Well even with a largely draftee force, the US never lost a major battle in Vietnam. It was the micromanagement, and lack of political will that resulted in the loss(i.e. the inability to strike the enemy wherever they may be, or to strike strategic sites, that would’ve caused the NVA to cease to be able to fight.

Should have just stayed out from the start. US intervention was based on total misconception of the Vietnamese civil war.

Nice photo of a workhorse.

who are these destined for?

Hard to say, could be company trial aircraft. There are a number of civilian, Russian MOD, and foreign military contracts for the new variant, as well as the potential Indian order.

Oops, you are correct, this is not Bal-E, but Bal, for Russian coastal defense….I think Black Sea? It was speculated Venezuela would purchase Bal-E, but the specifications mentioned have me thinking they are getting Bastion.

That sounds very anecdotal – maybe that’s more an observation on Bulgarian AF practices, routines or whatever – the USAF officers were hardly on the host’s airfield very long were they?

Point is, the situation is slightly more complex than just “hard and expensive to maintain”.

And it took some 25 years to get meaningful numbers operational 🙁 . Better late than never though.

Some doom and gloom

So, is the Project 20380 really canceled? Will they only build the units they currently have under construction, and then start all over again with a new design? Is the design a “failure”?

Same question with the Project 677 – the author appears to assume that the Project 636 is being procured for the Black Sea Fleet due to Project 677’s technical problems branding it an irredeemable “failure”.

If true, what does this say about Russia’s shipbuilding industry, where the new designs they’ve introduced are, so far – (allegedly) rubbish?

I think this is a bunch of rubbish. 20380 a failure? How can they know, when the first serial isn’t even in service yet. What about it is a failure? Specifics?

The laying down of 636 as proof of failure of 677 is also silly- the 677 difficult gestation period aside. Does the laying down of 11356 frigates for the BSF also mean that 22350 is a failure? Of course not. Does the order of Su-35s mean PAK-FA is a failure?

What needs to be guaranteed is stable state funding for construction. most of the time these projects take forever to launch is due to habitiual starving of funds by the MOD.