Russian Armata T-14 tank

Of course the Armata will only be as good as the quantity Russia can afford to build and the ability of their armed forces personnel to maintain them, something they have struggled with since WWII.

Now if they develop an export version and start selling them to China, India, Iran etc it could go a long way to financing their own numbers.

On the downside is the auto-loading function. The Soviets went this route with their last main battle tank and it was considered a failure. Slow and unreliable it even had a propensity for loading the wrong type of shell such as a High Explosive when a Anti-Tank had been selected.

One other thing we are starting to see throughout all of Russia’s armed forces and that’s the trend to Higher-Tech/more expensive thus fewer in number vs Lower-Tech/Cheaper and lots of them.

[YOUTUBE]BTutmau94iI[/YOUTUBE]

Greg

PS: If you speak Russian ...

[YOUTUBE]u-vO6u0z8i8[/YOUTUBE]

boomtube-mk2 said:

Of course the Armata will only be as good as the quantity Russia can afford to build and the ability of their armed forces personnel to maintain them, something they have struggled with since WWII.

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I was going to say that this has been typical of communist regimes, but I think it is more accurate to say it is typical of tyrannical systems in general. To paraphrase Fernando (Billy Crystal from SNL) "It is better to look good, than to fight good." A lot of what they do is for show to the world and to their own people. For example, does anyone really think the massive North Korean army would do well in actual combat? Some elite units would do well, but I bet the majority of units would fall apart if they went up against a determined enemy. When you rule with an iron fist its hard to predict how well things will go when you put your army into the field against a well trained enemy. It worked well for the Soviets in WWII, but that was when they had been invaded. Would Russian conscripts fight hard to invade another country?

boomtube-mk2 said:

One other thing we are starting to see throughout all of Russia’s armed forces and that’s the trend to Higher-Tech/more expensive thus fewer in number vs. Lower-Tech/Cheaper and lots of them.

Click to expand...

The U.S. went the route of fewer, but better, and it worked great against the older technology armor in the Iraq War. It didn't work well for us in WWII. I don't think there is an easy answer to which is better; its more of an "it depends".

Doesn't make sense to me...U.S. favors technology since it helps prevent casualties since we're a democracy and casualties lessens support for war; however Russia doesn't care as much about their soldiers...send them in and they know how to deal with war protests.

Russia had better concern themselves with casualties as modern Russia doesn’t have a large population from which to conscript its soldiers.
Best estimate for 2015; 142,100,000apx. and declining, less than half that of the U.S. That, along with a median age approaching 40 means that if Russia ever wants’ to try and regain some of its former glory it had better do it soon before its population is too few and too old to even make the attempt.

Rare is the Russian military anything that lives up to its propaganda.

Given the narrow width of the treads, it doesn't look this new tank was designed to fight on the tundra and in the mud.

When I see the above graphic above I can't help but think of the following...

TC: "Fire main cannon Comrade Gunner!"
Gunner: "I cannot Comrade Commander! The computer is askink me if I want to buy pEn1$ pills!"
TC" "Then fire main machine gun Comrade Gunner!"
Gunner: "Computer is now askink for credit card information now Comrade Commander! Shall I try control-alt-delete again? Anti-virus scan only shows 3 new email and 1 zero-day Adobe Flash infection..."

Zeus-cat said:

For example, does anyone really think the massive North Korean army would do well in actual combat? Some elite units would do well, but I bet the majority of units would fall apart if they went up against a determined enemy.

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Agree. North Korean troops would be more likely to try to defect via surrender than fight if they've been exposed to enough media reports from outside NK to overcome the propaganda there. SK is doing a lot to make sure that happens including smuggling and airdropping via mass balloon launches flash drives filled with video that NK's watch. I saw a PBS documentary that showed that that sort of thing is, amazingly, actually pretty widespread in NK.

The same sort of phenomena is prevalent in Iraq. It's not the Iraqi Army's training that's the problem as is too often claimed here, it's their willingness to die for the government of a "country" that's a post-WW1 construct of Britain and France that's rated among the five most corrupt in the world. Add to that the reluctance to fight for anything other than their particular religious sect and a fanatical adversary and you have an army that drops their expensive US hardware and runs, preferring to continue to draw that military paycheck rather than die horribly for something they don't even believe in. Can you blame them?

KenECoyote said:

Doesn't make sense to me...U.S. favors technology since it helps prevent casualties since we're a democracy and casualties lessens support for war; however Russia doesn't care as much about their soldiers...send them in and they know how to deal with war protests.

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this^ In a long conflict it comes down to numbers and production capacity, not how well trained soldiers are. Small but elite force will melt away over years, consider history of Nazi Luftwaffe, the before and the final standards in WWII.

boomtube-mk2 said:

Russia had better concern themselves with casualties as modern Russia doesn’t have a large population from which to conscript its soldiers.
Best estimate for 2015; 142,100,000apx. and declining, less than half that of the U.S. That, along with a median age approaching 40 means that if Russia ever wants’ to try and regain some of its former glory it had better do it soon before its population is too few and too old to even make the attempt.

Click to expand...

Russia can take a whole lot more pain than the West and keep going.