Russia can now shoot down all but 200 US warplanes

Why would I think that?

As I said, I live in reality not in some kind of fantasy. And there is an old saw that for each type of unit in the military, the best counter is another unit of the same thing. Of course there are exceptions, but you do not generally see armies sending in infantry to take out tanks, or battleships to take out destroyers.

Missiles are fixed positions that defend fixed assets. The absolutely best way to counter them is to simply not go where they are. There, your missile defenses have just been 100% countered. And as I already said, they have some large downfalls also. They require a lot of manpower for a limited usefulness, are easy to counter with other things like helicopters, and can not be used in the presence of friendly air cover.

I do believe in their usefulness and abilities, but I am not some kind of demagogue that automatically thinks they are the be all - end all to counter aircraft. They are simply another tool, one of many.

The part about the US supplying them weapons and what kind is mostly speculation.

But let's go to the missiles that would be supplied to units such as this. These would be MANPADs. Simple to train the operator, lightweight, and of very limited use. These missiles are great say if the target is an A-10 or SU-25 coming in for a low level attack. They are of much more limited use if the target is an F-15 at 5,000 feet aiming a PGM at the target, and of no use at all if the target is a B-52 at 35,000 feet doing a carpet bombing mission. The same with anti-tank missiles. Sure, man portable anti-tank weapons can be great for taking out tanks. There is only one problem with them though.

Some poor schlep on foot has to get within range of the tank before they can use them. In a battlefield like street fighting or in the forests of Germany, that can be done fairly easily. But if the tank is out on a piece of ground shelling your positions from 3 kilometers away, how many infantry and missiles are you going to loose just getting them into position to take out the tank?

This is where things like terrain and tactics come into play. The best counter for armored units if fighting them on the ground are other armored units. To be specific, it is generally considered to be lighter and faster armored units with guided munitions. Say an M2 Bradley IFV with TOW missiles (even better is a helicopter with anti-tank missiles, or best an aircraft like the A-10). Tank against tank is something you want to avoid if you can, because then you are looking at the potential for 1 for 1 losses. Loose a Bradley to take out a tank, you still win, loose a tank to take out a tank (especially if the tank is not as powerful or effective) and you loose.

But mostly the reason things like this are sent is not that they are cheap, it is the logistical requirements.

I am trained in the use of MANPADs like the STINGER. I can train somebody in how to use one in a few hours. It takes months to train a crew how to use a PATRIOT system. I can train somebody how to use an AT4 or RPG-7 in an hour. It takes a lot longer to train somebody how to use even an antiquated tank like the M-60.

Plus the other logistical requirements. For a man portable missile, they already have the infantry, I just teach some grunts how to use them. For something like thanks, you first have to get the people trained to operate them. Then the people trained to maintain them. Then you have to get them enough to make a difference, and then the logistical support required (fuel, ammunition, spare parts) to keep them in operation.

And you can not just send a bunch of tanks. Look at how ISIS is using their tanks, it is a joke. An M1 popping up here or there on the battlefield is no threat, and mostly good for intimidating civilians. You need a Company or Battalion of tanks to make an impact, not just 1 or 2 here and there.

Yea, arming the rebels with a Battalion of say M-60 tanks would be awesome for them. But it takes to long to train the personnel in how to use them effectively as a unit. Figure 2-4 years to take untrained soldiers and train them how to operate the tanks, and then how to operate as a team to make them effective in combat. It takes hours to train them how to use missiles designed to be used by foot soldiers.

And still, their best use is once again as a deterrent. Just look at Afghanistan during the Soviet invasion. In the early days their helicopters and aircraft attacked wherever they wanted without fear, because there was nothing the Afghans could do about it. The US started to send them some obsolete and outdated missiles (originally REDEYE MANPADs), then the Soviets were forced to change how they operated.

The missiles in Afghanistan were not all that effective in shooting down the Soviet helicopters. But they were effective in forcing them to change how they operated. Instead of simply hovering in place and shelling a place they had to be constantly on the move. Instead of coming in low and using cannon they were increasingly required to use missiles from a distance so that they not come within range of potential US made missiles. This affected the combat effectiveness of the helicopters and aircraft, which was a win all by itself.

Any time you force the enemy to move to less effective tactics it is a win, because you have at least some of the initiative and are forcing them to adopt.

 

I appreciate you are beginning to discuss ...

So, good points. They allow me to pass from little scale to great scale.

Have you ever wondered why warships have been left in museums and why today big naval cannons have been substituted by missile launchers?

Spend a thought about this.

So, today, thinking to defense a carrier against incoming enemy missiles and airplanes, what are you going to suggest to Navy commands?

For example French and Italian carriers employ a nice VLS Sylver multiple system [with Aster 30, within the PAAMS plan, an AAW system, which is also employed by UK Royal Navy units, btw]. Why all these missiles? The future British CATOBAR carriers will use PAAMS as well ...

Let's make the opposite reasoning.

Let's think to Libya.

US Navy didn't do a great job [they did substantially a bit more than nothing!], so that Italian, British and French forces hadn't the initial typical American rain of missiles to hit the anti air batteries of the Libyan forces.

What happened? French Rafale are not stealth so that they risked to be destroyed by aged missile systems [!!!! the best European fighter, with the Eurofighter Typhoon, risked to be destroyed by aged anti air missiles!]. So ... French commands asked to us to deploy our ECR Tornado which can make enemy radars blind ... and French Rafale did a great figure ...

This means: less missiles in the first phase ... well more risks for planes ... Now, let's evaluate the context. UK, Italy and French were able to deploy some decades of fighters and fighter bombers of the last generations [UK, since Royal Navy has got no battle carriers in service, had to ask to us the favor to use US bases on our territory for their Eurofighters!]. What if Libyan anti air missile system worked a bit better? [Or what if our ECR Tornado were all in Afghanistan, so no electronic warfare to make Libyan radars blind??]. UK, France and Italy would have recorded a tremendous cost made by expensive planes destroyed by Libyan missiles.

But Italian ECR Tornado were there ... [and also our missile boats !!!! Just to be complete ...].

 

OK, now are we talking about ground based missile systems, or Naval warfare? They two are very different, and you can't just mix them together.

The era of "big cannons" is not over, it is just that no nations other then the US has used them since the end of WWII. For attacking shore positions there is nothing better, but their era of sinking other ships is long gone.

Let me ask you, which is better if you want to take out a missile battery near the shore? A flight of fighters, or a cannon that fires 16" shells in any weather, day or night? The actual role of the ships with big guns has changed, and have largely been phased out but is not dead. But that is actually a completely different topic.

And for the US, doctrine is that you do not go after ships with ships, you go after them with aircraft. That is why there is very little emphasis on US ships to have anti-ship missiles. That is a job better left to the fighters. US warships have almost exclusively defensive missiles. And the fleet composition is that those ships are protecting 1 or more key ships, like the aircraft carrier or amphibious assault ship.

And now we are back to land based anti-air missiles. Please remember that these are not at all the same, and can not really be compared in a tactical way. The Navy takes all of it's missiles with it everywhere it goes, land forces can not do that.

Land based missile systems (other then MANPAD) work from fixed positions, typically around a defended asset. AN air base, a logistics site, the ruler's palace. They set up to defend that asset, and that is where they sit. They only move if there is no more threat to the location, or there is another location that needs protection more.

They do not go galloping around the countryside from one place to another hunting aircraft. This is why they are considered "Defensive Weapons". The enemy has to come to them, they do not go chasing off after the enemy.

Want to know the best way to neutralize a ground based missile system? Do not go within range of it. I guarantee that if you do that it has no effect and can not hurt anybody.

Next secret, every aircraft is vulnerable to missiles. And along with that, every aircraft has countermeasures for missiles, most notably ECM, chaff and flares.

If one country got shot at more, that is likely because of bad intelligence (not planning routes in and out with little to no ground missile threats), or the target was of suitable importance that it was worth the risk to take them out.

And no ECM can "make RADAR blind". Different RADAR systems need different countermeasures. And even that is not always enough, just as fast as the ECM wonks create new countermeasures, the RADAR wonks create a new way to see through this clutter. And that is all it really is, clutter. In the past the most effective way to see through that was by increasing the power of the RADAR itself, then tuning down the gain so the clutter did not show up. More recent advances instead work on signal processing, and having computers remove the clutter digitally.

And even more recent advances are using multiple RADAR arrays. Say Missile Site A is getting bombarded with high amounts of ECM, but Missile Site B is not. Site B can see the aircraft sending out the ECM, but it is not within range with it's own missiles. Well, today the technology actually exists to have Site A launch a missile, and Site B guides it to the target.

 

The U.S. Military fights wars and battles in a INTEGRATED SERVICE manner.

I know a great deal about how we fight and I can tell you that the manner in which the U.S. Military fights...there is No Nation...No Military....and No Military Force capable of withstanding an all out U.S. Military Attack be it Conventional or Nuclear.

You can't compare specific other Nations weapons systems to U.S. Systems because our weapons systems are designed to do very specific tasks within an overall battle plan.

The U.S. Air Force is first used along with Sub Lanched Cruise Missiles to completely destroy an enemies ability to respond Militarily.

HARM...Anti-Radiation Missiles destroy all turned on Enemy Radar systems as an F-15, F-22, F-16, F-18 and F-35 have the ability to achieve Air Supremacy.

After that is achieved...it's game over.

AboveAlpha

 

That's substantially true, this is why Tornano are particularly also for the pilots. There is a tactic to use those planes on the battle field and flight techs are studied just for that employment. To make them less vulnerable to enemy radars they not only use jamming [let's use this colloquial term, which is quite common about ECM] of different kinds, but they use the good old tactic of the low acrobatic flight. Tornado fly low, fast and when they have to fly over an obstacle [a hill], if they cannot pass aside, they reduce to the minimum the distance between the plane and the ground rotating of 360° while they pass above the obstacle.

Fascinating to observe, for sure. But aged.

F35 are just going to reduce the employment of the Typhoon - Tornado couple in early attack phases [when missiles haven't destroyed enough enemy installations].

Now, let's got back to the wider perspective:

you, with reason, point out some technical specific aspects of the "missile warfare". I am, on the other hand, making a historical reasoning, keeping actually the stance of the historian.

With reference to defend a territory using missiles, we can rely on history.

During WWII we have seen the wider air battles ever and only during Vietnam war we have seen some remarkable air battles after the last world war.

Why?

Because modern wars see no more the involvement of great powers [this is obvious!].

But also because the range of naval cannons wasn't to long so grant a great destructive capability for enemy installations, troops, divisions ... waiting in the inland far from the coast. [Imagine how the scenario changed if battleships already had cruise missiles on board ...].

Today Iran [just to mention a potentially enemy to face in the future] is developing anti ship long range missiles to stop an eventual NATO or Israeli attack. Because at Teheran they don't trust their planes [don't mention the fake stealth unit, please!] about being able to pass the defenses of our navies [again missiles] ...

So, what I'm underlining is that I'm making a wide reasoning about a comprehensive vision of the trend of modern warfare. And missiles [in general, as category] are gaining more and more points.

Then you say, defensive missile installation are substantially firm [they actually move, but ...], anyway, in case a great power expect an attack, there will be enough anti air battery to face the threat, in the right places and in sufficient number [think to Russian missile brigades ...].

 

The claim for the T-50 is that it will be no worse than the F-22 but I always took that to mean the F-22 at the time it entered service as opposed to the F-22 with upgrades, something that should be doable given advances in computers, design programs & materials.
T-51 had to be rebuilt due to defects with the frame & the next series of prototypes one of the first will be a static test frame = serious redesign of internal structure. T-55 very publicly caught fire due to a new electrical power generator failure. then there was the engine flame out during take off at a MACs airshow. Then there is the delay in the development of the type 30 engine that is public knowledge.

 

That sounds like a description of Dessert Storm. The nation the US is pushing at at the moment is Russia. You are kidding yourself if you think Russia will be a push over like all the rest.

 

I don't think anyone is saying Russia would be a "push over" however those who believe the U.S. could not defeat them are delusional. Assuming of course this stays as a conventional war...if it goes nuclear, well, nobody wins.

Russia's biggest issue with maintaining a professional military is a continuing manpower shortage

The Russian military has largely failed to resolve its manpower shortage. Although it officially has a one-million-man army, actual staffing is around 750,000. The gap between the official position and reality, of course, implies that 25 percent of billets are currently vacant. This does not bode well for the concept of fully manned permanent readiness brigades, which have been at the core of recent military reform efforts.

The manpower shortfall is due to a combination of a rapid decline in the number of 18-year-old men eligible for conscription and an inability to recruit enough contract soldiers to fill the gap in the number of conscripts. Presently, there are no more than 700,000 men reaching the age of 18, of whom only about 400,000 are considered draft-eligible because of various deferments and health exemptions.

Furthermore, the severe drop in the birth rate in the 1990s means that within the next two years, the number of 18-year-olds will decline by a further 40%, leaving less than 300,000 draft eligible 18-year-olds. The number of conscripts called up annually has already declined to 270,000.

China would be the tougher foe merely because of the massive amount of manpower they could throw at you.

The glory days of a Russian military that could sacrifice it's young men on the scale of absorbing 5 million casualites and still having millions in reserves...are done. They simply could not field a professional military the way the United States can, even with conscription.

 

Funny the article or opinion mentions vodka. Mr. Putin just put a price cap on vodka as the nation goes through the oil woes.....

 

I actually edited that, a bit of a cheap shot.

There is a pro-Putin element on this board...that seems to want war. I don't think anyone in the United States wants a war with Russia. The only ones with the dick measuring contest appear to be the pro-Putin folks who hang-out on this board. I seriously doubt their bravado goes beyond typing on a message board using Google translator.

Those who urge on a war, have never been in one, but if devolves into that...we have a combat experienced Army and Marines...our ground fighters are the best in the World and they are experienced. I do not envision anything but a Russian loss, if it comes to that..
however any sane person does not wish for this to happen.

The whole argument is sophomoric. Our military could beat up your military...

Nobody wants war but keyboard commandos and sociopaths.

Our U.S. Marine Corps alone...would give Russia fits.

 

Actually, we have seen some spectacular air battles in the Iran-Iraq War. And before that the Korean and Vietnam Wars both had some heavy and intense dogfighting. The US had around 40 in the Gulf War.

The reason is because in most of the wars since WWII have not had much is simply because the US has generally been able to gain air supremacy, so in regards to the air forces of the other side it was largely "Game Over". All they could respond with was missiles, because their fighters were either gone, or were gone shortly after taking to the skies.

That is why what AboveAlpha mentioned is so important. The US is just lucky to be on the side the last 40 years which has been able to quickly gain air supremacy and keep it.

Funny, most of us suspect those missiles are going to be for sale for obvious reasons.

You see, the Persian Gulf is not a very wide body of water, and the majority of Iranian coastline is within 35-100 miles of the other side. That is why the Silkworm has been so popular in Iran (and most other Persian Gulf countries). With the later versions of the Silkworm they could shoot pretty much across that body of water.

And long range anti-ship missiles against Israel? You are aware that Israel has no land touching the Persian Gulf, and has no ships there, are you not? Any claims for these missiles to be used against Israel is complete coprolite, like say India wanting nukes to protect itself from attack by Peru. However, Iran does have a reputation for launching such missiles against the unarmed freighters and tankers of other nations, which is what I would suspect they would be used for.

Missiles are only gaining points in their defensive role.

Yes, I am more then aware that missile batteries move. But they are in place to protect key strategic points, not just any spot on the battlefield. That means they are set in place to protect airports, command posts, hospitals, dock facilities, and other key points that have to be defended. They are not set up to protect some Infantry Battalion out in the field somewhere.

And also we generally do not have enough missile batteries out there to defend everything that needs defending. And without going into anything classified, to move a single missile battery 20-30 miles takes about 4-5 hours. That is a long time to be without missile protection.

Oh, in the 2003 Gulf War II there was some attempts to move PATRIOT with more front-line units. But that did not go so well. For one, the logistical footprint of such a unit is immense. A single Battery typically needs a total of around 30-40+ vehicles to move around, a Battalion is close to 400 I would say. And I have seen PATRIOT Battalions on the move, the roughly 550 miles from Fort Bliss in Texas to Yuma, Arizona.

Now in my car on the freeway, I make that trip in less then 6 hours. For a PATRIOT Battalion, that is a very long 2 day drive, and requires some huge amounts of fuel. And yes, I have driven that 2 times as part of operations in Yuma. It was decided that for future operations there the Army would pay trucking companies to haul the equipment there and back instead of driving it.

But yea, in 2003 they did try to leapfrog up PATRIOT to try and keep up with more forward command posts. As I said, did not work so well. Convoys kept getting separated, and time to tear down and set up were so long that eventually the infantry just left them behind. The unit would finally get fully set up and in operating status, and then they would have to tear it all down again and get ready to move.

And in all that frantic activity with moving PATRIOT units with front line forces, 5-52 ADA lost it's maintenance company. What was once the 507th Maintenance Company is now known as Fox Battery 5-52 AMD. This was the unit Jessica Lynch was part of when her convoy got separated and ambushed by Iraqi forces in 2003. Because of this and a great many other things, the idea of moving any current air defense units larger then AVENGER with more mainline units has been dismissed.

Trust me, I am rather unique because I have been Light Infantry, and in Air Defense. And I doubt that a PATRIOT Battalion could even keep up with a Marine Battalion on the ground over a 20 mile movement. I have done both, the time and preparation required for the PATRIOT unit is staggering, we generally spend 2 weeks preparing to go to the field. For a grunt, 15 minutes to take a (*)(*)(*)(*) and have a last smoke as he shoves his tent in his field pack, and he is ready to move.

Then there is one of the things that is often shortest in supply on a battlefield, fuel. A PATRIOT Battalion typically goes to the field with 5 2,500 fuel trucks. And when each of the heavy movers (including the fuel truck) has 150 gallon tanks that are good for around 250-300 miles before needing more fuel you can see why this becomes a real issue. And even when the unit is not moving anywhere, it will go through their 2,500 gallon fuel truck in less then a week because of the fuel that all the generators need.

No, PATRIOT moving with units was an interesting attempt, but ultimately it was a failure. They could not keep up with the units, actually slowed them down, and was a logistical nightmare.

However, this is one of the reasons that the Army has been trying to get funding for MEADS. MEADS will still have the same logistical requirement as PATRIOT, but the time to set up and take down is now minutes instead of an hour or more. But like the full adoption of THAAD, MEADS seems to be dead and not happening any decade soon.

And finally, just think on the names that the US Army uses for such units. Air Defense Artillery, and Air Missile Defense. These are defensive units, deployed to defend assets. They do not go racing forward to engage aircraft. In fact, quite often the last thing you want anywhere near actual front lines is any air defense missiles more powerful then the STINGER. This is because with a unit such as PATRIOT in place, all allied air forces are ordered to stay away. Several hundred square miles of territory suddenly becomes a gigantic "No-Fly Zone". That means no medevac flights, no air drops, no CAS fighters are going to come in. In fact, all of those "Friendly Fire" incidents that happened in Gulf War II, those were incidents of allied aircraft ignoring such restrictions and flying into areas they were told to stay away from due to the presence of air defenses. And we have also had friendly fire from the pilots, having seen our RADAR and fire upon it even knowing they were in the area of our units, or seeing our setup and misidentifying it as another system.

 

And that there all by itself pretty much says everything.

Now one thing I do not do is put the military of any nation down, I respect all my brothers in arms, even those of potential enemies (or in this case frenemies). Do I think some Russian equipment is superior to that of the US? Of course I do. However, their main battlefield doctrine is still dependent upon the Warsaw Pact doctrine of the Cold War. And one of the things that tactic demands is that you achieve early Land and Air dominance and use it to drive the enemy. It is a brutal and straightforward tactic, perfectly matched with a nation or multi-national force on the advance.

However, it is not as flexible when it comes to defense. And it really has issues when initiative is taken away from it by unexpected attacks. This over the decades has shown those who study such tactics has most of us wondering if it would ever win in any condition other then an all-out ground assault across Europe.

Now the Warsaw Pact doctrine is a great doctrine for a small nation to use. It is rather straight forward, and is not very expensive to maintain such a military. Heavily relying upon armor and artillery, it is perfectly designed to move forward en-mass. It is much less reliant then NATO (and US) doctrine in that it is designed to carry much less of a logistical footprint, and relies much less upon technology.

But in the last 60+ years we have seen how such doctrines play out against others. First in the Korean War, where the NATO doctrine twice blunted massive thrusts forward and drove the Warsaw doctrine back past the starting point of the war. Then again in Vietnam, where the US forces were victorious on the battlefield every time, but lost on the political front.

Then in the multiple engagements against Israel. With it's almost universal conscription and use of technology and smaller units due to being surrounded on 3 sides by enemies, Israel was forced to use a doctrine more in line with that of NATO. And it won every single engagement against overwhelming forces which all used the more straightforward Warsaw style doctrine.

And also most telling in the decade long Iran-Iraq War. Where both sides used Warsaw Pact doctrine, and fought each other through a bloody stalemate. Warsaw Pact Doctrine has shown it is a great doctrine to use if a nation does not want to loose an actual ground war and have it's country torn apart (Israel was never able to make any attempt to destroy the invasion nations, just their invading forces).

NATO Doctrine is by it's design a very loose and fluid form of warfare. It relies heavily upon multiple smaller massings of force, technology, and misdirection. In Korea they massed on the border and showed they were about to invade, then moved to Chosin and caught the enemy sleeping. In the 1990 Gulf War they made obvious build-ups along the Southern Kuwait Border and for massive Amphibious Assaults from sea (the US Marines). Then when the actual attack came, it was a fast thrust from the West, with the Marines finally landing not by boats on the shore, but by helicopters to take the airport.

I have no doubt that if such a war was to happen, the marines would play a vital role. Returning to their Revolutionary War and WWII era roots, assaulting a shore to take and destroy a position, then moving on before it can be countered. This is the very multi-pronged style that is the weak point of Warsaw pact. You are massing your forces to strike Point A, and suddenly Point J and K are attacked hundreds of miles away from a different direction. If you draw away forces to protect those points, you weaken your own offensive. But fail to respond and you loose the confidence of your own military and people.

This is why those who really understand strategy and tactics in looking at WWIII scenarios tend to put the Soviets on the loosing side. Sure, they could have taken pretty much all of West Germany. But most predicted more of a stalemate on the Air War at the front, and the asymmetrical sideline attacks in other areas by NATO forces would have caused them more and more problems as the war drug on. Then you have the more lopsided aspects, where the US-NATO has clear dominance and the Soviets little capability.

Like aircraft carriers and heavy bombers. During most of these scenarios, the lack of Soviet Heavy Bombers was often a deciding factor. They only had 300-500 modern jet heavy bombers. The US alone outnumbered these with their B-52 fleet, then add in another 100 or so B-1 bombers, the Handley Page Victor (UK) and Mirage IV (France), and the Soviets were very much on the wrong side of the numbers game.

And as we saw in WWII, heavy bombers will not really win a war, but not having them can ultimately loose a war. The majority of serious looks at the WWIII Warsaw-NATO conflicts ultimately ended with a quid pro quo ante bellum, with Warsaw units essentially destroyed or rendered ineffective and eventually forced back. The tactics developed were superb in this, not designed to take out the Soviet Union itself, but to destroy their forces so they could no longer continue the war.

 

I quote an article from 2013 where we can see that Japan is planning to get more offensive capability, despite that country has got one of the most advanced and effective missile defense system.

"enough missiles in the air at one time" ... why Japan doesn't expect to see "enough North Korean fighters in the air at one time?".

Because North Korea follow a general strategy which bases on missiles its offensive capability.

And Japan? What's Tokyo going to do?

Which substantially what EU powers are doing: less air units, but more evaluable [less quantity, more quality] and an increase of the presence of attack missile systems.

I would say that Japan is a perfect example of what I'm sustaining here.

 

And like with ground and sea based systems, you are once again mixing up two very different things.

There is a difference between Air Defense and Missile Defense. Yes, PATRIOT is "Air Defense Artillery", but this designation in the last 20 years has greatly been reduced, and it now is almost exclusively Missile Defense. The old-timers even see this as the importance of inbound air threats in a battle report is of secondary importance to the SCUD and missile assessment of the enemy. We only worry about the occasional "leaker" in an air battle that might get through, because the assumption is that the air battle we will win, or at least not loose. So our concern is on the missiles that might come in (which the air force can rarely do anything about).

So having missile defenses are not a replacement for having an air force. It is still returning to the old adage of "using like for like". The air force goes after the planes, you use missiles to shoot down missiles.

And the build-up of Japanese forces may be publically blamed on North Korea, but do not believe for a moment that is who they are really for. North Korea's main fighter is the venerable MiG-21PFM, a short range intercept fighter circa 1970's. This is no real threat to Japan. However, they are watching an increasingly aggressive PRC, which you had better believe is their real concern.

But please, what "attack missile systems" is the EU developing? Because I am really not aware of any myself, and this is indeed an area I pay attention to.

Oh, and kindly do the favor that if you are quoting from a source, actually make the quote and provide the source? It is just common courtesy after all.

 

Beginning from the end ... absolutely, my failure, I've quoted this [I always quote mundane internet material]: http://nation.time.com/2013/06/03/japan-looks-to-add-offensive-capability/

Then a note, the MIG21 is probably the less fascinating product by Mikoyan and Gurevich, for avionic wonks ...

Regarding any EU "attack missile system", I don't want to ruin an eventual surprise to Russian commands ...

 

A lot of chest trumping and empty bravados over here. You guys are better to think about your glorious war on terror. How is fighting with screaming fanatics, armed with AKs and Lee Enfields is going? Still no success yet? Too bad.

Well, at least you can dream about winning a war over a nation, which can obliterate you in mere minutes, while still sitting in comfort of your armchair.

 

The point is that the MiG-21 is a short range aircraft, and does not have the legs to reach Japan from North Korea. For it's generation it is actually a pretty good aircraft, but it is definitely not any kind of long-range strike aircraft.

And as a general rule, Nuclear armed nations (which essentially includes all of NATO since the US provides nuclear weapon strike capability for all of NATO) do not use any kind of conventionally armed ballistic missiles. This all stems back to the Reagan-Gorbachev era when both realized the dangers of having both nuclear and conventionally armed ballistic missiles. Somebody might launch a conventional one, and the other side react as if it was nuclear.

This is why the US abandoned the fairly recent Pershing II system. The only ground to ground missile systems left are relatively short range barrage types, like MLRS.

 

In Italy we talk about "missili superfice - superfice" [SSM Surface to Surface Missiles]. Among the US exemplars the "Honest John" has remained historical here [US deployed them in Italy during the Cold War, our 3rd artillery regimental had trained by Americans to use them, it was 1959 ...].

Always quoting WIKI ... this is a good example of what US commands are doing about SSM ...http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MGM-140_ATACMS and it seems South Koreans like it ...

 

On paper the US certainly could & should defeat anybody including Russia & China but the war on the battlefield would go nuclear, probably from the start. The only way to Know how a war would end up for sure is to actually fight it & it's the old adage "The best war is the one you don't have to fight".

That decline in available recruits is one reason Russia has been moving to a professional military & modernizing equipment & suspect the Russians have made a lot more progress with that than they are letting on with thoughts to how they were caught with their pants down by the Germans in WW2.

 

They know they can intercept missiles, unfortunately an actual war is required to know how many.

 

They are trying to keep the price of alcohol high enough to discourage excessive drinking but low enough to not encourage the drinking of antifreeze & keep a cap on the black market.

 

Only one way to prove it & wars are horrible things.

 

And the Honest John is similar to the Pershing system, and was removed even earlier. As I said, the US and USSR were by the 1980's in the process of removing all conventional ballistic missiles over concerns from both sides that the launch of a conventional ballistic missile might accidentally trigger a nuclear exchange.

And I also specifically mentioned systems like MLRS, which fly in a distinctly different flight path which is not as radical as that of a standard ballistic missile. They are also much smaller, shorter range, and are used as barrage type weapons. Most notably, they are all conventional weapons, not nuclear.