Re: Defence procurement bungles and wins
Reply #17 –
Russia havent deployed their best jets/pilots on mass as yet, their commanders dont want to risk them after losing a SU34 early in the conflict to the Ukraine anti-aircraft missile systems which as you described have proven very adequate.
Its the same with their best troops who have been kept back as well, Putin thought his conscripts and armored columns would do the job but they have also failed with the infantry not so keen to engage the Ukranians on the ground and leaving their tanks exposed to very good anti tank weaponry supplied by the British in the main.
Ukraine were hard hit when they split from the USSR and had to give up their nukes and airforce which included a decent air fleet of bombers which would have been very handy today. Lot of their Nukes were in silo's which would have been a major deterrent to Putin as would those bombers which could carry nuclear payloads as well as conventional bombs.
In fact, the Russian troops Putin sent into Ukraine are volunteers, not conscripts. Apart from poorly maintained vehicles and logistical problems, Putin's forces have largely failed because Ukraine's air defences have held up very well and, without overwhelming air superiority, the ground forces are vulnerable to well-equipped Ukranian forces fighting on their own territory.
The tanks deployed by the Russians are primarily 1970s vintage T-72s and T-80s (the latter designed and built in Ukraine) and they have been next to useless in the face of an onslaught of mainly British/Swedish Javelin anti-tank missiles. The next generation T-90s, a development of the T-72, have fared little better and the Russians' 21st century T-14 Armata MBT is so unreliable that it cannot be deployed.
Czech Republic T-72s are now being sent to Ukraine and Russia's numerical superiority in MBTs is slowly being reversed.
NATO would be pleased in the knowledge that its more sophisticated MBTs and anti-tank weaponry would make mincemeat of the Russian armoured columns.