ijozicNote the Flanker-style mesh anti-FOD doors replacing the previous barn-door blanking plates and upper LERX intake shutters.
But, this was introduced on the old MiG-29 M/K prototypes already – it’s a must since those auxiliary intakes waste a lot of much needed space better used for fuel.
ijozicSome much better looking Fulcrums:
That might be debatable given how protruding the two seat canopy on those M1/M2/K variants is and doesn’t follow the hump lines. Granted, the move was necessary to for the radar to fit and the rear view visibility has been improved, but it could have been done more gracefully; it looks like something tacked on compared to the other variants. The front view is particularly appalling with the bulging canopy.
ijozicWhat? If they could already get their hands on it, then they wouldn’t have needed it to be given to them… free of charge. After this war ends, assuming it ever does, these decisions will come back to haunt people.
Well, the key difference here is that you seem to consider these groups which got them terrorists, while I’m talking about proliferation of these weapons to potential terrorists.
On another note, it seems that Hezbollah are playing a big role in the offensive since they’ve lost another higher ranking officer in two days.
ijozicPffft, staggering logic. Ever heard of vans?
I’m just saying that they’re not giving the rebels any capability the potential terrorists can’t already get their hands on. Besides, I think we have a different idea of how terrorist acts are performed.
ijozicThe SA-11 was Ukrainian. Russia doesn’t use that model anymore. The US did supply terrorists in Syria with TOW missiles however, which hardly bodes well for buses, trains and taxiing planes in the future.
The 90+ kg launcher hardly makes it a terrorist weapon of choice, especially given the availability of the similar lighter systems, e.g. Konkurs or HJ-8.
ijozicМиГ-29УБМ. Let’s see how it goes and how many will be modernized next year.
What is it anyway? A modernization of the old UB’s to be used for SMT conversion training?
ijozicLooks like they’re not on the back foot after all.:rolleyes:
They did capture a strategic village which controlled part of the highway towards Aleppo a few days ago already (did posted it here).
No, it is not like that at all. The rebels that are merging with YPG are really small groups that were not accepted or wanted to be part of that so called “moderate” groups bombed by Russia. Some of these groups were already fighting together with YPG even during Kobane siege. Frankly, they are insignificant in actuality.
Yes, they’re small groups and the YPG would not let them operate autonomously anyway. I guess they’re used to provide legitimacy when attacking Sunni ISIS-controlled areas as the US wants them to (since they’re in ideal position to flank the ISIS and there’s no other groups on the ground in such a position and with such priorities).
ijozicThe main changes I would like to see on the Kolkata Class are replacing one AK630 on each side with a 8-cell Barak-1 module.
Or perhaps replace both with one Kashtan-M or Pantsir-M per side.
ijozicAs I said, I’m not wasting anymore time correcting rubbish though.
Finally as the feeling is quite mutual.
Further, Drozd, a predecessor to Arena was used in Afghanistan in the 80s- with success! It was not an ideal system that the USSR wanted to buy in that state en-masse, but it proved the APS concept.
IIRC, they were used on the Naval Infantry T-55AM2’s.
ijozicWell likewise. The main protagonists of NATO were in Iraq, you know what I mean (the US counts as more than half of NATO on its own). Not all parts of all cities were under control all the time and it took over a decade to get to any semblance of normality.
You keep mentioning NATO, but the big difference is that operation in Iraq had no UN approval so some important NATO members didn’t want the organization to get involved. It’s more precise to focus on US and British forces anyway since they basically did most if not all of the combat operations in both theaters. It took a long time to put Afghanistan under control since local people actually prefer the Taliban to foreign occupation forces and that the numbers deployed were rather small, like under 30,000 of US troops till 2008 (due to Iraq being given the priority) only starting to increase rapidly since 2009, reaching the peak of 130,000 NATO troops in 2011. The SAA numbers around 110,000 soldiers (deployed currently on a territory 10 times smaller than the size of Afghanistan) in the ground forces now and they used to have twice that in 2011 (for like 3 times smaller Syria).
Well the problem is that SAA is against mostly foreign fighters as evidenced by how fast ISIS has recruited new fighters.
How is this a problem? Some of these people are experienced fighters from other wars, but the vast majority are civilians with no military experience. They’re supposed to get some training there, but some have no time and end up being used as cannon fodder basically.
Iraq and Afghanistan are relatively large open spaces, Syria is small and compact by comparison, so the ratio of urban warfare is higher.
Most of the Syria is arid or desert (70%) and that’s pretty much the area that ISIS took over and Raqqa is the only larger city they control. The frontlines in the major cities (where there’s no ISIS basically except in some part south of Damascus) have changed little if any during all these years (so, there is not much combat, but artillery duels and barrel bombing) so most of the battles happen in the countryside.
You’ll also find that the US, Britain, Australia and Poland have far more combined resources and better equipment than the SAA, so that guarantees a different result regardless of training disparities. So to say that because the world’s largest superpower and three major NATO militaries were able to keep most cities under control most of the time in Iraq means the SAA is poorly trained is a ridiculous comparison. It’s like saying that Lewis Hamilton is a bad driver because you drove round a track faster in a Ferrari than he went round in a pedal-powered go-kart.
I only mentioned the US and British forces in the context of your statement that “There isn’t any training that makes you ‘good’ at facing that. In fact, it’s entirely impossible to replicate such a thing in training.” since they were actually facing the situation you describe unlike the SAA.
And you’re neglecting the fact that ISIS didn’t exist during that deployment in Iraq.
ISIS did exist and they did proclaim their Islamic State in 2006 in Iraq already to relatively little fanfare, but were kicked out to Syria as part of the “Anbar Awakening” operation organized by the US. They only came back when the Sunni tribes who kicked them out let them come back without even token resistance as they were disenchanted by the Maliki turning Iraq over to Iranian control.
As it is, after 4 years and 7 months, Al-Quaeda, Al-Nusra, ISIS etc. and a ton of foreign fighters haven’t even managed to take half the country and we keep hearing about the SAA being on their last legs, but several years later and they’re not. So frankly, there is zero fact behind anything you’ve said.
Half? IIRC, the regime holds about 25% of the country after the loss of Idlib region.
Regarding the SAA, yes, it’s a subjective topic, but I have given examples of their performance in past wars. There is nothing suggested here that they have improved their capabilities at all; on the contrary, for example, you have interviews with Hezbollah officers stating how regular SAA units are not even capable of holding the position they handed them over. On the other hand, you’ve provided no arguments to the contrary but your personal opinion that “it’s not the same army” as you list no arguments at all. Sure, they have a few “elite” units which they use in offensives backed by other militias such as Hezbollah (and the number of those units is such that they cannot execute offensives on multiple fronts), but in general the regular units seem to be of very little use. Otherwise, they wouldn’t rely so much on various local militias for defense and even more so on those radical militias provided by the IRGC (plus Hezbollah) and even that wasn’t enough anymore so Russians had to jump in. It’s interesting how this secular regime is now so dependent on radical Islamists to fight other radical Islamists, but the media focus is only on the opposing Islamists.
Zero fact behind anything? Wow. I do agree that further discussion is pointless as we’re running in circles.
ijozicRight, because the Russians want to incentivize the US to start developing more sensitive laser diodes to counteract the current generation of Shtora and thus force the Russians to waste more money on the next iteration. Nope, they wont get into that kind of race with the West over Syria. That’s a never ending game of one-upmanship.
Yes, the West is waiting for an actual conflict with Russians to modify their weaponry rather than adapt ahead. Besides, what do the laser diodes have to do with TOW missiles which are not developed anymore anyway?
ijozicThey won the majority of the battles but that isn’t enough to win a war. The point I’m making should be obvious, this isn’t straight-forward uniformed nation(s) vs nation(s) warfare it’s crowd-sourced global terrorism with suicide bombers in an urban environment around civilians. Terrorists who’ve managed to replace themselves with new recruits faster than NATO air power can take them out. If you can’t understand why that makes it difficult/different, then continuing discussing the matter is pointless. Does 9/11 mean the USAF is poorly trained? No, it was a sneak attack from terrorists hiding among civilians. The entire Syrian War is like that right now. The entire Syrian War is like that right now. The only thing demarcating terrorists from civilians is if they’re firing at you, or after they’ve blown themselves up. There isn’t any training that makes you ‘good’ at facing that. In fact, it’s entirely impossible to replicate such a thing in training. Parts of Afghanistan and Iraq weren’t under full control throughout the entirety of NATO deployment there. You can only try to force them out of areas, again, and again, and again.
What I can’t understand are the parallels you’re making as they make no sense to me, sorry. First you say that no training can prepare you for suicidal terrorists mixed in with civilians in urban conditions, but then state that during NATO deployment in Iraq (NATO was not in Iraq BTW) and Afghanistan, “parts of Afghanistan and Iraq weren’t under full control”. So, obviously the cities were. And obviously US and British troops were trained well enough to put such cities under control (even extremely hard cases like Fallujah) in an unknown terrain and a foreign country where the local populations sees them as occupation forces, the disadvantages that SAA should not share.
But, even if we disregard this and accept that such urban warfare cannot be trained for and disregard the fact that the Syrian war is nothing like this one situation you’re describing (but sounds like what US/British soldiers faced in Iraq and Afghanistan on daily bases), the main issue that remains is that SAA is losing ground. So, e.g. simplified example, they are stationed in Palmyra, enjoying the support of the local population they are supposed to be protecting; there are no intermixed terrorists and there is no urban assault they have to perform. But, ISIS blows up one of their checkpoints and it’s a total rout; they ran away leaving their fellow countrymen to the mercy of ISIS. On the other hand, ISIS is using similar tactics against e.g. the Kurds in Iraq and Syria and it is not meeting the same success.
ijozicIt isn’t the same people as in 1970, or the same training, or the same equipment. You’re also underestimating the difference made by the equipment in those wars and the difference experience makes. And you’re underestimating the difficulty of urban warfare against plain-clothed fighters packed between your own civilians. The whole of NATO was barely able to control the same kind of thing in Afghanistan and Iraq, in much more open terrain, and not packed among their own US civilians and Israel only manages it by levelling entire neighbourhoods. Does Vietnam mean US marines are poorly trained?
The battles in Lebanon including the SAA were also throughout the ’80s ending in 1990. The rest I have no idea what you’re on about as none are arguments related to the SAA strength, nor there are exact parallels with the SAA which is fighting on home turf.
ijozichowever (and I’m trying to be careful about this), I remain skeptical of whether the Bush Administration had the competence and integrity to deal with the situation in a way that would be good for the US, Iraq and other affected parties.
Yes, it’s undeniable that some were pretty arrogant and sure of themselves and their ideals that they did not know realize exactly what they’re getting into. What’s worse, some of these key people involved were well educated with past experience in US international politics (Wolfovitz, Rumsfeld, even Paul Bremer who they placed to run post-war Iraq and to say he did the worst possible job at the most crucial possible time would not be overstating it). Of course, they did have plenty of competent advisers and people in the field, but it seems their advice was more often heeded than not.
This is an interesting (however potentially biased as being first-hand experience) perspective on Maliki’s responsibility for what happened afterwards, how the warning signs were there (granted, you get all sort of reports from different groups so knowing whom you choose to believe is not easy), but the administration stubbornly ignored them:
Sorry for the OT, but I think it’s an interesting read relevant to partly explaining the success of ISIS in Iraq.
ijozicI see absolutely no evidence of that. As regards being poorly trained, the US trained fighters in the Iraqi army are completely useless – a child armed with a Barbie doll could have put up a better resistance – and the US trained ‘moderate rebels’ have also been completely useless – of the original 500, 430 are dead and 70 are traitors. Only the terrorist units among the rebel seem to have been remotely effective sadly. When you consider that this is no longer a Syrian Civil War given the number of foreign fighters, Assad is doing pretty well.
No evidence? It’s a conscription based army. Just check their performance in past wars; you don’t have to go through their atrocious results against the much better trained Israelis, but for instance, their performance against Lebanese militias or against the Jordanian Army in 1970. In Jordan they were routed and in Lebanon quickly resorted to heavy bombardments of civilian areas to enforce compliance.
I don’t see what Iraqi army has to do with the Syrian one? It sounds like “Your US trained Iraqi army blows compared to my SAA!” I’m not really taking any sides here.
Iraqi Army is a different story; you need to look at it from the perspective of complete corruption and incompetence after the previous (mostly Sunni) Army officer core was presumably completely replaced. For example, some of the new Army officers were taking paychecks for fictional units which did not exist in reality. Also, the Army units in Sunni areas which were taken by ISIS were mostly composed of the Sunni soldiers which (together with Kurds) deserted from their units not wanting to fight for the current Iraqi government so there was a complete collapse of the Army units in those areas with those remaining Shia soldiers who didn’t manage to run away getting captured and slaughtered. Beforehand, the ex-prime minister Maliki took to himself personally the relevant defense ministry positions and when the **** hit the fan, he turned to Iranians and the IRGC supplied Shia militias which have managed to retake Tikrit, but little else.
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