Special Forces - who is the best?

[Husar]

Western armor generally has composite armor, which means layers of different materials, functioning so that the different layers eat up the kinetic or explosive force of the projectile, thus denying penetration.

Eastern (Russian) armor is usually solid steel, but has nova days ERA, which is very interesting approach. It is basically lot of shaped charges placed on top the steel armor. It´s function is to defeat the incoming projectile by counter energy.

That's not entirely true as the Soviet T-64 was the first tank in the world to deploy composite armor and was later developed into the T-80, which is still in use today. I'm not sure to what extent the T-72 and T-90 family uses composite or whether they just rely on ERA as you say.
The Leopard 2 A5 and A6 also uses a clever system of spaced armor on the turret.

Of course as armor develops, so will the means to defeat armor. The most modern AT missiles have tandem HEAT warheads where two warheads hit one after another the same spot in the armor, thus defeating both classic Western and Eastern countermeasures many times. In Finnish inventory such AT missile is PSTOHJ 2000M (aka Eurospike) our lighter AT system is NLAW, which is a one man portable fire and forget AT missile which missile has double sensor for defeating systems like SHTORA. It is interesting indeed if countermeasure like ARENA can still defeat both. But i bet there is little it can do about multiple incoming projectiles. Like said earlier. It is endless race and there are lot of very deadly stuff around.

Indeed, but I suppose having ARENA is still better than not having ARENA.

Of course portable AT missiles are not at all only ways to effectively destroy armor. With enough HE you can destroy anything and the classic approach of large caliber kinetic projectiles like modern tank guns and autocannons for example GAU- 8 of US A-10 attack aircraft can defeat tanks.

Well, I often hear the tank that hits first with a shot from the cannon is the tank that wins. On the other hand Russian tanks extend their range and accuracy by a large margin by deploying anti tank missiles fired from their guns. the autocannons usually just work because they're on a plane and can hit from above or other unsuitable angles, at the same time the airplane is a nice target for anti air assets.

All in all we can never be sure what works and what not to most modern designs, unless there would be a war between two sides with latest equipments, which i think in the end we really dont want to witness.

I thought we're all looking forward to US vs. Russia on the Crimean peninsula. I could swear some Janes' flight sim or so was situated there. We could also reeneact it in Operation Flashpoint or maybe ArmA 2.