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    What does Russia excel at Militarily

    d_taddei2
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    Post  d_taddei2 Sat Oct 10, 2015 9:41 pm

    hi all, i would like to ask the people on the forum to try and be unbiased as possible and ask what you think Russia excels at militarily, i.e air defence, tanks etc.
    Mike E
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    Post  Mike E Sat Oct 10, 2015 9:57 pm

    Air Defense and Nuclear Armament. Not to say Russia isn't capable in any other area, but those two are their best, and in my honest opinion, the best in the world.

    Russia has a good mix of ICBM's; some large, some small, all accurate, some with a a large amount of decoys and warheads etc.

    And Russia's AD is very concentrated and has access to some of the most capable systems around; Pantsir-S1, S-400, Tor-M2, and now Buk-M3, soon S-500 etc.
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    Rodinazombie


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    Post  Rodinazombie Mon Oct 12, 2015 11:58 am

    Why dont we talk about rocket technology?

    The most famous of world war two was the katyusha system, then you can look at grads, uragan, smerch moving on to TOS-1, tornado, tochka- u, iskanders.

    As a brit, i look upon this part of the russian arsenal with envy.
    KoTeMoRe
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    Post  KoTeMoRe Mon Oct 12, 2015 12:02 pm

    Simply put? Trashing the place to the point you give up fighting. And that place can be your place or their place. Russians so far haven't moved from a 3D war to a selective war. And frankly that's perfect. You don't need to fiddle around with COIN if you're into the War business. Nor Warrying if you're into the Coin Business.
    Khepesh
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    Post  Khepesh Mon Oct 12, 2015 4:42 pm

    Primarily, since 18th Century it has been artillery of all types, tube, and since GPW also rocket. I would say also this has been a general qualitative as well as numerical superiority certainly since GWP and continuing to this day. Also leaps forward in armor technology and systems as we see with Armata today and in the past with T-34, T-64 and BMP. Generally, Russia/SU has simply excelled in everything that counts on the battlefield, including EW in all it's forms.
    d_taddei2
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    Post  d_taddei2 Mon Oct 12, 2015 5:23 pm

    Rodinazombie wrote:Why dont we talk about rocket technology?

    The most famous of world war two was the katyusha system, then you can look at grads, uragan, smerch moving on to TOS-1, tornado, tochka- u, iskanders.

    As a brit, i look upon this part of the russian arsenal with envy.

    totally agree, Russia has always had brilliant surface to surface missile systems, Iskander sends shivers up the spine of USA and Europe, and looking at Smerch and the variety of missiles available my fav, 9M55K1 Cluster munition, self-guided anti-tank. The TOS-1 is every infantrymans nightmare, and the BM-21 is highly effective (in what it was designed to do), cheap, and easy to use, and is easily the most produced and most used missile system in the world and its the cheapest. I personally think BM-21 is a minimum requirement for any army small or large, and it doesnt cost that much. I was in the British army, and MLRS support was limited and a lot expensive than BM-21, any infantryman will tell any support is greatly appreciated. So fielding cheap effective BM-21 gives the infantry the needed support it requires before attacking the enemy.

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    Post  d_taddei2 Mon Oct 12, 2015 5:33 pm

    Khepesh wrote:Primarily, since 18th Century it has been artillery of all types, tube, and since GPW also rocket. I would say also this has been a general qualitative as well as numerical superiority certainly since GWP and continuing to this day. Also leaps forward in armor technology and systems as we see with Armata today and in the past with T-34, T-64 and BMP. Generally, Russia/SU has simply excelled in everything that counts on the battlefield, including EW in all it's forms.


    the T-34, T-64, are fantastic tanks, the T-34 was regarded highly during WW2, i think to add to the list is the T-55 and T-72, the T-55 is another hero of the soviet union, and the still in use today and being the most produced tank. The T-72 in upgraded form is still a capable tank. I think another area Russia excels at is anti tank warfare, especially shoulder launched, RPG-7 i dont think i need to say anything on this, the RPG-29 is feared by any enemy in particular the west, and yet its costs are cheap compared to western shoulder launched anti tank weapons which are not always better than it. I think in the ATGW area, Russia is another winner in this area mainly down to effectiveness = cost, the western stuff is good but highly expensive.
    TheArmenian
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    Post  TheArmenian Mon Oct 12, 2015 6:17 pm

    Air Defense (SAMs etc.)
    Anti-ship missiles
    Artillery
    MLRS
    Reliable small arms
    Heavy machine guns and cannons (Kord, KPV, 30mm etc.))
    RPGs
    Anti tank guided missiles (Kornet, Metis, Khrizantema etc)
    Automatic grenade launchers (AGS-17 and 30 and Balkan)
    Air droppable vehicles (BMD, Sprut etc)
    Medium and heavy helicopters (Mi-26, Mi-8 etc)
    Large ICBMs
    etc.
    etc.
    etc.
    Werewolf
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    Post  Werewolf Mon Oct 12, 2015 7:20 pm

    SHORAD, SAM, SPAAG, TABM, ABM no rivals in the entire world.

    MRLS, Artillery and any Surface to Surface missile.

    Tanks, no rivals in the world. Russia is the inventor of all major technologies offensive and Defensive (despite constant anti-russian propaganda of russians do not give a shit about their own human lifes) They invented all major armors widely used by the west today, ERA, NERA, NxRA, Composite armor, composite matrix meshed structure, bulking armor, APS, Softkill APS, highest amount of armor distribution of 35+- ° of the frontal sphere unlike 30° on western tanks, without exposing anything of the turret to that projection The newest armor with overlapping molecular super structures diagonaly to each other, providing a much more effecient way to deal with any Kinetic impacts on that kind of armor.

    Since quite some time overtook helicopter technologies especially in ECM, Attack Helicopter, Transport Helicopter, Cargo Helicopter, they are however still missing small utility helicopter niche.

    ECM and EW russians are beyond what the West could have ever thought off.

    Torpedo with supercavitivity technology not some technology for operational advantage but for tactical even up to strategic necessity against a superior numbered navy that could comprimize numbers advantage quite fast in actual warfare.

    ATGM's, no rivals there either, known for their high effeciency, range, firepower, relative low cost and high lethality and distribution around the world.

    Kalaschnikow, 100 mln copies world wide against the second place of G3 and FAL with 8 mln produced, speaks for itself a weapon not for decades, but for centuries to be used.

    Most accurate and lethal HMG's like the Kord that has a suprisingly high accuracy in single shots or small bursts, was also named the "Anti-Sniper", can be issued with high magnification scope to fight targets effectivley up to 1-1.5km.

    RPG's, another weapon with dozens of series of different purpose, firepower and lethality. RPG-30 no analogues to deal with APS issued vehicles, RPG-28 the most powerful RPG with 1000mm RHA behind ERA penetration capability.

    ICBM's, IRBM's and SLBM's getting modernized to sustain MAD against aggressions and attempts of theatre tactical nuke doctrine against russia, the only nuclear BM's with end phase changing trajectory to make interception nearly impossible and for US it is impossible.

    BMP's, BMD's and APC's the analogs have been thrown back another 1-3 decades to catch up with latest technologies, but even older tech like BMP-3 and BMD4 are top notch, with no analogues for BMD4 vehicles, since no one else has such a doctrine.

    Jets looking at Su-35 and its capabilities, its price, its weaponary, introduction of Irbis radar (domestic) blushes quite everyone.

    There are also many other technologies, which are usually sub systems of other systems that have their own success stories to tell. DIRCM being slowly distributed to other packages then just to Ka-52, Su-35, Mi-28N/NM, most probably sooner or later Mi-35M, since we have seen MAWS on it, would make just sense to install full TWICMS system on it aswell.

    Russia developed a Fire Control System integrated into Thermal Sights for Snipers and made what the US tried to do for years for a general purposed Assault rifle for their troops with projects like OICW which costs ridiculous amount of money per single unit. Something you could by T-72B2/3 for.

    Many devices like the "Anti-Sniper" that can detect in UV spectrums, the relfection of lenses and blind the source of it (Snipers) making to sniper impossible to deploy his deadly suprise to target. Safed Hugo chavez life according to developer.
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    Post  Rodinazombie Mon Oct 12, 2015 7:44 pm

    I think a summary of what russians excel at militarily, is quite simply value for money. Whether it be missile systems, tanks or small arms, they provide quality equipment that lasts and costs a fraction of its equivalent in the west. Some guys mention t-55s being used even now, well look in the donbass uprising you saw people walking round with ppsh-41s and svt40s, ptrs and who can forget the t-34s that were started up and driven off the plinths.

    Do you really think you could put an american or british tank on a plinth for half a century and be able to start it up and drive off with it? Not a cat in hells chance.
    George1
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    Post  George1 Tue Oct 13, 2015 1:17 am

    1. Air Defense systems
    2. Nuclear submarine technology
    3. Ballistic missiles
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    Post  BTRfan Tue Oct 13, 2015 3:46 am

    Logistics and combat engineering are high on the list.

    Combined arms operations.

    Light infantry and special operations are also on the list.

    Air defense, especially with surface-to-air missiles.
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    Post  Svyatoslavich Tue Oct 13, 2015 4:01 am

    Don't forget the airborne troops. There is nothing similar to VDV anywhere in the world: they excel in training, morale, equipment and numbers.
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    Post  OminousSpudd Tue Oct 13, 2015 4:13 am

    Air defense primarily. But the VKO in general fields probably the most modern/affordable/effective/sophisticated hardware found anywhere on the planet... This comes from a good 5-6 years of studying their gear as a part-time hobby, both from Western and Russian sources. Perhaps the only downfall at the moment is the quantity being fielded of these systems/aircraft, but this is being remedied.
    nemrod
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    Post  nemrod Wed Dec 30, 2015 12:02 am


    http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/news/a40027/russia-military-tech/


    Russia's Military Is More Advanced Than You Might Think

    Vladimir Putin is not a man to back down from provocation, especially a direct, lethal provocation like the shooting down of a Russian Su-24 aircraft by Turkey on Tuesday. Such an attack raises the possibility of a direct military confrontation, and makes you wonder just what Russia could do if you rattled its cage. How dangerous are they?

    Russia's defense complex may be just a shadow of the old Soviet Union, with defense spending only about 12 percent of the USA's. As such, many in the West tend to see Russian hardware as second-rate—stuck with 1970's electronics, crude manufacturing standards, and no money to improve matters. If the Russians make anything good, the thinking goes, they must have copied it from the West. The poor performance of the Russian-equipped Iraqi army in 2003 (and Russian-supplied Arab forces against the Israelis) reinforces the idea of inferior Russian military tech.

    In reality, Russia can be innovative in weapons design, and sometimes ahead of the West. Occasionally the country pursues crazy ideas than cannot work, like mind control weaponry. Yet just as often they develop weapons with no counterparts in the U.S.
    Rockets

    Nobody should doubt Russian rocket science. After all, they have provided all the manned flights to the International Space Station since the retirement of the Space Shuttle in 2011, and Russia's military rockets have a long pedigree.

    In 1973, new Soviet-built guided anti-tank missiles carried by Egyptian infantry decimated Israeli armor in their first large-scale use on the battlefield. Similarly, Russian SA-7 "Strela," a shoulder-launched heat-seeking surface-to-air missile, gave the Israeli Air Force real problems in the same 1973 conflict. They did not shoot down many aircraft, but forced pilots to change tactics. Portable missiles meant a plane could not just cruise over looking for targets. The SA-7 was the contemporary of an American missile, the FIM-43 Redeye. Both weapons were limited to shooting at the jet exhaust of receding aircraft only; the Russians introduced an upgraded Strela-3 which could tackle aircraft head-on in 1974, a capability which the US could not match until the FIM-92 Stinger arrived in 1982.

    Russian surface-to-air missiles are still formidable, hence the long-running concerns over the possible supply of the advanced S-300 system to Iran. The Russians themselves have a more sophisticated air-defense system, the S-400, which they are now set to deploy in Syria. These are dangerous weapons. Far from being backward, the Russian developers have "mastered the difficult embedded software technology so critical for radar and electronic warfare system," according to analyst Carlo Kopp.

    Air-to-Air

    In air-to-air combat, the Russians have long pursued an approach of firing salvoes rather than single shots. Planes like the Su-27 Flanker may carry a dozen missiles, launching two or three at a time. The missiles have different guidance types—a mixture of infra-red and radar-guided—that makes jamming or avoiding all of them difficult, and gives a high chance of a kill. A radar-guided missile may be fired alongside another missile that homes in on radar jamming, guaranteeing a hit whether or not a jammer is used.

    Russian aircraft's missiles are sophisticated, too. The Russian Vympel R-73 dogfight missile has an "off-boresight" capability to hit targets not directly in front of the aircraft. It was introduced in 1982, and NATO planners soon noted the advantage it gave Russian pilots in a close-quarters fight compared to their equivalent, the AIM-9 Sidewinder. U.S. pilots did not gain the same off-boresight capability until the AIM-9X version of the Sidewinder more than 20 years later. Meanwhile, the Russian R-73 has enjoyed several upgrades, and missile buffs still argue about which is better.

    For longer-range air combat (40 miles or more) the Russians have the Vympel R-77, another advanced piece of hardware. The latest version has an Active Phased Array Antenna that gives it "zero reaction time to unexpected evolutions of the target," according to the designers. Called the "can't miss missile", the K-77M appears to be more sophisticated than the current version of the West's equivalent, the AIM-120 AMRAAM. War Is Boring writes that, "The U.S. military doesn't have anything like it … or adequate defenses." The K-77M was revealed in 2013 and may already be in production.

    In any conflict, US warplanes will be heavily dependent on stealth technology to make them invisible to radar and give them the edge. Of course the Russians have long been working on counter-stealth systems. For example the Russian 55Zh6ME air defense radar released in 2013 has multiple radar modules working at different wavelengths. It is easy to design an aircraft that is invisible at one wavelength, but progressively harder the more wavelengths involved. We do not know how well this counter-stealth radar works, but aviation guru Bill Sweetman points out that the Russians have had 25 years to work on it.

    The Weird Stuff

    The Russians also have a surprising ability to think out of the box—for good and bad. For example, the Shkval rocket-torpedo forms a bubble around itself, reducing friction to travel at an amazing 230 mph under water – more than four times as fast as any Western torpedo. The same work produced a unique underwater assault rifle for Special Forces; US development in similar "supercavitating" projectiles lags behind.

    This oddball thinking extends to the strategic arena. In 2012, Putin wrote an article for Rossiiskaya Gazeta on the strategic military balance in which he advocated "weapons systems based on new principles: beam, geophysical, wave, genetic, psychophysical and other technology."

    Some of this is dubious. In the field of new wave principles, the Soviets started research into Torsion field weapons in 1987. These are supposed energy fields (not recognized by Western science) with electrical and gravitational effects, and researchers promised to use them to shoot down ballistic missiles. A review by the USSR Academy of Sciences in 1991 concluded that torsion fields were a scam to get money, having attracted some five hundred million roubles of state funding (roughly $15 billion dollars).

    Russian research into so-called "psychotronic" weapons for mind control has been similarly fruitless. "Geophysical weapons" to create earthquakes remain imaginary, though one Russian analyst suggested earlier this year that the Yellowstone supervolcano might be triggered with a nuclear strike to destroy the US. So there's that.

    The Unknown

    We can still expect the unexpected. A recent Russian TV news report appears to have leaked Putin's plans for a unmanned submarine carrying a 10-megaton dirty bomb. This would be detonated at a port city, submarine base, or other coastal site, spreading a lethal radioactive cloud over a wide area. The main purpose of this unusual delivery method seems to be bypassing any possible antimissile defences.

    Scare stories notwithstanding, the Russians are unlikely to have any exotic superweapons. But it is dangerous for the rest of the world to underestimate its capability. A regional conflict in Syria may not be a pushover against second-rate forces with outdated equipment, but could turn into something very much bloodier.

    Zivo
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    Post  Zivo Wed Dec 30, 2015 1:10 am

    Odd, no mention of Armata, and 2S35. Pantsir would have been worth mentioning.
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    Post  nemrod Thu Dec 31, 2015 9:20 pm

    Zivo wrote:Odd, no mention of Armata, and 2S35. Pantsir would have been worth mentioning.

    Russia is not the third world's country. Pantsir is only needed for countries like Syria, Iran, North Korea not russian army. Russia has better, and the best russian's hardware are SU-35, and Mig-35. America is feared,of russian air force. About the tank we use to debate here about this, but Russia's RPG-30, and AT-14 Spriggan -aka Kornet- able to destroy any western tank. No need to talk about Russia's nuclear's arsenal able to obliterate US in less than 30 minutes. What I don't understand is why US military's budget is ten times Russia's military's budget, and why Russia is stronger.
    As 2015 was a rich year, let's hope 2016 we will see the total supremacy of Russia and China. Happy New Year 2016 to all.
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    Post  GarryB Fri Jan 01, 2016 9:48 am

    Pantsir is a critical component of the air defence network and will be the main cruise missile killer in any conflict the Russians may have to fight... note for Russia no enemy except NATO or China would even have cruise missiles... these are weapons to fight off sophisticated powerful military forces... and would be largely redundant against a third world country whose air force would be wiped out relatively quickly.

    Pantsir means the SAMs it operates can concentrate on enemy air power while the Pantsir takes out any anti SAM weapons that might seek to degrade the SAM network piece by piece.

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