In Defense of the Red Army

[raketenjagdpanzer]

I remember playing plenty of flight sims in the 80s (F19/F117, Gunship, etc.) and being constantly frustrated by the clouds of SAMs so thick they'd blot the frigging sun out. :P

Always wondered why we never tried to maintain developmental parity - no offense but the M163 and Chaparral were jokes compared to some of the gear the Soviets fielded. Yeah some of it was pretty bad (the SA9, for example, had a very poor showing in S. Lebanon), but the Israelis were rightly afraid of the Shilka and SA11.

It seems like every time we got something comparable it would get shitcanned. Roland: Not Built Here (neither is a lot of gear we use and used so why was that singled out). ADATS: Same thing.

Patriot is kick-ass...but about as mobile as my house (which is to say: not). So Patriot is about like the SA-2.

Sigh.

(I still think the west won the Cold War :P )

[95th Rifleman]

Originally Posted by raketenjagdpanzer

I remember playing plenty of flight sims in the 80s (F19/F117, Gunship, etc.) and being constantly frustrated by the clouds of SAMs so thick they'd blot the frigging sun out. :P

Always wondered why we never tried to maintain developmental parity - no offense but the M163 and Chaparral were jokes compared to some of the gear the Soviets fielded. Yeah some of it was pretty bad (the SA9, for example, had a very poor showing in S. Lebanon), but the Israelis were rightly afraid of the Shilka and SA11.

It seems like every time we got something comparable it would get shitcanned. Roland: Not Built Here (neither is a lot of gear we use and used so why was that singled out). ADATS: Same thing.

Patriot is kick-ass...but about as mobile as my house (which is to say: not). So Patriot is about like the SA-2.

Sigh.

(I still think the west won the Cold War :P )

It was a case of arrogance and over-reliance on air technology on the part of the US. Germany and Britain tried hard to keep up with the German Roland and Gepard and the British Rapier and Javelin (later we adopted the starstreak).

American thinking got a bit blinded by the success of the stinger in Afghanitan and their belief that their aircraft would be ble to avoid such air defence systems, they over relied on their stealth and SEAD aircraft.