Could Russia win a war against NATO?

The RPG-7 also dates from the 60's. They aren't exactly high tech. The RPG-22/32 are modern anti-tank rocket launchers on par with the SMAW or Panzerfaust-3 and they will kill modern tanks.

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These might also be from EFP attacks. Those are basically like being hit with 2000lb armor penetrating bombs.

 

Those new types of RPG's don't look like RPG-7's. They are just tubes with the warheads held entirely internally like the SMAW.

 

Depends on what you mean by conventional? There's a lot of new tech out there and I doubt we've seen or even know about the full armaments of the US or the Russian military. These things are often found out during or after the war (in regards to public knowledge)

Either way, it's hard to guage the ultimate war capacity of these enttities. What they have now means nothing to how they will grow when all efforts are bent towards war. Russia is not as powerful as the US, but it is strong, and NATO's strength depends on the willingness of it's constituent members to support such an effort.

But...since the next war will likely not be conventional, it's a big question mark. US power is based on fairly antiquated concepts of military force. It still is very powerful, in the same was a lion is more powerful than a man...but with the new technology that comes out, it's hard to say where an when our achilles heel might be laid bare.

Also...world outlook towards the US could possibly change in the future. Allies aren't friends and a hegemon builds hate and resentment easily. Our allies smile now, but if someone presents a better prospect, and victory seems feasible, we go the way of Rome, G Britain, yada yada.

 

RPG-7 can use different grenades. PG-7VR can penetrate up to 700 mm RHA. Abrams is only secured in it's front(against all grenades) and turret's fsides (against PG-7V - PG-7VS grenades). If you hit it anywere else it will be penetrated. Hull's sides, for one, are only 70 mm thick. Stays true for most of the tanks.

Perhaps, but the description said they were taken out by RPG fire. On some of the photos posted you can even see those tiny holes produced by HEAT grenades.

Wasn't intended to offend, obviously, but those "mighty invinsible glorius Abrams!!111one" claims are annoying.

 

EFP's produce tiny holes too depending on the plate used.

 

Rly? I thought it would be somewhat bigger due to projectile form. It might be....well...complicated to make EFP device hit turret's side. At last, most of those hits would be deadly no matter if usual shaped charge or EFP used.

Yeah, I get it from the conversation. Only 4-th and 7-th pictures might be letal to the crew. First one, for example, was blown by IED, crew escaped, tank itself was destroyed by USAF to prevent falling into enemy hands. Last one was hit to the roof with RPG, crew escaped as well, later militants have thrown grenade inside. The others are injures at max.


Blitz-question for you, as a former Abrams tanker: how common is keeping armored bulkhead opened among loaders?

 

Thanks for the response. I've just heard some rumors that loaders often keep it open because drives of that door can cut off their hands if used without causios. Well, must be just rumors then.

 

Taxcutter says:
Can't say for the Mirage, Rafale, and Eurofighter, but the F-16 has an "open" design that allows easy replacement of the high-stress items like the wing box and spars. F-16s have been up-engine and can be retrofitted with more modern engines even on the oldest A and B models. They have also had their avionics upgrade several times. My understanding is that the MiG cannot replace stressed components and does not accept newer engines. Hence, the MiG-29 is stuck in 1977.

 

The weapons are not the important part of the equation.

Give the US Army T-90s and AK-74s and they rip through anybody else's army with ease. Training, leadership, and logistics are what matter. Three Russian weak spots.

 

Your understanding is wrong. MiG-29 can be upgraided and repaired (there are a lot of versions avaliable), nothing complicated about it, the thing is that high command finds the whole conception of light fighter outdated. It was originally designed with two requirments:
1)being 2 times cheaper than heavy fighter (Su-27), while being only 1.5 times less effective;
2)being able to support blitzkrieg on European theater by the ability to take off from dirt runways.

Modern versions fail to meet (1) and (2) is no longer nessecary. So what is the point to upgrade old ones or built new ones for, say, 35 million$ if you can add 10 million $ above that and buy kick-ass Su-35S?

Why you are soo keen on useless assumptions? You don't have any idea about our modern logistics, training or leadership anyway.

Btw, how is searching for rust on Kuznetsov is going? No result yet?

 

Okay, in Desert Storm according to the video I watched, created by a reliable source the history channel, whatever aircraft it was, possibly the F-15, possibly not, that was said, to avoid engaging it.

You have to remeber the F-15 went up against F-14s, and earlier MiGs, so the F-15 didn't do any fighting against better aircraft, newer, like the Su-30, 27, Su-35, MiG-29, and MiG-35. It's like saying "I never lost a fight", when all a 25 year old guy did was fight 12 year olds. It's great, it's remarkable, I couldn't make it, but it's not indestructable.

 

Note Field Marshal Montgomery's language he doesn't say Russia, he says Moscow. This is I think a very good rule both Napoleon and Hitler lost at Moscow.

 

Taxcutter says:
Logistics. Who has EVER thrown two armies into action 7,000 miles from home and was never short beans, bullets, batteries or JP-8? The US did.

Relax, dude. If the US stays out, Russia rolls the rump of NATO.

 

Well, there are certainly major precedents for that rule. I've gamed the Moscow scenario along with others several times over the years, and managed to succeed about 5 out the 8 times, though with hardly any reserves worth anything on the German side. The delays in laying rails, and a late launch seem to be the keys to losing.

 

And that would only work if the war ended with the capture of Moscow, but there is no reason to believe it would. It could be argued that had the Germans pressed on and seized Moscow, they might have been in a worse position because their supply lines would have been even more stretched with the Russian counter-attack hit.

 

You sure about that?
A total of six MiG-29s were shot down during the Kosovo War, of which three were shot down by USAF F-15s

March 24, 1999
Two Serbian MiG-29s shot down by F-15s.
[video=youtube;aNFvOZ3WtPc]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aNFvOZ3WtPc[/video]

 

"Multi-role aircraft such as the F-16 and F-18 might avoid air-to-air engagements if they were configured for strike missions because it could mean jettisoning their air-to-ground ordinance and not hitting their targets. No way would an F-15 pilot avoid engaging a Fulcrum, quite the contrary. We saw how that ended in Bosnia".

I'm not postive it was an F-15, I think it may of been an F-16, but ethier way if an F-16 is told to avoid a MiG-29, it says something about their capabilities, to say, it's superior. Both aircraft is still used, and Russia has newer stuff like the Su-30, 35, and MiG-35.

"The F-14 didn't enter fleet service until the year after we pulled out of Viet Nam. If you are referring to the F-4, far more were lost to AAA/SAMs than MiGs. The kill ratio was influenced by a number of domestic factors such as political restrictions on the Rules of Engagement, lack of a gun on the F-4, and the general poor performance of the AIM-7 missile".

I meant the F-4, sorry. Yet the kill ratio was about the same, and for some years higher for the NVA, until we added the gun. Then it was about even or slightly higher.

"I remember the hearing. This comes down to how you define success. The Patriot is a tactical missile system with a limited ABM capability and was intended to defend small military units in the field, not large, densely populated cities. In the case of the former, you don't have to destroy the missile to succeed, just knocking it off course by a degree or two will cause it to miss its target which is just as good. In the case of the latter though, the incoming missile must be completely destroyed. Just knocking it off course only means that instead of blowing up one part of the city, it blows up another part of the city. The Patriot system was never intended to fulfill this roll, but that was the criteria the 'analysis' used to evaluate it. So, of course, it failed"

The US army says it's about 60-70% successful, or about two out of three times. An enemy fires three missles at a US base camp, and statistically they have a good chance of hitting it, especially if it fires the multiple missles orginating from the single missles.

 

The Russians claim their MiG-29 shot down the F-117 stealth fighter in Bosnia as well. Most attribuite to SAM missles though, which is probabily the case.

I think a lot of it goes down to pilot trainning. The Poles did a study and said with equally trained pilots it's pretty much a draw with an F-16, which they were deciding on which one to choose from, upgrading their MiG-29s or buying the F-16. The Poles choose the MiG-29s as they cheaper.

An F-15 is great and outstanding, but so's the MiG-29. They're about the same in my opinion. Maybe he was wrong in his decision to order his squad to avoid the aircraft, heck, they won after all, but the Iraqis put up a dismal fight, everyone knows this.

 

LOL half of the pics he posted was from the recent ISIS attacks on the Iraqis M1's, which DO NOT have the same level of armor as US ones, also, those Iraqi tanks were abandoned.

Really sneaky way of trying to prove a point.