Military Strength of Russia (and compared to other nations)

a Reserved 'thanks' then...



You should not really 'like' arguing as much as feel compelled to. If you only 'like' it your unlikely to persist in your efforts....



Well it surely is classified by as with all secrets there is no way to maintain total secrecy indefinitely and especially not so when it involves humans or operational deployment that kills people.. There was quote a specific reason why i used the quotation marks btw...



I don't see how 'terrorist' could build weapons of such size or have the facilities to generate the energy required. Clearly this is not 'people' but nations and which nations have the conventional and strategic weaponry to discourage retaliation by more mundane means?



All guess work is not empty minded and devoid of logic and all discussions are not between ignorant fools and while i do understand that that is in fact the standard on the Internet it's not mine and i do feel somewhat insulted when people assume their own low standards for me.



Well HAARP is most certainly that but it's not the largest and the power requirements ( for persistent operation that actually can serve a geophysical weapon function) can be quite massive if it's to be used in focused way as the Russians are.



I don't think they need such weapons to win the proposed conflicts but they do have them and i think it will turn any given superiority into a relatively absolute one.



If you think the Russian air defense system has anything to do with morale ( meaning such factors are not considered in their strategic plans) or require the same number of training as in American air force i think you may be well served by some additional reading...



Sure it does but can you really 'prove' that the training standards are inferior enough to result in tanks becoming obsolete in their primary strategic function? Tanks are NOT meant to engage other tanks and assuming that the USSR built them in such numbers to engage in such type of warfare is quite unsupported by history. Enemy tank concentrations are attacked by artillery and air power or slowly destroyed by mechanized infantry anti tank weaponry; it's not directly engaged by your own armor as your armor is supposed to be fighting where there isn't with your strategic reserves being where theirs are attempting to engage you.



They are being constantly updated and their too numerous in even 1980 condition to be stopped by a few hundred European tanks. I think you are forming opinions long before you have investigated this issue for yourself. Please do not rely on the opinions of those



This is 1985 and nothing of significance has happened with either conventional weapons or strategic weapons.Non of the weapon developments in the last two decades have in my knowledge changed any of the realities of ground combat as it was expected to happen in 1985. Feel free to name the changes that you think have changed things in favour of NATO since 1985. .



They have modernized the equipment that is of strategic significance ( air defenses and nuclear weaponry) in the sense that not doing so could seriously undermine their position. I have given good source material on all these issues in other threads...

[quote[Otherwise, good posts

And , with your 'contribution' getting worse...



Then lets look at the so called 'statistics' before i call you 'bonkers' for disagreeing with the reality i happen to believe in.



14 Operational SSBN's according to defense&intelligence specialist. How much rusting could they have done if they can still deploy as many SSBN's as the US do? The US have finally decided to start converting some OHIO's to SSGN's status and yet the RF still operates three times ( 11) as many as the US meaning no task force or Atlantic convoy will be safe while any of them are still around. Anyone who believes that submarines will regularly be found in the vast Atlantic before they have fired have read too many Tom Clancy books.



A war in Europe could only go well for Europe with American aid and considering what the RF can still deploy that's unlikely to happen in time.



By which air force? Even by those hopelessly conservative ( if not plainly deceptive) 'measurements' it means the RF operates 250 modern fighters/interceptors and coupled with the air defenses they are deploying ( that have been consistently upgraded ) that's still not a force the USAF have any means of dealing with effectively as they proved when attempting to fight the Serbians.
Frankly i consider that number nonsense but if you want to state the actual sources ( links please) so i can investigate the records of the 'reporters' i don't have much use for it.



Compared to the numbers of planes that were being flown then and now it's not surprising. For interest sake they operated 5000 aircraft around the time of the breakup (and nearly 15 000 pilots ) and if the numbers you cited are correct that means about 120-130 hours per pilot ( as is the accepted norm as i recall it) but given they deploy , as most western air forces do, one 1.1.-1.2 pilot for every deployed plane that means that means there must still be around 10 000 or so pilots to get that often quoted figure of 20 hours per pilot per year? Why would the RF choose to still have 5 times more pilots than deployed/operational planes? If they operate on western hours those flight hours should be more than sufficient to give 2000 pilots a hundred hours each?

If you want to dig up more reliable numbers feel free but based on what you supplied the RF are CHOOSING to let their pilots fly relatively few hours per pilot ( each regiment gets a certain number and they may choose how to allocate the hours to the pilots that most need them) when they could make alternative choices. Are this then a question of money or just a strategic choice? My investigation so far have almost always revealed that what the western media reports as money shortages turns out to be strategic choices.



As do all services that supplies skills which are so sought after in the commercial markets...



Airworthy on any given specific day but as you might or might not know almost all of that 2000 will be put to use in a war by one means or another. If one returns with battle damage another can be fixed and normally one plane taken apart can put quite a number in the air. Frankly the type's of planes being operated are in my opinion superior and how the EU could concentrate their planes to affect the balance of power against such masses of air defenses is obviously any one's fantasy.



And they would all just line up to get nuked when the battle turns ( lets just say) against the RF due to their combined effort? This makes little sense but i guess some really believes the next world war will remain conventional for long if at all. The European air forces are experiencing much the same troubles as in the RF ( if not as severe) and massive numbers of planes are regularly found to be inoperable on inspections.



The German army were allowed to have only 100 000 in the regular armed forces and that did not apparently stop them. Conscripts or non conscripts are not really important as long as the leadership structure is always retained.



Comparing the equipment used by ME countries , Vietnam or Korea with what the world will see the RF deploy is quite stupid and frankly indicates that you have not researched how and what the USSR/Rf exports to others.



They already did in my opinion as the formation of the EU itself is slowly destroying their opposition.



Never is a very long time and since i believe they have both the conventional and the strategic power to win any given war against Germany before the rest of Europe could change much about it i am quite confident that my opinion is defensible. In fact I would argue Germany is the only continental power that really needs to be reckoned with as a alliance of the rest (which is a entirely fanciful idea anyways) could not in my opinion coordinate their efforts in any significant way even if they attempted to do so.

In summary it seems that you have bought into almost every media illusion created for your consumption and while you might consider yourself informed for believing what almost everyone else do you are not the one working from primary sources or for that matter the one attempting to be discover anything other than what you want to believe about the RF.

Stellar

Oh man. You guys are still going on about this?!

Oh man. You guys are still going on about this?!

And the last response for this 'series'



First off the ABM treaty were only signed after the USSR already tested and succeeded in shooting down IRBM's so they had no problem signing it thus preventing the US from doing any serious further research. That being said the US also had decent technology that could with nuclear warheads easily serve to destroy large number of incoming warheads.



They did not at first ( as the deployment of the US ABM system proved) but it was dismantled due to political pressures so as to expose the American people and force them to accept their vulnerability and egg them into slowly getting used to that idea that America must fight elsewhere to protect their security at home. a American public that had a shield they thought could protect them would not in my opinion have been anywhere as easily 'fooled' into foreign adventures.



Who requires a 'impenetrable' shield? What enemy would risk attacking you when he suddenly must prepare to have a given number of his warheads destroyed? Where would the enemy deploy his mobile defense systems and what effect would it have on your ability to destroy certain strategic targets? The hardware proved itself early on as as the source material i have posted so clearly shows!



Why again do you need 2 million lines of code? Why did they manage to intercept warheads in both the USA and the USSR?



Defense against nuclear annihilation was not worth the investment? I'm not sure why any sane person will accept the word of their leaders when they claim self defense is not worthy of any expense.



What do you mean public decision to abandon the project? Where did you get the impression that either the public or the military did not believe in the system? As far as my research indicates the only people who did not believe where some political advisers who had the presidents ear.



They had success back in the 60's so if anyone is lying these days it's clearly those who pretend that it can not and has not been done with 60's technologies.



With the technology at the time nuclear tips were required but the management radars and weapon system where proof against the EMP and other air burst effects so it could keep functioning after multiple interceptions and atmospheric explosions. The EMP effects may cause issues to the civilian infrastructure but nothing compared to what the actual weapon effects would have resulted in.



Even the backwards ( relatively speaking anyways) where able to manage HTK back in 1961 so if the US failed ( i just believe it was hidden or the efforts were seriously hampered by political intervention) it had in my opinion little to do with technological barriers.



Have you ever stopped to ask WHY they would keep working with vacuum technologies while they were decades ahead on particle beam and general DEW technologies? Have you considered the possibility that they simply did not think they could harden their military and civilian infrastructure to the extent they felt needed if solid state technologies were introduced anywhere but in the most critical areas? With such centralized power don't you think these sort of choices could be made or that they lacked the means to deploy solid state electronics where required?



It was a spying mission after the USSR started destroying or blinding any American satellites that could tell them much anything about what was happening in the USSR.



I think those billions have been wasted by building three generations of nuclear strategic and attack submarines instead of just building a massive national ABM system that would make any enemy strike largely futile. When i once again start posting the evidence i have gathered ,in such large volumes, i believe you will be forced to change your mind and consider why the US still lacks such defenses while the RF deploys them in massive numbers and in sufficient quantity to largely blunt a full scale US nuclear strike.

Stellar

reply to post by StellarX

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Hello Mr StellarX

I thought this thread was a wrap! Then today it pops up on my favorite list with a post by Anonymous. For reasons best known to others I cannot locate the Anonymous post but that’s not new for me. Perhaps my ATS dues are in arrears?

Without meaning to puff your head I’ll concede you are the best informed and are best at laying out your position of any poster to this thread. Whereas once upon a time I also read reliable publications not in wide circulation over here - the various volumes of Janes and Interavia primarily - and some US publications such as Air Power, a monthly magazine and a few of the Navy oriented magazines of similar ilk. The American magazines gained authority with me because the authors were mostly former field grade officers of our services. But all this I’m talking about was in the 1950s to 1970s.

By the late ‘70s I was distracted by my work and frequent romantic involvements. Then came the 1989-1991 reduction of the USSR and VIOLA! the Cold War was over. Western intelligence agencies were as surprised as the general public which ought to tell us something. Whether it was Pope JP2 or President Reagan who won the Cold War singlehandedly, I’ll leave to their more faithful (and fanatical if not fanciful) followers to decide. Like the current Pope I'm suspicious how the two of them survived the Nazi era in such good health.

Me being a peacenik by birth and by the late 1970s, the notion of another war involving the US was gone from our national debate. Which is why I hold to the views I express here today.

Background. We have witnessed the rise and fall of the RF experiment in democracy. Like most countries including my own, the general populace would trade stability, security and a level playing field for democracy any day. I have come to see America suffers from TOO MUCH democracy. So much so that it allows the R&Fs - Rich and Famous - to dominate if not rule the country. I am now holding the Democratic Party primary ballot in my hand now. I must choose 5 out of 14 people to represent my party in the November 4 general election. The top post is prosecutor of crimes alleged. A nearly all powerful post having almost total discretion who is and is not prosecuted and for what crimes. The title alone reminds me of the oddly similar title “Roman Procurator” so that both words must have the same origin? Prosecutors should never be elected. That merely puts them at the front of a mob.

I must also choose 2 judges for courts of record. Then I pick a city councilman. 1 of 17. And finally a school board member. 1 of 7. If I weren’t so old, I’d weep that I know NONE of the candidates nor their records, nor their philosophy of governance. And I'm about to vote?

As a college educated person, who reads the local newspaper, watches the 11 PM nightly newscast and who does NOT watch a FOX channel or anything remotely connected to Rupert Murdoch, I am uninformed about these candidates. I have read more than 100 books since moving to Florida in 2003. Aside: I assure you I have read none of the “Left Behind” series by Tim LeHaye with more than 41 million copies sold. End. There is no single place I can go to read about these people.

I’ve about decided to vote for the school board candidate with the name Jack Daniels for that reason alone. I drink a bit of Jack Daniels Black Label - 100 proof whereas Green Label is 80 proof - and I’ve been to Lynchburg, TN. How’s that for casting an intelligent ballot? End.

Resume. The RF. My biggest regret is the Western Powers post 1991 policies allowed the “Russian Mafia” to gain control of 20% of the wealth of the RF. As we have learned - or should have learned - from our Columbian experiment, you cannot make a bargain with the Devil. We are making one today as I write in Afghanistan over heroin. Americas 2 most constant places of interest produce cocaine and heroin. Can this be a coincidence? Hey, is this not a conspiracy board?

Let me conclude this diatribe by offering this. It requires much preparation to run-up a large country and put it into a great war. Much credit is given to William Randolph Hearst owner of a great newspaper chain for “starting” the Spanish American War. It took 3 years for Americans to get “ready” to enter WW 1 and a lot of help from the German submarines! Many historians date the beginning of World War 2 with Japan's invasion of China in 1937.

History. I offer it took Hitler from the November, 1938 Kristallnacht to whip up German people into a war fever before attacking Poland in 1939. It took another 2 years to get the German people ready for the launch of Hitler’s grand scheme - lebensraum - by attacking the Soviet Union in 1941. It took Bush43 from 2001 to 2003 to whip up Americans for the Iraq War which I have labeled the Second Punitive Expedition to Iraq.

Conclusion. If the EU cannot adopt a constitution it cannot wage war as a single entity. Germany is the most powerful nation in the EU. France is a close second but the French still remember Algiers not to mention 1940, as we should have remembered Vietnam but did not. And that thanks in large part to a playboy president and agenda driven subordinates.

There is no evidence reported in the public press that the RF is in any way getting its people ready for a war. Of any description or level. Memories of the ruinous Afghan adventure 1978-1989 are too strong. OTOH, the RF is still playing hard ball politics with its former unwilling partners in Ukraine, Belarus and Moldova. The RF has its hands full in Georgia and Chetsnya; there may have been a mutually suitable modus operandi reached there.

The RF was publicly embarrassed over its amateurish attempt to blackmail its natural gas customers located to its west. I don’t think RF will repeat that politico-economic blunder again soon. As to the relative strength of the US and RF (as successor to the USSR) armed forces, I cannot give much credence to claims that the RF is formidable in the big league. There we stand alone. Well, if you don’t count China as our source of financing.

Post Script. We do not have sufficient manpower to run 2 wars at the same time. That is because we miscalculated in Iraq. If the May 1 declaration by Bush43 on board the carrier Abraham Lincoln had proved to be correct, and not bare braggadocio then we could more easily attack Afghan today. But I am reminded of this: Afghanistan has been invaded 100s of times but never conquered ONE time.

By and large the -stans have proved to be unmanageable by the West. Baluchistan and Kurdistan excepted. American foreign policy in the Middle East and near ME has failed miserably under the Neo Cons. We cannot impose our hand picked regime in Baghdad. Following Bush43's loss at the polls here in 2006, Iraq’s PM Nouri al-Maliki got a much needed shot of testosterone. And it suits him well in his second incarnation. He is now asking us OUT of Iraq. Only Bush43 and John McCain want to stay on indefinitely.

Our hand picked man in Pakistan on who we bestowed the honorary title of president, Pervez Musharraf, is being replaced. Our hand picked man in Afghan, also labeled president, Hamid Karzai teeters from day to day, unable to establish his rule outside of Kabul. There we see 68,000 soldiers, of which half will go home in January, 2009. The US Army Manual for Occupation indicates 350-400,000 men would be desirable to pacify a country like Afghanistan. Our whole Army is about 400,000 men (and women).

Israel - our own cause celebre and self imposed weight to bear - lost its PM Ariel Sharon to physical calamity just before the prosecutors got him and his son for theft, and now it looks like Ehud Olmert may have cut a deal to get out if they don’t put him in jail for stealing. It’s too bad Bush43 did not “look them in the eye” as he once did with Vladimir Putin to perceive internal contradictions in them. I noted with some humor Bush43 spared Dmitry Medvedev from his “evil eye” gaze and evaluation.

Last Words. I look forward to seeing our $550 b. annual defense - say war - budget cut in half! That would be too much too much to hope for but even that would probably require the personal intervention of Jesus Christ.

[edit on 8/1/2008 by donwhite]

The American doctrine in Iraq isn't proving to be any better than Russia's

But in the final analysis Russian 400 Mega ton nuclear bombs are by far more than enough to obliterate any country.

Likewise with American 400 mega ton nuclear bombs if they have them that big.
are like wise more than enough.

the rest of the military is redundant or at least most are when the big boys come out.
in the end it is a frightening prospect to contemplate any circumstance
where the button is pushed

Did you know that the cost of just 3 days of the war in Iraq could pay for a new levee system in NEW Orleans and pay for the Negro people down in New Orleans get back in their houses

Or are the Americans in New Orleans your enemies too?







[edit on 1-8-2008 by solo1]

reply to post by StellarX

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Bush43 and Iran aside, I cannot conceive of a nuclear war. I am ready to accept a nuclear attack on the US by terrorists, but that is due almost entirely to the willful negligence and irresponsible leadership of the United States. See External Source below.

We unleashed a monster in 1948 and lost all control over it in 1967. When Yitzhak Rabin was assassinated on November 4, 1995, the good guys there lost their last best chance for a peaceful accommodation with the native Arabs. Israel has now embarked enthusiastically on an ethnic cleansing pogrom of the old Palestine Mandate. Shame!

Because the American public is bewildered by the intricacies of Middle Eastern politics, there is no possibility that a consensus for reason will ever obtain here. That is too bad. I attribute most of the causation of $4 gasoline here to Israel there. Our gas is back below $4 so it may not be the decisive factor in the November 4 election. 90% of Americans care only about the price of gasoline.

Evidence of that shift in popular priority is reinforced even in California where the Union Oil Company’s off-shore drilling rig sustained a blow out in January, 1969, causing an oil spill that took decades to clean up. Note: Union Oil merged with TexacoChevron in 2006. As in the mortgage meltdown, it looks as if America must repeat itself every 30-40 years. We neither know nor respect our own history and are quite content to repeat it.

I was alive and well in 1972 when Pres. Nixon sighed the Anti Ballistic Missile Treaty and got it approved by the US Senate. In 1974, the USSR designated Moscow as the site for its allowed ABM system. The US designated the Grand Forks Air Force Base, North Dakota, as its ABM site. Grand Forks AFB is unique among AFBs. Its raison d’etre is the 6 missile sites arranged about equidistant around the compass, and out about 30 miles.

The 6 sites are spread over about 3,000 square miles. Double the size of Rhode Island and 20% larger than Delaware. Each site contained several - four I recall - launch tubes which were fully manned 24/7 and 365. With the advent of the Minuteman II, each of the 24 missiles could be MIRV’d with up to 10 re-entry vehicles or decoys or any combination of the two. 24 X 10 = 240 nukes aimed anywhere on earth! The Neo Con Prayer: "Please GOD, give us an adversary worthy of our weapons!"

The best the US could install at Grand Forks was a Nike-Zeus combination of 2 missiles. This was never really an ABM system. It was offered to calm Americans disdain for making a deal with the Evil Empire. You cannot turn public sentiment off and on like a light bulb.

As for the current SDI - Strategic Defense Initiative - it is no better than Reagan’s love of Star Wars, but 10 X as costly. An ABM system aside from being equal to the Seven Wonders of the World if attainable - which I doubt - is a gross waste of money and talent. Such a program - SDI - would be the boondoggle of all boondoggles. Sort of like Cheney’s promise the War on Terror will last for generations. That trimmed down from his earlier "perpetual war" declaration. NOT either if I can help it! Let's declare the WoT WON and get on with our lives. We and the world have had 7 years of madness inflicted on us by a Texas bumpkin with his limited knowledge and vision. He did far "better" as an inside trader than as president. Which I think he ran for just to pee off his father.

To answer Solo1, I think the US favored 200 KT nuke warheads for its missiles. I also think I recall the USSR favored the 5-10 megaton nuke warheads for its missiles. While the USSR might be able to hit one of the Dakotas, it was not accurate enough for them to know which. North Dakota, 71,000 sq mi. South Dakota, 77,000 sq mi.




[edit on 8/1/2008 by donwhite]

Good to see you back Don. Since you have touched on so many points , and must by now be familiar with my 'method' ( i don't like it any more than you do but it's 'efficient'), it's hard for me to do so much personal information justice in they way i normally respond.... It's a bit of a quandary but since we are clearly reading from the same book we can just as well discuss what we should discuss before we discuss anything.

Stellar

reply to post by StellarX

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Well put Mr S/X. And succinct! I see our only disagreement to be on the technical efficacy and fiscal desirability of a first rate high probability anti-ballistic missile defense system.

I also connect the War on Terror to Israel and the Palestinian question. To a very considerable degree I assign the Arab antipathy towards the US because of our “blind” support of Israel. Due to US support of Israel in the 1973 Yom Kippur War the OPEC was created as a response. The following oil embargo that helped mightily to bring on stag-flation which killed Jimmy Carter which was due to our pro Israel stance.

Current game-playing by Saudi and Kuwait over how much they can, will, should produce every day is running up prices. Same root cause. This may or may not be an appropriate topic for this thread.

Let me hear back.

[edit on 8/1/2008 by donwhite]