Comparison over US and Russian military technology

Another great Quora article I'm sharing to you guys:

Why is Russia making all these technological advances for their military and it seems like the US isn't doing anything?

http://www.quora.com/Why-is-Russia-...the-US-isnt-doing-anything/answer/Igor-Markov

Igor Markov, Read-a-lot
310 upvotes by Dave Blunier (Helicopter pilot in the US Coast Guard MH-60J/T... (more) ), Eric Tang (Paratrooper, Troop Commander, U.S. Army), Jon Mixon(USAF Vet), Joseph Guindi, (more)


As of July 1, 2015, Russia's government officials report that 186 types of Russian-made weapons depend on parts from Ukraine and 571 types depend on parts made in NATO and/or EU countries. Given that those parts are now unavailable, it will take Russia until 2018 to replace just the Ukrainian parts (at least that's the plan):
lenta.ru
Рогозин пообещал замещение украинских комплектующих в оборонке к 2018 году. The next step would be to replace NATO/EU components. Until then, I am afraid that Russia's advances are going to be severely handicapped. For example, it cannot complete the newest frigates and transport airplanes scheduled for delivery in 2015. And don't forget that Russia's military budget was cut by 10% in 2015. Catching up on missing parts means stopping much of the R&D. Not to mention that some R&D was done in Ukraine, but is now out of reach (Россия остановила сотрудничество с Украиной по двигателю для самолета МС-21). In July 2015, it turned out that the money invested in making Russian ship-building import-independent failed to produce results (according to D.Rogozin:http://m.fontanka.ru/2015/07/02/...).

Now let's look at what's available today.
The US has over 170 fifth-generation fighters (F-22) deployed, for many years, whereas Russia just reduced their purchase order for PAK FA from 56 to 12, over the next few years (total, not each year). PAK FA is the first Russian stealth fighter, and was designed for frontal stealth, whereas F-22 has all-around stealth.

Russia does not have carrier-based fighters with stealth, and no plans for them. The US designed a carrier-based variant of F-35, which is nearing production (other variants are already dropping bombs).

Heat-seekers for all of Russia's air-to-air missiles were produced in Ukraine (the Arsenal factory in Kyiv) and won't be delivered in the foreseeable future.

Russia has no strategic stealth bombers and none are planned for production, whereas the US has over a dozen B-2 bombers.

Russia has no stealth destroyers, whereas the US has a Zumwalt-class destroyer with several more in production. Russia's latest naval ships are awaiting their powerplants to be delivered from Germany and Ukraine, which is not going to happen for the next ten year at least.

The US has ten aircraft carrier strike groups, while Russia has none (and only one aircraft carrier, with no construction in progress). The US is about to launch a new carrier class with many technological innovations: Gerald R. Ford-class aircraft carrier.

Russia's transport aviation is largely outdated and too small to deploy large forces quickly. The heavy IL-76 can land in very few places, but the bulk of the planes are old An-26 that have not been upgraded in the last 20 years. Russia failed to produce mid-size transports. The delivery of new An-140 planes in 2015 was cancelled because Ukraine halted the supply of critical components.

In 2015, Russia has lost its ability to detect incoming nuclear missiles from space, whereas the US early-warning satellite network is alive and kicking.

Russia's helicopter manufacturing was in a great shape until 2014, when the engines supplied from Ukraine became unavailable. Russia can produce helicopter engines, but not nearly as many as Ukraine and not at the same cost. So, now Russia has to redesign the most popular helicopters (such as the old Soviet-designed Mi-8). Moreover, it was just announced (В России возобновится производство вертолета-амфибии Ми-14ПС) that Russia will resume production of a 30-year-old Mi-14PS helicopter design. How's that for new technology?

Russia's Navy ships are very specialized (and there are relatively few of them). For example, current anti-submarine ships carry only torpedos and air-defense equipment, but cannot target surface ships and on-shore installations. In contrast, most US navy ships support a variety of functions and do that well. The main difference is that for many years Russia did not have sufficient funds for Navy upgrades.

Russia's semiconductor industry is far behind the US, Taiwan, Japan, Western Europe, Israel, China, Malaysia and Singapore (especially in digital electronics). As a consequence, Russia's smart weapons, avionics and UAVs are lagging behind.

If you are interested in newer technology, take a look at the US navy laser gun demo, and the rail gun demo below. Russia does not have either.
Updated 1 Jul • 47,522 views

 

Its not that the U.S. isn't advancing. They are going diagonal not linear. Instead of focusing on better already existing stuff they are going for new stuff like lasers. And more passive systems.

 

Interesting argument in the comments about how many senior russian decision makers for air forces don't really like stealth and prefer dogfighting and want their planes to have great dogfighting capabilities while sacrificing stealth.

The point made in the comment was that in future the best dogfighting craft will be drones because they can pull well beyond 8g turns, they can turn so fast that a pilot couldn't survive it.

If that argument makes sense then it also makes sense that if you want to actually keep human pilots around then having advanced stealth doesn't seem like a bad idea.

 

Well they are going passive stealth instead active.

 

Also from commentary:

 

Meanwhile if US is making public about their mass drivers and lasers - what's the stuff that's still redacted?

And things like this:

What, did it spend like over a year on a single mission or so? Not excited yet? I very much doubt it's filled with cellophane and an attempt to troll China and Russia. What does it really do? And I'd be pretty disappointed if none of you didn't even for a second think about extraterrestrials!

 

Navy/marine space fighter program? Known about that for years.

I've heard (air force i think maybe army) is/was working on plasma shields.

Marine orbital insertion concept.

Goddamit. Copy on my phone isnt working. Its project hot eagle.

 

Was the plasma shield the project where you'd load up power to capacitor and then allow the charge to envelop your tank/vehicle so that it offers protection against armor penetrators? Or is it the plasma window/plasma screen thing where you create a field of plasma in a frame and it offers serious resistance to any particles of matter ?

I've not read anything about creating a plasma shield without a frame but nothing prevents you from having very durable and thin frame to keep together a very durable plasma shield. As far as not stopping lasers - lasers are not so practical within atmosphere so it's not as serious of an issue.

 

The one i saw was a laser based shied (looked up not in person). More powerful could stop energy weapons but the prototype is basically alot of flash bang grenades going off at once effect

 

Going by just technology Russia is definitely in a major rut. Something their commanders know quite well, they are sitting at the biggest deficit of military Technology for use in a conventional war that they have experienced in something like 100 years. They are reliant on 3rd Generation tanks, 4th Generation aircraft and woefully ill equipped Drone/Anti-Aircraft/AWAC and other units.

What they do have is an excellent framework for possible expansion of these forces, as well as a lot of scary "prototypes" that they can parade out whenever they need to exert some form of influence. They also have a excellent grasp on how to employ the next generation of Armor aka the T-14... which on paper will make it one of the most survivable tanks on the modern battlefield, one that is able to reliably intercept and destroy incoming ATGM's and is built to protect it's crew from catastrophic explosions and penetrating hits from Sabot and other Anti-Armor ammunition's. Quite a radical redesign of armor and probably also a step towards a new combat doctrine in which a smaller Russian military is envisioned, one more in line with it's Western counterparts and less reliant on conscripts in a possible wartime.

In conjuction we have gotten a good look at a lot of the newer technologies being employed by both Russian artillery and Russian small arms since the beginning of the War in the Donbass. Russian UAV technology while lagging behind the USA in many regards has proven itself as effective in the roles it was designed for. Russian small arms designs are harder to track but even so we have seen that the RPO shmel rocket has progressed quite far, since it's earlier uses in Chechnya and Afghanistan, to the point that it has helped the rebels win several major engagements specifically at the Donetsk airport and around Debaltseve. There have been reports of Russian TOS-1's being fielded by Iraq against ISIS as well which would be quite interesting to hear about as this system is specifically designed to be used in the built up urban combat we are to expect from the 21st Century.

Having said all of that, Russian tactics have continued to shy away from possible direct confrontation and seem to be focusing on destabilizing neighbors/rivals and diplomatically mucking the waters for everyone in an attempt to keep others on the back foot and keep their domestic population supporting the ruling parties. Doing so requires less military resources then a full blown arms build up but runs the risk of international involvement on their own doorstep and even isolating themselves from the world economy/military materials they need to build their next generation of weapons. In any event they are still decades behind but even with the cuts to their budget don't discount their designers.

 

Only stealthy from directly in front. From any other direction their plane is essentially a normal 4th gen fighter.

Not really good given that Nato has technology to transfer targeting data between their units so if one unit gets a glance at it from any other direction than front it can inform the plane in it's front and thus enable a shot.

By active stealth do you mean things like ECM etc whereas passive would be things that reduce the cross section and signature?

They're apparently having a ton of difficulties with the Armata such as the factory that could design them is in risk of going bankrupt and even the production numbers they're planning seem to be very low. There was talk that their generals were wanting to buy tanks from Germany couple years back given that Armata is apparently still a prototype that is actually missing several key technologies before it will work. If that is the case then the final production model could be in the distant future or considerably less ambitious.

There was a similar thing for their strategic bombers where they simply couldn't afford to order enough of them for production for the manufacturer to stay profitable and they had to pull all sorts of tricks about upgrading existing ones etc. just to keep the production going and to maintain the know-how.

They do have very good engineers and scientists but they haven't focus and proper self reliance in a lot of fields.

I agree with your analysis. Due to their massive supply and funding issues right now they're not going to be able to do much else than use special operatives and political pressure to maximize their influence with what they have. It is kind of similar to 30's Red Army except then they merely had a lot of obsolete equipment but at least they could produce all the parts they needed themselves. Now they have a lot of old equipment but they can't even produce all the parts for the old equipment, much less for the new.

This together with military cuts means they need to keep wear and tear and attrition very low to maintain their forces at current strength. And having to invest in modernization and replacement of missing technologies means less time for forward thinking R&D. You can't do everything at once while cutting costs so if they're going to try to hang on to their R&D for future tech then it means that their capacity to replace missing and lost tech and to modernize will be limited and vice versa.

 

Yes active being ECM and such while pssive being the construction, materials and paint and such.

 

I hear that a standard F-18 can sneak up on russian fighters like nothing due to ECM etc. Even comms signals are sent with directional antennas.

 

I shouldn't be posting while I'm trying to write code at work, but a lot of indications lately that the Russian airforce is in a state of serious disrepair. They've skimped on maintainence for too long, and coupled with its increased operating tempo since this silly return to Cold-War-era tactics it seems like they'll have some hard decisions to make soon. Five crashes in the last month. Su-24 fleet is grounded. Not rosy news for them.

 

My excuses are "it's compiling", "it's building", "I'm backing up everything". If I'm honest I'll just admit I'm working on something that is annoyingly difficult and it's more fun to do something else. But that's just me

 

As a Marine.

 

don't we already halo, is orbital that much different?

 

Beware. It might be the Steiner's way of doing orbital insertion.

 

Orbital would be higher and they wouldnt be jumping.

 

they -could- jump, they'd just have to have something to help them not turn into kindling on the way down. HALO jumps however are still within the atmosphere and the LO part means 'low opening' not low orbit, there is also apparently a HAHO which is a high opening but hasn't made it's cinema debut and therefor is not as well known