Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Several of these countries were created by the actions of Russian government. Which ones?
I think that's Bulgaria, Romania and Moldavia, but maybe more. And, of course, Ukraine and Belarus. Maybe some of Balkan states as well if you count them as eastern european.
Does the Tank Have a Future?
441–450 of 490 posts
Re: Does the Tank Have a Future?
#442Re: Does the Tank Have a Future?
#443Earlier quoted context omitted.
Problem for US and rest of NATO is that Baltic countries ARE in NATO. Once Ukraine goes Vilnus is next. Is USA ready to fight a conventional war in the Baltics? With what manpower? Germany is utterly useless right now and will be for the foreseeable future, French army is way too small same with UK. Very soon you might have to go to the Nukes.. It is much cheaper and safer to fight this war in Ukraine rather then try…
I think what you mean to say is that "NATO is the United States, the rest of the countries are just members". That's not to knock, necessarily, the rest of the members - they've all made choices and assumptions about their own security. I agree, this is a problem, for many more reasons than the fact that only a small percentage of Americans know which country Vilnius is in, let alone where it is on a map. >It is much…
Practically how does NATO actually liberate them. Does it have the stomach for the full scale high intensity war as we see in now in the East Ukraine? Not just Putin, I am also not sure of that. Who is going to lead the American armoured division drive to capture Kaliningrad..
Yes detoothing Russia in Ukraine is MUCH safer.
Re: Does the Tank Have a Future?
#444Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yup. The key point is, a weapon system becomes obsolete when something else does its job better, not when it becomes more vulnerable. When something valuable becomes more vulnerable, you protect it better. When it becomes less valuable because something else does the job better, then you get rid of it. As of right now, nothing does a ground offensive like a few dozen tanks advancing at top speed with appropriate supp…
There must have been _some_ intersections of time/technology and/or cost/efficiency where this didn't hold? Where a weapon system became _so_ vulnerable that, despite being the best at its job, it still wasn't good enough. As an example, is there a point where hypersonic weapons become so effective that aircraft carriers are [temporarily?] retired? Surely the cost (time, money, human lives) that goes into the weapon…
So what does Russia have? Currently, all they have fielded is the Kinzhal missile. But is it neither a hypersonic glide body nor a hypersonic cruise missile. It is simply an air-launched ballistic missile. It would not be suitable for an anti-ship mission, unless striking a ship docked in port. The impressive and novel thing about it is that they managed to get a ballistic missile to be launched from an aircraft, which is rather tricky to do from an engineering standpoint, and IIRC is the first ALBM to actually be deployed. They also have Avangard in development, which is a hypersonic glide body deployed from ICBMs for the nuclear strike mission. Finally, they have the Zircon missile in development, which is a hypersonic cruise missile meant for the anti-ship mission. Russia claims to have completed testing of the missile, but it doesn't appear to have been deployed yet. It's unclear how effective it would be against a carrier strike group, with air defenses, electronic countermeasures and decoys. Notably, it cruises at a high altitude, unlike most anti-ship missiles which try to skim the surface to make it harder to detect and track on radar.
Ultimately, I don't think that hypersonic weapons fundamentally change the security of the carrier. It may necessitate the development of some anti-missile missiles better tuned for the counter-hypersonic mission. It may necessitate altering doctrine towards the anti-ISR (intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance) mission to complicate targeting such missiles. I could be wrong of course!
Re: Does the Tank Have a Future?
#445Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think the claim is that SPG can also fire in direct mode and they have MUCH bigger guns. Imagine an SPG with trophy system bolted on it. Question is, is passive armour beyond stopping bullets and shrapnel worth it? I wonder if the new "tank" will be a wheeled SPG that can fire hull down and has an APS system. Or it could be something like BTR 4 with its auto cannon, being able to carry some infantry, add APS to tha…
APS protects against ATGM, not cannon fire.
Re: Does the Tank Have a Future?
#446Earlier quoted context omitted.
Russian-speaking citizens don't really want to study Russian as an "elective subject". They want to study in Russian. You have confirmed that it was getting no longer possible. That's like forcing all Canadians to be only taught in French and subsequently losing Vancouver to the US. So you have just confirmed everything that propaganda was talking about and were quite efficient at that.
The thread started by whimsicalism stating that Russian was banned in Ukraine, and I replied that it had a status similar to French or German in the US. Nobody has ever banned a language by allowing printing in it, allowing grades up to 4 to be taught in it, allowing secondary schools to teach it as a subject, and allowing private groups to continue teaching it as a primary language.
But more correct case in point is Belgium. If Belgium tried to force education to be in Dutch exclusively, there would very soon be no Belgium.
> allowing grades up to 4 to be taught in it,
"Banning grades after 4 from being taught in Russian" - I did it for you
All 30 years of Ukraine's independence they were seeing new limitations to the use of Russian, every year. Some of these are listed in comments.
Re: Does the Tank Have a Future?
#447Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Yup. The key point is, a weapon system becomes obsolete when something else does its job better, not when it becomes more vulnerable. When something valuable becomes more vulnerable, you protect it better. When it becomes less valuable because something else does the job better, then you get rid of it. What does a vulnerable tank do that self-propelled artillery doesn't do better? Not being vulnerable to small arms…
T-72's are 50 year old tanks. It's like fielding WW1 tanks in the Vietnam war. A T-72 is both easy to detect and easy to kill for someone with a Javelin, while the Javelin-man is hard to detect and non-trival to kill (at range) with the T-72. The arms race between protective equiment (armor, shields, etc) and anti-armor weapons has been going on for over a thousand years, arguably longer (like when Roman pila would g…
Re: Does the Tank Have a Future?
#448Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't remember any "intense diplomacy" other than more threats of sanctions, more public humiliation of Russia, no compromise on any question being discussed. In 8 years I remember Ukraine botching its obligations on Minsk agreements and Steinmeier formula. With such strength of diplomacy, no wonder it didn't work.
What sort of compromise would you suggest? How much territory should Ukraine cede to Russia this year? And how much more next year when Russia manufacturers some new fake complaint?
Re: Does the Tank Have a Future?
#449Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think that's Bulgaria, Romania and Moldavia, but maybe more. And, of course, Ukraine and Belarus. Maybe some of Balkan states as well if you count them as eastern european.
OK, and Russia caused the pogroms and a genocidal famine in Ukraine. It's not a good idea to learn your country's history in an overly rosy way. In fact, being kind to nationalists may have caused the present war. Russians should know that their country has had a sordid history.
Are you sure you can tell propaganda from history?
"Russia caused the pogroms" (sic) is another gem of same quality.
I wonder if you could point to a country which does not have "sordid history". But if you ever want to have a dialogue with Russian as opposed to war, you can start by not pretending that you don't have your own "sordid history" and is allowed to judge others.
Re: Does the Tank Have a Future?
#450Earlier quoted context omitted.
What sort of compromise would you suggest? How much territory should Ukraine cede to Russia this year? And how much more next year when Russia manufacturers some new fake complaint?
Maybe none. Is "NATO" a territory of Ukraine? Is "no limiting of Russian language usage" a territory of Ukraine? How about "not overthrowing legitimately elected president, twice"?