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Comment by alephnerd | Hacker News Reader

It depends on the kind of fighting.

If it's a conflict between the US and large regional powers (eg. Russia, China, India, UK, etc) assuming combatant morale holds it would be a bloodbath on both sides.

Most regional powers now have the ability to manufacture weapons systems and train soldiers up to par with the where the U.S. was in the 1990s and 2000s now, which means our relative power is much less than in the 1990s or 2000s, when the only near peer was Russia.

On the plus side, we are lucky a number of our allies have stronger power projection capabilities now (eg. SK modernization, Japan'a rearmament, Türkiye's military modernization, Poland's modernization, etc).

That said, the Ukraine-Russia War does highlight how bloody a war between near peers can be.

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I generally agree with you, but Russia can’t even manufacture weapons up to par with SU in 1980s.

They can't manufacture them in quantity, but qualitatively they have surpassed 80's era weaponry. From ICBMs to cruise missiles and SAMs, they are a step above what they had before. Tanks are improved as well. The Su-57 appears to be a competently designed 5th gen aircraft, and Russian helicopters are logical progressions of USSR designs.

What Russia can't do is afford any of this. Forget the sanctions, their economy is small, and not willing to under go the hardships of the communist era. So they've been forced to use older gear, and their newer gear has been crushed in combat.

And don't forget that most militaries have old gear. B-52, B-1, B-2, etc are old old airframes. M1 is an old tank design (though it has been upgraded heavily). Bradleys are an old ICV design, again upgraded heavily. But the US still uses M113 from the 70s in some units, the Blackhawk and Apache are from the 80s, and we have ships in the USN that are almost old enough to qualify as senior citizens.

Old does not necessarily mean obsolete, A-10 still beats F-35s by a large margin on the job it's assigned to do, and cheaper

This is ridiculous. The A-10 was designed to fight the Soviets in Germany. And like the AH-1 Cobras, it was expected to have a short life span fighting anywhere near Soviet air defenses.

Do you know what A-10s have done for the majority of their missions in the last decade? Flown high with JDAMS and loitered, waiting for a call. The gun is all sexy, but just not used enough. And the A-10 would be crushed over a battlefield like Ukraine. Hell, even the B-1 was used for CAS missions in Afghan because it could get their fast, and had better loiter time than most other aircraft. Of course the wisdom of using $300M+ bombers in this manner is questionable.

My point wasn't that old is bad, but that all militaries use old gear. The new gear is often enhancements to old gear.

OP might better have read "the A-10 exceeds the F-35 at its assigned mission", that is, the A-10 is the more capable aircraft for close-air support, where air superiority has been achieved.

The F-35 likely exceeds the Warthog in other aspects, however.

How's that T-14 assembly line coming along? Or the T-90 for that matter? Have they shown any ability to make SU-57s at scale?

Two things are affecting their production capacity; sanctions and $$. Even before they invaded Ukraine in 2014, they had limited funds for anything. Their economy is just too small to support their goals. Most of their design bureaus depended on foreign sales to stay alive. The only military branch that receives consistent funding is their nuclear systems.

And then when you combine the impact of sanctions, it becomes much more challenging. Most of their precision machinery is imported from Europe, and as spare parts start to be consumed, this will impact their production rates as well.

https://wavellroom.com/2023/02/10/armata-the-story-is-over/

"Contracts were signed but Western machine tools and other technology were never supplied due to sanctions (the same story has now unfolded with Russia’s moribund automotive industry facing an uncertain future with the departure of Western and Far Eastern car manufacturers). "

Pretty much what I said in my reply.

Sure, and I can build bipedal military robots with space lasers in my garage. I just don’t have the funds at the moment.

You can either bring a weapon to a fight or not.

Funds affect everything; from design, tooling, to sustainment and continual improvement. If you don't think so, look at the US military circa 1989 and circa 1999. While there were qualitative improvements in those 10 years, the 1999 US military was much weaker because of huge cuts in military spending, AKA the Peace Dividend.

Look at all the failed, truncated, or outright cancelled US military programs over the last 30 years. Crusader. Comanche. A-12. Seawolf. DDG-1000. B-2. F-22. EFV. GCV. These were all either shortsightedly gutted or cancelled when they didn't progress enough in development.

Developing military gear is very hard, even when you have the world's largest military budget. Now imagine doing it with 5% of that GDP. That's how small Russia's economy is compared to the US.

Don't make the mistake of thinking that Russia can't develop good weapon systems because their leader is a snot sucking wanna-be imperialist. They just can't develop AND produce them in the scale that they used to. Funds matter...

Well, keep thinking that. Russia is a failed state running on it's slowly dying Soviet momentum. There is no way to prosper within a mafia state. Most able engineers have left the country to Israel, US, Germany, etc. No budget can make yesmans and crooks innovate.

History would argue that you're wrong about innovation. Witness Nazi Germany. They were able to develop weapons far advanced over their opponents during a total war.

I agree with everything else you've said however.

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