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Originally Posted by 95th Rifleman
That worked fine in Iraq where they had 3rd rate AAA and most of their air defence had been destroyed prior to the invasion. iraq relied far too much on fixed air defence anyway.
In a theoretical scrap against Russia you are dealing the with the best air defence assets in the world at the moment. Also your shiny M1's will be facing Russian MIL-28's and KA-50's with the added problem that American air defence assets are very much behind the curve.
modern, Russian mobile air defence will murder western aviation.
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While I agree that russian mobile battlefield air defense is much better than US Air Defense, the idea that Mil's and Ka's will eat M1's is equally as flawed.
I know you feel that Russian equipment is UberFantasticShineySparklyCool, but, there is a reason why a lot of countries when given the option choose by and large Western Equipment over Russian Equipment save on issues of Cost.
The KA50 is a piss poor ground attack helo: But I will give it this, Ground Attack is *not* its mission. Where the KA50 would (Again, is a prototype ubermachine not in service in any reasonable numbers) give NATO fits is in its defined role: the Anti-Helo mission. In this, the russians was a step in front of the west, as its a mission that we haven't given any serious thought to. The 30mm cannon on the Apache is little more than a glorified 30mm High Velocity Grenade Launcher, and mounting Sidewinders on it, while possible, or Stingers for that matter, is a ad-hoc solution that may or may not work out.
The MiL28 is decent: It's actually better than the AH1G/S series, and probably the equal to early AH1W's of the Marines - and maybe, maybe, early first flight Apache's in the mechanical sense. Where it falls apart is in regards to fighting in anything other than daylight: While it has some night vision capability, better than the hinds, it is nowhere near as good as western night-vision. Getting closer, I'll agree, but if I can see you well before you can see me, guess who is going to win?
One thing I will give the Russians is that the BMP3 is actually pretty darn interesting. While I think the IFV is, on the whole, a poor design path to follow, give the thing modern optics and firecontrol systems, which those that have purchased it have, and you got a pretty scary - if easily killed - IFV.