US/NATO Armed Forces vs Russian Armed Forces comparison

Army falls 25 years behind other nations.

Congress Moves to Boost Military’s Electronic Warfare Capability
Army falls 25 years behind other nations

BY: Adam Kredo
February 1, 2016 1:00 pm

As Army leaders work behind the scenes to beef up the force’s electronic warfare capability, which lags about 25 years behind most other modern countries, Congress is readying a new piece of legislation to help military leaders procure the funds necessary to catch up with the rest of the globe, according to a preview of a new bill viewed by the Washington Free Beacon.

Countries such a Russia, China, and Iran have made significant gains in the electronic warfare arena in recent years, according to congressional and military officials who spoke to the Free Beacon.

Meanwhile, the United States has fallen far behind on this front due to shrinking budgets and an acquisitions process for new technologies that can take more than a decade to complete.

The new bill seeks to cut through this red tape by giving Pentagon leaders more flexibility on how funds are spent within the electronic warfare umbrella. It is just the first step of many that will be required to bring the United States into the modern age, officials say.

“It is critical our military dominate the offensive and defensive ends of electronic warfare because our enemies know they can harm our troops by targeting our electronic systems,” Sen. Mark Kirk (R., Ill.), a leading sponsor of the bill who recently met with military leaders to discuss the threat, told the Free Beacon.

“My Electronic Warfare Enhancement Act will cut through the Pentagon’s bureaucracy in order to put critical electronic warfare technology into the hands of our servicemen and servicewomen as rapidly as possible,” Kirk said.

Col. Jeffrey Church, chief of the Army’s electronic warfare division, told the Free Beacon that he and others have been working behind the scenes to convince Defense Department leaders of the necessity to catch up to other nations’ technological capabilities.

“The [technology] is out there right now,” Church said. “We can go to industry. We can go to the government, off the shelf. The technology is there. Often times, people forget, but I say, ‘What do you think the Russians are using? Make-believe technology? No, it’s there. We could have, the U.S. army, a world class’” electronic warfare force.

For more than a decade, the Army was out of the electronic warfare business, Church said. Other nations surpassed the United States during that time in technology and its use in the field.

Senior military leaders, for instance, have described Russia’s capabilities on this front as “eye-watering.”

From around 1995 to 2003, the Army had shuttered its electronic warfare units. Operations informally ramped up again around 2005, when a large number of troops were being killed and maimed by radio activated improvised explosive devices in Iraq.

While the army shut its units down, other military branches, such as the Air Force, continued to operate in the electronic warfare arena.

At the time, “We didn’t have any people. We didn’t have any equipment. We didn’t have any experience,” Church said. “All of that stuff had gone out of the inventory in the mid 1990s. So really the Army started building from zero.”

Multiple Pentagon studies have concluded over the years that “the army is 25 years behind,” Church said. “The army needs to dedicate efforts to this resource. The army needs to rapidly get back in to the electronic warfare capabilities. Every study concludes the same thing.”

Since Army operations on the electronic warfare front ramped back up, leaders have developed a plan to procure new systems and technology that would enable troops to conduct both defensive and offensive electronic operations.

However, most of that technology will not be in place until 2023 or beyond, according to timelines viewed by the Free Beacon. The chief obstacle is securing the necessary funds in a time when military resources are being whittled down.

“Everything comes down to dollars,” Church said. “It doesn’t matter how good your program is, how important your program is, if your program doesn’t get dollars it doesn’t go anywhere.”

Kirk’s bill offers a remedy for this problem.

It would provide Pentagon leaders with flexibility in how funds are spent, and it would permit them to use any appropriated funds for electronic warfare to be used for the development and implementation of equipment.

This means that troops in the field will more quickly receive the technology they need to conduct electronic warfare missions.

Congress wants the Pentagon to speed up its acquisitions process so that capabilities can be fielded in around two years, which amounts to a much shorter timeline than the current standard.

Kirk’s bill would give the electronic warfare portfolio what is known as Rapid Acquisition Authority. This designation would allow officials to waive certain rules that slow down the process.

Nato-GeheimpapierRussland ist Nato-Kräften in Syrien überlegen



Seit September fliegt die russische Luftwaffe Angriffe in Syrien. Dabei wird immer wieder angeprangert, dass Putins Bomber auch Hunderte Zivilisten töten. Ausgerechnet die Nato allerdings lobt Russland: Der Einsatz sei "präzise und effizient", heißt es - und hätte eine deutlich größere Wirkung als der Einsatz der Nato-Flotte.

Das nordatlantische Militärbündnis Nato hat der in Syrien eingesetzten russischen Luftwaffe ein hohes Maß an Professionalität bescheinigt. Dies berichtet das Nachrichtenmagazin FOCUS unter Berufung auf eine vertrauliche Nato-Analyse aus Brüssel.

Obwohl die Kampfflugzeuge der russischen Streitkräfte den Jets der westlichen Allianz zahlenmäßig deutlich unterlegen sind, erzielten die Kreml-Piloten bei Einsätzen gegen das Terror-Netzwerk IS und andere Rebellengruppen insgesamt eine größere Wirkung. Grund dafür sei die höhere Frequenz der russischen Luftangriffe, zitiert FOCUS aus dem Geheimpapier.

Demnach flogen rund 40 der bei Latakia stationierten russischen Kampfjets zuletzt bis zu 75 Einsätze pro Tag. Die Luftschläge seien „präzise und effizient“. Die Nato-Flotte mit insgesamt 180 Maschinen griff täglich lediglich 20 Ziele am Boden an. Präsident Wladimir Putin, Oberbefehlshaber der russischen Streitkräfte, will in nächster Zeit bis zu 140 Kampfjets in Syrien einsetzen. Kürzlich ließ er bereits vier hochmodernde Maschinen vom Typ Suchoi Su-35 nach Latakia verlegen. Die Su-35 ist nach Ansicht von Fachleuten den meisten Fliegern aus westlicher Produktion überlegen.



IS hat Machtdemonstrationen am Boden eingestellt

Laut NATO galten bislang nur 20 Prozent der russischen Angriffe der terroristischen IS-Miliz. Die übrigen Attacken richteten sich gegen Anti-Assad-Milizen, von denen einige vom Westen unterstützt werden. Die starke Präsenz der Kampfflieger hat dazu geführt, dass es seit Wochen keine großen Bewegungen der Aufständischen mehr am Boden gibt. Insbesondere die Terror-Miliz IS, die zur Propaganda mit langen Fahrzeug-Kolonnen durch besetzte Gebiete fuhr, verzichtet nunmehr aus Angst vor Luftangriffen auf ihre Machtdemonstrationen.

Bei der Zielerfassung greifen die Kreml-Piloten laut FOCUS auf die syrische Luftbild-Aufklärung zurück. Zudem markierten russische Spezialeinheiten und Spione vor Ort strategisch wichtige Einrichtungen. Über die bei den Angriffen der alliierten und russischen Luftstreitkräfte getöteten Zivilisten gibt es in dem Geheim-Dokument keine Angaben. Nach Informationen der Syrischen Beobachtungsstelle für Menschenrechte kamen seit September 2015 allein bei russischen Luftschlägen mehr als 1700 Zivilisten ums Leben, darunter 423 Kinder.

Electronic Warfare: Russian Gains Threaten to 'Disconnect' U.S. Forces

Dave Majumdar

February 25, 2016

The United States will have to rebuild its capacity to counter Russia’s electronic warfare expertise in Europe. Electronic warfare—like much of America’s conventional warfighting capabilities—has been severely neglected during the twenty-five-year lull since the end of the Cold War. Moreover, for nearly fifteen years, the United States has been focused on counter-insurgency warfare in the Middle East rather than preparing for war against another great power.

But with a newly resurgent Russia once again threatening the peace in Europe, the United States will have to reinvest in electronic and cyber warfare to counter Moscow’s advancements in those fields. “For twenty years we’ve been making a partner out of Russia so our focus has not been on the capabilities that they have been developing,” U.S. Air Force Gen. Philip Breedlove, commander of U.S. European Command told the House Armed Services Committee on February 25. “Secondly, for all the right reasons, for the last thirteen or so years, our nation’s military has been focused on counterinsurgency operations—COIN—in Afghanistan and fighting Al Qaeda.”

Since neither the Taliban nor Al Qaeda has any meaningful electronic warfare capability, the United States had more or less allowed its capacity to fight in that arena atrophy. “While we have retained capability, we have not really practiced it to the veracity that we used to, nor have we retained the capacity that might be required to bust these growing A2/AD [anti-access/area denial] problems we see around the world,” Breedlove said. “We have electronic warfare capability—we probably do not have the capacity we need now.”

For example, America’s capabilities to suppress enemy air defenses are good, “but they’re not very dense,” Breedlove said. “We don’t have a lot of them,” he added.

The basic problem, however, is that Moscow has watched American warfighting capabilities since the first Persian Gulf War and has learned lessons from those wars. Russia—which retains a very robust defense industry—has invested heavily in countering American advantages. “Russia knows how we roll,” Breedlove said. “They have invested a lot in electronic warfare because they know we are a connected and precise force and they need to disconnect us to make us imprecise.”

While electronic warfare is one area where American capacity in Europe has atrophied, Breedlove said that the U.S. military in Europe needs more permanently stationed forces. One area that he highlighted was the North Atlantic where the Russian Navy massively increased its activity to nearly Cold War levels.

The U.S. Navy simply does not have enough submarines to counter Moscow’s resurgent undersea fleet. The problem will only get worse as the older Los Angeles-class attack submarines are retired without enough Virginia-class boats to replace them. “I do not get what I’ve asked for,” Breedlove said. “In that very contested, very highly sophisticated part of the world, we play zone defense, we can’t play man-to-man.”

Dave Majumdar is the defense editor for the National Interest. You can follow him on Twitter: @davemajumdar.

Image: U.S. Navy.

US general says we could be screwed in a war against China or Russia

US Army Chief of Staff Gen. Mark Milley Photo: Getty Images

WASHINGTON — The Army’s top general says military forces on the ground face a high level of risk if the United States gets into a large-scale conflict against a power such as Russia or China.

Testifying Wednesday on Capitol Hill, Army Chief of Staff Gen. Mark Milley says years of combat in Iraq and Afghanistan, constrained budgets and troop cuts have had a cumulative effect on the service.

Milley says the Army is ready to fight the Islamic State group and other terrorist organizations.

But what Milley describes as a “great power war” against one or two of four countries – China, Russia, Iran and North Korea – would pose greater challenges.

Milley says the Army’s readiness is not at a level that is appropriate for what the American people expect to defend them.

The Russian Air Force Was Always Behind the West in One Key Area (Until Now)

Dave Majumdar

May 11, 2016
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The Kremlin’s air war over Syria demonstrated that Russia’s once dilapidated military has recovered from its low-point in 1990s in the aftermath of the Soviet collapse. But while the Russian Air Force showed off new precision-guided weapons and new high-performance aircraft like the Sukhoi Su-30SM Flanker-H, Su-34 Fullback and the Su-35S Flanker-E, it was evident that Moscow still lacked certain capabilities.

One such gap was the lack of a targeting pod like Northrop Grumman’s LITENING G4 or the Lockheed Martin Sniper. However, Russia seems to be rapidly closing that gap with the development of its own indigenous targeting pod under the auspices of state-owned Rostec and Precision Instrumentation Systems.

The Russian Air Force will start operational testing of a new indigenous targeting pod before the end of the year. “We have held joint meetings with the developers and manufacturers of the pod and have agreed on deadlines,” a Russian defense official told the Russian-language daily Izvestia. “In accordance with the approved plans, we will test the first product before the end of this year.”

The new targeting pod—which will be fitted onto advanced Russian warplanes such as the Su-30SM, Su-35S, Su-34 and MiG-35—incorporated the typical features found on equivalent Western designs. It includes GLONASS satellite positioning, electro-optical/infrared imaging and laser designation capabilities. It also seems to have video downlink capabilities just like U.S. targeting pods. However, it remains to be seen if the new Russian pods offer the performance of their Western counterparts.

Russia seems to have accelerated the development of the new pod after combat experience in Syria demonstrated that such capabilities are mandatory over the modern battlefield. Indeed, Russian forces have been accused of being less than precise with their airstrikes in Syria—which could in part be ascribed to Moscow’s lack of targeting pods.

Until recently, Russia was not able to produce an indigenous targeting pod. Moscow had attempted to procure the Thales Damocles pod—and even hoped to license-build the French-developed sensor for a time—during the early 2000, but the effort fell flat. Meanwhile, Russia’s domestic industry—despite its best efforts—failed to develop an indigenous equivalent until now.

According to Izvestia, Russian industry made a breakthrough in manufacturing piezoelectric ceramic film strips less than 100 micron in width. That in turn led to a breakthrough in building targeting pods. While initially manufacturers like Zelenograd SRI ELPA had trouble producing the filmstrips consistently, eventually they resolved those problems.

That led to Precision Instrumentation Systems completing the first prototype targeting pods by the end of 2015. Production of the new pods is set to start later this summer, according to Izvestia. With the addition of the targeting pods, the Russian Air Force will more or less have matched all of the capabilities resident onboard U.S. fourth-generation fighter like the F-15, F-16 or F/A-18.

Dave Majumdar is the defense editor for the National Interest. You can follow him on Twitter: @davemajumdar.

moskit wrote:Glory to Russian Armed Forces and to the great nation,  the Russian Federation !!!

Dear moderators, I am new to this forum and I find it is great in providing excellent indepth answers connected with Russian armed forces.
I have recently read a piece published in Pravda connected with the sale of the crown jewel of Russian fighter aircraft, two SU 27to US. I would like to know how the Russians would be able to counter such a move. Can the Russians prevent the striping down of its crown jewel fighter air crafts by US? Does russia hold any surprises to nutralise this move? Please porvide me answers convincing. thank you.

6 Facts Highlight Why We Need to Rebuild Our Military

The U.S. military seems to be breaking. Senior military leaders have made dire statements before Congress, and story after story is revealing the potentially deadly challenges facing our men and women in uniform.

As Congress considers the annual defense authorization bill, here are six clear, real-world examples of why Congress needs to use the defense bill to start rebuilding the U.S. military.

1. The Marine Corps is pulling parts off of museum planes to keep their F-18s flying. Even with that drastic action, only about 30 percent of their F-18s are ready to fly. Not only that, but instead of getting 25 or 30 hours a month in the cockpit, Marine Corps pilots are getting as little as four hours per month of flying time.

2. Only one-third of Army brigades are ready for combat. The Army has now fallen to the smallest level since before World War II, while the top Army general says that the Army would face “high military risk” if it were to fight a serious war.

3. The Air Force is cannibalizing parts from some F-16’s to keep other F-16’s flying and is pulling parts off museum planes to keep their B-1 bombers flying. And half of Air Force squadrons are not prepared for serious combat.

4. The Navy keeps extending deployments of its ships, but still doesn’t have enough to meet demand. While the Navy needs about 350 ships, today it only has 273.

5. Serious crashes of Marine Corps planes and helicopters are nearly double the 10-year average.

6. The Air Force’s B-52 bombers are an average of 53 years old. Most Americans would not want to drive across the country in a 53-year-old car (see example below), let alone go to combat in a 53-year-old airplane.

1963 Oldsmobile (Photo: David Chapman imageBROKER/Newscom)
1963 Oldsmobile (Photo: David Chapman image Broker/Newscom)
These six facts show the consequences of cutting the national defense budget by 25 percent over the last five years.

At the same time, threats are growing. Russia has invaded Ukraine and threatens more. China is building illegal islands. Iran is pursuing a nuclear weapon and North Korea already has one. And we also face the real threat of terrorism and the growing threat of cyberattacks.

The bottom line is that Congress needs to start rebuilding the U.S. military. We can’t let this go much further.

The U.S. Military's Greatest Fear: Russia and China are Catching Up Fast

Dave Majumdar
May 17, 2016

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The United States has fallen behind potential adversaries in certain key technological areas such as integrated battle networks according to senior U.S. Navy officials. Indeed, as one U.S. Navy admiral told an audience at the Navy League’s Sea, Air and Space symposium that the term “near-peer” is a misnomer—in some cases the Russian and Chinese have the advantage over American forces.

“Our near-peer competitors are no longer near peers,” said Rear Adm. Mike Darrah, Naval Air Systems Command’s program executive officer for unmanned systems and strike weapons. “In some cases, they have gone beyond us.”

While Darrah was reluctant to go into details, he said that one specific area where the United States is falling behind is in networking. But he reiterated that the term “near-peer” is condescending and derogatory—which also has the effect of rendering American policy-makers complacent when dealing with a very real danger. It was a message that others Navy leaders like NAVAIR Strike Weapons program manager Capt. Jamie Engdahl also reiterated—the United States is not fielding advanced weapons fast enough to keep up with other nations technical advances.

Darrah—due to security concerns—flatly refused to answer what the United States could do to counter the enemy’s advantage. But he did talk about specific areas where the United States needs to improve on—one such area is combat identification, especially in an environment where enemy electronic attacks will be continually disrupting American communications networks. “We’re not doing a good enough job at combat ID,” Darrah said.

Position, navigation and timing in an environment where there is no access to GPS—or where the enemy is actively attacking satellite navigation—is another area the Pentagon must work on. American forces are far too reliant on GPS, and a smart adversary like the Russians or the Chinese are certain to attack those vital sinews that hold together U.S military operations.

Addressing those issues is critical as the Navy moves toward the so-called “tactical cloud”—where every sensor and shooter shares data seamlessly. However, such networks are vulnerable to electronic and cyber attacks and—as such—Darrah said much more needs to be done to ensure the fidelity of the information in the cloud. Networking is the future of naval warfare, Darrah reiterated, noting that as times goes on individual platform will matter less than the sum total of the tactical cloud.

Dave Majumdar is the defense editor of The National Interest. You can follow him on Twitter at @DaveMajumdar.

June 20, 2016Daniel Gouré, Ph.D

America Needs A More Lethal As Well As Survivable Army
The U.S. Army once was superior to every potential adversary in terms of combat power, what it called overmatch. This is no longer entirely true. In the future battlefields, the Army will face enemies that will be extremely lethal, more numerous, fighting on home turf and able to exploit the advantage of getting in the first blow. Unless the Army takes a number of steps in the near-term, it is likely to find itself not merely outmatched, but at risk of defeat.

In its most recent conflicts the Army benefitted from a number of advantages that are unlikely to be available in the future, certainly in other regions of the world. It had a secure logistical base largely free from interdiction. It could count on total air dominance. It didn’t have to face any long-range fires. While adversaries in Iraq and Afghanistan made excellent use of improvised explosive devices (IEDs), the only anti-armor threats came from rocket-propelled grenades. Finally, the Army possessed the luxury of unimpeded communications.

Few, if any, of these advantages are likely to hold true in future conflicts, certainly none involving regional powers or so-called near peer adversaries. In Europe, Asia and even portions of the Middle East, the U.S. military will have to fight for air superiority. Even where adversaries have not deployed integrated air defenses, Army maneuver forces, bases and lines of communications are likely to be subject to massed rocket and missile attacks. Brigade combat teams will face an array of lethal threats ranging from sophisticated IEDs to advanced, tandem-warhead anti-tank guided missiles, precision guided artillery projectiles, long-range guns, armed drones and air-delivered weapons.

The Russian Army, for example, has demonstrated an impressive array of new capabilities in its operations in the Ukraine and Syria including the coordinated use of drones with massed artillery and rocket batteries, advanced area munitions and thermobaric warheads, extremely lethal and sophisticated anti-tank guided missiles and the use of electronic warfare to black out military communications. It has shown an impressive capability to rapidly mobilize and deploy significant combined arms forces. In Eastern Europe, the Russian Army also will be operating close to its supply centers and under the protection of an integrated air defense network.

The Army’s Operating Concept during the latter part of the Cold War was “fight outnumbered and win.” This made sense when the principal adversary was the Warsaw Pact. It was simple, clear and focused on ways, means and ends. The new bumper sticker is “win in a complex world.” It is essentially meaningless. In view of the Army’s declining end strength, aging equipment and platforms, and the rise of new threats, it is likely that the Army again will have to fight and to do so outnumbered.

The character of the conflict and adversary in Southwest Asia propelled the Army to concentrate on ways of enhancing the survivability of its deployed forces. Out of this effort came the highly mobile Stryker with slat armor and, more recently, a double-V hull to defeat IEDs. There were tens of thousands of heavily armored mine-resistant ambush protected vehicles and uparmored Humvees. Electronic warfare focused entirely on ways of detecting and jamming remotely-controlled IEDs. The Army even adapted the Navy’s Phalanx close-in defense system to protect critical facilities against rocket attacks. Soldiers were provided with improved body armor.

The drive to enhance force protection and platform survivability is ongoing. The Army is seriously considering deploying active protection systems (APS) on at least a portion of its fleets of combat vehicles. APS systems such as the Israeli Trophy have proven highly effective against rocket-propelled grenades and anti-tank missiles. The Army is investing in a multi-mission launcher that can support the AMRAAM anti-aircraft missile as well as a future miniature hit-to-kill interceptor to counter rockets, artillery and mortars. The decades-old, open-topped M-113s are being replaced by a much more survivable Armored Multi-Purpose Vehicle based on the Bradley Infantry Fighting Vehicle. Army Aviation is deploying countermeasures to defeat infrared surface-to-air missiles and a navigation system for degraded vision environments.

But in order to fight outnumbered and win, the Army also must invest in near-term lethality enhancements to match its efforts in force protection and platform survivability. The Army recently undertook a short-term program in response to an urgent operational need from U.S. Army Europe to upgun some 80 Stryker vehicles with a new and more capable 30mm cannon. What about the rest of the fleet? The possibility of mounting an anti-tank missile such as the Javelin on the Stryker also has been suggested. The Army badly needs new precision munitions, the Multiple Launch Rocket System and mortar systems to defeat both enemy armor and also their rocket launchers and massed artillery. Plans to enhance the lethality of both the Bradley and the Abrams tank with sensor and targeting upgrades and, for the latter, a new multipurpose cannon round, need to be funded in the near-term. Directed energy weapons for tactical applications against hostile air threats, rockets and artillery are within reach. Then there is the need to match investments in advanced networking such as the WIN-T system with a new generation of electronic warfare capabilities that will render adversaries deaf, dumb and blind.

In counterinsurgency campaigns the goal, simply put, is to outlast the other side. Hence, the emphasis in Army modernization on survivability. In a serious conventional conflict with a near-peer, regional hegemon or capable non-state actor, this will not be enough. To fight and win outnumbered requires being more lethal than the adversary too.

andalusia wrote:Can Russia and China counter this threat by the US?

https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/us-army-plans-deploy-super-charged-lasers-shootdown-cruise-missiles-84236