Russian jets, tanks, armor boats are third world. They wouldn't survive a battle against any western military...except for Germany who really doesn't have a functional one.
This all seems hard to know. The Russians have built jets that were more-maneuverable than ours in the past. We've built some real lemons like the F-117, F-14, and F-35. The Fighter Mafia managed to get the F-15, F-16, and F-18 through the Pentagon but had to fight the generals every step of the way. Read "Boyd" by Robert Coram. We don't have a lot of F-22s because they cost so much to build. This is the latest Russian jet.
The Sukhoi Su-57, codenamed Felon, is a stealth-capable multi-role fifth-generation fighter jet being developed for the Russian Air Force.
www.airforce-technology.com
Much depends on training.
I don't know how their tanks stack up to ours, but I bet theirs work better in winter. The tests of the Bradley FIghting Vehicle were totally staged.
www.nytimes.com
The Pentagon Wars (Saturday, February 28; 8 to 9:30 p.m.; HBO) wavers uncertainly between broad satire and savage exposé. From the nonfiction book by retired Air Force colonel James G. Burton, Jamie Malanowski and Martyn Burke have confected a [...]
nymag.com
We wasted a lot of Russian tanks in Iraq I and II, but IDK how many were destroyed by our tanks, anti-tank missiles, or the A-10 which is a superb airplane that the generals fought all the way through development.
The only comparison I could find between our readiness as a Western military and the bulk of NATO and theirs is this:
As we all have, I have been watching the impressive Russian ground forces arrayed to invade Ukraine from three sides. Some comments after consultation with a good friend in the Marines: Upon due consideration, it might have been unthoughtfully wise to not place our military in harm’s way simply...
smallwarsjournal.com
Seems to me we have no way of knowing all this but the Russians have fought serious enemies recently in Chechnya and made reforms afterward.
The only thing scary about Russias military is nuclear weapons and their appetite for using weapons of mass destruction without a thought. If Ukraine resistance holds or slows the timeline down Putin will order the use of thermobaric weapons, which suck the oxygen out of the surrounding area and kill everyone in large swaths. He is going to start dropping them on Kyiv soon. Biden and Germany will still buy oil from him though.
Seems to me like they're trying to minimize destruction and loss of life. Much depends on whether Ukrainian civilians who were armed yesterday shoot at the Russians out of buildings in Kiev. That would result in much more destruction. In the limit, it could look like this:
Consider that your average Ukrainian woman has only one child. Will she send her son or husband out to fight an unwinnable, protracted guerrilla war against the Russians or tell him to accept the inevitable outcome?
