Re:Norden Bombsight (2004)
by anonlastname on Friday January 11, 2019 @05:25PM
(#18887783)
The Russian strategy during WWII and the winter war only "worked" because they accepted an enormous loss of troops to compensate for all of their other shortcomings. During the Winter War especially, Russian troops lacked equipment such as white camouflage and a single Finnish sniper killed at least 500 Russian troops.
This strategy may have worked, but it's not acceptable.
Also the Russians didn't win in a vacuum. The rest of the allies provided a huge amount of support in the form of lend-lease and supplies. The war of attrition would not have been winnable by Russia alone and came at an extreme cost of human life.
Re:Norden Bombsight (2004)
by woodandsteel on Sunday January 13, 2019 @08:54PM
(#18900029)
The Russians had the advantage of a far larger population and natural resource base, so they could out-produce the Germans many times over.
This would of course come as news to the Russians, who absolutely creamed the much-higher-tech Germans in WW2. It turns out that five lower-tech tanks that start reliably are worth more than one high-tech tank that doesn't.
It's also worth noting that none of the technologies you list have ever been deployed in the field against a real peer competitor, and many have never been used in combat in the roles they were originally intended for. (The F-15 was designed as an interceptor, for instance, but in actual combat has mostly been used as a strike fighter. The M1 was designed to fight Soviet T-72 and T-80 tanks, which it has never had a chance to do -- even at the one real armor battle it has taken part in, the Battle of 73 Easting in 1991, it faced less capable export-version T-72s alongside older T-55 and T-62 derivatives.)