"Is Russia Now Strategically On Par With NATO?" Topic

"Russia's defense minister says the military has received a steady flow of new weapons, allowing it to maintain a "strategic parity" with NATO.

Sergei Shoigu said in a Wednesday speech before lawmakers that Russia's nuclear forces have been equipped with the new Yars intercontinental ballistic missiles with an enhanced capability to penetrate any potential missile defense.

The Navy has commissioned three new Borei-class nuclear submarines armed with the Bulava ICBMs, and Shoigu said their number will reach seven by 2021. He said that after 2021, the military will also start receiving a modernized version of the Tu-160 long-range bomber…"
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Amicalement
Armand

No, despite spending lots of money on their military recently, they can no longer do so because of the poor state of the Russian economy. Plus new Russian weapons never work. Perhaps they should spend more time on product testing.

Partly as VVV, but also what logistical support do the Russian forces have? Small economy so something had to be missed out in all this modernization – I suspect that they have a lot of undertested equipment with lots of bugs, a few 'good' units in the army, navy, air force, but not much backing that face.

Russians got slaughtered in Chechneya and have not done that well in Ukraine. Putin talks the talk but I suspect that is all they have. I think only 400 A-14 tanks have been built, because that is all they can afford. And will they work, I doubt it (see above, lack of testing).

It is not the pieces its the game. Russian playing Chess Nato playing tic tac toe (down from checkers)

They don't work bad on Syria…

Amicalement
Armand

When the Soviets attacked the Fins, many of their tanks were shipped by rail, many couldn't even get off the wagons.

In 1941, it turned out that about a quarter and more of all Soviet tanks were inoperable, some had never worked a single day since they came out of the factory.

Soviet readiness reports from the Cold War were leaked after the wall fell revealing that many units suffered breakdowns and due to red tape, spare parts were permanently in short supply.

During the invasion of Hungary, several tanks broke down, left behind by their crews. A few were repaired, others served as pillboxes by the insurgents.

Again in Chechnya, Russian equipment proved to be slightly less than reliable, same story in Ukraine.

But when it comes to a possible clash with Nato, every single Russian tank is expected to operate at 120% efficiency and all estimates of Russian available tanks are underestimations of at least 100-200%

All this talk about countering the Russians, when our dear leader says they are our friends….

Yeah If the 1945 was better than the 1940-41 army don't sell the Russian short.

Patrick R -

If having military equipment breakdown is an indicator of military weakness and incapacity, then sit yourself down. I have news for you: American equipment also breaks down. Every Army exercise I was involved in in Germany in the late 1970s had a greater or lesser number of breakdowns of combat and various other vehicles. One exercise saw about 50% of my mech battalion's vehicles breakdown on a road march to the Rhine.

Murphey's Law doesn't play favorites.

Hell, US Navy ships are designed for 33% availability!

We try to keep aircraft at higher availability, but commercial birds are down for about a week for inspections every 100 hours of flight time, so about 66-75% availability.

Military birds have lots more systems, but are nominally capable of about the same availability. The military can throw more mechanics at a plane to reduce downtime, though. As long as those mechanics aren't patching holes in other birds, anyway.

"They don't work bad on Syria…"
Syria is a war where the enemy does not shoot back (although sometimes they do). Russia counts Syria as a live fire exercise and thats the way it is funded. Give the rebels medium range SAMs and Putin would lose interest in Syria (its too far from Russia to fight a real war).