The west cannot be superior in everything

Originally posted by Disturbed Deliverer

There aren't many real cases of American equipment under-performing. There are a lot more cases of Russian equipment failing completely. Their SAM's have NEVER shown themselves to be effective in real combat. Neither have their planes, or tanks.

hey Disturbed Deliverer

what about the m-16s in vietnam

russian tanks/planes have only failed because the countries using them dont mantain them properly or use them with bad tactics.

Russian tanks in ww2 or korean never failed very reiable under any circumstance.

In vietnam M-16's had their first war. They had some flaws as a rifle that was fitted into service few years ago. And it wasnt properly maitained, cause it wasnt suited to jungle warfare. Better comment reliability of M16A2. Korean tanks havent failed because they were WWII technology (T-34's), and all technical problems with them were eliminated earlier. How about rusian aircraft reliability in WWII?

Actually i heared that the the American soldiers just maintain them enough but when some crack south vietnamese use it they had no real problems with it.

The chinese are rumored to be the ahead of the world in the areas of lasers and nano technology.

Unfortunately however this does not include the civilian sector and as a result we have little way of comparing

I would hazard a guess though and say there is really very little difference between nations when it comes to actualy technological know how.

The difference comes in funding and application of the technology.

Maybe the T-90 battle tank and KA-60 Kasatka transport helicopter. Also Russia and China have a lot of very attractive women that no man can resist (not even Bond lol) and if movies are to be believed they make excellent spies If you take cost of production and time to manufacture into account I'm sure they have the edge in more than a few areas, since they have much smaller military budgets and have to make cost-effective designs rather than just going for the best at all costs. In a war sometimes a cost effective design is better than the lastest tech if the production time, cost and reliability are better e.g. the Me-262 vs Yak-3.

[edit on 12-5-2005 by Trent]

Actually the problem of the me262 wasnt its cost but fuel and materials. Panther vs T34 is a better comparison.

T-34/85 or maybe a T-44

Russian aircraft were very reliable yak-3 and that armoured attack plane

Originally posted by tomcat ha
Actually the problem of the me262 wasnt its cost but fuel and materials. Panther vs T34 is a better comparison.

The engines also required a lot of maintenance and often completely burnt out after a short while. Needing to continually replace or repair engines on a plane is expensive. Also i consider materials as being part of the expense since they were in short supply and thus very valuable. The plane was not what i would call cost-effective... for lack of a better word.

[edit on 13-5-2005 by Trent]