inkSurely Kamov’s coaxial helicopters are the only ones that can really be called “tail-less”!?
inkGoldenDragon,
The point you’ve been making seems more of ahistorically-moral one that a pragmatic assessment of future problems. As far as I can see what you’re trying to say can be summed up by the following quotation: “But the point of argument is that Russian is supposedly “afraid” of China which is ludicrous when it is traditionally Russia attacking China. “
The point you’re missing here is that what happened in the past is only relevant in as much as it creates a potential conflict in the future. Whether Russia attacked China or vica-versa is largely irrelevant; the situation today is that this area (and its history) is a cause for future conflict and to ignore this would be a mistake on the part of military and foreign policy planners in Russia.
Another point you made with which I disagree is this: Ink was pointing to internal problems as an excuse for maintaining a large military. You need internal security forces not an expensive main force units of the Army and especially not the Air Force or Navy for those situations.”
This is of course true and I could not argue otherwise except when internal problems escalate to a different level. For example, if a US state tried to split off from the union and used military means to acheive this then I’m sure that the US would use the whole of its armed force in response. Thusly, when Chechnya tried to break away from Russia the Russians used more than just Ministry of Interior troops. Therefore, if another province ‘did a Chechnya’, as it were, the Russians would not rely only on MVD troops.
As for the US/NATO threat – it is clear. Should any kind of conflict break out (as unlikely as this seems now) the US and NATO are in a perfect position, even now, to launch attacks on Russia from several fronts. Any state or alliance which is in such a position, with regards to your country, needs to be watched carefully. Even a few months before the outbreak of WWII many people beleived that Hitler was benign. How many people saw the attack on Pearl Harbour coming? Had in the late ’30s the US decided that actually, in the absence of any real natural enemies and a real threat to its territory, she should scrap most of its military and military industrial complex then she would have had no response to the Japanese attack.
Finally,
Sens,
“We are lucky, that the days, more teritorrity = more power are gone”
I profoundly disagree with this statement. Observe if you will the behaviour of the world’s only super-power (or, if you’ll allow, imperial power). The United States, benevolent empire or not is an empire nonetheless. And although it doesn’t count its territories in the same way as the Roman or even the British Empires did it still has territories. These territories sometimes take the form of countries which provide captive markets for US goods or a favourable environment for US corporations and sometimes they are countries that are allies and take part in US wars. Finally, there are territories on which the US keeps large military bases that are there to stabilise the region and to make it fold into the US new global order. Please don’t tell me that this compilation of territories around the world makes the US weaker. It clearly adds to US power and is one of the key reasons for US domination of world affairs in all spheres. Now, before I get jumped by lots of Americans who think I’m ‘bashing’ their country I’d just like to point out that I’m just attempting a pragmatic and (as much as is possible) objective analysis of the world situation and not attacking any country in particular.
ink“Please name three theoretical enemies, capable and willing to invade Russia for what purpose?”
I can name two – although I concede they seem unlikely. 1. China, with the long disputed border with Russia and a growing Chinese population on the Russian side of this border 2. The US and NATO, which must still be considerred as a potential enemy. While these seem unlikely it must be remembered that the last century saw Russia (or the Soviet Union) ‘invaded’ or attacked by large formations of land troops several times.
Furthermore, Russia has a large muslim population, many of whom are concentrated in largely muslim provinces and must, therefore, be wary of an expansion of chechen style seperatism.
ink“What would be even more wonderful : Russia shifting to all volunteer armed forces.”
I agree to an extent. The only way that this would work is if this professional force was supported by a large and well equipped part-time territorial defense force (a la British TA or US National Guard but larger and more significant than both of these). The reason for this is that Russia, unlike Britain and the US still faces a theoretical threat of land invasion and in order to be able to defend itself against this must have a large force of trained troops to call upon if such a scenario presents itself.
Another reason is Russia’s physical size. Russia wouldn’t be able to maintain a large enough professional army to ensure the protection of all its borders as well as dealing with Chechnya and future Chechnya style scenarios (not to mention fulfilling its international obligations such as UN peacekeeping missions).
On the other hand, in order to better deal with Chechnya scale conflicts (and to perform better in UN peacekeeping missions) Russia has to have a greater number of professional units. Professionalising Speznas and the Airborne forces (and maybe the air force as well) would be a good start.
An interesting way to do things might be to have some units and functions in the armed forces completely professional (such as those mentioned above and others) while still conscripting for others (perhaps such as secondary and tertiary roles).
inkHow is it that nobody seems interested enough in a, seemingly comprehensive Russian Armed Forces downsizing, to comment on it?
inkHere’s a slightly more detailled article from RIA Novosti:
MOSCOW, October 12 (RIA Novosti) – By January 1, 2005, the Russian Armed Forces will be reduced by 8% and total 1.1 million men. Initially it was assumed that dismissed would be not combatant officers, but military sportsmen, builders, instructors of military departments in civil educational institutes and others. But, since the number of such positions was only 40-45 thousand, it remained unclear what arms would be considered less important and subjected to most massive reduction.
According to Nezavisimaya Gazeta, now one may safely say what principle the reduction follows: the troops have received an applicable directive. The scheduled changes will touch upon all services and arms of the Armed Forces.
In particular, two Tu-22M3 long-range bomber regiments of the Air Force will be put into reserve. Subject to the reduction will also be fighter regiments: two MiG-29 regiments, two MiG-31 regiments and one Su-27 regiment. Reduced at the same time will be two bomber regiments (Su-24M) and two attack aircraft regiments (Su-25). Several Mi-8MT and Mi-24 helicopter regiments will cease their existence. At the same time, the current Air Force reduction provides for introducing some improvements. For example, some airfields after reduction of the air regiments will be turned into air materiel storage bases. The materiel will be maintained by air bases technicians, while pilots will shift to rotational service: if required they will be brought to the air field from neighbouring regiments not subject to reduction.
The Navy following the reduction will no longer be responsible for storing decommissioned nuclear submarines at holding anchorage bases and stations (they will all be handed over to the Federal Atomic Energy Agency). As for the Navy combat equipment, reduced will be two Project 941 Akula (Shark) submarines in the Northern Fleet an all Project 667BD submarines in the Northern and Pacific Fleets.
The Strategic Missile Forces will assume new duty pattern. If earlier all regiments were on level readiness duty, now some of the regiments will have reduced organization (for switching to level readiness they will require from several hours to several days), and some will be turned into missile storage bases. Besides, the Strategic Missile Forces will lose one missile division equipped with 15A18 Satan intercontinental ballistic missiles.
Reduction of the Army will particularly involve the nuclear, biological and chemical protection forces. Besides, the Defense Ministry plans to optimize the strength of its military educational establishments (most of them are part of the Army) through disbanding small-scale schools by merging or closing them. As a result almost eight thousand military instructors will be dismissed.
In general by the end of the year the strength of the Air Force will be reduced by 36 thousand personnel, the Army – by 20 thousand, the Navy – by 16 thousand, the Construction Corps – by nine thousand, the service support forces – by six thousand, the Strategic Missile Forces – by three thousand, the Airborne and Railroad Troops – by two thousand, the Space Troops – by one thousand personnel. Reduction will also involve command and control structures, their staff being cut by 10%. Besides, over five thousand uniformed officials – service members detached to federal governmental authorities – will be dismissed.
inkBilly bishop,
“Ok, so now they have the ability to track anything in their airspace, but they still rely on ancient SA-3’s and SA-6’s to shoot anything down, which as we saw in ’99 are almost useless against an airforce with modern jets applying modern sead techniques.”
That rules out all of Serbia’s immediate neighbours and competitors. Only NATO can carry out attacks of the kind you are referring to and to organise a small countries air defenses to take on the world’s largest, richest and most powerful military alliance would be an act of radical futility.
GrM,
You are correct that the political situation is leading to a Western orientation in terms of arms purchases and that this is being justified by the apparent poor show of Soviet kit in ’99 but you are wrong in accepting this justification as fact. The truth is that most Soviet kit performed beyond expectations during Allied Force – mostly due to the fact that though old and poorly maintained it was simple and rugged enough (and that the RV-PVO personnel had enough experience with it) to perform under the strictest possible operational conditions.
A switch to Western equipment across the board may be politically expedient but will be expensive, time consuming and costly in terms of performance (i.e. bang for buck). Russian equipment, combined with domestically produced and licensed production would be the most convenient thing for Serbia & Montenegro’s armed forces. That said – politics will overcome reason and you’ll probably soon see second hand F-16s or Mirage-2000s rusting their last years away on Serbian runways.
inkIt appears to have a really small radome (and to be generally very small) so I would hesitate to compare it with an F-16 or a MiG-29. However, its definitely not in the Hawk 200 class and so should be a useful little jet a la LCA or maybe even on a par with the J-10. Is Iran considerring a High-Low mix in its combat fleet? If so then this would be perfect for the Low component.
ink“Nothing new I’m afraid.”
Bugger.
inkThe MiG-27 pic posted by BlackCat has a different colour profile to the pic posted by Ja. Look at the red colour on the roundels. However, it is still the same pic and still fake. Check the direction of the shadow cast by the tailplane and by the trees and bushes in the background. Definitely a fake.
inkBlatent photoshop, even if it is just to adjust the colour profile. Look at the colours of the roundels.
inkHow about tears of the Sun where USN F-18s take off from their carrier with nothing on their hardpoints then perform an explosive CAS mission totally destroying a rebel African army with what look like Harpoons. What a sh!t film, I can’t beleive that I actually paid money to watch that cr@p. I was nearly in tears due to how stupid I felt for doing that.
inkI think Lybia and MiG-29M2 sounds like a happy marriage to me.
inkFrankly, I’m disappointed at the lack of speculation on which country is the mysterious buyer of a large number of MiGs. Indonesia? Nah, they’re going down the Su-30 route. Syria maybe? Or Lybia? Come on – get stuck in.
inkSrbine,
1. “You’re dreaming of new aircraft which is not possible right now.”
I know
2. The J-22 and G-4 are unsuitable for upgrade for many reasons, one of the outsanding ones being the low quality of production for each type but certainly more evident in the J-22. NB, the vast majority of G-4 crashes have been due to the poor quality of production of the fuel tanks and fuel flow system. This fault is not being addressed by the current upgrade option.
3. I never mentioned that MiG29s were difficult to maintain. However, the J-22 is – and there are certain problems with the G-4 as well.
4. I’m not trying to attack Serbia’s aviation industry – just to take a pragmatic look at the problems and to analyse a way out of them – isn’t that the point of this thread?
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