"Ragnar" wrote in message
...

"Alejandro Magno" wrote in message
om...
Either way, Russian hardware has never performed up to expectations in
real
battle.

Kursk ?

I would note that Kursk was fought by the SOVIETS, not the Russians.

The best tanks of WW2 were Soviet and German. Even the French had
better tanks than America.

I would also note that Germany's "better" tanks lost, as did France's
"better" tanks. Also note that LeClerc's French Armored Division that
rolled into Paris AFTER if was liberated was riding in American Sherman
tanks.


Russian tanks were wiped off the battlefield in Iraq (twice). Russian
aircraft were wiped out of the sky over Bekaa, Kosovo, Libya and Iraq.
Russian anti-aircraft defenses were pushed into the dustbin of history
in
Syria, Viet Nam, Serbia and Iraq.

Really ?

Yes, really. The Syrians alone lost 85 Soviet-built planes in the 1982
Lebanon campaign, and managed to shoot down 0 US-built planes.


Also consider that the Israelis were flying aircraft of foreign origin which
invalidates Russian claims that their aircraft would fare much better if
Russians were flying them. In any case, either their aircraft don't perform
or the Russians are really poor teachers.

Isreali techniques for defeating the Syrian sam defenses were adopted by the
Americans in the first Gulf War. One of the interesting stories is how the
US came up with drones nearly from scratch while the build-up was ongoing.
By the time hostilities started, the US had a fleet of drones that it used
to sucker the sam sites into turning on their radars. Iraqi air defenses
were wiped out pretty much the first day.

The Iraqi-US tank battles of the first Gulf War are pretty interesting to
read about in detail. That was when there were no sanctions and Saddam was
buying Russia's best tanks.

Khadafi's confrontation with the US Navy was a washout for him.

Serbs lost their SAM sites and their Air Force was relegated to hangar guard
duty. It doesn't matter much if you have an Air Force if you can't/won't fly
it.

Russian submarines sink by themselves.

Just like the USS Thresher and the USS Scorpion.

Yes. However, the Soviets managed to lose at least 5 subs, one of which
still sits in 15,000 feet of water off Norway.


The waters around Russia are littered with the rusting hulks of their
submarines, many of them still with their reactors.