With that we should bring back our own swastika;)

But If Im not totally wrong, isent the imperial german warflag (with iron cross) used lot by current neo-nazi/nationalist fundamentalist in germany? And that they had plans to ban those too along with swastika and assorted?

Its not found on his post, but have you looked lawrences? He is pointing out in every single reply that him (starsky) is making racist comments…

….and that should be sufficient enough for all of us, he is a lord, isen’t he:rolleyes: 😉

In 1939 the Finns did try to get some outside help, when fighting for that possibility. At least a small reason for some while. It did not help at all and none was surprised from that. The Finns did loose the land claimed by Stalin and did suffer numerous dead, wounded and losses for nothing to stay honest.
You gave two different reasons for having soldiers, which I can support in full.
First you have to defend you borders against incursions and other violations. Some kind of policing only and demanded by the UN even.
Second when the other side will occupy your country in total and backed by the UN too.
Real life do not care about the feelings of small nations soldiers. That is to be smart at first and not to try to be strong behind an usefull level.
There is always an option to be part of a strong alliance or supporter!

It may be so, but Im speaking of how the small nations soldiers feel.
Its simply out of the question that You would not put up a figth even if the odds are not good. Politicans migth make such choises, but soldiers will not, and Even if politicans have that same stubourne, It doesent make the soldiers morale go down, It cannot. There is no point of beeing one, if you are not prepared to defend your homes against foreing aggression
When you have entered into military service, it changes person, and one of those changes is the Pride…you cannot be soldier without taking pride of your profession or service.
In Serbia that was rather well presented (as it was in Finland 1939, Our nation wasent so single minded before the war and almoust half of the population were part of the loosing red side of our civil war and the wounds weren’t healed properly) Milosevic wasen’t loved by the Serbians either, the economical missery begun to rose to untorelable. Yet when the foreing powers begun to thread with war, The serbian army stand united and didn’t present any mass-morale brakedowns and they also put up the best figth they possibly could.

In the terms of shiphulls alone, none could dispute the fact that Chinese indeed are building alot more and in far faster rate than Russians.

But wheter they (chinese) are building better or more sofisticated vessels, well that is incorrect or at least highly disputable.

Chinese major surface combatants that were build after soviet union’s breakdown pretty much covers all the relatively modern chinese hulls. These are the 052 Luhu class (2 units), 051B Luhai class (1 hull), 052B class(2 hulls), 052C (2 hulls) class, 051C class (2 hulls), 054 class (2 hulls) and the 054A class (apparently 4 hulls). One could add the Jiangwei-II class (8 hulls) to it as well.

That makes 15 or 23 hulls compared to the russian post-92 laid down hulls of…??….2? (how many pr. 20380 have been laid down?)

Now add to that the chinese have laid down 2 Luda and at least 6 Jianghu class after 1992 which both classess presents technology of the late 40’s (updated systems ofcourse, but the hull design and machinery is nevertheless the orginal). Also basicly all of the relatively modern designs laid down after 92 have somewhat similar proplems. The chinese shipbuilding and warship designing has envolved and matured alongside with these various shipdesigns, but unfortunetly it has a downside of that the designs, exspecially in the early stage (Luhu & Luhai for instance) are only relatively modern. The have elements which are/were almoust state-of-the art back when they were designed but lacked considerably in some other areas. No way can they be called fully comparable to counterpory designs offboard. This is repeated with the later designs as well. Altough for instance 052C have its airdefence suite quite impressive and at least in theory at the same level as the best systems abroad, still have issues which aren’t exactlty satisfied in modern standarts.

Main weakness is in the ASW suites. The best that chinese have for example in sonarfits in their very latest systems is basicly the French DUBV-23 and Soviet MGK-335 Platina or their local copies. Those systems however weren’t the best systems that the orginal countries had even in the late 80’s! As the russian navy is in question in here, the Polimon and Zvezda suites were superior/were about to surpass the Platina in service. The cap in the actual ASW armament is even larger.

Now the fact however is that Soviet union ceded to exist in 1991. This means that the russian naval technology is unfortunately left (if you consider those ships/systems in service) to the 90’s era and due limited funding is not being modernised/updated very actively. This however has nothing to do with the technology and capacity itself, but is so due other far larger reasons. Chinese however have only started their naval build-up to the large player standarts after the soviet union ended to exist. Basicly they started their competition after the “rival” was forced to whitdraw from the race. Still chinese have only started to reach the level that soviets had in their final days in some areas, still lacking far behind in others. Also if you take under consideration all the systems, equipments, armaments and shipdesigns that were under development or in the design board (and which some have been continued trough out the new russian era) when the soviet union collapsed, the level in sophistication is miles ahead of what china has now.

But it remains to seen wheter the russia will start up new equally extensive weaponmodernisation than china currently goes trough. If it does (which I however somewhat doupt) then the lead that china is now just about to aquire would propaply be eaten very fast, so huge is the “base” for russia where to push compared the one that china has due its decades of neglect in tehcnology.

…as if this anyhow has anything to do with comparing New Conte and old Gorgy…

Well I found this site bit earlier than I joined, and decided to sneak in as there were quite active and informative world navy and army forum. Now I mainly stick around becouse of the naval forum, tough unfortunetly its standarts have lowered during these last months…:(

Ps. The unofficial/alternative reason why I joined here is that I supposedly pursued one of SDF banned member in some sort of personal revenge in mind. This version is widely spread among the youths that have china very close to their hearts. Its authentity is however as solid as the whole claim in its ridiciloudness. 😉

Well the idea behind my question is that You cannot say that a thing is crap or rubbish when its beeing beaten with thecnology that is more or likely desinged outset to suprass it, where as the orginal thecnology was desingned without taking account of that new desings capabilities. I wasent claiming that every single piece of equimpent would naturally envolp to something new. No only that it happens and cannot be overlooked, expecially during when systems that are supposed to counter each others are compared against.
In Syria and Serbian case was that their Air defence systems werent even top of the notch equipment when they were put on the test. In 1999 Serbia had been over 20 without any upgrade or modernisation of its AAW system that consisted S-125 and Kub, wich during the time of their orginal accustion by Yugoslavian Air Defence Force werent even best that Soviets had made for them selves.

In otherhand your point is good, there isent need to replace or modernizes something that has worked well for long time to come.
From my army time experience I was trained for both Soviet made D-30 122mm Howtizer, from late 50’s and Finnish made brand new 155K98 155mm towed APU fitted gun-howitzer, blistering with american thecnology. What we found out was that in ideal contions and with maxium professionalism, the Finnish gun-howitzer was propaply one of the best piece of artillery that has been made.
But only when things went as they were supposed to go.
And when packed with such high ammount of software and other brakable gizmoes, the real time service in the fields was rather irritating. Simple mailfunction of the TALIN2000 firecontroll computer or hydraulics would make the entire gun non operational. Its breech was so sensitive that little rock or hint of dirt would send it back to the garrison.
In otherhand, D-30 had its defects on paper, limited range and depency of opctical survey, but You could be 98% certain that none of the guns in the fire battery would broke. There simply wasent anything to be broken. If something jammed, a bounch from sledgehammer would make it operative once again, and we actually managed to shoot with it, while one of the ammo carrier left his gloves inside of the breech.
And In battle situation, that reability would pay back its defiencies in paper statics.

Blue….all shades of it;)

But how many of those were actually laid down after 1992

All, those were the boats that where laid down in 1992 or after. Another question is that how many boats were launched and completed. Thats easy too, only the very latest (that is the Boreys and Ladas) haven’t been completed