Quote Originally Posted by Husar View Post
I'm still not sure about that. Russia has some really good high-tech and a lot of their gear is underestimated. Other people have made that mistake before.
Russia also still runs a lot of units on conscripts who are only in for a year - the average British soldier is in for five. High levels of corruption make it likely that Russia has unknown shortages of expensive kit, or a lack of (say) shells for it's tanks.Added to which, corruption may also reveal flaws in bits of kit like boots, which would be pretty terrible.

Having said that - we currently don't have enough ammo for the L30 gun on the Challie two, so British tanks would be under-armed until they restart production of shells.

That was the major motivator behind moving to the German gun, btw, and the issue was actually the power pack rather than the turret. Point being - we have logistical flaws too.

Overall I still think we have an edge because we're more consistent across the board.

I may have gone a bit too far there and sorry about the ad hominem.
I still find that western rhetoric colours him far worse than a lot of people in his own country see him. If Putin is that bad, Russians will find a way to get rid of him. But by giving him good outside excuses and funding NGOs that work against him, we are not helping.
I think I've several times expressed my admiration for Putin's political ability, and I've said I don't think he's "evil" but if he isn't an enemy of the West, he's at least the key political opponent.

"Facist" is still the best way to describe his government though, because he isn't a King.

Oh - and thank you for apologising.

There were enough wars by other presidents, regime changes, attempted regime changes etc.
That these things are historic is of little help when the current admins and large parts of the population seem to follow a very similar line.
Debatable - given that most of that was the Cold War. Still, NATO wasn't the prime tool used to coerce other nations into supporting the US.

Germans want Germany to take a more prominent role on the world stage but noone wants to do this by sending the army overseas.
As for capabilities, that stay-at-home army had more than 3000 tanks, the new one will have less than 300. You can roll over third world countries or the Netherlands with those but against a more competent opponent they're not enough.
This is admittedly a problem, though perhaps no as bad as you might think. if the other 2700 tanks stay in storage they're unlikely to get blown to bits at the start of WWIII and will therefore be avaialble for the meat grinder after the initial blow up.

I think Russia does, but what's your point? That western intelligence has gone rogue and is uncontrollable?
That everybody spies on everybody. If the Germans aren't spying on the US, it's only because they can't.

I agree that he is a power hungry muppet but IIRC he didn't need to manipulate a lot and he (his party) still got roughly 50% of the votes anyway. As Sarmatian said, the best course is probably to wait until the Russians deal with him themselves and realize that the West is not as antagonistic towards Russia as it currently actually is.
I read up on him recently. He's repeatedly manipulated the composition of the Durma, and the ability of opposition candidates to campaign effectively, banned viable alternative political parties...

Tyranny doesn't necessarily mean not holding elections, it just means nobbling your opponents, and we have ample evidence of that via intimidation, kangaroo courts, murder...

About the only election he seems to have won remotely fairly was his second Presidential term - Yeltsin manipulated the situation to make sure he won the first one, Putin made sure he was going to be Prime Minister - then he made sure he would be President again - and I recall accusations of fixing and voter intimidation then.