jabberwalkie09 said:
GAC06 said:
Rossticus said:
Starstreak is nasty
" After launch, the missile accelerates to more than Mach 4, making it the fastest short-range surface-to-air missile. It then launches three laser beam-riding submunitions, increasing the likelihood of a successful hit on the target."
4+ mile range is greater than other MANPADs.
Flares are useless as countermeasures.
Ukraine is becoming a munitions testing ground for the west by the looks of it. Not that the Ukrainians can't use the equipment, but the west is going to get quite a bit of field data from all this.
Starstreak has been around for quite a while. Though not sure if truly combat tested.
From that perspective you are absolutely correct. The west is devouring every single byte of data on this war possible. You don't get to see Russian armored columns going to war very often, much less see it turn into open season on them.
EVERYBODY is learning from this war, except the Russians it seems like.
I suspect there is going to be some doctrinal shift in at least a few militaries moving forward. Single soldier anti armor weapons have always been deadly but there have never been used this extensively before. I mentioned it many pages ago but there is a constantly ongoing and raging debate on the validity of main battle tanks going into the future. They were called land battleships long ago and every year it seems they are inching closer and closer to those very ships and their ultimate outcome.
Armor may catch up again but still, would it be worth it? Either way, anti armor is definitely king at the moment in Ukraine and everyone knows it now. I am extremely interested in how this shakes out for Western militaries once this is all over with. The USMC already has gotten rid of all of its MBT assets and that was a HUGE deal when it happened but hindsight may yet prove that it was a damn good idea after all.
As a former anti armor guy, this is all extremely fascinating for me. Probably gonna start a thread on it soon on the MIL board.