Comment by sofixa | Hacker News Reader

Comment by sofixa | Hacker News Reader

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Russia is a mafia run state, true, and they're severely behind in many areas.

However, they have very capable military hardware, and in many types of it, quantity has a quality of its own. It doesn't matter much that an M1 Abrams is technically superior than a T-14 Armata if for the same budget you can get three times more Armatas.

That, and ease of maintenance and support, is among the reasons why Russian military hardware is very popular and sells extremely well, even if it might not be the best objectively compared to the competition.

And sometimes it is better, like the S-400 SAM which is objectively better than the Patriot, or some types of missiles ( e.g. BrahMos). Or BMPs/BTRs that are even popular with very US friendly Gulf states which don't care about budgets.

Regarding Spain, they have literally developed a (small) aircraft carrier, frigates, supply ships, submarines that were successfully sold abroad. Airbus Military is based in Spain, and they're working on a future stealth 6 gen fighter with Dassault Aviation, Thales and Indra ( which are fully Spanish).

Don't shit on smaller countries just because they don't have the same budget as the US.

Except every these example have huge issues:

1. T-14 Armata never entered into serial production, Russia lacks resources to actually make it into product, they just built cardboard prototype and left it there. Abrams is being produced like hot cakes. It's just Russia's claim that T-14 is superior but there is 0 proof.

2. Maintenance and support of junk is still junk

3. It's Russia's claim that S-400 SAM is better, but nobody knows the truth, in fact S-300 only proved itself in battle by shooting down civilian aircraft over Ukraine when Russia invaded it, killing innocent children in the air.

4. BMP/BTR lack sufficient armor to the point that soldiers prefer to go marching on their own foot because it is basically death trap to be inside BMP/BTR APC.

Yes, Spain is doing way better than shithole Russia, after all Russian people is being ruled by Tzar Putin and they like it.

Did you misread 3/4 of what i said and add a bunch of outright wrong statements? I never claimed the Armata is superior, and it doesn't matter. Swap Armata for the T-90, T-80 or heck T-72, the same logic applies. Lower quality arms of certain types, such as tanks, at sufficient numbers can easily overwhelm even much better equipment.

Easy maintenance of not great hardware is better than complex maintenance of magnificent hardware. Just ask the Germans, Americans and Russians during WW2. The Sherman tank was a piece of shit on paper, but was easy to maintain, and could be produced in huge numbers. The Tiger sounds scary on paper, but it didn't matter since there weren't enough of them, and the few that existed broke down easily.

S-400 is probably better. The Patriot system is old, and doesn't even have 360 field of fire. Turkey went as far as getting kicked out of the F-35 programme over the S-400, so it's not only the Russians' word. Furthermore, it's an improvement over the earlier S-300, which is widely deployed and understood, and is generally a good and well liked system. (And note: it wasn't an S-300 that was used to shoot down the civilian airliner in Ukraine, it was a Buk, which is a mobile AA system, unlike the S series, which is (mostly) static for defense of specific areas).

BTR isn't supposed to protect from more than small arms fire, being a light armoured vehicle and all. BMPs aren't APCs, but IFV. Do you have a source on your ridiculous claim that infantry prefer to march on foot? BMPs were used in Yemen and I've heard of no such thing.

Spain is doing decently, and so is Russia. ( In terms of armament, in terms of civil liberties and all that stuff Russia is far behind).

Can you please elaborate more about "in terms of civil liberties and all that stuff Russia is far behind"? Have you ever been to Russia?

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