" Russian Army's Most Powerful Weapons of War" Topic

"Russia's Army is no joke.

The Russian Army is back. Like a bear awakening from hibernation, the Russian Ground Forces are shrugging off decades of neglect with a rearmament program designed to make it once again the most powerful army in Eurasia.

Russia's ten-year armament program, scheduled to run through 2020 at a cost of hundreds of billions of dollars, is halfway through. Russian defense spending increased by one-third this year, and should reach $96 USD billion by 2016.

Next week the world will see the fruits of that program, when the new might of the Russian Ground Forces will be on display at Moscow's seventieth anniversary Victory Day parade. Several new vehicles, including the Armata tank and Kurganets infantry fighting vehicle, have already been spotted during parade practice…"
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Amicalement
Armand

There new equipment sounds very impressive. Couple that with a recent article from Germany and Poland stating the do not think the current 120mm tank rounds are going to penetrate some of the newer T-90 and I believe T-80's and it sounds like Russia is starting to really wake-up.

This will make more modern Russian vs. USA scenarios much more difficult for the US player(s).

Sorry, but a handful of pre-production prototypes does not a 'revived' army make. When they start fielding line formations of the things, then I'll believe it. And whether they can even afford all the programs they're pushing, given the state of the Russian economy, is open to debate.

"Couple that with a recent article from Germany and Poland stating the do not think the current 120mm tank rounds are going to penetrate some of the newer T-90 and I believe T-80's"

That is due to the Russians introducing Relikt (the latest version of ERA, which is 'claimed' to be twice as effective as the older Kontakt-5). And the US already has a round in the works to defeat that.

I'm going to tag-team with Coastal2 and remind folks that the US is still using 120mm L/44 guns (and has a round intended to defeat Relikt ERA), when most everyone else has shifted to L/55 guns for an extra 200m/s muzzle velocity.

'And whether they can even afford all the programs they're pushing'

That is, for me, the key question. A countries go higher tech, costs go up. Likewise, the wage bill in Russia is also going up. At the moment I think they are trying to punch way above their weight – this can be sustained for a while, but long term????

We are seeing those costs in the F-35 program which is eating up budgets. I have to wonder if scrapping the F-35 and purchasing some more F-22 for the Air Force wouldn't be a smarter move. For the Marines and Navy they could look at the F-18 or helicopters for the Marines.