the Saudis recent military endeavors

During Operation Desert Shield the US sent a large troop contingent to Saudi Arabia promising to remove them once the war ended. After the war, the troops remained, helping secure the country.

The Saudis weren't very tolerent of the foreign fighters on their land and now with rivalry with Iran and the fact that Saudi is the main supplier of energy in the world market and not wanting sinful foreign soldiers defending their lands they have shown some recent military endeavors.



First came the deal to buy 72 Eurofighters for over £4 billion pounds while then considering ordering a further 72 (may be 72 Boeing F-15E's instead) boosts their air power to that of the strongest in the region.
That is just air power.
Add older aircraft such as the Panavia Tornadoes onto that that are still in storage as a means of attrition (in case it comes to that).

Now onto the ground forces, the Saudis never had an overly big army, this may change in the mere future as it intends to be able to mount its own powerful regional force, just last year Saudi Arabia and Russia signed a “framework agreement for military cooperation” that opened the way for Saudi Arabia to buy Russian arms.



This means for $2 billion the Saudis will receive the following military hardware:

* 30 Mi-35 attack helicopters
* 120 Mi-17 'Hip' utility helicopters
* 150 T-90S main battle tanks
* 250 BMP-3 infantry fighting vehicles (IFVs).
* "several" dozen S-400 missile defense systems

The S-400 is an impressive system (much better than the Patriot that failed to protect the US barracks at Dharan during the Gulf War) that was originally intended for Iran, it seems the Saudis are trying to buy the Russians interest with a much bigger arms contract!

how powerful is Russia?

Russia had a brutal history during the Second World War, with most of its earth scorched and two thirds of its industry completely destroyed, and as if this wasn't bad enough it had to live in fear from the military alliance built up from the west to counter Moscow, it was in late 1991 that the days of the Cold War came to an end, the USSR collapsed after holding together 39,000 nuclear weapons and the massive Red Army, it all came tumbling down, Mikhail Gorbachev who had now offered reform was gone and the first president of the Russian Federation was a drunk.



Russia then ended up bogged down in a long war in Chechnya devoting 70,000 soldiers as well as support equipment and lost 5,000 in the process in the long and painful struggle which saw rebels producing cheap Borz sub machine guns in their dirty war against the Russian forces, the bombing of Grozny at the start of the war continually for three weeks by the Russian Air Force killed 27,000 civilians, mostly ethnic Russians.

Yelstin had made the Russian military look weak and careless and old fashioned, as it was during the 1990's, the once proud navy was reduced to tatters and the Russian air force patrolled only its own borders, to America and the rest of the world Russia didn't seem to matter and wasn't taken half as seriously as it should have been.



However Vladamir Putin an ex KGB man became president of Russia in 2000 at the beginning of the 21st century and begun to bring to the country back onto its feet, a second war started in Chechnya and is still be fought in mere skirmishes to this day!

Putin helped the military build itself up properly and in 2007 the Tu-95 Bear was seen in the skies over the North Pole, the South Pacific and even in British air space, Russia was showing itself to be a dominant power for the first time since the Cold War.



But has it changed?

Well it wasn't half as big since the Soviet times but it hasn't changed very much equipment wise, apart from some air force technology demonstrators.

The war last August in Georgia proves my point, the Russians sent in line after line of tanks against their enemy;



That covered by artillery and fighter jet sorties did give the Georgian military a pounding but their weak air defence did manage to down a Tu-22 supersonic bomber!
The Russian tactics seems to be a large force of men and equipment to sweep through an area covered by missiles, a form of warfare much larger on the ground than British or American warfare in the last 60 years!



Russia still has more nuclear weapons left over from the Cold War than the United States, Britain, France and Israel combined, 14,000 or so mostly in storage, however after tensions arose in early 2007, and again during the 2008 war in Georgia I'm sure Russia has a hefty amount of these attached to their many ICBM's.

Putin's reform may not have indefinitely weakened Russia as Gorbachev's one helped speed the collapse of the Soviet Union, no its strengthening it and in the mere future Russia will be a strong world power and will matter!

Russia's deadly air defence

I wrote before about how Russian fighter jets are still more advanced than American ones already, but the truth is the Americans have twice as much jets in all categories than the Russians do, in my last post about how tanks aren't as important in today's battlefield as air power, I also mentioned how the MiG-23 was an aircraft mass produced in an attempt to help ground forces (which would be in even larger numbers) and how that concept didn't work.

SAM's (Surface to Air missiles) were built widely by the Soviets but never seemed to be very effective when put into combat, evidence of this is the Yom Kippur War in 1973 with Israel against Egypt and Syria, having learned from the Six Day War in 1967 Egypt put literally a wall of SAM's on the border, this did take down several Israeli planes but wasn't half as effective as it should have been.



With only a brief analysis it is clear that Russian radar and missiles have improved to the point that American F-15's, F-16's, F-18's and even the new F-35 aren't capable of surviving against them, the radar signatures of the F-35 are strong enough to be tracked and killed by these deadly systems!

The S-300 is old but still well capable of downing the 25 year old US F-15 Eagles;
many people dispute SAM's since they seem to have a bad record, most of them cite the Yom Kippur and the Iran Iraq War, I already explained the former and the latter would be because the operators on both sides didn't have adequate training.

Now as if shamming the USAF teen series fighters and the new JSF I'm going to put the nail in the coffin of what many believe can counter and/or destroy SAM sites;

Stealth aircraft:



Okay, let me show you exactly how much of a threat Russian SAM's can be to a stealth aircraft.

In 1999 during the NATO bombing of Kosovo Col. Dani Zoltan commander of the 250th missile brigade downed an F-117 Nighthawk with an SA-3.

The SA-3 entered service in 1961 and, while it had undergone some upgrades, was considered a minor threat to NATO aircraft!

NATO didn't even get a chance to bomb the wreckage and the Russians got a look at the wreckage thus compromising the then 19 year old stealth technology.

I hope America keeps this in mind considering the Russians more than likely considered all of these facts when building the S-400 system meaning that the Russian IAD's (Integrated Air Defences) will be twice as deadly.

I'm sure Iran and Venezuela will be thumbing it to the Americans when they receive (both have ordered) their brand new air defense systems in which a lot of work and experience has gone into and knowing the fact that in any American attack several fighter jets and pilots would be lost in the case of war.

Happy Victory Day

Yesterday marked Victory Day in Russia which celebrated the Soviet defeat of Nazi Germany on May the 9th 1945.

The very same day that the Europe Union celebrates its unity, isn't that a little coincident that Europe celebrates its victory the same time Europe was blown back the stone age by the British and the Soviets (Nazi occupied Europe that is).

President Medvedev took this opportunity (Russia showing off its military might that is) to hint at Georgian president Mikhail Saakashvili not to go on any military adventures, probably hinting at the August War in South Ossetia when Georgian forces begun to slaughter Ossetians.

But the thing is while the west keeps saying its best friends with Russia the truth is that Europe and America still continue to treat Russia as a potential enemy, for instance placing someone pro US like Saakashvili is asking for trouble, and worse still having it join NATO, along with the recent joining of Ukraine.

Former satellite states of the Soviet Union joining NATO that continue to encircle Russia, why does NATO still even have to exist?

Plus Russia has a much better right to celebrate since on this day was when they came out victorious after their land was attacked, destroyed and over 20,000,000 of them murdered in cold blood, yet we still cannot assure this won't happen again!

a cheap and easy way to make your military musles look even stronger

The original article in all its glory.

As NATO are constantly updating with the latest military hardware Russia doesn't seemed to have changed too much since the breakup of the Soviet Union 20 years ago, old Cold War tensions aren't there anymore (unless you count former satellite states backed by America that murder innocent civilians but that's another story) so why spell millions a piece on new tanks, fighter-bombers and other hi-technology?

But being the biggest country in the world it may need to flex its muscles so smaller nations may think twice before fucking with them, so instead of spending money on the latest missiles to point at your neighbors, why not just make some real size balloons for God knows how much less?

The Pros
Not only will Russia's neighbors citizens see the extent size of Russia but they will also see that they still have hundreds of "tanks" and "ballistic missiles" and may think twice before fucking with Russia.

The Cons
If Russia comes under attack by, well for the sake of it lets say Europe (again) those $50 piece balloons won't do much to stop anyone!