Vladimir De Gaulle, Charles De Gaulle Putin? The “glory” of France — opps; I mean of Russia.
Couple of weeks ago, I put together the reality of the so-called Russian horde supposedly threatening to overwhelm Western Europe like Attila the Hun at the height of the Cold War.
Performance of Russian armored equipment versus NATO equipment in the Gulf War — need I explain. Russian troops in mid-eighties probably no better than Arab troops — 180 armored divisions to train in a country that cannot produce a respectable passenger automobile. Syria’s Russian fighter jets went 0 to 90 against Israel’s NATO planes in 1982.
Russia has first quality fighter aircraft now, but I’m talking back when Europe was supposedly overrunable by the Russian hordes. Back then, Russia’s most numerous front line fighter (Mig-23/27 series) had the same high wing loading and low thrust to weight ratio as our “iron butterfly” (F-105) which was never intended to take on other fighters, only deliver tactical nukes on the “hordes.”
Rule of thumb is it takes 3 to 1 to successfully invade. In the mid-eighties, Russia and the Warsaw Pact had 135 divisions to NATO’s 30 in Central Europe (4.5 to 1). Following the Reagan rebuild (M-1 tanks, etc.) and looking at comparative performance in the Gulf War it looks like any mid-80s Warsaw Pact invasion attempt would have been cleaned out. (It would have been hard to sneak 45 divisions across 11 time zones from China; ditto for 30 up back roads from Turkey.)
With all this unconsciously rattling around in my head for the last couple of weeks that old first impression of the overwhelming Russian hordes may have faded from my head. Without that first impression Putin’s monkeying around in the Ukraine and fiddling with the Sea of Azov and sending two supersonic Blackjack strategic bombers to Venezuela to taunt us begin to look like France trying to hold on to Algeria — if not trying as seriously. (Russia produced 36 of these 1987 bombers — at it’s height our strategic air command possessed 750 B-52s, 1400 B-47s and 100 supersonic B-58s.)
Maybe it’s time for Russia to consider that it never was a first class power and to settle back to watch us to be displaced by China and India who will in turn be displaced by a world with one language and one currency, etc. Just saying.
As you know, Putin said the greatest tragedy of modern times was the collapse of the Soviet Union (or something like that). He seems to have ambitions to try to reverse that only under the rubric of Russia, not the Soviet Union. Maybe you should explain the situation to him.
Vladimir De Gaulle, Charles De Gaulle Putin? The “glory” of France — opps; I mean of Russia.
Couple of weeks ago, I put together the reality of the so-called Russian horde supposedly threatening to overwhelm Western Europe like Attila the Hun at the height of the Cold War.
Performance of Russian armored equipment versus NATO equipment in the Gulf War — need I explain. Russian troops in mid-eighties probably no better than Arab troops — 180 armored divisions to train in a country that cannot produce a respectable passenger automobile. Syria’s Russian fighter jets went 0 to 90 against Israel’s NATO planes in 1982.
Russia has first quality fighter aircraft now, but I’m talking back when Europe was supposedly overrunable by the Russian hordes. Back then, Russia’s most numerous front line fighter (Mig-23/27 series) had the same high wing loading and low thrust to weight ratio as our “iron butterfly” (F-105) which was never intended to take on other fighters, only deliver tactical nukes on the “hordes.”
Rule of thumb is it takes 3 to 1 to successfully invade. In the mid-eighties, Russia and the Warsaw Pact had 135 divisions to NATO’s 30 in Central Europe (4.5 to 1). Following the Reagan rebuild (M-1 tanks, etc.) and looking at comparative performance in the Gulf War it looks like any mid-80s Warsaw Pact invasion attempt would have been cleaned out. (It would have been hard to sneak 45 divisions across 11 time zones from China; ditto for 30 up back roads from Turkey.)
With all this unconsciously rattling around in my head for the last couple of weeks that old first impression of the overwhelming Russian hordes may have faded from my head. Without that first impression Putin’s monkeying around in the Ukraine and fiddling with the Sea of Azov and sending two supersonic Blackjack strategic bombers to Venezuela to taunt us begin to look like France trying to hold on to Algeria — if not trying as seriously. (Russia produced 36 of these 1987 bombers — at it’s height our strategic air command possessed 750 B-52s, 1400 B-47s and 100 supersonic B-58s.)
Maybe it’s time for Russia to consider that it never was a first class power and to settle back to watch us to be displaced by China and India who will in turn be displaced by a world with one language and one currency, etc. Just saying.
As you know, Putin said the greatest tragedy of modern times was the collapse of the Soviet Union (or something like that). He seems to have ambitions to try to reverse that only under the rubric of Russia, not the Soviet Union. Maybe you should explain the situation to him.