Replying to
@The Original Sixth here since this is the thread for chewing the fat on the war and his post will probably be moved here.
I've seen this take often, and it's wrong. The funny thing is, it's not actually
incorrect. What you fail to account for is that "outdated trash" describes
most of Russia's equipment entire! Ukraine is, funnily enough, in much the same situation as Russia, in that they are very much capable of building new, cutting-edge weapons, but they just can't afford to buy a lot of them. (Ukraine housed much of the Soviet Union's most advanced arms industries and, in fact, was
still Russia's primary supplier for military electronics until Russia attacked them in 2014. This set their military modernization timetable back by five to ten years, depending on who you ask, because they had to spin up domestic industry to replace the lost imports.) So the bulk of both armies' forces are, in fact, old-ass tanks. For instance, even the T-90 is just an upgraded T-72 (and according to some,
not a very good one.)
However it should be said that
every army on Earth uses a lot of old gear. Hell, even the United States is still using an awful lot of equipment that was made in the 1980s (or earlier; the B-52 being the stand-out legend here.) This is because 1. that equipment is already paid for and 2. a
great deal of a weapon system's effectiveness comes from supposedly "soft factors" like fire control, radio/datalinks, sensors (thermal/night vision etc.) and survivability upgrades like fire suppression systems. Plus, an awful lot of very important upgrades are literally "bolt-on" in nature even for new production vehicles, like ERA blocks and active protection systems. And it's usually cheaper (though not always) to add this equipment to an already existing tank, as you have to pay for the expensive electronics either way, but if you upgrade instead of building new, you don't have to pay for a whole new tank as well. Now you typically can't upgrade the armor
itself (sometimes you can, depending on the design!) but you can definitely upgrade everything else.
This is why you see me and others in the news thread kekking our asses off every time you see an old T-72A show up in Ukraine. The majority of tanks being lost are pretty modern T-72 variants. The T-72A is the original, completely un-upgraded tank. This is also why the Ukrainians use T-64s for their two operational tank brigades, even though they have enough T-72s kicking around to outfit two brigades (in fact, the third and fifth brigades
do use T-72s exclusively, but they're
reserve brigades!) It's because Ukraine just has a lot more T-64s inherited from the Soviet Union. I mean,
T-72s were even built at the Malyshev tank factory in Kharkiv! But there's little enough difference between the older T-72s they have and the T-64s that, after upgrades, either tank will be about as good, and still have the same problems innate to any Russian tank design. So it makes sense to standardize on the hull they have the most spares of for active, operational units, and if the reserves are going to be stuck with older tanks and less upgrades, well, if you're close to baseline, you pick the better baseline.
All of the above logic applies to Russia, as well. Remember, they have the GDP of Canada. There's a reason we haven't seen a single T-14 Armata in Ukraine. Cost-efficiency is a very important concept; even Americans care about it when circumstances force us to. So the losses they're suffering in Ukraine are
not trivial.
Russia's active military numbers include a vast number of conscripts doing their one-year service. It's about 1/3rd of the military at any given time. That's why they use these "Battalion Tactical Groups." One battalion out of every regiment is manned entirely by conscripts, so they send the battalions manned by actual "contract" soldiers (i.e. volunteers that are paid and sign a contract for a term of service just like in most Western armies.) To make up the difference in firepower they're given all the artillery support assets of the entire regiment, so they're even more artillery and vehicle heavy than normal Russian/Soviet doctrine. These guys are important; they're the core of the army. Russia is actually forbidden by law to deploy conscripts off Russian soil and the domestic backlash for dead conscripts is so high even the dictatorial state has to worry about it.
Also consider the cost in
expertise. Russia is losing a lot of higher-ranking officers. They've lost two engineering officers that I've seen who were slain by artillery while the pontoon bridges they were overseeing the set-up of were struck. Same for vehicle crewmen. Infantry is a tough job. But you don't need to be a genius to be a rifle custodian. You
do need a little more smarts to crew or command a tank, and even with Russian tanks having lower crew requirements, the way they tend to violently explode when hit means crew losses are high. Crew are significantly more valuable than the tanks they ride; even if it's an expensive Western tank.
Training takes a lot of money and time, and it's not always easy to find smart people to fill certain roles.
The last time we had this go-around, Trump offered Europe
American natural gas. When leftists aren't deliberately sabotaging our energy production sector, we can
absolutely make enough to supply Europe. And when we don't have a simpering, senile puppet in the Oval Office, OPEC
does return our calls, because when we are
not cutting the throat of our own energy sector when the Saudis go "if you want more gas, sell us more JDAMs," we say "we need the gas less than you need new F-15 engines. Call us back when you feel like having an air force again."
And guess what Germany did two weeks ago, after
years of refusing everyone, even Trump? T
hey signed a deal to build a natural gas terminal, to receive shipments of natural gas off of LP tanker ships. Sweden and Finland are very likely to join NATO in the future as public opinion
has swung hard in its favor for the first time due to Russia's invasion. And I got news for you, my dude -
Russia was always going to team up with China. In case you haven't noticed, their conventional combat power has been proven to be a hollow joke of what we thought it was, and China
already has everything of military value Russia could sell them. Arms are the only real high-tech export industry they
have. And despite that, China can't even reverse-engineer the things Russia sold them; they reverse-engineered the SU-33, which pissed off Russia because they were hoping to make bank selling them more, then had to come crawling back because their knockoff turbofans kept failing and
dropping their fancy new carrier fighters into the drink. What can Russia sell China they aren't already? Oil? Already done. Food? Already done. Tech? Already done and anything China could then make itself has been. I'll remind you we've played this game before with an iron curtain bisecting world economies between superpower blocs - it was called the Cold War. And
we are not the ones who's economies failed so utterly that our superpower state collapsed under its own weight.
As for India, they have to play nice with Russia because Russian equipment defines like 80% of their TO&E. Refer to everything I said above about how expensive military gear is. Then factor in that when you have to buy enough new equipment for a
whole army, even replacing the damned
rifles is heinously expensive. People said this same shit about "dividing allies" back when the sanctions against nations that buy military equipment from Russia went through. I pointed it out myself to hate-crazed people screaming about Russia because
ORANGE MAN! And guess what?
India got their waiver. As fucking retarded as our aristocrats can be, even they realize that India being on our side against China is incredibly valuable and it doesn't really matter
what they shoot at China as long as they have something to shoot at all! Plus we're weaning India off Russian supply by offering them nice deals on shiny new Western equipment that makes Russia's best tech look like fucking tonka toys. Indian arms purchases from Russia, while still 49% of their buying,
is falling precipitously compared to what it used to be. Instead of punishing India for something they cannot help, we're seeing a
business opportunity. And since India's domestic arms industry is a rising star, with great potential hobbled by chronic problems, they have been very happy to engage in
defense industrial cooperation with the West. The West in general is an aerospace and military tech leader; we have
lots of things to teach them. And
China is breathing down India's neck very hard these days.
So chill with the doomposting, my dude. Russia's invasion has done what North Korea and China could not - scare the shit out of the Western world and force them to acknowledge the reality that history has
not ended and they had best be ready to fight in the not so distant future. The realization has been dawning slowly in some circles, but
too slow; e.g. France's temper tantrum over that submarine contract, despite their efforts to increase naval/military cooperation with India and other regional allies. I don't think China is too happy with Russia right now, because the frog just jumped out of that slow-cooker and is croaking
very loudly.
www.theatlantic.com
