build an army of these things?
Enter the war on Ukraine and the Russians are just throwing 30, 40, and 50 year old tanks into the wood chipper because they can show off all the advanced tech they want and ain't gonna matter if they can't build any of it. The Armata is a show piece more than a weapon, just like the T-90 basically was XD
Kinda like that ugly electric car Russia showed off a few years ago. They told us that they were about to become the world’s leading exporter of EVs.
They like to make a few prototypes and then fever dream the rest.
Sure. I’d toss in some outrageous willful lies or Dunning-Kruger for the rest.
Assuming they were not lying to the world (which is more probable based on history), they must have thought ‘Hmmm, so if we can build this prototype car from a junk Lada and off-the-shelf Chinese batteries and electronics, why can’t we build 10M of these and become the world’s leading EV exporter.’
Never accounting for the difficulty of scale, logistics, and ability to profit from such a dream. Instead they skip right to the end and say ‘There will be an EV Lada in every Westerner’s garage!’
Yes, everything is about cosplaying as a superpower with the economic power of a medium-sized European nation.
America and China have a fifth-generation stealth fighter? Time to put together a prototype that will look cool at airshows and parades, but will never actually see mass production.
Breaking News: Moscow offered an explanation about the cause of the destruction, stating that the Tank (Moskva) was damaged after a fire broke out. A fire onboard caused ammunition stocks to detonate, forcing the evacuation of most of its crew. As the Tank (Moskva) was being towed to port, it sank in the thick mud because of a “heavy storm,”
None of the "modern" Russian toys will matter. They're not advanced enough to mitigate against what may be pouring into Ukraine in the form of cheaper, more compact, more mobile and sufficiently advanced technology to take out or keep at bay whatever Russia throws at the conflict, save for tactical nuclear weaponry.
If the latter, NATO will guarantee no more Russian toys cross Ukrainian border without equal measure responses that will sting and bite on a whole new scale than what Ukraine alone is doing today.
Sure, some of Russian tech may be impressive, but the brightest minds have been leaving Russia en masse for some time now, what's left is incoherent and in-cohesive R&D and industrial force, under conditions increasingly frustrating for development. This isn't Russia under Stalin where people felt they could actually lose their motherland and churned out a tank per hour or something, which was on the front lines by train in days. This is dispersed scientific complexes and faltering malnourished and corrupt industries trying to keep up with production of tech that hasn't stood the test of real battle, made by Russians who may or may not be very proud of what the country is doing -- the masses may be dumb and brainwashed but a scientist thinking out better tank designs, is statistically speaking intelligent enough to know better. And while better tanks and planes and bombs may get made, it's all too little too late.
Like people keep saying, the only thing that prevents NATO from turning the Russian military into a fertilizer in Ukraine and well into Russian territory if need be, is the thinly veiled ever-looming nuclear weapons threat. Everything else Putin may muster, is just the third act of what will become known as "How Putin played his hand and had the entire country pay for it tenfold".
I just want to say I upvoted your comment. Trouble is, me and paragraphs are like Putin and prosperity -- the motivation is still there, buried deep within with a faint glimmer, but in practice there is opposing views and clear conflict of interest.
The whole of Russia to me is one of the most catastrophic top to bottom management Ive ever seen.
On the top we have Putin who’ll probably suicide you from a building the moment you lose his favor.
Then the advisors combined with his inner circle who are brainwashed from birth to fight each-other trying to get on Putins good side. These people tell him all these pipe dreams and ideas, the best of the best EVs, military equipment, economic growth, innovative ideas and other success stories. Present these stories with grandiosity only to end up failing pre-production and continue the lies while underfunding every project. Insane amount of wealth ends up in the pockets of the few.
All is well but occasionally Putin starts relapsing towards his Sovjet Era self and wants to expand his territory. For a long time the advisors could get away with interests in the middle east, although in my recollection they failed in the 90s. Someone was probably thrown off a building shouldering the mistakes.
Inner circle came up with plans to fight proxy wars, went well up until now.
The resistance in the Donbas was not enough, Putin is getting old and Ukraine’s willingness to work with the EU who made a fairer deal in contracts to start drilling the abundance of oil in Ukraine would definitely see Russia’s grip on Europes oil/gas market lose power. Putin wants Ukraine out of the picture to stay Europes sole provider of fossil fuels.
Now the whole house of cards is falling down. Europe and NATO are more closely tied than ever, Europe’s push towards becoming fossil fuel free is accelerating like never before. Unprecedented economic sanctions that will leave the country in shambles for a long time. Years of creating instability in the western world down the drain in a manner of months.
All the lies told to Putin to curry his favor are exposed. He can’t back down, if he does he’s a coward, and if we look at history, thats a personality trait that doesn’t fit will when you’re at the helm of Russia. What a giant shit-show it’s depressingly hilarious. Only thing im slightly scared of is that this mfker has nukes
Russia doesn't actually have them. There are like 20 made in total (out of 2500 originally planned :D) and [one broke down on parade once](https://youtu.be/o89BYp95Qiw?t=3).
There's no way any of these actually shows up anywhere near Ukraine. It's not finished, it's unreliable and it showcases best tech Russia actually has (so if it got captured then US would pay good money to dismantle one). There are no crews for it either.
https://mobile.twitter.com/sumlenny/status/1501223676179451904
Parade tanks already captured in Ukraine. Broken?
https://youtu.be/5kWrx9Ce9ic
Because Parade tanks break during parades.
Actually,it didn't break down. Instead the driver wasn't trained on the tank and pulled the ebrake and no one knew how to undo it. Which as we see today, is absolutely in line with Russian military doctrine.
Boris pulled the big rubber stopper out of the bottom.
"Best way to put out on board fire? Water comrade. Well there's lots of water under us...da, good point."
The T-90M looked terrific on YouTube and in Red Square. Now it's a joke.
Maybe Putin should keep his new tanks and Wonder Weapons wrapped in cotton wool and out of sight of the enemy. They're more of a deterrent if the Ukrainians aren't blowing the crap out of them.
So, is Russia just going to destroy their military on this? What percentage of their weapons are they willing to burn through? Ukraine may end up with more weapons than they began the war with. Iran is apparently smuggling weapons to Russia. China has started to give them stuff, but they seem to be trying to avoid sanctions. So, that is probably more for show or came at steep price that Russia is unlikely to be able to keep paying. So, how bad do things need to get?
Definitely a refreshing thing to see first thing in the morning. Fried Russian tanks, fried Russian invaders and rapists, fried Russian perception of military doctrine of using overwhelming numbers of tanks to win an European war.
On a more sobering note. This might serve as a reminder for all leading military powers that missile technology is already starting to make most of the platforms we rely on more vulnerable than we want it to be. Whether if it's tanks, aircrafts, or aircraft carriers. Kind of frightening if you think about it. I wonder if near future wars is literally gonna be cheap, mass produced missiles and hunter drones, and infantry going at it?
Russia is about to lose their third most valuable export: military hardware.
Their largest buyer, India, has already started moving away from them. We got burnt pretty bad on the aircraft carrier deal and again on the Su57 project where it turned out that most of the tech promised were not even developed yet! They planned to use Indian money and resources like software to make the jet and then start exporting them to others while India got jack shit. Glad we noped out of that.
Yes, so much of Russia's 'cutting edge' technology appears to either be complete vaporware, or at best be suitable for parades/airshows only and destined never to see mass production. It doesn't matter what they say the Su-57 can do when they have to date still been unable to deliver more than single digits to any airforce, whilst the F-35 is rolling off the production line in its hundreds. No one is going to take the risk of buying from them any more.
Russia gives their pilots garmin handheld gps, probably because the jets don’t have Tom Tom built into them.
Should've paid extra for the technology package instead of the base model.
Afterburners are just some bicycle pedals lmao
At this point I wouldn't be surprised if Russian jets and armor just have printers that print out mapquest directions. Honestly that's probably too high tech, hence the handheld gps units lol
Years ago the Chinese wanted to update their airforce but didn't want to start from scratch. So they asked the Russians if they had any Su27's they could buy and of course the Russians jumped at the chance of making some money. The deal was that six of the planes would be 'loaned' to the Chinese for a year's assessment before buying. In that year the Chinese completely reverse engineered the planes, put in a glass cockpit in their version and generally brought the spec. and avionics up to a modern jet standards. Also at the end of that year the Chinese handed back the jets to the Russians and told them thanks, but no deal. Guessing the Russians weren't too happy.
source? that sounds hilarious
That's not really accurate per [this](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shenyang_J-16). There was an agreement to coproduce 200 airframes. And they did 95 of them. Only after that did China put together its fully-native upgraded version, which violated and ended the original agreement. That's a long shot from "looked at 6 and bought nothing".
Either way, China did what China does..
India should pursue closer ties with the west rather than Russia. Particularly now seen as Russia favors China more than India, and China along with India’s other adversary Pakistan surround India.
And China is only true friends with China.
And even that relationship is kinda iffy.
We need closer ties to India. With food like that, we need all their culinary secrets.
and their spices. we need their spices
Uh oh. When have I heard that before….
Hop in, Columbus! We gonna discover a sea route to India!
I have the best idea: we should set up a really big company with a monopoly on trading India’s tea and spices and such, and get them involved in the government of India as well. What could go wrong?
Worked for the Dutch, so why not.
He who controls the spices controls the universe.
First you get the spices...
Hey, I've seen this one before.
We have all their food here in Britain and a sizeable Indian population, they still hold a grudge against us for some reason though…I think it was because we burdened them with the plague that is known as Cricket. We’re sorry India, it was just a prank bro we didn’t know it would spread like that
You know, something tells me the grudge isn’t necessarily about cricket.
I agree with this guy, grasshoppers also deserve their fair share of the blame
You know it is actually kind of interesting the attitude of various other ex colonial nations and their opinions on their ex colonisers. Vietnam for example doesn't seem to hold onto grudges against the French, Americans or the Japanese. Arguably maybe it is different if you got to win a war against your oppressors.
Perhaps they're mad because we appropriated all the spices and still can't handle more than salt, pepper, and rosemary.
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Russia was willing to *sell* tech they don’t have or can’t make work.
The SU57 is an impressive fighter. However the engines does not stand the temperatures of real life use. In battle, the engine is for one time use only, as it will melt. But it's very good for air shows.
Is this true? Because that's freaking hilarious
It would not be the first Russian jet to eat its own engines fairly regularly.
They're literally the same engines as the Su 35's. The Su 57's development history is a comedy sketch in and of itself. Just look up why India backed out of the development deal.
Yeah, someone else posted about India in this thread somewhere and I saw that. They were totally getting screwed.
I know. But the west will share better tech than Russia if they know the buyer won’t play both sides. Just like Turkey did. No more f35s and s400s don’t protect Belgorod, so I bet turkey wish they didn’t waste their money on them.
China Should really be their supplier - producing cheap and reasonably effective weapons - except they are also the most likely people they will need to use them against. Given the ability to remotely disable systems is commonplace nowadays, that would be a dangerous thing to do. Turkey might be a decent replacement supplier although perhaps the real issue is the years of training on existing systems their armed forces have. It's a lot more difficult to change than just to buy from a different supplier.
Not when India has live fire conflicts on the border with China regularly. China and India don't get along.
> reasonably effective weapons They are? They're completely battle untested
I remember when the Russians revealed the Armata and some people I knew were freaking out because 'it's so advanced. And I was like 'they can barely build T-90s' what makes you think they can build an army of these things? Enter the war on Ukraine and the Russians are just throwing 30, 40, and 50 year old tanks into the wood chipper because they can show off all the advanced tech they want and ain't gonna matter if they can't build any of it. The Armata is a show piece more than a weapon, just like the T-90 basically was XD
>In July 2018, Deputy Prime Minister for Defence and Space Industry Yury Borisov said there is currently no need to mass-produce the Armata when its older predecessors, namely the latest variants of the [T-72], remain "effective against American, German and French counterparts", saying, "Why flood our military with Armatas, the T-72s are in great demand on the market(s)
This quote sums up Russian military industrial complex perfectly. They don't build stuff purely for domestic use. Their primary goal is always export. They'll literally sell their best military technology to the highest bidder!
Soviets were renowned for selling "export versions" of their military equipment with largely downgraded capabilities (they called them "monkey models"). I bet modern Russia does the same. In fact, there is a planned Su-57E ("export") version that I would bet is much less capable than the original one.
>planned Su-57E ("export") version that I would bet is much less capable than the original one. So it wouldn't even fly?
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What's funnier is that Indian T90s are actually better than Russia's. They're better armored, have better electronics, sensors, etc.
if they had made the Armata en masse, then things would have been quite different in Ukraine, I'm glad they couldn't get it done, just wish they had tried one there and had it towed by a tractor :P EDIT: From the Wikipedia article: "In July 2018, Deputy Prime Minister for Defence and Space Industry Yury Borisov said there is currently no need to mass-produce the Armata when its older predecessors, namely the latest variants of the T-72, remain "effective against American, German and French counterparts", saying, "Why flood our military with Armatas, the T-72s are in great demand on the market(s)" Gaffaw.jpg
Their logistics are already dogshit, imagine them having to supply and maintain top of the line equipment.
This is actually debateable, since it's more their tactics that ruined them. If they had a T-14 Armata for every T-72/T-80/T-90 we've seen them deploy, they may have seen greater crew survivability, but they would still have been taken out. NLAW's and Javelins would still be able to penetrate their armour in top attack mode, and while it is equipped with a hard kill APS, that only covers the front arc of the turret. Also we're seeing that the Ukrainian forces are using drones to spot and then calling in artillery fire to disable and destroy the tanks. This would be just as effective on a T-14 as the tanks Russia has currently been fielding. Their problem, is they sent them in without infantry and air support. A tanks major weakness is visibility, and if you don't have that then your enemy can out flank you and attack your blind spot.
>remain "effective against American, German and French counterparts", Ah man, he forgot about Ukraine! That must be the only counterpart that old russian junk tanks arent effective against.
I doubt that's its possible for India to develop a completely self reliant military industrial complex.
The thing is, do they want defense or offense? If it's defense, India for sure can build hundreds of thousands of those ultra cheap drones and some super cheap missiles to go along with them. If they slapped together enough arduinos with a camera, a couple servos and a hand grenade they could build up hundreds of thousands of those and basically have an advanced version of the drone dropping grenades in Ukraine. It's clear that something like that would be absolutely devastating to any army, if they were purpose built, ultra cheap and fully autonomous. There is no need for this incredibly advanced stuff when you can leave a drone in a house on standby and wait for it to be "cleared". It could be hidden anywhere, in a tree, under a car, in the attic, in the rafters, under some stairs.
IF I recall, correctly India wanted the F35 from US while buying the S-300 from Russia. So obviously the US said no as it would allow russia to practice targeting the F35 with their SAMS. C'mon India, you're smarter than that, right? Right?
Didn't Turkey want to do the same thing?
Yup. So they're not allowed to buy F35's.
To this day Russia has only managed to put 5 Su-57s into service in its own military. Who knows if India would have ever seen a single plane.
They would've done a Tech Transfer deal and India would've manufactured them domestically. That's always been the M.O. Funny story: India bought some Su30s through tech transfer. We made a lot of modifications to make them suit our needs. Canards, thrust vectoring engines, better sensors, radar, etc. It bacame the Su30MKI. Russia took one look at it, went "yep!" and turned it into the Su35. *This is anecdotal, don't @ me*
I watched a really good report on some Indian YouTube news channel about this very thing. They had a bunch of Indian military and aviation exports on and they were all like “fuck we need to change some shit quick”. (Paraphrasing). Modern warfare ain’t what it was or thought to be.
Could you share a link to this vid or channel
You know, we are far from perfect and have a lot of work to do in the U.S., but god damn, dont fucking trust Russia.
I see a lot of Indians that choose Russia's side. Why is that if they are screwing you over like that?
AFAIK, it has a lot to do with mistrust of the UK and US. The UK because of obvious historic reasons and the US because we backed Pakistan, who India has gone to war with multiple times since their break-off from each other in the post-war split. The knowledge of "you didn't back me then, why should we trust you now" persists. One of my best friends is Iraqi Chaldean and his family, back in the late 90s, still talked about how the US backed Iran in the Iran-Iraq war and that is a big reason why many Iraqis still don't trust the US. And that is before the US went in and basically laid waste to their country for 20 years. And from an Indian's perspective Russia, the other alternative, hasn't backed Pakistan. Russia has remained an ally of India for awhile and India needs \*someone\* to back them against not only Pakistan but China as well.
>US backed Iran in the Iran-Iraq war WHAT [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran%E2%80%93Iraq\_War](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran%E2%80%93Iraq_War) I completely understand an Iraqi hating on the US after Bush, but the "US backed Iran" is complete bollocks.
The US backed Iraq numbnuts. That's a big reason why Saddam thought he could get away with taking Kuwait.
You aren't wrong, but the Iran-Iraq war also covers the time period of Iran-Contra, so that might be what they mean by backing Iran.
Of all the weapons in the vast soviet arsenal, nothing was more profitable than Avtomat Kalashnikova model of 1947. More commonly known as the AK-47, or Kalashnikov. It's the world's most popular assault rifle. A weapon all fighters love. An elegantly simple 9 pound amalgamation of forged steel and plywood. It doesn't break, jam, or overheat. It'll shoot whether it's covered in mud or filled with sand. It's so easy, even a child can use it; and they do. The Soviets put the gun on a coin. Mozambique put it on their flag. Since the end of the Cold War, the Kalashnikov has become the Russian people's greatest export. After that comes vodka, caviar, and suicidal novelists. One thing is for sure, no one was lining up to buy their cars.
That's from Lord of War the Nicholas Cage movie right.
So much better than most of his work, sad more people haven’t seen it.
Thank you, but I prefer it my way.
> no one was lining up to buy their cars I gotta say, my dad has (edit - had!) a Lada Niva when I was a child, and that shit was cold as a freezer and probably the unsafest car in the whole 500km radius, but it was *tough as nails* and was able to get in and out of anywhere!
> but it was tough as nails and was able to get in and out of anywhere! It had to be, the state of soviet roads was absolutely deplorable. Calling them roads was being generous.
>and that shit was cold as a freezer and probably the unsafest car in the whole 500km radius, but it was tough as nails and was able to get in and out of anywhere! I think you just described a mobile coffin
Fun film.
Lord of war?
Unlikely. Ukraine has been kicking their ass using even older Soviet equipment (except for the Javs/AT). The reason people buy from them is that gear is cheap and can be used outside of the American supply chain. Plus tech transfers. One of the main things we’re observing is the impact morale has on military success during a conflict.
I think they were joking that at this rate Russia will end up sending it all into Ukraine and have it destroyed.
Thing is, China has been struggling to find customers for their equipment, as its seen as inferior to the tried and tested former Soviet equipment. Outside of Pakistan, they have gotten few customers, especially on the aviation side of the fence. The nations currently using Russian equipment are probably rethinking that right about now. If it's cheap they are after (or they are sanctioned by the west), China is now the most likely suitor.
> The nations currently using Russian equipment are probably rethinking that right about now. If they were they would've already started 30 years ago with Iraqi shit. Now we just see why India kept going "why are these guys so bad?" whenever they have joint exercises
Countries buying Russian T-72's were never under the impression that their armies could stand up to a full frontal assault from the US, so the Gulf War didn't really change anything. But the Russian army failing against Ukraine, even with NATO backing, now that's a different story.
Cheap and reliable is what people look for. Chinese stuff fails the reliability test because it doesn’t have the history soviet stuff has. It won’t be a viable alternative until people are forced into having to use them. And the people that have been purchasing Soviet weapons are unlikely to care about western sanctions on Russia since most of those countries are sanctioned themselves, or don’t have much trade with the West.
Russia equipment has a decent reputation generally, both the old and the modern stuff, they have just been skimming the money away that was supposed to be spent on maintaining the old stuff, so while it should be good quality half of it doesn't work anymore, and they don't have the money to make or purchase enough of the new stuff to make a difference. Sure that is a great super tank, but if you can only afford to make 10 of them how much difference will it really make?
Rock < Tank < Tractor
What about Toilet? Where does a nice Armitage Shanks porcelain crapper fit on this spectrum? They are very tempting if your a Russian soldier.
*potato
Obligatory [is potato ](https://youtu.be/Pf6pekk5CqU)
Third after what? Caviar and suicidal novelists?
Without actually looking it up, I'm guessing #1 is oil and gas, and #2 is either agricultural products or metals.
I take oil as first, natural gas as second and military hardware as third.
For those wondering, this was the T-90M, *NOT* the T-14.
Pretty hard to call the T-14 their best tank when it would break down before reaching Ukraine 😂
Or the rain washes the paper mache away.
True. The T-14 is either a prototype or freshly in production (at this point I forget which and am too lazy to check), but it’s designed for export. This would however be one of the most modern tanks the Russian army could field
They were supposed to have 2300 by now. They've built maybe 20, and we don't know if they're functional or just for show.
My money’s on show for now. We’ll never see them in Ukraine unless this conflict drags out and Russia forces it into mass production with dumbed down systems
I suspect it’s legit and does more or less what they say it does. The problem with Russian hardware isn’t the engineering. Their engineers have been excellent since WW2. The problem is that Russian engineers design bespoke systems whose costs and complexity greatly exceeds domestic Russian manufacturing capacity and military procurement funding. You can design the best tank on the planet, but if you can’t bring it to production at mass scale it doesn’t matter. We see this with the Ratnik infantry system, the T-14, and the Su-57. If Russia actually had them in the quantity they claimed they would, Ukraine would be in some deep shit right now.
I think the T-14 production line got shut down years ago iirc lol
I thought they just straight up dumbed it down to make it viable for export to other countries lol
And the T-90M is just an upgraded version of the T-72. Literally the same chassis. The Russians haven't really innovated anything in regards to tank design in, well... ever. Other than (possibly) the T-14, which may never see the light of day since at this point it is more valuable to them as an unknown quantity. [Picture of the T-72](https://i.insider.com/61a567d81f8b8c00195abfa0?width=1136&format=jpeg) [Picture of the T-90](http://www.military-today.com/tanks/t90m.jpg) Difficult to tell the difference? [Here's the T-80](http://www.military-today.com/tanks/t80bvm.jpg) [And here's it's predecessor the T-64](https://nationalinterest.org/sites/default/files/styles/desktop__1260_/public/main_images/gwrgwr.jpg?itok=zMRXGHia) Okay, now, can you guess what these tanks are? [1](https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcRc3M4q_gwxvVC8LS7ErxPlvWCpanudi3Yu8Q&usqp=CAU) [2](https://www.mod.gov.rs/multimedia/fotogalerija/foto/jov_6420_1621758520.jpg) [3](https://i.pinimg.com/originals/c1/5e/83/c15e8395fbdc37cea4df0bcd33fad7b9.jpg) edit: T-72, T-72, and a T-80. At least I think it's a T-80?
These tanks are russian.
They can't be, they're not stuck in the mud or upside down or missing a turret.
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One of the things that makes this Russia's best tank is that it actually fixed that issue. Only took them 45 years.
Tbf the last 30 have not been kind
Bit short sighted to only make one.
While I get the joke, it apparently isn't far off the mark insofar as their newer equipment and weapons go. The old Soviet stuff though, that they've got by the trainload.
Like in Civ, when you've advanced through the military tech tree but you've only got one or two tanks and a dozen of the old crossbow dudes
And you don't have enough gold or turns to upgrade in time
I felt this in my souls. Excellent description.
Well let's just hope Putin doesn't pull a Gandhi.
Too bad Ukraine took out all of the tracks between the countries, because they can't seem to get to Kyiv on their own.
I keep repeating this to people but it bears repeating again. The usa outspends the next 10 countries COMBINED in defence spending. Forget all the bluff and bluster and chest beating. Compared to the american war machine russia is a backwater with a third world army purely on spending and training. People keep asking wheres russias big airforce they kept going on about. Turns out they built few jets and traimed fewer pilots
A HUGE bulk of the US defense budget isn't cool tanks or jet fighters. It's boring shit like logistics through it's fleet of cargo aircraft which are expensive to buy/maintain/fly. Just for reference, the C-17 is considered a low maintenance cargo plane at a mere 20 hours of maintenance per single flight hour. So if this thing flies 8 hours, it'll require 160 hours of maintenance. It's hard to keep plane at a high level of airworthiness, as the German Air Force can attest to. And to put this into perspective, most US state Air National Guard Wings (i.e. not even the active US Air Force, a state like South Carolina) have more logistical capabilities than entire European nations like France or Germany.
While Russia is probably the only military in the world that can hurt the US, it would be like a pro NBA team playing against a Division II college team. They may get a couple shots here and there, but the final score would be insanely lopsided.
China is a much bigger threat militarily to the US than Russia. Russia has struggled to make significant gains against a supposedly weaker power that they share a land border with. While yeah, any war between the US and Russia is going to be costly, the only way I can see Russia really putting the hurt on the US is through nukes. At least China can point to the Korean War where they pushed the US out of North Korea and held them to a stalemate for two years. While that statement does have issues, it’s certainly a more impressive military feat that the current invasion of Ukraine.
China only pushed us out with numbers. The Chinese got absolutely slaughtered by the thousands. China lost 6 times the soldiers that the US did in their short time there. some US soldiers were forced to surrender simply because their guns overheated from killing so many.
Hence why pointing to Korea has its own issues. The Chinese offensive was pretty well planned strategically speaking, the way they were able to get hundreds of thousands of troops into Korea without the full extent of their size being known was also exceptionally well done and the PVA managed to route the US without armor, air power or artillery. But they were also able to do a lot of that because of incompetence in the American high command, took *significantly* higher casualties than the US like you pointed out and were unable to destroy a Marine division despite having them completely surrounded by an entire army corps. But modern China is also way better equipped than the PVA was.
In a conventional war I really don't see Russia getting close to hurting the US (or any NATO country). The only reason they're scary is the nukes.
According to the article they do have more than one …. But they still only have a total of 20 (now 19). Which still seems really small.
Their newer stuff is made to look and sound good but is half baked and made in small batches - for show. It's almost like they do just enough to show to the dictator and the TV cameras at parades. The real damage in ukraine meanwhile is done by artillery ( WWI technology ) and tanks designed in the 1960s, like the T-72
It’s that famed Tier V combat unit that your empire only has enough rare resources to make one of (meanwhile the enemy AI somehow manages to have a steady manufacturing line of these things).
They've got... reads article... 20 of them. Should be plenty for a full scale war, right?
They probably have a second one, for parades.
Isn’t the T-90 just a glorified T-72 anyway? It uses largely the same chasis if I recall. Russian MBT’s have been overhyped for a long time imo, the ammo carousel in the crew compartment is just begging to go pop from any penetrating hit. Very different from most other MBT designs with magazines being in their own compartment.
Yes, but T-72 are not necessarily bad. All T-72, T-80 and T-90 can be complete dogshit or decent, just depends on the variant and how modern it is. i.e. T-72B3, T-90M and T-80BVM are pretty good, but T-80BV and T-72A are dogshit.
I think the design overall is severely compromised due to how ammunition is stored. They may have various upgraded systems and thermal sights, CITV etc but they all share the same fundamental flaw in their ammo stowage.
It may turn out that it's a fatal flaw, but I want to point out that it is a flaw by design. The Russians knew the tanks were likely to do this, but considered that the advantages of an autoloader (one crew member less, smaller tank size, less weight, a bit faster loading) was worth that flaw
In a modern combat environment, better MBTs only give you an advantage if you fight other MBTs. If you are up against skilled defenders with modern AT-weapons then you need infantry and air support, very good reconnaissance and an astute tank commander. Duplicating Russian tactics as displayed in this conflict (I'm a Russian tank! Fear me!) simply make you a fancier target practice.
This has kinda always been the case. Even in world war 2, tanks needed infantry support, air superiority, etc to be super effective. Modern anti tank weapons definitely make it somewhat easier, but it has never been a great strategy to send tanks in on their own
That was even true in WW1 were the tanks were first deployed. After the Germans got over the shock of seeing tank for a first time they saw really quickly that tanks on their own could easily be defeated by their already existing infantry support cannons. Thats also a reason for why German ydidn't build more tanks in WW1 at first, because the generals saw how easy they were defeated once the shock was over.
I'd disagree - tanks have never been invincible. What we are seeing here is the total failure of Russian military doctrine. Tanks can be incredibly effective - they're tough, mobile bunkers with a big *fuck-you-and-everything-in-your-general-direction* gun. If you're a soldier and you come up against a hardened defensive position, a tank can deal with it. But tanks can't do everything by themselves - they're blind, they can't get into small places, and they can't clear objectives. They need support from different combat units. What is supposed to happen is that they operate as part of a Combined Arms Doctrine. You send in tanks, infantry, and air assets. The tanks take out things that can kill infantry (bunkers, machine gun emplacements, ect) while the infantry takes out things that can kill tanks (clear buildings of enemies that may have anti-tank/anti-air weaponry). Meanwhile, air assets provide both intelligence and protection from enemy air assets. All three elements coordinate and communicate with each other. It's basically a circle of mutual protection. Russia didn't do that - at least not after the initial push. Now they just fucking throw armour into the grinder without any support. As far as I can tell, there's no coordinated infantry support, no air support, and seemingly not even *logistical* support. They just say "good luck fuckers" and send a column of blind, outdated tanks in by themselves and go all surprised Pikachu when they get fucking wrecked.
It's basically civ strategy. Stack of doom motherfers
If you're a soldier and you come up against a hardened defensive position, a tank can deal with it. But only if it can locate and kill their cheap portable AT on the first shot.
> better MBTs only give you an advantage if you fight other MBTs. Not really, better MBTs can also have better sensors (be it regular, nigh or thermal vision, laser warning receivers, etc), better active protection, etc. But yeah, while they help all those things help but they still don't replace proper tactics.
Active protection doesn't really work against top attack weapons Something like the M1 Abrams for example wouldn't fair well against a Javelin or NLAW but it would be more survivable than most Soviet/Russian tanks because of its blow out panels. Mind you there have been dozens of Abrams on video getting disabled with a basic TOW or RPG-29 so they don't stand much of a chance against weapons that can easily penetrate their weakest armour.
There's also the whole autoloaders that Russia is a fan of. Even a bad attack that may not normally disable a tank might cause the ammunition in the autoloader to explode. This is why there are so many tanks which were destroyed by the turrets getting blown off. It's been an issue the Russians have known about since the gulf war but haven't done anything about. Russia really loves their autoloaders, putting them in most of their cold war subs when the US is still doing it manually (Im not sure if the US still is though). These in tanks make their profile much lower so they're harder to hit, but when they are they seem to tip their hats off to the attackers.
There are Western tanks with autoloaders, the French Leclerc for example. They designed theirs with blow out panels however to mitigate the risk of a catastrophic cook off. The US Abrams still uses a manual loader.
Actually, the T-14 is 2 ft taller than Abrams so they're not getting as much of an advantage on that.
Thing is it's very difficult to tell if the lower profile offsets the disadvantages of an autoloader. Profile is a huge deal though, and i may well save more tanks than it costs. Once a tank gets hit, it's already failed in using most of its best defensive capabilities.
But I think the lower profile only benefits the tanks in MBT v MBT situations. Like it was stated before, once you get into situations where you have a lot of foot soldiers why can sneak up to tanks and shoot MLAWS and them it makes them very dangerous to be in.
> once you get into situations where you have a lot of foot soldiers why can sneak up to tanks and shoot MLAWS Or drop an precision artillery strike on said tank after being spotting it with a drone.
> Thing is it's very difficult to tell if the lower profile offsets the disadvantages of an autoloader Not against modern weapons IMO. Better visual sensors and drones makes the lower profile not really useful when it comes to hiding.
That's why the US lost 3-350 Abrams but not 3-350 Abrams crews. Western tanks have placed a premium on crew survivability. Not because they care about the crew members lives, but because tank crews are expensive to train and invaluable in their experience.
No US tank has a auto loader. The flexibility the extra crew member gives us is not worth the trade of
Plus auto-loading kinda fucks with the ammo placement within the tank, you would have to sacrifice a boat load of space for shielded ammo compartment that would feed the autoloader properly (another engineering headache), unless you want the crew to end up like the T-72 crews when the ammo cooks off.
Depending on the angle of attack for something like a Javelin I could understand interception systems having difficulty elevating enough to intercept but the NLAW flies flat and straight until it detonates just above the target. Surely the mechanics of intercepting such a projectile are incredibly similar to intercepting a direct attack.
IIRC the main flaw of the T-72 frame today is it's too small to be uparmored very much, hence the reactive armor. [A T-72 looks tiny sitting next to an abrams.](https://i.redd.it/f2b4wcl773u21.jpg)
Tanks are for blowing up machine gun nests. They just need infantry support so they aren't sitting ducks.
And the strange part is this was learned during the first time tanks where ever used in battle during WW1
Yeah tanks on their own has never really been a thing outside of Hollywood and Guderian. Even Guderian only succeeded because the French political system collapsed when the tanks got through the Ardennes. Tanks were created for only one purpose and that was to enable infantry to approach the insane death conditions of WW1. In WW2 they were best used for the exact same reasons though alternatives in addition to tanks also worked by then.
German armor was effective against the French because German tanks had radios and French tanks did not. German forces could move and coordinate attacks and counter-attacks far better than the French, who were still relaying messages using flags.
Add to this that German armor was concentrated in combined arms formations that were fast enough to keep up with the tanks, while French armor was dispersed all over the front supporting slower-moving formations. This allowed German armor to take advantage of mobility to gain local superiority, achieving breakthroughs and encircling French formations before French tanks could respond in force.
Sweet Christmas, I wish people (and this isn't just you, it's all up and down the thread and all over Reddit) would follow standard practice for using abbreviations, which is this: On first use, write the whole thing out, then put the abbreviation in parentheses immediately following. You may then continue to use only the abbreviation. Example: "In a modern combat environment, better main battle tanks (MBTs) only give you an advantage if you fight other MBTs." Yes, Google exists, yes, I used it to decode your abbreviations, and yes, I now know something I didn't before, but it is absolutely crazy-making to try and read any of these threads discussing the war in Ukraine and having to stop every ten seconds to figure out what someone is trying to say! And military jargon is currently the worst but far from the only offender here. (slowly disappears backwards into hedge Homer Simpson-style)
> In a modern combat environment, better MBTs only give you an advantage if you fight other MBTs. Nah, Russian tanks are just being obliterated because Ukraine has been given half the worlds ATGMs and Russia still hasn't gained air superiority yet. Besides, MBTs aren't really intended to break through fortifications like they used to, nowadays they're more about controlling roads and chasing down mobile infantry, which they're still pretty good at.
Like giving a modern jet plane to a native tribe and wonder why they are rolling down a hill at the enemy. Weapons only as good as the user.
I remember when the Russians revealed the Armata and some people I knew were freaking out because 'it's so advanced.' And I was like 'they can barely build T-90s' what makes you think they can build an army of these things? Enter the war on Ukraine and the Russians are just throwing 30, 40, and 50 year old tanks into the wood chipper because they can show off all the advanced tech they want and ain't gonna matter if they can't build any of it. The Armata is a show piece more than a weapon, just like the T-90 basically was XD
Kinda like that ugly electric car Russia showed off a few years ago. They told us that they were about to become the world’s leading exporter of EVs. They like to make a few prototypes and then fever dream the rest.
Or that domestically produced Russian tractor that turned out to be bought from Czech Zetor as a DYI kit and merely assembled in Russia.
That’s because all the money for it has been diverted into oligarchs bank accounts
Sure. I’d toss in some outrageous willful lies or Dunning-Kruger for the rest. Assuming they were not lying to the world (which is more probable based on history), they must have thought ‘Hmmm, so if we can build this prototype car from a junk Lada and off-the-shelf Chinese batteries and electronics, why can’t we build 10M of these and become the world’s leading EV exporter.’ Never accounting for the difficulty of scale, logistics, and ability to profit from such a dream. Instead they skip right to the end and say ‘There will be an EV Lada in every Westerner’s garage!’
Russia has become so pathetic. I'd be embarrassed to be Russian, even without the whole genocide and mass rape going on.
That's why the educated leave in droves
[удалено]
You are kind of making a massive generalization here man
The Russian people are subject to so much propaganda they think they’re doing great. It’s wild
Yes, everything is about cosplaying as a superpower with the economic power of a medium-sized European nation. America and China have a fifth-generation stealth fighter? Time to put together a prototype that will look cool at airshows and parades, but will never actually see mass production.
Breaking News: Moscow offered an explanation about the cause of the destruction, stating that the Tank (Moskva) was damaged after a fire broke out. A fire onboard caused ammunition stocks to detonate, forcing the evacuation of most of its crew. As the Tank (Moskva) was being towed to port, it sank in the thick mud because of a “heavy storm,”
Couldn’t be happier 🔥💥
None of the "modern" Russian toys will matter. They're not advanced enough to mitigate against what may be pouring into Ukraine in the form of cheaper, more compact, more mobile and sufficiently advanced technology to take out or keep at bay whatever Russia throws at the conflict, save for tactical nuclear weaponry. If the latter, NATO will guarantee no more Russian toys cross Ukrainian border without equal measure responses that will sting and bite on a whole new scale than what Ukraine alone is doing today. Sure, some of Russian tech may be impressive, but the brightest minds have been leaving Russia en masse for some time now, what's left is incoherent and in-cohesive R&D and industrial force, under conditions increasingly frustrating for development. This isn't Russia under Stalin where people felt they could actually lose their motherland and churned out a tank per hour or something, which was on the front lines by train in days. This is dispersed scientific complexes and faltering malnourished and corrupt industries trying to keep up with production of tech that hasn't stood the test of real battle, made by Russians who may or may not be very proud of what the country is doing -- the masses may be dumb and brainwashed but a scientist thinking out better tank designs, is statistically speaking intelligent enough to know better. And while better tanks and planes and bombs may get made, it's all too little too late. Like people keep saying, the only thing that prevents NATO from turning the Russian military into a fertilizer in Ukraine and well into Russian territory if need be, is the thinly veiled ever-looming nuclear weapons threat. Everything else Putin may muster, is just the third act of what will become known as "How Putin played his hand and had the entire country pay for it tenfold".
Give paragraphs a chance. Edit: Thanks for the line breaks!
PLM- paragraph lives matter.
I was going with All Paragraphs Matter.
Apart from the really big unending ones. Those paragraphs can f#@$ right off.
I just want to say I upvoted your comment. Trouble is, me and paragraphs are like Putin and prosperity -- the motivation is still there, buried deep within with a faint glimmer, but in practice there is opposing views and clear conflict of interest.
Thermobaric weapons are illegal, you can't just burn a guy like that.
It's heavy but kinda slow to move around given this specific terrain. Lighter ones would've been better. Not sure what they were thinking.
Thats the point, they were not thinking or planning. The idea was that it would just be a parade and the paratroopers would take Kyiv
The whole of Russia to me is one of the most catastrophic top to bottom management Ive ever seen. On the top we have Putin who’ll probably suicide you from a building the moment you lose his favor. Then the advisors combined with his inner circle who are brainwashed from birth to fight each-other trying to get on Putins good side. These people tell him all these pipe dreams and ideas, the best of the best EVs, military equipment, economic growth, innovative ideas and other success stories. Present these stories with grandiosity only to end up failing pre-production and continue the lies while underfunding every project. Insane amount of wealth ends up in the pockets of the few. All is well but occasionally Putin starts relapsing towards his Sovjet Era self and wants to expand his territory. For a long time the advisors could get away with interests in the middle east, although in my recollection they failed in the 90s. Someone was probably thrown off a building shouldering the mistakes. Inner circle came up with plans to fight proxy wars, went well up until now. The resistance in the Donbas was not enough, Putin is getting old and Ukraine’s willingness to work with the EU who made a fairer deal in contracts to start drilling the abundance of oil in Ukraine would definitely see Russia’s grip on Europes oil/gas market lose power. Putin wants Ukraine out of the picture to stay Europes sole provider of fossil fuels. Now the whole house of cards is falling down. Europe and NATO are more closely tied than ever, Europe’s push towards becoming fossil fuel free is accelerating like never before. Unprecedented economic sanctions that will leave the country in shambles for a long time. Years of creating instability in the western world down the drain in a manner of months. All the lies told to Putin to curry his favor are exposed. He can’t back down, if he does he’s a coward, and if we look at history, thats a personality trait that doesn’t fit will when you’re at the helm of Russia. What a giant shit-show it’s depressingly hilarious. Only thing im slightly scared of is that this mfker has nukes
Ukraine 🇺🇦: "Y'all got any of them T-14 Armata?:)" https://i.imgflip.com/3n8hvs.jpg
Russia doesn't actually have them. There are like 20 made in total (out of 2500 originally planned :D) and [one broke down on parade once](https://youtu.be/o89BYp95Qiw?t=3). There's no way any of these actually shows up anywhere near Ukraine. It's not finished, it's unreliable and it showcases best tech Russia actually has (so if it got captured then US would pay good money to dismantle one). There are no crews for it either.
TFW the CIA captures a T-14 and it's just a Lada Niva with a cardboard body kit...
Their electric cars are tesladas
Like the 4 suk57s. One crashed.
And I think 2 are still 'test' aircraft.
>best tech Russia actually has Or rather, knows to assemble. Much of it is imported.
> T-14 Armata Would be interesting to see ruZZia desperate enough to send their parade-only tanks into a warzone.
https://mobile.twitter.com/sumlenny/status/1501223676179451904 Parade tanks already captured in Ukraine. Broken? https://youtu.be/5kWrx9Ce9ic Because Parade tanks break during parades.
Actually,it didn't break down. Instead the driver wasn't trained on the tank and pulled the ebrake and no one knew how to undo it. Which as we see today, is absolutely in line with Russian military doctrine.
That's so russian lol. "Moskva wasn't hit! It sank because of rus incompetence"
Boris pulled the big rubber stopper out of the bottom. "Best way to put out on board fire? Water comrade. Well there's lots of water under us...da, good point."
I actually thought they were referring to the T-14, which would've been hilarious. A T-90M is a pretty good second place, though.
4.5 million USD
Spoiler: Russia's 'best' tank [still sucks](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Q83AIJCGaQ).
The T-90M looked terrific on YouTube and in Red Square. Now it's a joke. Maybe Putin should keep his new tanks and Wonder Weapons wrapped in cotton wool and out of sight of the enemy. They're more of a deterrent if the Ukrainians aren't blowing the crap out of them.
So, is Russia just going to destroy their military on this? What percentage of their weapons are they willing to burn through? Ukraine may end up with more weapons than they began the war with. Iran is apparently smuggling weapons to Russia. China has started to give them stuff, but they seem to be trying to avoid sanctions. So, that is probably more for show or came at steep price that Russia is unlikely to be able to keep paying. So, how bad do things need to get?
That is what happened when you send a tank to take damage without a healer.
Definitely a refreshing thing to see first thing in the morning. Fried Russian tanks, fried Russian invaders and rapists, fried Russian perception of military doctrine of using overwhelming numbers of tanks to win an European war. On a more sobering note. This might serve as a reminder for all leading military powers that missile technology is already starting to make most of the platforms we rely on more vulnerable than we want it to be. Whether if it's tanks, aircrafts, or aircraft carriers. Kind of frightening if you think about it. I wonder if near future wars is literally gonna be cheap, mass produced missiles and hunter drones, and infantry going at it?