China & Russia close the tech gap vs USA in weapons race

We are on verge of US collapse next
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-08-15/bond-yields-plunge-most-10-months-stocks-btfescalation
It won't be long, it is sure there are something turning very bad for US.

AlfaT8 wrote:
Unfortunately nemrod the Russian weapons industry has already been contained, thanks to the MCTR agreement, ...

MCTR does not forbid Russia to go on its research and developments at first. And this kind of -western- agreements has no future next, as US -violated at first its commitments- provide the Daesh and Nosra terrorists with sophisticated anti-tanks, anti-aircrafts weapons. I suspect Russia, beside China will be the next super powers ahead of West.

AlfaT8 wrote:
...and China ... doesn't have the capabilities yet to make truly capable weapons, which i don't buy, sorry Garry.

If  near all experts are agree in one area, they are all assess that China will be at least the next superpower. Do not mention the past when China was near the stone age, without ressources -not know-how from its brighting scientists, but lack of money-, old fashionned countries without capabilities to produce stone -refer to the desastrous Mao plan in the end of 50's-. Nowadays all are changing and quickly, for example in order to catch up its late in fighters engine, they are ready to invest more than 25 billions of $. It is more than 80% of frencheese defense budget. Evidently they will arrive, evindently they will overcome to all difficulties in all areas. Do not forget nowadays, they have the most important reserve in money, and in scientists. It is a mere matter of time.

AlfaT8 wrote:

nemrod wrote:
You will have to be aware that most of the T-Bonds buyer(s -?   -) is the Fed. Hence, the dollar -as the Yen, and the british £- values is more and more decreasing, nearing 0. China has not been not bought US T-Bonds for a long time. Japan cannot buy US T-Bonds too, because of Fukushima disaster. Hence, it implies futures hard cuts in US weapon industry, leaving America, as Soviet Union in early 1990. We are near a disaster in US, and contrary to what they show, a world war between US-allies and Russia/China because of Ukraine and Syria is unlikely. US cannot afford it.

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-08-11/bonds-dont-believe-its-all-over

Unfortunately nemrod the Russian weapons industry has already been contained, thanks to the MCTR agreement, and China (according to Garry) *doesn't have the capabilities yet to make truly capable weapons, which i don't buy, sorry Garry.*

Well, just look at their nuclear subs... They can make great equipment, but that doesn't mean they do.

nemrod wrote:
MCTR does not forbid Russia to go on its research and developments at first.

Nope, that would be the INF with respects to the KH-90.

And this kind of -western- agreements has no future

True, but Russia hasn't realized this yet, and is still cooperating, hell, they even go so far as to not sell the S-300 systems to Iran/Syria, most likely Russia is using the MCTR to try and avoid an Arms race.

next, as US -violated at first its commitments- provide the Daesh and Nosra terrorists with sophisticated anti-tanks, anti-aircrafts weapons.

The MCTR has nothing to do with anti-tank or anti-aircraft systems, just cruise/AshM missiles to protect there "precious" Navy.

I suspect Russia, beside China will be the next super powers ahead of West.

Agree, all indication points to that.

nemrod wrote:

AlfaT8 wrote:
...and China ... doesn't have the capabilities yet to make truly capable weapons, which i don't buy, sorry Garry.

If  near all experts are agree in one area, they are all assess that China will be at least the next superpower. Do not mention the past when China was near the stone age, without ressources -not know-how from its brighting scientists, but lack of money-, old fashionned countries without capabilities to produce stone -refer to the desastrous Mao plan in the end of 50's-. Nowadays all are changing and quickly, for example in order to catch up its late in fighters engine, they are ready to invest more than 25 billions of $. It is more than  80% of frencheese defense budget. Evidently they will arrive, evindently they will overcome to all difficulties in all areas. Do not forget nowadays, they have the most important reserve in money, and in scientists. It is a mere matter of time.

Yep, i fully agree, that's why i said they don't have the capabilities yet (i also said, i kinda disagree with Garry on that one).

In fact the purpose of my initial topic means, as US are in deep economic depression, it undoubtly impact on R&D' s of weapons' sector. Resulting by the late of US, and Russia will profit from this situation untill 2020's, in if not midlle 2030's, after that China will be the first.

AlfaT8 wrote:
Nope, that would be the INF with respects to the KH-90.

I ignored it concerns the SSN-24, however, the actual russian leaders are far to be idiots, as Gorbatchov, Yeltsin, Chernomidin, etc...were in the 1990's. If they could not implement these kind of projects, I think the R&D are far to be stopped. And these kind of missiles must be developped secretly into russian's super calculators, and are ready to be implement if the needs ask.

True, but Russia hasn't realized this yet, and is still cooperating,...

As I said above, the actual russian leaders are not idiots, they know how, and when to cooperate with who.

...hell, they even go so far as to not sell the S-300 systems to Iran/Syria, .....

You and me know nothing about this subject. You and me learn, understand, and think about what we were said. And, one morning we wake up by seeing Iran has implemented a russian project as the S-300, or the SAM-6/11/18.
It is obvious that Russia cooperated with Iran, and Syria, but noone knows

The MCTR has nothing to do with anti-tank or anti-aircraft systems, just cruise/AshM missiles to protect there "precious" Navy.

I ignored that.

AlfaT8 wrote:
Yep, i fully agree, that's why i said they don't have the capabilities yet (i also said, i kinda disagree with Garry on that one).

Iam not sure nowadays by the "yet".
China in 1980 has nothing to see with China in the 50's. China in 2000 has nothign to see with China in 1980. China in 2010 has nothing to see with China in 2000. As I said in the end of 2000's, after the US cra$h in 2008, China understood quickly that its only assets will be its army, understood quickly and forsaw the US behaviour. At the end 2010 China has nearly 5.000 billions of $ of cash, beside its other thousand billions of $ of excedents. As its weak point was the fighter engines they decided officially to invest 25 billions $, officially, the reality is far largest, at least 30 billions, if not 40 billions. In this critical point China had to do all its possible to reach the level of Russia, and US. It seems they overcame, because their J-16 is run by their WS-10G, and the last photo of the J-20 was seen this fighter by its WS-15.
Few years ago, I've seen an article wrote by an US specialist -he knew very well the chinese subject- that explained China in the 2015's in the critical fighter engine will be in the same level as US and Russia. Unfortunetly I lost this article. The WS-15 is now more powerfull than the F-22 's engine. For China it was the most important breaktrough.

See this article :
http://tiananmenstremendousachievements.wordpress.com/tag/j-20/

nemrod wrote:In fact the purpose of my initial topic means, as US are in deep economic depression, it undoubtly impact on R&D' s of weapons' sector. Resulting by the late of US, and Russia will profit from this situation untill 2020's, in if not midlle 2030's, after that China will be the first.

The U.S MIC has been in trouble ever since the day they've been able to run computer simulations of there weapon systems and using these "simulations" instead of field testing, these "simulations" are notorious to being doctored/scripted to guaranty American "victory".  

AlfaT8 wrote:
Nope, that would be the INF with respects to the KH-90.

I ignored it concerns the SSN-24, however, the actual russian leaders are far to be idiots, as Gorbatchov, Yeltsin, Chernomidin, etc...were in the 1990's. If they could not implement these kind of projects, I think the R&D are far to be stopped. And these kind of missiles must be developped secretly into russian's super calculators, and are ready to be implement if the needs ask.

Secrecy isn't even necessary, like they did with the Iskander claim that the range is so, but is actually much greater, there definitly do the samewith the Zircion.

True, but Russia hasn't realized this yet, and is still cooperating,...

As I said above, the actual russian leaders are not idiots, they know how, and when to cooperate with who.

Whether there idiots or not, they are still cooperating like idiots.

...hell, they even go so far as to not sell the S-300 systems to Iran/Syria, .....

You and me know nothing about this subject. You and me learn, understand, and think about what we were said. And, one morning we wake up by seeing Iran has implemented a russian project as the S-300, or the SAM-6/11/18.
It is obvious that Russia cooperated with Iran, and Syria, but noone knows

This "god moves in mysterious ways" excuse is annoying, actions speak louder then words and Russia's blatant cooperation with the west in regards to Syria and Iran, clearly shows there desperation in avoiding an arms-race, and there willingness to throw there supposed allies under bus.  

As for Iran, the development of the RA'AD and Bavar, they clearly show the necessity of Russian ADS, and unless these Iranian systems are produced in significant number they won't be able to do much if anything against the inevitable U.S invasion.

The MCTR has nothing to do with anti-tank or anti-aircraft systems, just cruise/AshM missiles to protect there "precious" Navy.

I ignored that.

Ooh sorry, i forgot to mention Ballistic missiles, anyway we were discussing the MCTR, but in response to the west selling weapons to rebels/Terrorist, yeah it's BS that they do this shit and the World/U.N turns a blind eye.

AlfaT8 wrote:
Yep, i fully agree, that's why i said they don't have the capabilities yet (i also said, i kinda disagree with Garry on that one).

Iam not sure nowadays by the "yet".
China in 1980 has nothing to see with China in the 50's. China in 2000 has nothign to see with China in 1980. China in 2010 has nothing to see with China in 2000. As I said in the end of 2000's, after the US cra$h in 2008, China understood quickly that its only assets will be its army,  understood quickly and forsaw the US behaviour. At the end 2010 China has nearly 5.000 billions of $ of cash, beside its other thousand billions of $ of excedents. As its weak point was the fighter engines they decided officially to invest 25 billions $, officially, the reality is far largest, at least 30 billions, if not 40 billions. In this critical point China had to do all its possible to reach the level of Russia, and US. It seems they overcame, because their J-16 is run by their WS-10G, and the last photo of the J-20 was seen this fighter by its WS-15.
Few years ago, I've seen an article wrote by an US specialist -he knew very well the chinese subject- that explained China in the 2015's in the critical fighter engine will be in the same level as US and Russia. Unfortunetly I lost this article. The WS-15 is now more powerfull than the  F-22 's engine. For China it was the most important breaktrough.

See this article :
http://tiananmenstremendousachievements.wordpress.com/tag/j-20/

China's has indeed made marvelous progress, but i wasn't talking about there jet engines or there engine developments (not my area), i was talking about the lack of Chinese Cruise/AshM/Ballistic missiles that are over 300km in range on the market, China isn't a part of the MCTR agreement, so why aren't they selling such missiles, there's clearly a demand for them, after all U.S/NATO strategy basically comes down to, stay out of the enemy's range and rain missiles on them till they can't put up much of a fight anymore.

And when i asked Garry this question, he states that the current Chinese Missiles aren't very capable, which i find odd, even if they aren't that capable there mere presence should be able to make Western military commanders thinks twice about using there patented "Pot Shot strategy".

Unfortunately nemrod the Russian weapons industry has already been contained, thanks to the MCTR agreement, and China (according to Garry) doesn't have the capabilities yet to make truly capable weapons, which i don't buy, sorry Garry.

If it makes you feel better Russia didn't have long range precision strike capability until it spent money on the Glonass system. Now that every ship has UKSK launchers it will be able to to rapidly deploy conventionally armed long range precision strike weapons... even with all the technology of the Soviet Union they needed nuke warheads on their cruise missiles to make them effective...

Nope, that would be the INF with respects to the KH-90

INF is ground launched ONLY, Kh-90 is air launched.

Secrecy isn't even necessary, like they did with the Iskander claim that the range is so, but is actually much greater, there definitly do the samewith the Zircion.

While the INF treaty is in effect Zirconium will only be air launched and ship/sub launched... the Onyx it would replace is believed to have a flight range of 500-700km.

Whether there idiots or not, they are still cooperating like idiots.

They cooperate where it brings a benefit to them.

It might seem like the CFE is a total joke as most of the Warsaw Pact and part of the former Soviet Union joined NATO and took their allocations with them... but lets face it.... during the 1990s Russia was in no position to maintain an enormous number of vehicles so getting rid of 3/4ths of the vehicle park saved money and as a bonus it had a regime in place that limited NATOs holdings and allowed Russian inspections. Without the CFE treaty NATO could have gone on a spending spree and spent a fortune on new and old equipment and Russia would have no say.

This "god moves in mysterious ways" excuse is annoying, actions speak louder then words and Russia's blatant cooperation with the west in regards to Syria and Iran, clearly shows there desperation in avoiding an arms-race, and there willingness to throw there supposed allies under bus.

Under a bus? Getting rid of Syrian WMDs while at the same time stopping direct western aerial intervention... ask Gaddafi how that goes... oh you can't.

As for Iran, the development of the RA'AD and Bavar, they clearly show the necessity of Russian ADS, and unless these Iranian systems are produced in significant number they won't be able to do much if anything against the inevitable U.S invasion.

The US will never invade Iran... 60 million people who don't want uncle SAM telling them again who should lead them...

The MCTR has nothing to do with anti-tank or anti-aircraft systems, just cruise/AshM missiles to protect there "precious" Navy.

Actually the MCTR bans the export of anything with a payload of 500kgs or more, OR the range of 300km or more. By that criteria the S-400 long range 380km range missile violates that treaty...

And when i asked Garry this question, he states that the current Chinese Missiles aren't very capable, which i find odd, even if they aren't that capable there mere presence should be able to make Western military commanders thinks twice about using there patented "Pot Shot strategy".

I did not state they weren't capable. What they lack is the ability to fly to a particular coordinate and find a precise target and hit it accurately... it is actually rather hard.

Iskander can do it... you need a photo of the target, which you scan into the guidance system of the missile with the coordinates of the target area.

Fire the missile and as the missile comes down an optics cap falls off and the optical seeker looks for the target in the scanned image in memory. Once it finds it it manouvers to hit it and will likely hit within 3-4 metres...

the Chinese have plenty of missiles that can be fired at targets like ships and as they approach start looking and find the target with radar or optical seeker and hit the target.

Let me ask you why they are bothering to create their own satellite navigation network?

GarryB wrote:

Unfortunately nemrod the Russian weapons industry has already been contained, thanks to the MCTR agreement, and China (according to Garry) doesn't have the capabilities yet to make truly capable weapons, which i don't buy, sorry Garry.

If it makes you feel better Russia didn't have long range precision strike capability until it spent money on the Glonass system. Now that every ship has UKSK launchers it will be able to to rapidly deploy conventionally armed long range precision strike weapons... even with all the technology of the Soviet Union they needed nuke warheads on their cruise missiles to make them effective...

Good to hear, but then what was considered long range strike before GPS??

Nope, that would be the INF with respects to the KH-90

INF is ground launched ONLY, Kh-90 is air launched.

Then why is the INF treaty the stated reason for the cancellation of the entire program, was it a budgetary issue or something??

Secrecy isn't even necessary, like they did with the Iskander claim that the range is so, but is actually much greater, there definitly do the samewith the Zircion.

While the INF treaty is in effect Zirconium will only be air launched and ship/sub launched... the Onyx it would replace is believed to have a flight range of 500-700km.

Great.

Whether there idiots or not, they are still cooperating like idiots.

They cooperate where it brings a benefit to them.

It might seem like the CFE is a total joke as most of the Warsaw Pact and part of the former Soviet Union joined NATO and took their allocations with them... but lets face it.... during the 1990s Russia was in no position to maintain an enormous number of vehicles so getting rid of 3/4ths of the vehicle park saved money and as a bonus it had a regime in place that limited NATOs holdings and allowed Russian inspections. Without the CFE treaty NATO could have gone on a spending spree and spent a fortune on new and old equipment and Russia would have no say.

Until 2007/8 where everything went south because of Georgia, but what does that have to do with the MCTR which isn't even a treaty, and unlike the CFE held no benefits for Russia from day one, if anything it served to limit Russia's MIC and completely handicap any country that dares defy the Western powers.

This "god moves in mysterious ways" excuse is annoying, actions speak louder then words and Russia's blatant cooperation with the west in regards to Syria and Iran, clearly shows there desperation in avoiding an arms-race, and there willingness to throw there supposed allies under bus.

Under a bus? Getting rid of Syrian WMDs while at the same time stopping direct western aerial intervention... ask Gaddafi how that goes... oh you can't.

Getting rid of WMDs and stopping western intervention is all well and good, but at the end of the day you cannot rely on other countries with the defense of your own, one must have the ability to defend themselves, because the protection you get from others is always temporary.

As for Iran, the development of the RA'AD and Bavar, they clearly show the necessity of Russian ADS, and unless these Iranian systems are produced in significant number they won't be able to do much if anything against the inevitable U.S invasion.

The US will never invade Iran... 60 million people who don't want uncle SAM telling them again who should lead them...

Ooh Garry, you  know how this works, claim that the leadership are dictator, spur the population with talk of freedom, democracy and the wealth of capitalism/free-market and....well i am sure you know the rest.

Anyway for me, at the end of the day the only thing keeping the U.S from invading are Iranian missiles like Meshkat and Shahab-3.

The MCTR has nothing to do with anti-tank or anti-aircraft systems, just cruise/AshM missiles to protect there "precious" Navy.

Actually the MCTR bans the export of anything with a payload of 500kgs or more, OR the range of 300km or more. By that criteria the S-400 long range 380km range missile violates that treaty...

Domestic or export, on top of that this also brings up the question of whether ADS constitute as a delivery Systems.

And when i asked Garry this question, he states that the current Chinese Missiles aren't very capable, which i find odd, even if they aren't that capable there mere presence should be able to make Western military commanders thinks twice about using there patented "Pot Shot strategy".

I did not state they weren't capable. What they lack is the ability to fly to a particular coordinate and find a precise target and hit it accurately... it is actually rather hard.

What did you think i meant when i said "not very capable"??

Iskander can do it... you need a photo of the target, which you scan into the guidance system of the missile with the coordinates of the target area.

Fire the missile and as the missile comes down an optics cap falls off and the optical seeker looks for the target in the scanned image in memory. Once it finds it it manouvers to hit it and will likely hit within 3-4 metres...

Great, very useful for taking care of any hostile forces building up near your borders.

the Chinese have plenty of missiles that can be fired at targets like ships and as they approach start looking and find the target with radar or optical seeker and hit the target.

Then why aren't they selling these missiles???

Let me ask you why they are bothering to create their own satellite navigation network?

Because GPS and GLONASS can't be completely relied upon.

it was a LONG way to more or less a modern army

NationalRus wrote:it was a LONG way to more or less a modern army

Not exactly... The CCCP and Russia have always had a "modern army" of their time, but they just don't put as much emphasis on that compared with the US. - Not a problem, after all, this resulted in the F-35 and Zumwalt!

Mike E wrote:

NationalRus wrote:it was a LONG way to more or less a modern army

Not exactly... The CCCP and Russia have always had a "modern army" of their time, but they just don't put as much emphasis on that compared with the US. - Not a problem, after all, this resulted in the F-35 and Zumwalt!

what was modern in our army the past 2 dacades? our army in the CCCP was already technologicaly outdated which escalated quickly in the 90's till early 2000, a giant standing on legs of paper, rosting away

and we had horrible military doctine for to long, which emphasised on mobilisation, was unfelxible and slow, ever heard of our skeleton devisions? its paper division which had on paper thousends of men but did had in fact only had technical staff and were supossed to be filled in by young untrained men through mobilisation for which storage equipment would be dusted off

now yeah, a modern army, with a good military doctrine, mobile unites, good trained staff

NationalRus wrote:

Mike E wrote:

NationalRus wrote:it was a LONG way to more or less a modern army

Not exactly... The CCCP and Russia have always had a "modern army" of their time, but they just don't put as much emphasis on that compared with the US. - Not a problem, after all, this resulted in the F-35 and Zumwalt!

what was modern in our army the past 2 dacades? our army in the CCCP was already technologicaly outdated which escalated quickly in the 90's till early 2000, a giant standing on legs of paper, rosting away

and we had horrible military doctine for to long, which emphasised on mobilisation, was unfelxible and slow, ever heard of our skeleton devisions? its paper division which had on paper thousends of men but did had in fact only had technical staff and were supossed to be filled in by young untrained men through mobilisation for which storage equipment would be dusted off

now yeah, a modern army, with a good military doctrine, mobile unites, good trained staff

The US was using weapons of the same age during that era as well. The CCCP did create great weapons anyway, like the Akula, Typhoon, Sierra, Oscar, Kirov, S-300 you name it!

Without information comparing the US army capabilities and those of the Russian army the whole discussion is pointless.

The myth of US superiority arises from it rolling over 3rd world, 3rd rate armed forces such as those of Iraq. People watch the
videos of laser guided munitions and think "that's so cool". Such "cool" are merely gimmicks.

I would start with the Russian S-400 and the S-500 systems and evaluate their capabilities to get a good idea where things
are and where they are going.

kvs wrote:Without information comparing the US army capabilities and those of the Russian army the whole discussion is pointless.

The myth of US superiority arises from it rolling over 3rd world, 3rd rate armed forces such as those of Iraq.   People watch the
videos of laser guided munitions and think "that's so cool".   Such "cool" are merely gimmicks.

I would start with the Russian S-400 and the S-500 systems and evaluate their capabilities to get a good idea where things
are and where they are going.  

Great post...

US forces are "cool", Russian forces get the job done. A great example is the M16 vs AK-47.

He was talking about the past, but both of those systems will be a huge step forward.

Couldn't of said it better...

Define a modern military

The training? If so, then I would say yes, Russia was behind. Now they have probably more snap drills than anyone else. But they have to in order to deal with the poor training of the past.

Equipment? Well, let me tell you, France does not even have AESA yet on their Rafale's. Eurofighter Typhoon is also lacking some of these features as well. Majority of the jets used in US are of the cold war era, much like Russia with a handful of modern ones (F-22's). During Libyan war, France ran out of guided munitions and had to resort to cement bombs. Really? At least Russia has an overt supply of dumb bombs that can more or less act like guided due to modern onboard equipment. Tanks? M1A1, as good as a tank it is, isn't all that amazing either. See the images recently of Iraqi models destroyed? It comes down to the training and the support it provides. I would say that maybe they got an edge in certain technology like ECM, due to major use of AESA radar on their jets. Some experimental like the railgun. But that is no different than Soviet test of the electromagnetic gun. At least Russia has been operating a laser based system longer (A-60).

Thing is, it is really hard to say what is considered modern or not. Canadian army is considered modern, and our military capabilities are horribly pathetic. China? Far from modern as well in some regards, maybe more advanced than others. Russia? Well, it has its problems and has its gains. Maybe discipline and lack of modern body armor and other equipment for all troops rather than some getting everything and some not getting much. All depends on the needs.

The term modern is very loose and is open to speculation.

sepheronx wrote:Define a modern military

The training?  If so, then I would say yes, Russia was behind.  Now they have probably more snap drills than anyone else.  But they have to in order to deal with the poor training of the past.

Equipment?  Well, let me tell you, France does not even have AESA yet on their Rafale's.  Eurofighter Typhoon is also lacking some of these features as well.  Majority of the jets used in US are of the cold war era, much like Russia with a handful of modern ones (F-22's).  During Libyan war, France ran out of guided munitions and had to resort to cement bombs.  Really?  At least Russia has an overt supply of dumb bombs that can more or less act like guided due to modern onboard equipment.  Tanks?  M1A1, as good as a tank it is, isn't all that amazing either.  See the images recently of Iraqi models destroyed?  It comes down to the training and the support it provides.  I would say that maybe they got an edge in certain technology like ECM, due to major use of AESA radar on their jets.  Some experimental like the railgun.  But that is no different than Soviet test of the electromagnetic gun.  At least Russia has been operating a laser based system longer (A-60).

Thing is, it is really hard to say what is considered modern or not.  Canadian army is considered modern, and our military capabilities are horribly pathetic.  China?  Far from modern as well in some regards, maybe more advanced than others.  Russia? Well, it has its problems and has its gains.  Maybe discipline and lack of modern body armor and other equipment for all troops rather than some getting everything and some not getting much.  All depends on the needs.

The term modern is very loose and is open to speculation.

Russian training does appear to be top-notch compared with here in the US. Now that the US just shut down a large aggressor squadron, thing will only get worse.

As for tech, Russia was behind but has completely caught up if not surpassed rivals.

Great post Sephenrox...

sepheronx wrote:Define a modern military

The training?  If so, then I would say yes, Russia was behind.  Now they have probably more snap drills than anyone else.  But they have to in order to deal with the poor training of the past.

Equipment?  Well, let me tell you, France does not even have AESA yet on their Rafale's.  Eurofighter Typhoon is also lacking some of these features as well.  Majority of the jets used in US are of the cold war era, much like Russia with a handful of modern ones (F-22's).  During Libyan war, France ran out of guided munitions and had to resort to cement bombs.  Really?  At least Russia has an overt supply of dumb bombs that can more or less act like guided due to modern onboard equipment.  Tanks?  M1A1, as good as a tank it is, isn't all that amazing either.  See the images recently of Iraqi models destroyed?  It comes down to the training and the support it provides.  I would say that maybe they got an edge in certain technology like ECM, due to major use of AESA radar on their jets.  Some experimental like the railgun.  But that is no different than Soviet test of the electromagnetic gun.  At least Russia has been operating a laser based system longer (A-60).

Thing is, it is really hard to say what is considered modern or not.  Canadian army is considered modern, and our military capabilities are horribly pathetic.  China?  Far from modern as well in some regards, maybe more advanced than others.  Russia? Well, it has its problems and has its gains.  Maybe discipline and lack of modern body armor and other equipment for all troops rather than some getting everything and some not getting much.  All depends on the needs.

The term modern is very loose and is open to speculation.

good post

our army suffered from a bad military doctrine, and bad training combined with horrible corruption which escalated after the fall of the CCCP, and our infantry was the most sad part, everybody likes to throw of some BS about rockets or radars or other fancy stuff (which of course has its rightfull part) but the actaully people on the ground who fight were mistreated, and horribly equiped for to long, and that alway, for nearly a century, ther were just canon fodder, my uncle served in the "glory time" of the soviet union late 70's early 80's said the same thing, soldiers were treated horrible, no respect what so ever, training was bad, food was bad, individual infantry equipment? ha in your dreams!!! but well thats how it is when you want to have a 6m man army, at some point the become just nummbers

Of course things did improve and should continue to improve... I've heard that bad treatment in Russian forces is a small fraction of what it used to be.

NationalRus wrote:

sepheronx wrote:Define a modern military

The training?  If so, then I would say yes, Russia was behind.  Now they have probably more snap drills than anyone else.  But they have to in order to deal with the poor training of the past.

Equipment?  Well, let me tell you, France does not even have AESA yet on their Rafale's.  Eurofighter Typhoon is also lacking some of these features as well.  Majority of the jets used in US are of the cold war era, much like Russia with a handful of modern ones (F-22's).  During Libyan war, France ran out of guided munitions and had to resort to cement bombs.  Really?  At least Russia has an overt supply of dumb bombs that can more or less act like guided due to modern onboard equipment.  Tanks?  M1A1, as good as a tank it is, isn't all that amazing either.  See the images recently of Iraqi models destroyed?  It comes down to the training and the support it provides.  I would say that maybe they got an edge in certain technology like ECM, due to major use of AESA radar on their jets.  Some experimental like the railgun.  But that is no different than Soviet test of the electromagnetic gun.  At least Russia has been operating a laser based system longer (A-60).

Thing is, it is really hard to say what is considered modern or not.  Canadian army is considered modern, and our military capabilities are horribly pathetic.  China?  Far from modern as well in some regards, maybe more advanced than others.  Russia? Well, it has its problems and has its gains.  Maybe discipline and lack of modern body armor and other equipment for all troops rather than some getting everything and some not getting much.  All depends on the needs.

The term modern is very loose and is open to speculation.

good post

our army suffered from a bad military doctrine, and bad training combined with horrible corruption which escalated after the fall of the CCCP, and our infantry was the most sad part, everybody likes to throw of some BS about rockets or radars or other fancy stuff (which of course has its rightfull part) but the actaully people on the ground who fight were mistreated, and horribly equiped for to long, and that alway, for nearly a century, ther were just canon fodder, my uncle served in the "glory time" of the soviet union late 70's early 80's said the same thing, soldiers were treated horrible, no respect what so ever, training was bad, food was bad, individual infantry equipment? ha in your dreams!!! but well thats how it is when you want to have a 6m man army, at some point the become just nummbers

And if it comes down to that, then yes, I would say Russia was behind. It seems to be a problem that they are slowly dealing with, and I think it is thanks more to the fact that now they are growing the number of contract soldiers whom act far more professional and are there to make money and not some sort of weird hazing thing. As well, I think it also helped that many generals and others got sacked in recent years and now in a lot of troubled barracks, they have installed cameras. Also, with the introduction of the internet, it is easy for soldiers to prove their mistreatment, which then lights a fire under the asses of the politicians to actually do something.

The snap drills are the best thing for Russian military, as this will be able to root out a lot of the problems they faced due to poor training. As for the equipment, well, I heard some regions, especially central, are still operating old late 80's early 90's equipment as they are not considered the most important groups. While the western military districts get some really good modern equipment and southern gets some experimental thanks to the ongoing conflict in Ingushetia. With the introduction of Ratnik and other equipments to the western and southern military districts, the far east and central will end up getting the equipment of the other troops from the west, which is not bad, not amazing, but not bad. Hopefully they will look past this, and just introduce Ratnik after initial trials with western military district, to be common with all troops through Russia. But my understanding is that this is no different in US, where Marines get some real good equipment, but Army gets hand me downs, and National guard gets the bare minimum (old Hummvees, old APC's, basic kevlar and mostly older M-16s). Hell, in Canada, our LAV III's are outfitted with basic armor protection, where they have slat armor and sandbags on it. Really, nothing wrong with it when you have to improvise. It is just modern military seems to = lack of proper number of munitions and well trained troops with semi decent equipment.

Theoretically Ukrainian army was considered modern. Thanks to NATO's assistance in Ukraines training and military modernization in reducing number of total troops to 200,000. In the end, they are getting whooped by militia, much like our troops are barely fighting an enemy like the Taliban, now ISIS.

The snap drills are not training as such... they are a test that local commanders can't fake... ie a transport unit works quickly and methodically and moves ammo from trucks to a forward firing point... there is no firing to be done today... that test is next week so they put all the boxes back and drive away. No one mentions the boxes are empty.

In a snap drill those boxes can't be empty and every tiny part of the machine has to work together to get the job done so it is an excellent test on many levels.

The electronic simulation system the Germans were building for the Russians wont be completed by the Germans because of the current sanctions but apparently Russian software companies have said they can complete the program and build more if needed... they allow an entire brigade train together in a virtual reality setup from snipers and soldiers right up through command and control and heavy vehicles and from a single vehicle right up to a brigade of vehicles.

Obviously training can be day or night and in any weather and can be set anywhere on the planet.

Performance can be recorded and monitored with mistakes found and corrected.

More importantly I would suggest that with it being a digital electronic system... basically an enormous LAN game... you could change the vehicle types with a software update and practise driving vehicles not even in service yet....

AFAIK they were planning two but if they can be made locally then why not have two per military district? (ie If not right away then at least by 2025.

Smaller versions would be useful too... perhaps as a mobile sim training system.

With the new Ratnik equipment I would expect new training in its use would be needed, though using their plans of 70% new kit by 2020 suggests 30% of units wont have it by 2020.

Performance in Chechnia and Dagestan wasn't that bad in my opinion... of the problems most were related to obsolete comms and recon and the decisions made by those higher up the chain of command. In Georgia I think a relatively small force took on a larger force that was comparatively equipped and did a good job... better planned and thought out, but still lacking in recon and comms security/nav.

GarryB wrote:The snap drills are not training as such... they are a test that local commanders can't fake... ie a transport unit works quickly and methodically and moves ammo from trucks to a forward firing point... there is no firing to be done today... that test is next week so they put all the boxes back and drive away. No one mentions the boxes are empty.

In a snap drill those boxes can't be empty and every tiny part of the machine has to work together to get the job done so it is an excellent test on many levels.

The electronic simulation system the Germans were building for the Russians wont be completed by the Germans because of the current sanctions but apparently Russian software companies have said they can complete the program and build more if needed... they allow an entire brigade train together in a virtual reality setup from snipers and soldiers right up through command and control and heavy vehicles and from a single vehicle right up to a brigade of vehicles.

Obviously training can be day or night and in any weather and can be set anywhere on the planet.

Performance can be recorded and monitored with mistakes found and corrected.

More importantly I would suggest that with it being a digital electronic system... basically an enormous LAN game... you could change the vehicle types with a software update and practise driving vehicles not even in service yet....

AFAIK they were planning two but if they can be made locally then why not have two per military district? (ie  If not right away then at least by 2025.

Smaller versions would be useful too... perhaps as a mobile sim training system.

With the new Ratnik equipment I would expect new training in its use would be needed, though using their plans of 70% new kit by 2020 suggests 30% of units wont have it by 2020.

Performance in Chechnia and Dagestan wasn't that bad in my opinion... of the problems most were related to obsolete comms and recon and the decisions made by those higher up the chain of command. In Georgia I think a relatively small force took on a larger force that was comparatively equipped and did a good job... better planned and thought out, but still lacking in recon and comms security/nav.

Still a form of training...

That VR system will be priceless for Russian forces to have. Let's hope it works well!

Personnel will receive that new "advanced soldier" kind of system soon enough as well! (Ratnik)

We should consider the performance of the rebels in the Donbas. They are getting whipped into shape by Russian advisers and have become very effective on the battlefield even though they are outgunned and face Kiev regime forces at least twice in number. The Kiev regime is getting similar levels of support from NATO. It's hard to swallow for some and they make up stories about a Russian invasion every other day. NATO thinks there are 1,000 Russian troops in Ukraine right now. This is a silly number for a force deployment and would make more sense as some rounded-to-the-nearest-thousand number of advisers.

I have red rebel stories about effective use of EM warfare against Kiev regime forces. This does not seem like something a rag tag collection of rebels could achieve after a few months of fighting. The current state of the Russian army appears to be quite advanced. The modernization program will take another 10 years, but the training is there and paying off.

kvs wrote:We should consider the performance of the rebels in the Donbas.   They are getting whipped into shape by Russian advisers and have become very effective on the battlefield even though they are outgunned and face Kiev regime forces at least twice in number.   The Kiev regime is getting similar levels of support from NATO.   It's hard to swallow for some and they make up stories about a Russian invasion every other day.   NATO thinks there are 1,000 Russian troops in Ukraine right now.   This is a silly number for a force deployment and would make more sense as some rounded-to-the-nearest-thousand number of advisers.

I have red rebel stories about effective use of EM warfare against Kiev regime forces.   This does not seem like something a rag tag collection of rebels could achieve after a few months of fighting.   The current state of the Russian army appears to be quite advanced.   The modernization program will take another 10 years, but the training is there and paying off.    

The rebels are not trained directly by Russian forces, but by people in Russian forces or former Russian forces etc.

Good to hear, but then what was considered long range strike before GPS??

Generally speaking from about 500km up to about 5,000km was considered Intermediate range for ballistic missiles... for cruise missiles we are talking about 750km up to about 3,500km.

Soviet cruise missiles of the 80s had a CEP of about 200m, which was fine for nuclear armed models, but not sufficient for conventionally armed models... so there weren't any.

With the introduction of GPS the Russians still couldn't create missiles with the level of accuracy needed as shown in the Georgian conflict of 8.8.8 where the publicly available civilian GPS was turned off for the period of the war. This meant Russian forces with civilian receivers were left in the dark, while Georgian military users of GPS continued to get accurate positioning data.

Now that Russia has Glonass it can use its own signals and guarantee accuracy... as it improves the satellites and adds ground tracking stations around the world the accuracy will improve by quite a bit.

When Chinas system is fully functional they will gain the same benefits too.

Then why is the INF treaty the stated reason for the cancellation of the entire program, was it a budgetary issue or something??

I suspect cost was the real reason it was cancelled... there was simply no money at the time to pay for its development... and by the look at it I would suggest it will be replaced by Zirconium in the naval surface and air launched versions.

Until 2007/8 where everything went south because of Georgia, but what does that have to do with the MCTR which isn't even a treaty, and unlike the CFE held no benefits for Russia from day one, if anything it served to limit Russia's MIC and completely handicap any country that dares defy the Western powers.

Two likely possibilities I suspect... either this was one of the deals Yeltsin signed thinking he was amongst friends and it would buy him further favour with the wolves, or there were behind the scene promises made to get it agreed upon.

Getting rid of WMDs and stopping western intervention is all well and good, but at the end of the day you cannot rely on other countries with the defense of your own, one must have the ability to defend themselves, because the protection you get from others is always temporary.

Not being rash, they are now in a position where Assad is still in power and the opposition is clearly out of western favour, so Russia can begin to rearm Assad with all the weapons he needs to deal with ISIS or ISIL or whoever they are today.

Ooh Garry, you know how this works, claim that the leadership are dictator, spur the population with talk of freedom, democracy and the wealth of capitalism/free-market and....well i am sure you know the rest.

Except Iran is one of the few countries in the region that actually has democracy... women have held the vote there for decades... Iranians are not stupid enough not to remember the CIA puppet Shah...

Anyway for me, at the end of the day the only thing keeping the U.S from invading are Iranian missiles like Meshkat and Shahab-3.

What a sad reflection of US foreign policy... invade, destroy the government and infrastructure of a functioning country, declare victory, and leave.

Domestic or export, on top of that this also brings up the question of whether ADS constitute as a delivery Systems.

MTCR... Missile Technology (export) Control Regime is a protocol dedicated to limiting the export of missile technology that would allow the development of long range weapons of large payload. (range = 300km+ and payload = 500kgs or more).

SAMs can easily be modified to deliver payloads to the ground... the 150kg warhead of the S-400 could easily be replaced with a fairly large nuke...

Then why aren't they selling these missiles???

Because they have already verbally promised to adhere to the MTCR rules.