Quote:
Originally Posted by frinik
I agree with Whukid!Whatever its flaws the US Army is a better trained and equipped army than the Russian one.
One only has to read numerous reports and articles about the situaiton of the Russian army; beatings of recruits, unbelievable amount of theft on a grand scale, corruption( officers keeping the recruits pay for themselves), the high suicide and desertion rate, the shortage of modern housing , prevailing alcoholism and drug use etc.I suspect any decent Western European army could defeat the Russian army in a matter of weeks.
Anyway, even the vaunted Soviet Army was never more than based on raw numbers of equipement and a huge pool of expendable cannon fodder to cush its opponents.the East front in 1941-1945 being one clear example.
technologically the Soviets/Russians were always oen steps behind their opponents in most areas and in every post WWII conflict in which Soviet/Russian equipement has been deployed by one side against the other equipped with Western one (US/European) on the battlefield the side equipped with the former has been defeated or driven back.
Russian equipemnt is cheap( with generous financing offered), very sturdy and simple to operate and ideal for Third World countries with low literacy and technical skills and thats why it's so popular.But the moment a more sophisticated side equipped with British, French or American hardware comes into play the Soviet/Russian equipped side takes a beating.
While the collapse of Communism has allowed Russia and the Ukraine to gain access to Western technology and narrow the technological gap in terms of computerised and high tech weaponry the sorry state of Russian society and economy have not allowed the Russians to effectively catch up with the west.their equipemnt ain't bad! But it's not on par and the rigid Soviet-inherited training doctrine still largely followed by Russian/Ukrainian armies combined with bullying and corruption has turned those armies into paper tigers.
Don't get me wrong; I believe the individual Russian soldier to be courageous, tough and a worthy soldier.it's just the perenially corrupt and brutal training and abusive system and leadership( be it under the Tsar, the Soviets of the Russian Fed).
Countries with money such as Saudi Arabia, the Gulf states never turn to Russian weapons unless like Iranm they have no other alternatives.They want American or French aircrafts or communication equipement, German tanks or submarines, British choppers or apcs.Poor countries with access to Western credits will buy Western equipement simply because battlefield experience has demonstrated that they are better.
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In the cold war, the Russians nbo doubt were aware of their deficits in individual vehicle design, on the other hand tailroed others aspects of such vehicles to fall in line with the general doctrine and from time to time prodcue some unique or classy details in platforms. The Russian pohilosphy in vehicle design must eb seen in combination with the way they planned to fight a war against NATO forces. And these plans were in return the way they are due to their vehicles. High losses and short longevity of tanks in battle were taken into account, and compensated for by wave-doctrine, numbers, and other factors. As a general result, and ignoring that I assume that nuclear weapons would have been used by the Soviets from day one on, I think that a Soviet attack full scale attack would have been driven deep in to German territory and would have been anything but certain to be stopped by NATO before reaching or even crossing the Rhine. In context with this doctrine and planned way to fight, their vehicles were good enough.
After the cold war, the expected next wars and the way they would be fought, changed, to asymmetrical confölicts, or conflicts of limited, regional, local range. The focus shifts from huge ground formations of armour, to smaller units fighting more "indioviodually" against each other. Soviet armour, by its heritage from the cold war, is much less prepared for this kind of battles, than Western counterparts. Their developements needed and still need to close a much wider gap between "then" and "now". Wetsern armies tried from earlier a transition into the new era after the cold war. The Russians started late, and now lagg behind both in doctrine and technological design of heavy and light armour.
At least so it seems to that novice that I am.
The big Soviet archilles heel of their cold land war turning into a hot one, would have been logistics and maybe also comms, imo.