Originally posted by: Aimster
Originally posted by: Common Courtesy
Originally posted by: Aimster
Russia spends plenty on research. It spends little on actually buying that research.
It wants to develop military equipment that is better than the U.S and sell it.
And up to this point, they have failed in building better mousetraps.
Within real world testing, they are always a generation behind in technology.
Only once have they had a technological lead - back in the late 60s
Doesn't Russia make better:
4th generation fighters
better tanks
better air defense systems (S-400)
What do you think?
The first premise may be is the quality of what they export proportional to what they do not export.
What they have exported has not stood up to the Western equipment in actual combat conditions.
In the conflicts where Russian equipment was exported and manned by Russian and proxies (Korea, Vietnam, the ME), the equipment under combat conditions has failed to deliver because of quality and/or training in the use.
Non-exported Russian aircraft have not been able to stand up (in cold war conditions) against Western forces.
If the latest generation of Russian tanks were fielded in the ME, they failed.
Russia may have developed a more modern air defense system; however, they have not tested it against Western pilots and A/C.
Such a system has not been tested against the latest generation of Western combat A/C which are more manuverable and stealthier than what the Russians/procies saw in the previous conflicts.
The Russina training/officer system is much weaker than during the cold war which will also handicap the quality of any technology.