there is so much BS here that my brain is starting to hurt. Lets ignore all the missiles and warheads inherited from the USSR. If Russia does nothing more than procure 6 Topol’s a year, like it has been doing for years now, in either the silo or portable version, it will still have roughly 100 Topol’s in 6 years. 100 ICBM’s is roughly 5x more than what China is fielding. If you MIRV the missiles, that is 200-300 warheads, that is enough to wipe out most of the US right there. That would give Russia an arsenal second only to the US. The French do not procure anywhere near 6 ICBM’s a year and the British literally store their nukes in the US which is just a gigantic joke.

Now, add to this the procurement of Bulavas which will have to take place at the rate of 1-2 missiles a year just so that the Bulava can be tested and so that the Boreis can be made nominally operational plus the necessity for procurement of air launched cruise missiles for the Tu-160’s (conventional today but easily converted to nuclear) and you have a damn good arsenal even without a single soviet missile taken into account.

Now as the soviet arsenal shrinks, the money spent on maintence and operations can go to new missiles. 6 Topols can easily become 8 and 8 can become 10 as GDP grows and the old arsenal shrinks. We wont see 100 new missiles a year, big deal, they simply arent needed.

as for the B-2 being invisible to OTH radars the Russkies, or at least several Russkies sources, say they saw the B-2’s heading into Iraq!

As far as holes in the radar coverage granted many exist, but largely in the east and south where they dont expect ICBM’s to come from, but two radars are under construction. The Russians have vastly improved their coverage in the past 4-5 years.

long range high wavelength low frequency radars like those used to detect ICBM launches will detect stealth bombers from thousands of miles away and continue to plot their path all the way to the edge of Russian air space when it will become very clear to the Russkies that this isnt a pigeon heading their way. What these radars wont do is give the Russians sufficient information to vector fighters or guide SAM’s. Stealth aircraft are stealthy in the millimeter and centimeter wavelength, maybe even into the low meter band but early warning radars are in K band or higher and RAM absorbstion and stealth shaping dont really work on these bands. These radar allow you to track pigeons (pigeons flying well over the horizon that is) 2,000 miles away. Computers filter a lot of crap like birds off your screen, but a bird sized item traveling at 600mph per hour or faster wont be filtered out by the computer. If the bombers fly low they will escape these radars but then their range is cut vastly and the russkies will detect refueling aircraft and the bombers when they go high enough to refuel.

When the russkies see stealth bombers coming their way they will fire their ICBM’s or at the very least get on the phone to Washington and ask WTF is going on.

kommersant ran an article a day or two ago talking about how the 2005 procurement plan was totally derailed. The Tu-160 they are set to get in 2006 was originally planned for 05 (two Tu-160’s had been planned for 2005) but at 24 billion rubles the generals balked at paying that over 1 year so the jet will arrive a year late. The navy was supposed to get 2 ships this year, both have been delayed a solid year. The S-400 batteries planned for 2005 are still with the manufacturer undergoing tests, Almaz has not been able to pass the MoD’s quality control requirements. The MoD was set to recieve its first IACO certified Tu-214 in 2005, but it looks like it wont recieve it, even though it looks like it has been paid for! Some sources say 3 Yak-130’s had been planned for 2005, to my knowledge only 1 was delivered, the year isnt over, but there is little hope that 2 more will materialize.

The manufacturers have had trouble moving from making prototypes to actual series built equipment. This has caused the MoD to re-prioritize what its buying because it cant just sit by and not spend the money. So, while Ivanov said in 2004 that only 4 Topol-M’s would be ordered for 2005, 7 have been delivered this year! While originally 17 T-90’s were planned for 2005, Kommersant says 91 were in fact actually delivered (meaning Ivanov didnt mispeak earlier this year). So, the money that was meant for those other now delayed programs was spent on other stuff instead, stuff the MoD really doesnt need as badly. But if it doesnt spend the money it wont get more next year.

The Russkies have money now but their industrial base is in bad shape and will need time to develop to the point where the producers will actually be able to fulfill orders in an adequate manner. The problem is, they wasted a solid decade because of lack of $$$ and could well end up wasting another one because of their industrial bases decay.

along with 31 new T-90’s, 7 helicopters, 1 Tu-160, 8 other jets of various makes and models and 125 BTR’s plus 6 satellites and 12 launch vehicles. Also, over 50 helicopters will be upgraded along with over 100 jets, 139 tanks and some 125 self propelled guns will reciece new computers, targeting systems and navigation gear.

Russia is set to procure more than France in 2006.

the whole T-72 v. M1 comparison is off the mark because Soviet tanks were never meant to go head on against Western tanks and win, Soviet tanks were supposed to keep NATO tanks pinned down in one place long enough for the vast soviet artillery advantage to take its toll on NATO tank columns. The reason the arabs always lost was because they really were not fighting properly according to soviet doctrine, they lacked sufficient self propelled guns and even their towed artillery was improperly used. The Russkies live by the concept that artillery is the god of the battlefield, just look what their artillery did to Grozny. Even in recent years systems that they classify as artillery, mainly Iskander and Smerch combined with Pchela have been priority number 1 for the ground forces.

Also in Iraq, the Iraqis T-72’s were armed with half primed training rounds and steel sabots that had been retired from the soviet ****nal over a decade before. In the few instances where M1’s were hit by HEAT rounds from the 125mm 2a46 guns, the tanks were in fact disabled! The Iraqis did manage to hit some 100 tanks and disable something like 14. It was their inferior ammo that is largely to blame for their ineffectiveness. Also, if memory serves Saddam only had some 400 T-72’s. The bulk of his armor was antiquated T-55’s and T-62’s.

When the Israelis first met the T-72 in Lebanon in 1982 they found a tank that they could only kill at near point blank ranges and a tank that ate up their M48’s like cheerios’s. So in 1982 the T-72A was a modern tank, the problem is by 1991 is was no longer modern and it was certainly never the main offensive Soviet tank, it was always their secondary.