> People also forget NATO fought a much shitter/temu RU in Yugoslavia where NATO threw everything at even more legacy soviet systems. All of the awacs, prowlers, F117 barely chiped away at 20% of Yugoslav anti air, something like 700 harms were fired and destroyed less than handful of SA6 batteries. Hard to argue EU part of NATO has better military capability than 20 years ago
Likewise the reason why Russia couldn't steamroll Ukraine swiftly is because Ukraine anti air is very formidable (using Soviet hardware no less). That is why it is wrong to simply assume Russia is weak.
There's pics of UKR javalin calvary too. It's precisely because they're situationally better than tanks in certain combat conditions. For the same reason everyone is zipping around in dirt bikes and golf carts or UKR retiring M1 tanks from frontlines. Look up survivability onion, tanks/armor get detected and destroyed because they're too visible vs modern frontline battlefield recon. If you want to survive, have to move to smaller/more agile platforms to avoid detection in the first place. RU and UKR are both learning and adapting. It's reflection that last 50 years of doctorine is obsolete, aka everything EU military also hedged on. If shit ever hits the fan, NATO maybe donkeying as well.
I don't think that's true. As an example, Finland and French doctrine are very different. It's easier to test all Euopean nations diffrent doctrine and choose what works best (especially if countries from the Balkans add their grain of salt)
Imho that's where European defense industry (as a whole) is interesting. Because you have 5 competing IFV designs (well, over 15, but really, 5 different design that does different things). You also have multiple tanks (and AMX-10s), as well as a bunch of different drone constructors. Even in gun design you have multiple choices, andh while optics and optrionics are Thales', overall equipements are extremely distributed. Europe might find itself on the backfoot in case of an engagement, but i'm pretty sure it would bounce back quickly.
Yes, France have multiple different doctrines. It's most known one is the "Force de Frappe" [0], but the Legion have one, and if you talk about "doctrine d'emploi" every bit of equipment have one (the AMX-10 necessitate a doctrine d'emploi so different than regular MBT than the whole French cavalry have a different general doctrine than any other mechanized troups)
Still sources like Covert Cabal and others do make me think it isn't only a tactical consideration the russians have made but also a reflection of the fact that they very much do see the end of their stockpile.
You really make the best point here. End of the day, the 1986-style WW2++ strategy is dead. Manned air superiority outside of the third world is dead.
The Russian failure is the exemplar. They were re-waging WW2, and they have little more than a lot of cooked tankers to show for it. Now we’re rolling with throwing prisoners into trenches to stop the maneuver warfare, because they can’t maneuver.
The US is probably in as bad of a condition. Given the poor performance of air power in Ukraine and the Trump/Putin driven destruction of world alignment, US naval power is questionable. Aircraft carriers will become ineffective as modern SAMs are sold on the market. Our submarine platforms are old, manufacturing is barely operational, and we’ll probably fire key individuals if we haven’t already.
Aircraft carriers were always a joke in a US vs. Soviet conflict. A carrier will help with third-world enemies that cannot threaten it. However, the Soviet Union had capable submarine forces as well as ship-launched (e.g. from Kirov class cruisers) as well as air-launched anti-ship missiles which in numbers can overwhelm the carriers air defense screen.
In WW3 the role of an aircraft carrier is to launch its airplanes exactly once, before it is sunk.
Let's be fair here. If we rightly mock all the silly *pravda sites, the mules aren't exactly reported in the serious press either.
It seems more likely that mules were used where they make sense: Supplying ammo to a trench deeply in the forest, where mules are the superior "technology". Then that observation was blown out of proportion.
Remember that "the Russians are fighting with shovels" was a slogan in 2022.
One problem with the digital age is you can find news to support any view, regardless of how disconnected from reality it may be. And enough people to echo such that one may not realize how ridiculous they sound.
Likewise the reason why Russia couldn't steamroll Ukraine swiftly is because Ukraine anti air is very formidable (using Soviet hardware no less). That is why it is wrong to simply assume Russia is weak.