Modern wars

[obyknven]

http://youtu.be/yWgwPXVFFws

 

 

The exercise PACAFs Pacific Vision on sept 25/08 revealed the United States air superiority is just a fantasy. The exercise was consisted of face the Red Team one hundred Su-27SM, four Su-30 and two Su-35 against Blue Team one hundred F-35, one hundred eighty seven F-22 and four hundred F/A-18E/F. The exercise showed the blue team higher in number of aircraft is double inferior when hundreds of Blue Forces aircraft were lost in the first 20 minutes downed by the Red Forces., on the other hand only 12 aircraft was downed in the Red Team.

Pacific Vision effect the production of the F-22 was canceled and the F-35 project not longer receives investment all since 2008

 

http://youtu.be/27qdB1D0s9M

[Agiel]

Good luck when the current fleet of Eagles, Vipers, Hornets, and Rhinos can shoot down the entire fleet of Su-27s and MiG-29s faster than you can say "Pitbull" due to a lack of a missile comparable to the AIM-120B/C AMRAAM by non-NATO aligned countries (the AA-12 "Adder" hasn't seen significant upgrades since its introduction in the mid 90s, and sees wider use by the Indians than its own native air force), Even in Flaming Cliffs 3, developed by a *Russian* company, the Su-27S and the MiG-29 are severely outclassed in BVR engagements.

 

Actually, the Chinese Air Force is a more formidable opponent these days due to being able to field AESA radars, being at the top of the game in avionics, and the PL-12 ARH missile (said to be at least as capable as the AIM-120B). Their only Achilles heel being a shortage of reliable engines.

[Walsingham]

Good...

 

Actually, the Chinese Air Force is a more formidable opponent these days due to being able to field AESA radars, being at the top of the game in avionics, and the PL-12 ARH missile (said to be at least as capable as the AIM-120B). Their only Achilles heel being a shortage of reliable engines.

 

I wonder if their capability has anything to do with all the hacking?

 

On the subject of engines I thought the old Commie principle was that the plane had a one day combat life in a conventional shooting war. If it survived then it had earned a new engine.

[Agiel]

Strictly speaking, the J-11 (about comparable to the F/A-18E/F Superhornet and the Su-35) and PL-12 in service with the PLAAF are reverse-engineered Su-27s and AA-12 missiles respectively. For the former, the external airframe and and flight handling characteristics were fairly easy for them to copy, they simply put in their own indigenously made avionics, radar, and other electronic guts into it. I should also clarify by what I mean by "lack of reliable engines" The engines part is a bit of a problem for the J-11 because that part wasn't as easy for them to copy from the Su-27 (and now the Russians know better not to sell them more stuff to copy, so the Chinese must either pay exorbitant costs for the actual engines, or make do with the ones they have). As for the latter, due to the Russian's lack of funding for newer toys, equipment like the R-77/AA-12 didn't see significant updates since their introduction (and that's only one part of the equation., the bulk of the Flanker fleet hasn't been upgraded to "talk" to the "Adder" so to speak, though Russia in recent years has been trying to correct this problem). And so, the Chinese having purchased some of these missiles said to themselves "Well, if the Russians don't want to upgrade them, why don't we?"

 

That said, the Chinese have managed to field very competent aircraft designs of their own design, such as the supermanueverable J-10, and their stealth "fighter" the J-20 is a fairly novel design. My guess is the latter isn't necessarily a multirole "fighter" as the rest of the world understands it, but an IADS penetrating deep strike bomber/maritime attack aircraft and a supersonic long-range interceptor similar in concept to the proposed (and unfortunately named) B-1R. 

Edited March 8, 2013 by Agiel

[Malcador]

Now, we need a brief on North Korean hardware.

[Agiel]

While the Russians have been clawing back their old Soviet military glory and the Chinese are catching up with the West at a pretty rapid pace, by most reasonable estimates North Korea is laughably under-equipped. While the Russians did have some great Cold War tank designs (the T-80 was actually better than what many western analysts at the time had given the Soviets credit for, and older designs like the T-64 found a new lease on life with upgrades), they typically exported downgraded versions to other Warsaw Pact and Soviet client states. These versions, called "Monkey Models" usually lacked some of the modern bells and whistles enjoyed by what the Soviet army uses, like composite armour (virtually every exported T-72 uses cast steel instead of composite armour), turret stabilisation, and fire control systems (Soviet client states had to make do with obsolete coincidence rangefinders).

 

The latest tanks the North Koreans received were T-62s, again lacking things like stabilisation and laser rangefinders. This model was christened the "Chonma-ho" (no doubt North Korean propaganda claims this to be a a completely original design). Though North Korea notoriously holds its cards close to its chest, we can make several educated guesses based on experiences the US, Israel, and western proxies had against "Monkey model" equipment used by former Soviet client states like Syria, Libya, and Iraq. For instance, Iraq did also receive monkey model T-72s from the Soviet Union, and copied the design for their own Asad Babil, or Lion of Babylon tank (which mind you, uses a higher velocity 125mm smoothbore gun over the 115mm rifled gun of T-62-derived tanks). However, given the results of rather one-sided tank battles like 73 Eastings and Norfolk, the effectiveness of monkey model tanks should be made self-evident. Couple that with the fact that by all accounts Iraq was better equipped, better trained, and the troops had hot food in their bellies before going off into war and the KPA ground forces' odds of re-uniting the peninsula under the DPRK banner are basically zero. Since the fall of the Soviet Union, China has given North Korea some token pieces of equipment (some newer electronic gadgets and exported Russian 125mm smoothbore 2A46 guns to mount on North Korea's newer tank "designs", though given that even the latest in Russian penetrators will only barely penetrate the frontal armour of the K1A1 at combat ranges, it's unlikely this will be of much help to the Norks), that said, China prefers North Korea to be strong enough that the Combined Forces won't steamroll their strategic buffer in an afternoon, and weak enough so that the KPA doesn't have a snowball's chance in hell of pushing the CF back to the Pusan Perimeter (South Korea is one of China's biggest trading partners after all).

 

The North Koreans do have the benefit of hindsight though, and seeing Desert Storm and Allied Force, and understand that no matter what the United States will own the air. Memories of B-29s bombing North Korea back to the stone age (Curtis LeMay said he only stopped sending strategic bombers towards the end of the Korean War because there were literally no more targets left to bomb) means the latest aircraft in the North Korean inventory, the MiG-29, are dedicated more towards defending Pyongyang rather than in support of ground troops. The MiG-29 is still a very good aircraft (it took a long time before the west was able to have a comparable capability to the helmet-mounted cueing system of the MiG-29), but for reasons mentioned before, finds itself outclassed in beyond-visual range engagements (not to mention that it hasn't seen the upgrades the Russians have been conducting on their own MiGs, lacks the complex Ground Control Interception and AWACS network the Russians would enjoy, and that the North Koreans are in sore need of fuel, and thus their pilots only have a fraction of the amount of flight time and training as pilots of other air forces). The North Koreans have heavily invested in ground based IADS, though that mostly comprises of equipment that has long since been phased out of service with Russia and the former SSRs like the SA-2 Guideline, the SA-3 Goa, and SA-4 Ganef and are vulnerable to modern jammers and anti-radiation missiles. However, I have read a statistic where if all the shell-based air defense guns in North Korea were to fire a single shell into the air at the same time, the combined weight of all the shells expended would roughly equate to the displacement weight of an Iowa class battleship.

[obyknven]

China is new western Scarecrow?  It's funny,  because all Chinese neighbors don't worried about they. 

[Walsingham]

While the Russians have been clawing back their old Soviet military glory and the Chinese are catching up with the West at a pretty rapid pace, by most reasonable estimates North Korea is laughably under-equipped. While the Russians did have some great Cold War tank designs (the T-80 was actually better than what many western analysts at the time had given the Soviets credit for, and older designs like the T-64 found a new lease on life with upgrades), they typically exported downgraded versions to other Warsaw Pact and Soviet client states. These versions, called "Monkey Models" usually lacked some of the modern bells and whistles enjoyed by what the Soviet army uses, like composite armour (virtually every exported T-72 uses cast steel instead of composite armour), turret stabilisation, and fire control systems (Soviet client states had to make do with obsolete coincidence rangefinders).

 

The latest tanks the North Koreans received were T-62s, again lacking things like stabilisation and laser rangefinders. This model was christened the "Chonma-ho" (no doubt North Korean propaganda claims this to be a a completely original design). Though North Korea notoriously holds its cards close to its chest, we can make several educated guesses based on experiences the US, Israel, and western proxies had against "Monkey model" equipment used by former Soviet client states like Syria, Libya, and Iraq. For instance, Iraq did also receive monkey model T-72s from the Soviet Union, and copied the design for their own Asad Babil, or Lion of Babylon tank (which mind you, uses a higher velocity 125mm smoothbore gun over the 115mm rifled gun of T-62-derived tanks). However, given the results of rather one-sided tank battles like 73 Eastings and Norfolk, the effectiveness of monkey model tanks should be made self-evident. Couple that with the fact that by all accounts Iraq was better equipped, better trained, and the troops had hot food in their bellies before going off into war and the KPA ground forces' odds of re-uniting the peninsula under the DPRK banner are basically zero. Since the fall of the Soviet Union, China has given North Korea some token pieces of equipment (some newer electronic gadgets and exported Russian 125mm smoothbore 2A46 guns to mount on North Korea's newer tank "designs", though given that even the latest in Russian penetrators will only barely penetrate the frontal armour of the K1A1 at combat ranges, it's unlikely this will be of much help to the Norks), that said, China prefers North Korea to be strong enough that the Combined Forces won't steamroll their strategic buffer in an afternoon, and weak enough so that the KPA doesn't have a snowball's chance in hell of pushing the CF back to the Pusan Perimeter (South Korea is one of China's biggest trading partners after all).

 

The North Koreans do have the benefit of hindsight though, and seeing Desert Storm and Allied Force, and understand that no matter what the United States will own the air. Memories of B-29s bombing North Korea back to the stone age (Curtis LeMay said he only stopped sending strategic bombers towards the end of the Korean War because there were literally no more targets left to bomb) means the latest aircraft in the North Korean inventory, the MiG-29, are dedicated more towards defending Pyongyang rather than in support of ground troops. The MiG-29 is still a very good aircraft (it took a long time before the west was able to have a comparable capability to the helmet-mounted cueing system of the MiG-29), but for reasons mentioned before, finds itself outclassed in beyond-visual range engagements (not to mention that it hasn't seen the upgrades the Russians have been conducting on their own MiGs, lacks the complex Ground Control Interception and AWACS network the Russians would enjoy, and that the North Koreans are in sore need of fuel, and thus their pilots only have a fraction of the amount of flight time and training as pilots of other air forces). The North Koreans have heavily invested in ground based IADS, though that mostly comprises of equipment that has long since been phased out of service with Russia and the former SSRs like the SA-2 Guideline, the SA-3 Goa, and SA-4 Ganef and are vulnerable to modern jammers and anti-radiation missiles. However, I have read a statistic where if all the shell-based air defense guns in North Korea were to fire a single shell into the air at the same time, the combined weight of all the shells expended would roughly equate to the displacement weight of an Iowa class battleship.

 

 

Good short brief. What kind of doctrine are the 'Norks' using? Chinese? Fortune cookies? Spongebob Squarepants?

[obyknven]

Best example of U.S. technological "superiority".

 

USA dont have supersonic cruise rockets.

All last U.S supersonic projects are failed and canceled (RATTLRS,  LRASM, HyFly, DARPA Falcon Project  etc). X-51 Failed one test by another and  can be canceled in any time

 

 

Meanwhile Russia share this technology to India and Iran.

http://youtu.be/4AW1XHUcAsQ

 

For yourself Russia create Hypersonic rockets with 5 Mach speed ( actually prototypes with 15 Mach speed exists, but they are not needed to penetrate weak U.S. Sam defense )

http://www.mainpump.com/news/specialty/5225.htm

 

Just imagine - India, Syria, China, Russia, France and Iran have supersonic cruise missiles, meanwhile "hi-tech" U.S. can only in subsonic rockets. 

 

[Agiel]

The same "technological superiority" that makes them go to war in Georgia with incomplete GLONASS (basically the Russian home-grown GPS network) coverage and generals using mobile phones (which went through *Georgian* cell phone towers, meaning the Georgians could have easily intercepted Russian communications) to give orders to their troops because the radios weren't working?

 

I believe Russia had been slated to sell SA-10 derived SAM systems (equivalent to, and in respects better than the American MIM-104 Patriot) to Iran at one point, then when the UN sanctions on weapons to Iran went into effect the Russians welched on the deal (I'd be lying if I said I didn't derive some perverse delight from this that makes me want to shake PutinMedvedev's hand that this happened after Iran's cheque to Russia had cleared). Iran later claimed they had purchased a similar system from Belarus, even parading the "TELAR" at one point. However, a defense analyst took a closer look at the erector and determined it to actually be 55 gallon drums welded together and mounted on a generic heavy lifter truck.

Edited March 10, 2013 by Agiel

[TrashMan]

 

The exercise PACAFs Pacific Vision on sept 25/08 revealed the United States air superiority is just a fantasy. The exercise was consisted of face the Red Team one hundred Su-27SM, four Su-30 and two Su-35 against Blue Team one hundred F-35, one hundred eighty seven F-22 and four hundred F/A-18E/F. The exercise showed the blue team higher in number of aircraft is double inferior when hundreds of Blue Forces aircraft were lost in the first 20 minutes downed by the Red Forces., on the other hand only 12 aircraft was downed in the Red Team.

 

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAA

 

106 vs 680...and you actually believe those results?

I dunno if I should laugh or cry.

 

 

 

when you produce weapon not for real combat (Cold War era examples - Leopard-2, A-10]

 

A-10?

Seriously?

That's one of the best airplanes in the history of forever.

[obyknven]

USA "professional" soldiers try to kill civilians someone. Just brilliant.

http://youtu.be/da8h3wRa9To

[Gfted1]

I dont get it.

 

 

Id love to fire a belt fed machine gun.

[Woldan]

Mali soldiers must be the worst fighters in the history of history....

 

[url=http://www.vice.com/ground-zero/mali

Edited April 3, 2013 by Woldan

[Tsuga C]

Mali soldiers must be the worst fighters in the history of history....

 

http://www.vice.com/ground-zero/mali

Not much in the way of fire discipline, eh?  

[Woldan]

My favorite is the guy with the camo clothing presenting himself on the roof of a building in the middle a firefight wearing a fire-red bandanna. Genius. A close second place is the APC driving in circles firing into random buildings.

[Tsuga C]

When I was in college I was part of the ROTC Rangers.  You didn't have to be in ROTC to join as it was a recruiting tool to get people into the military, so I stayed in for two years and then left when I grew tired of it.  We were just kids and while on maneuvers we easily had 10x the discipline these clowns are showing.  What I saw in that video was something more like stoned gang members blasting away at a rival gang in Detroit than proper combat.

 

The people of Mali had best pray that the French don't get tired of the conflict because their own soldiers either never had basic training or managed to flunk out of it to a man.  We'd have shredded these guys.

[Woldan]

What is kind of strange to me is that Africa has always been in war, in war with itself, one could think that centuries of fighting would make people experienced skilled fighters, but it seems that even those in the military lack even the most common sense of a fighter like taking cover, aiming, and the most basic strategies. Odd.

The people of Mali had best pray that the French don't get tired of the conflict because their own soldiers either never had basic training or managed to flunk out of it to a man. We'd have shredded these guys.

Absolutely. Think of what a single skilled disciplined designated marksman could do in a battlefield like that. It would be a damn turkey shoot.

[BruceVC]

 

What is kind of strange to me is that Africa has always been in war, in war with itself, one could think that centuries of fighting would make people experienced skilled fighters, but it seems that even those in the military lack even the most common sense of a fighter like taking cover, aiming, and the most basic strategies. Odd.

The people of Mali had best pray that the French don't get tired of the conflict because their own soldiers either never had basic training or managed to flunk out of it to a man. We'd have shredded these guys.

Absolutely. Think of what a single skilled disciplined designated marksman could do in a battlefield like that. It would be a damn turkey shoot.

 

Its a well known fact that almost all African armies lack discipline. This comes from inadequate training that is caused by lack of funds. But don't be fooled, an untrained army in  the right environment, like a jungle, can still be deadly

Edited April 4, 2013 by BruceVC

[Malcador]

Who'd have thunk life isn't like an RPG, where you can grind combat to get better at it. Although, I suppose we should be glad all these militias don't get better - having capable infantry that also perform atrocities isn't all that good.

[NOK222]

Ob, your little "look at this stupid soldier" is disrespectful to the armed services in general. Do you want me to pull out facts about the atrocities that the KBG has committed? Hell, I can get facts about current Russia's military misgivings.

 

Seriously, you're pissing me off.

[ShadySands]

I dunno, we had some "mercs" from Uganda providing base security to free up our provisional rifle platoon and these guys were no joke. They weren't as disciplined as we were but they were infinitely more effective than the troops in that Mali video and I definitely would not want to go up against them

[Woldan]

Africa seems like childs play when compared to whats going on in Syria right now. 

 

Not for the faint of heart: 

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2SCNtfUcHVc&NR=1&feature=fvwp

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fx7nQLa7whA

Edited April 7, 2013 by Woldan

[Tsuga C]

Quite the excitable bunch, aren't they?  The fellow around 4:20 in the first video had a scope on his AK, but he never used it.  Like the Mali videos, these guys seem to rely upon volume of fire rather than precision.

 

When this civil war is over, there's going to be a HUGE demand for construction crews.  They've done a fine job of trashing their cities, haven't they?

[Woldan]

Civil war and a destroyed infra structure, another country that falls victim to the ''Arabian spring'', I bet people will be happy and sing cumbaya all together once the war is over and the great dictatorship lies in ruins, just like in Egypt and Libya. Oh wait.....yeah, that didn't work out to well over there...

Like the Mali videos, these guys seem to rely upon volume of fire rather than precision.

And not really effective, though the few snipers and DM's in Assads troop seem to make a good job.

Also the vids show that tanks without any kind of infantry are helpless in urban combat, the simply cant see sh!t there and get taken out by simple 70's recoilless rifles and RPGs. Tank without infantry support = baaad idea.

Edited April 8, 2013 by Woldan